trc@houca.UUCP (09/22/83)
Response to Alan S. Watt on modern socialism: Two years of socialism is not enough to allow us to draw many conclusions about successes of socialism - especially not in nations that have "long traditions of personal freedom" - how can you know that it is not simply the inertia of tradition that is preserving those freedoms? And how did those personal freedoms manage to get created? Could they have been created under a collectivist state? The evidence of nations like Russia, says NO. However, it is significant that in the mere two years of power, the socialists have managed to wipe out a number of freedoms - they have curtailed the freedom to travel (how are you going to travel without money?) and to move money out of the country. They have reduced people's take-home pay (by taxes and forced savings), and so reduced their purchasing freedom. Workers are forced to invest with the government, rather than being free to either invest elsewhere, or to simply spend their money. All of this I have gleaned merely from *your* note - and you were apparently writing in *support* of French socialism. You mention that "very few industries have been nationalized". (How kind of the government - to have stolen only a *few* industries, rather than all of them.) And yet you mention that "taxes [have been] raised by 30-50%, which also has the by-product of reducing the resources at their [the rich] disposal to exploit the workers." Do you realize that this really says that those most able and likely to save and invest will not be doing so? And that this implies that French industries will slide rapidly downwards, as private capital dries up? I, for one, will not be the least bit surprised when, in a few years, French government will have to step in and fix the problems caused by 'another failure of capitalism'. Then we'll see plenty of nationalization. As for creating 200,000 government jobs - just how productive are those jobs? Are those workers producing enough of value to pay for their own salaries? Even enough to pay for just the expense of having them work (workers need supplies, etc.), rather than simply giving them the money? And if they are, are they in competition with private companies? That is, will their tax-supported labor eventually force private companies to lay off workers? How nice for the government - it looks like the good guy, while those nasty capitalists just keep laying off workers. And where is the money for those jobs coming from? Apparently, mostly from the nasty capitalists' pockets, in the form of higher taxes. Why do you think that the China / American Express deal shows trust in the Chinese government? In the first place, the agreement is with "certain stores", not with the government. And in the second place, it is not the stores that are being trusted, but the *American tourists*, who are to be trusted to pay for goods purchased in China. American Express will take its cut directly from what the tourists pay, but the Chinese have to trust that Am. Exp. is going to pay them for goods they give to the tourists. This example seems to proclaim the trust-worthiness of capitalistic corporations and Americans, rather than socialistic governments or the Chinese. Tom Craver houca!trc