There is so much there to argue about, I'm not sure where to begin. If I come at this purely from my perspective about sources of violence in our society, I'm left wondering if you think drug prohibition and excessive gun regulations/bans are a product of capitalism. You say "street violence, assault, rape, homicide, burglary, even homelesness were foreign concepts to East Berliners" but I'm not sure how this goes your initial point of protection of privacy because greater protection of privacy was certainly not the case in East Germany. Yeah, if we became more of a police state, we probably could get rid of a lot of assault, rape, homicide and burglary. But then this seems to go more to my questioning of your position than it does to your position. What about a socialist society will protect privacy? And what does any of your comment up there have to do with the end of security concerns. How does socialism prevent invasions of privacy in the name of security? How does socialism do away with the "war on drugs" and foreign threats, et cetera. Frankly, when I talk to the other major socialist here (or who used to be here), Michael Tee, I was assured that "enemies of the people" were to be rooted out at all costs. I know you seem to advocate a different sort of socialism, but I'm still left with the impression that socialism isn't going to be any better at protecting people from privacy intrusions than gun bans are at protecting people from getting robbed.
As I said, East Germany was by no means a
perfect example. It was not a socialist country in that class still existed and the proletariat did not form the power structures that ran the nation. Instead, it adopted the Stalinist model, which was for all practical purposes, a police state. I think that class conflict is the major source of the violent crimes I mentioned in this country. That is easily seen when you look at the overwhelming disparity of African-Americans and Hispanics from poor backgrounds who make up the prison population compared to the population of the United States. The right-wing notion of arming every citizen is quaint and frankly, superficial. If you look at real world data, you'll note that other nations with large cities do just fine with their violent crime rate. Many of those nations have much stricter weapons laws. Walk through Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, or Oslo at 2 AM any day of the week. Now do the same in Washington DC or Detroit or Memphis. The bottom line is that one should not have to carry a .45 to feel safe any more than they should have to have a police state.
Once class conflict is removed, once people have housing, jobs, education, a future that isn't hopeless, then there won't be violent crime. Tee and I disagree because he believes in Leninism, which calls for the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." I think Luxemburg was proven right, that such structures only lead to more class conflict.
And you're saying I am speaking in an idealistic, utopian tone?
Yes. I never said that I was not. The difference is that Marx has historical materialism (that's different type of materialism) and the dialectic. I can look at the world right now and see that there are enough resources and enough wealth to provide a decent standard of living to every person. Libertarianism's problem has never been that it is not grounded in the practical. Its problem is twofold:
1. It gets lost in the weeds. At the end of the day, people don't care that much about having to put on their seatbelt. And you know what? It probably does save lives. Yet, I've witnessed libertarians make ferocious and lengthy arguments against it. It isn't that they don't have a point. It is that in the list of priority issues, seatbelts rank well behind "should I have the tuna melt or club for lunch today?"
2. It isn't bold. As above, y'all are scared of idealism. The practical capitalists are all sitting in Washington DC working for one of two parties. Why would they ever choose a libertarian?[/quote]
I don't agree. Liberty can be taken away, not rights. If we're going to say rights can be given and taken away, they cease to be rights and become merely privileges.
Semantics.
Let me put this another way, did God create humans as individual entities responsible for our own actions and decisions, or are we cells of a corporate entity with responsibility resting with the corporate entity?
In the story of Exodus, who did God save? Did he save a group of individuals, or a collective society? Who did Abraham lead, a ragtag group of individuals who elected to go, or a society told to go by God?
In Jesus commandment to love thy neighbor, who was your neighbor? Who followed Jesus? How did they live after Christ ascended? Did they live as individuals or in a collective society? How did the early church exist? As individuals or as small communities?
This
Christian Individualism, which never existed for the first 1700 years of Christianity, is a myth. Christianity is a societal and community faith.
Why? In what way is that not a realistic description of capitalism? I have property and you have property. We agree to an exchange of property with the intent to gain something we want. I have labor; you have money. We agree to exchange work for money. What part of this is not reality? I'm simplifying, yes, but this is hardly a nonexistent ideal.
This has not been my experience with insurance companies, so I'm questioning your example as accurate. Off the top of my head I would counter that many doctors have started refusing Medicare/Medicaid payments because Medicare/Medicaid payments add to the cost of running a doctor's office and lock the doctors into charging everyone the same rather than charging what people can afford. So is the government program the problem or the solution there? Seems to me, it's the problem.
Prince,
you aren't anything to the insurance company. It is the healthcare provider that has to recover the money from them. Unfortunately I'd like to keep my job or I'd show you our aging debits charts by pay class.
I own the labor, but I have agreed to exchange my labor for the company's money. Chances are real good that I also agreed to abide by the company rules as part of that exchange. At the same time, if I feel the company is unfair, I can look for work and eventually take a job with some other company. Or perhaps choose to work for myself. Why? Because I own my labor, not the company. I'm not sure how the company having a PowerPoint template is alienating me from my fellow man. Is socialism going to eliminate all aesthetic concepts, and if so, how is that going to unify humanity? More to the point, I'm not sure how rules laid down by the company for how it wants to see things done alienates me from my labor and my fellow human beings. Maybe if every business was run like a small church--people did things however they saw fit and everyone else always said "wow, what a fantastic job" no matter how crappy one's use of 125 different typefaces and lack of structure actually is--maybe the world would be a better place if that were the case, but I'm doubtful. And what you keep telling me about how bad capitalism is and how good socialism is seems unrealistic, idealized and utopian to the extreme. I don't see any basis for your rosy picture of the end of crime and suffering.
Also, I'm still wondering if there are socialist countries that don't have regulations regarding human behavior. Are there socialist countries or communities with no labor regulations?
There are other questions as well. If a person does not own himself, then how can he own his labor? If a person does not own his labor, if his labor is owned by the community, how does that prevent regulations on his labor and behavior?
I don't mind discussing this with you, but not if you're going to be a complete twat.
Maybe if every business was run like a small church--people did things however they saw fit and everyone else always said "wow, what a fantastic job" no matter how crappy one's use of 125 different typefaces and lack of structure actually is--maybe the world would be a better place if that were the case, but I'm doubtful.
I've worked in both public and private sector, and one of the largest chemical companies in the world. I'll pass on this type of remark, thanks.