Post A Follow Up Discussion Page
Posted by Joe on 4th December 2000
The reason that socialism has failed is that it is based on the idea that the state can be a progressive force. This idea is tempting because states often seem very powerful. However this power con only be used for certain objectives. Why is this? Because of what the state is : a monopoly on the use of force. Govenment is usefull if your goal is to kill off people you don't like or at least punish them in some way. Government is usefull if you want to support yourself and your supporters at the expense of society as a whole. What government is not useful for is benefiting the people as a whole. There are many things which coersion can not accomplish. Force can not create prosperity or freedom. It can not make people more moral. It can not find the truth. If you want to know what government is capable, ask yourself what could I accomplish by putting a gun to someones head. The only just use for the use of force that I can see, is putting down those who initiate its use.
The second problem with socialism is that is does not respect private property. Private property is a way of enabling people to live in peace. Without property their is now way for people with fundemental disagreements to exist anywhere near each other without fighting. Private property also people to go their own way if there is a disagreement. Imagine two societies or two individuals comming into contact for the first time. If the two societies or individuals do not respect the property of the other then they will not be able to live in peace with each other. It is not likely that two individuals or societies that had no previous contact with each other would agree on a common plan on how to use resources. Without property everybody has to agree to go one way or they fight it out. Only with private property can different individuals or societies take separate paths. Private property is based on the idea of live and let live. Before people can come into closer association they must first respect the property and rights of others.
Another problem with socialism is who governs the resources. Socialism says that the resources belong to all. However it is not feasible for everone to actually collectively manage all the resources. Managing resources requires much time and energy. In order to have a complex economy there needs to be a division of labor including a division of resource management. Having the people elect "representatives" does not solve the problem either. Complex economies cannot be governed in one com i ttee. The work must be parceled out, and those bodies or individuals must reparcel the work out. This means bureaucracies. In a modern economy it means huge hierarchial bureaucracies. So much for democracy.
What alternative do I propose for this?
Laissez-faire!
Laissez-faire is what everone is supposed to be against. Right wingers, left wingers, centrists, socialists, fascists, NAZIs, communitarianists, neo-merchantilists and Communists are all in agreement on the this one. Laissez-faire leads to monopolies they say. I say name one! The railroads they respond. If anything could be monopolised in a free market it would be railroads because of the difficulty in finding a path for the railroads by finding property owners willing to sell. Plus the Federal government subsidised the railroads and used eminent domain to sieze land for them. But in spite of all this, JP Morgan, the largest railroad owener could not form a railroad cartel. It was not becouse the other railroad owners did not want to go along. JP Morgan and the other railway owners got togther formed a cartel and agreed on prices. The problem was that that like with all cartels there was an incentive for each company to cheat the agreement. Each railway would offer reliable customers secret discounts if they used their railroad instead of the others. In order to get customers each railroad had to offer larger price discounts to its customers. More and more people and companies were offered price discounts and the size of the discounts kept increasing. Soon the price of the trasport after the discounts was no higher than it would have been without cartel. In order to revive the dead cartel, JP Morgan turned to the federal government. He lobbied for the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Morgan bribed and blackmailed enough politians to get what he wanted. The ICC banned price discounts and cutthroat competition (underselling ones competitors). The ICC was in JP Morgan's pocket from the begining. With price discounts and cutthroat competition banned, JP Morgan was able to form the cartel he dreamed about. With his control of the railways he was able to form monopolies in several industries such as steel and oil that made heavy use of railroads. Other monopolies created during this time were created by tarrifs which protected the industries from foreign competition.
I have come to the conclusion that the labels of left and right are worse than meaningless. The are used by the elites in power to conrtol the people con playing them off one another. It is the old trick of divide and conquer. The left and right have more in common with each other than they do with the center. The right and left both oppose drug prohibition, militarism, corporate welfare bailouts, the cult of government secrecy, and rule by elite secret societies. The left and right both suport freedom of speech, civil liberties, personal privacy.
Everyday childern in Iraq starve, personal privacy is eroded by electronic snooping, bombs and people live in jail for victomless crimes. Could these things be stoped if the left and right could see eye to eye.