NationStates Jolt Archive

Because I had a bit of time to waste this afternoon I decided to expand my brain by reading (GASP). If anyone is obsessed with political/social philosophy and its psychological correlations, its definately me. Thats why I choose to spend time on NationStates, after all. Now, I'm no 'ignant stranger to both sides of the traditional economic philosophy dichotomy. However it is important to me, at least, to understand the base metaphysics of these economic philosophies because it is ultimately in that realm where we find what economic methods actually fuction well and those that do not and can not.

And so onto my topic of discussion. Using this article and the ones related to it as referance,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

we see that Socialism is this technically about a million years old, has a pretty red flag, is bitterly inter-divided as far as levels of authoritarianism, and will somehow make me a more aware and happy person who is less adverse to my fellow gotee-sporting berret-wearing artistically elitest college students, among other things.

But my wry humor aside, its apperant to me that successful Socialism is consistent only with democratic majoritarian ultrasupervison of the government and Central economy, and/or some flavor of anarcho-syndicalism. Regardless of wether or not that model would properly function is not my Concern here. My concern is over the central metaphysic of socialism - I cannot for the life of me understand why it is more ethical to be economically equal, and conversely, why it is unethical to be economically unequal. :headbang: It occurs to me that any sort of economic system which enforces egalitarianism is, reducto ad absurdum, telling me that by attempting to go from rags to riches and simply wanting to improve my life, I am somehow an immoral scum of the earth who is "greedy" or blah blah, insert anti-capitalist epithet here, followed by a 300% income tax bitchslap.

It also seems that most anticapitalist philosphies are a kneejerk reaction to the failures of crony capitalism rather than any pure market and as such take less and less time to address my above question as time marches on, instead focusing on proxy-wars such as consumerism and copyright laws. From my perspective, limiting the amount of money one makes is equivellent to limiting both the freedom of personal activity but more importantly the freedom to not live in relative squallor and to enjoy my life by whatever material means that entails. It is probably the biggest and most hilariously absurd dogma of socialism that when everyone is economically equal, everyone will live like a millionare. But that is slightly off track.

I cant even begin to make devils advocate conjectures, which is the only reason why I bring it up on this forum. Seriously guys. I cant figure it. Tell me why, in ethical and moral terms, I should relinquish freedom to choose my quality of life in favor of a system where I can somehow feel emotionally satisfied that My dirt hovel is the exact same as my neighbors dirt hovel while standing in a block long line to get universal heathcare for my spanish flu infection.

And as a closing remark, perhaps all the Chomskyites out there will explain to me how they would be able to enforce socialism without coercive force of legislation?

It is truely not my intent to be Socraticly annoying or polemically inflamitory. I just want to open this for discussion. Thats all really. So please give it your all and think about it before you answer, this is kind of interesting to me after all and maybe it is to you.

PS - Be advised that any such answer to my inqery that borders on "Just Becasue" will have to be ignored becasue thats not really a good metaphysical quandry :p

I would suggest finding the book A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell. He does a wonderful job of talking about the different assumptions of human nature and the resulting political philosophies, not just economically, but with regards to other issues as well.

My original reply was one saying, essentially, it is not that there is anything wrong with people making obscene amounts of money and power, but how those people make money.
But, I accidently quit Safari, and instead of racing to retype my rant while it was still fresh in my memory, I decided to do a bit more research into what it was you were talking about.
I still dont have a direct answer, however I have come to this conclusion:
In a capitalistic society, or at least the model we have today, a person is rewarded for how much he or she can exploit other people in their society, as well as the people and natural environments of other societies.
However obvious this sounds, people in a socialist society are together with other people within their society. Individuals are rewarded for improving the lives of the people within their society. Things stop becoming a matter of competition between individuals and instead become a matter of competition between societies, and with intelligent, educated people as the representatives of these societies, competition isn't a matter of trampling on others to get on top. Instead, a society can excel on its own accord.
An extremely intelligent, ingenious, blah blah blah person in a socialistic society will cause their society to become better in comparison to other, external societies, which results in an improvement of the living standards of everybody in their society.

It is not about giving up personal freedoms and money, but about improving the quality of life for those around them - something which many corporations in capitalistic societies say they aim to achieve.

You actually suggest the reason, but you defeat it before considering it.

I cannot for the life of me understand why it is more ethical to be economically equal, and conversely, why it is unethical to be economically unequal. :headbang:I just wanted to note that this is a valid question before continuing to how you have managed to answer your own question. It is not that one's economic status has moral worth itself; it is the effect of that economic status on one's life. Generally speaking, if you're wealthy, you have access to resources - education, transportation, business, politics, "high society" - that those who are less wealthy might not. The idea, then, is that by levelling the playing field, you give everyone equal access to an equal amount of resources. This itself has moral value - the act of forcing society, the economy and the government to treat everyone as equals.

It occurs to me that any sort of economic system which enforces egalitarianism is, reducto ad absurdum, telling me that by attempting to go from rags to riches and simply wanting to improve my life, I am somehow an immoral scum of the earth who is "greedy" or blah blah, insert anti-capitalist epithet here, followed by a 300% income tax bitchslap.This is a perception that you formed alone; this you have admitted here. Socialism does not presume that those who are wealthy are intrinsically immoral - take those who have inherited their wealth, for example.

It also seems that most anticapitalist philosphies are a kneejerk reaction to the failures of crony capitalism rather than any pure market and as such take less and less time to address my above question as time marches on, instead focusing on proxy-wars such as consumerism and copyright laws.And this is the crux of the matter; this is where you answered yourself. Is there such a thing as "pure market capitalism" in the real world? No. Socialism was developed to deal with problems in the real world. Crony capitalism is capitalism; economic systems don't function in the real world as smoothly as they might on paper, and capitalism is no exception.

As for focusing on "proxy wars", these things are considered injustices or immoral and so are attacked, just as Socialism attacks unrestrained capitalism.

From my perspective, limiting the amount of money one makes is equivellent to limiting both the freedom of personal activity but more importantly the freedom to not live in relative squallor and to enjoy my life by whatever material means that entails.All taxes do this, just to varying degrees. And while your economic freedom is limited more in a socialist society than in a capitalist society, ideally the social programs provided by your taxes will give back to you and all of society; and when society improves, you the individual benefit.

It is probably the biggest and most hilariously absurd dogma of socialism that when everyone is economically equal, everyone will live like a millionare. But that is slightly off track.Actually, this is an absurd exaggeration. Nobody thinks they'll be millionaires under Socialism unless they're really thinking of a coup d'etat in which they become the sole ruler [cuba]. It's more about a higher standard of living for the average human being in Socialism than under Capitalism. Be reasonable, now.

Tell me why, in ethical and moral terms, I should relinquish freedom to choose my quality of life in favor of [Socialism]Ask yourself why you obey laws.

a system where I can somehow feel emotionally satisfied that My dirt hovel is the exact same as my neighbors dirt hovel while standing in a block long line to get universal heathcare for my spanish flu infection.You won't get anywhere with mythical exaggerations that demonize what you're trying to understand. It's difficult to comprehend an idea if you hate it before you understand it, don't you agree?

It is truely not my intent to be Socraticly annoying or polemically inflamitory. I just want to open this for discussion. Thats all really. So please give it your all and think about it before you answer, this is kind of interesting to me after all and maybe it is to you.You should have screened your post for absurd examples.