renner (02/11/83)
#R:mhuxt:-112500:uiucdcs:29200009:000:441 uiucdcs!renner Feb 11 14:46:00 1983 Any system based on the notion of "...from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is inevitably unfair assuming that there is any disagreement on "abilities" and "needs." If you are prepared to accept the judgement of others on the type and amount of work you will be required to perform (thus producing according to your "ability") and on the amount of consumer stuff you will receive, then socialism is for you.
johnl (02/19/83)
#R:mhuxt:-112500:ima:18900003:000:704 ima!johnl Feb 18 11:12:00 1983 It always seemed to me that the crucial flaw in socialism was to assume that a large government-run bureaucracy was preferable in some important way to a large private bureaucracy. Compare, for example, the phone company and the post office. At least with private bureaucrats, you can usually take your business elsewhere. The other flaw is to assume that you can run an enterprise for socially desirable goals without reference to the fundamental financial soundness of the activity, which is why nifty little alternative magazines usually go bust after a year or so. Time to put on my asbestos terminal cozy, I suspect. John Levine, decvax!yale-co!jrl, ucbvax!cbosgd!ima!johnl, research!ima!johnl
gh (02/20/83)
(1) John Levine, in comparing public and private bureaucracies (and preferring
the latter) mentions the post office and the phone company, and says "At least
with private bureaucrats, you can usually take your business elsewhere."
But of course, with the phone company one can't. I would dearly love to
dump New England Telephone!! NET is just as bad as the U.S. Postal Service,
except that it somehow manages to get its prices continually raised despite
public protests, and is therefore more profitable than the USPS.
The government-owned phone system in Australia has considerable problems,
many due directly to that fact that it is government-owned, but its service is
on the whole as good as the privately-owned American system. (It had direct
overseas dialling, for example, years before we got it here in Providence.)
(2) Socialism is not about bureaucracies, but rather about owning the means
of production. In a socialist country, you tend to get large bureaucracies
controlling the means of production. In the U.S. you also get a large
bureaucracy, who instead have to control those who control production, because
they can't be trusted to monitor themselves. (Even *with* government
regulation, we get too much fraud, environmental mess, etc.)
The *quality* of a country's bureaucracy has more to do with its standards
of education and the attitudes of the people than with its economic structure.
"Bureaucracy" is not inherently a dirty word.
(3) What arguments on socialism *should* be about is questions of morality:
Should wealth be concentrated among a few "successful" people? Do people have
a right to share in the natural wealth of their country? How can an economy
based on "the profit motive" possibly be considered ethical? And so forth.
Graeme Hirst, Brown University CS
...!decvax!brunix!gh
gh.brown@udel-relaymat (02/20/83)
In defense of socialism over capitalism, Graeme Hirst says ``How can an economy based on the `profit motive' possibly be considered ethical''. Let me ask this: How can an economy in which you are called upon with force of law to labor without having the right to own or take value from your lobors be considered ethical. If we say that the means of production are owned by the state, what happens to patents, etc. How can a person better his state if he feels it needs to be bettered when his work will be used to support someone whom the state feels needs to be bettered? Usually the someone turns out to be either those who refuse (within the loopholes in the system) to work or those who don't need anything more in the first place, that is the managers running the state. When an activity becomes unprofitable, private business gets out. Or private business finds a better way. In a socialist state, dverybody pays to keep the unprofitable activity alive. Look at the shipbuilding industries in the UK. Socialist gevernments usually end up being run by Labor organizations. A few days age, Richard Trumka of the United Mine Workers told a Congressional Committee that ''min workers don't want to be retrained. They want to work in the mines``. So mine workers jobs are subsidized, other jobs that society and the economy need aren't done, and we all suffer. Except, curiously, for Richard Trumka, who retains his power base, and the income form (oops, from) the union dues being paid by the UMA members, and being taken, by Federal law, out of workers paycheck's by their employers for direct payment to Trumka's organization. The moral: Be very suspicious of Utopia. Someone probably will be collecting admission, and someone else will be collecting taxes once you get There. hou5e!mat Mark Terribile
arlan (02/23/83)
Nothing is wrong with socialism if you are a termite ! For human beings to submit themselves to the dictates of a group of economic planners [an oxymoron, for morons] is to invite disaster. Socialism destroys incentive and promotes mediocracy. These are not theoretical situations: in the living laboratory of the planet look at the great successes of socialism--repression, torture, and genocide. Most of the self-proclaimed socialist countries are ruled by hoodlums who destroy individual freedoms and offer nothing in return. Most socialists are not free to travel out of their countries; most dare not print material without government approval, and such a net as this can never exist in such totalitarian states. As Pournell pointed out recently in Analog, a poor Czech got 5 years at hard labor for possessing an unauthorized mimeo machine! If you cn defend the excesses, the Soviet empire, the destruction of human values, then by all means be a socialist. You will have millions on your side. Just don't upset the boys at the top. For a more 'moderate' against the 'enllightened' socialism you must have in mind ["moderate arugment", that is: dropped a word], consider this--no socialist country can feed itself. Without the capitalist states, the world would starve in vast famines. Without a more nearly free economy, Silicon Valley, these computers, and this Net would not have existed. Note that the socialist buy their computers from the West, not the other way around. In a socialist system, there can be no Steven Jobs, no Apple, no TRS-80, no Osbourne, no Sinclairs... Now, take your pick of what's wrong with socialism. My question: is there anything RIGHT about that old sick wornout socialist philosophy? --arlan andrews/libertarian/indy
courtney (03/10/83)
#R:mhuxt:-112500:hp-pcd:17400007:000:697
hp-pcd!courtney Mar 9 09:16:00 1983
And to Jishnu...
How good is the claim of US citizens to a Free Society...
After all, what does international economic tyranny mean to you?
Cases in point, what is the US role in El Salvador, the Philipines,
Guatemala, Brazil, S. Africa, Iran (during the years of the Shah)...
Do we actually live by the principles of freedom, or are we simply
able to afford the illusion that we do... What do you think
would happen in the US if the pie shrunk so bad that the wealthy
minority actually started feeling pinched... would we still feel
like we were living in a free society?
Courtney Loomis