I'm not in the best place to answer this at the moment as I'm whacked out on codeine, but ffs @Marvin the Martian , you don't own your own house at the moment - the bank does.
Are you privy to Marvin's financial affairs, or just making a general assumption that no-one ever pays off a mortgage?
Well done on completely derailing the thread by the way. I'd have never bet on you as the one to do it.
Secondly, are you contending that someone with a mortgage on their home owns it in the same way that someone who doesn't? What do you think the role of the bank is in that situation? Is it an unreasonable assumption that a mortgage is in play here? Why the snark?
Thirdly, a more general point. The deliberate and wilful misinterpretation of personal and private property is more your bias than anything I've said. It's not that the state will somehow seize your private property. It's that it gets regulated differently. That's all.
Russ may even get to keep his apples. Who knows?
Firstly, it was you derailing by deciding that everyone had to talk about personal vs private property the way that you do. It couldn't be clearer that this is not a generally understood usage (for my part, "real vs personal" and "public vs private" are 2 entirely different divisions that have no inherent connection to each other), and yet you persist in claiming that somehow it's everyone else's fault.
Secondly, I'm contending the exact opposite, which you would understand if you actually read what I said. If there was no difference between someone with a mortgage and someone without one, I wouldn't need to ask you whether you personally knew whether or not Marvin has a mortgage, or whether you're just assuming he must have a mortgage in order for your arguments to have any legs.
Thirdly, see the first point, and kindly don't talk about "your" bias when I hadn't said a fucking thing about the topic.
Firstly, it was you derailing by deciding that everyone had to talk about personal vs private property the way that you do.
Again, no. In order, Marvin thought I could somehow appropriate his toothbrush because it was his private property, and obviously all socialists want to abolish private property. I mentioned the (well known legal and not particularly socialist) idea that private property was not personal property. Cue the rest of the participants in this thread throwing their toys out of their prams.
But you do you. I'll be back if there's something worth discussing.
"Planned economy" and "market economy" have both failed. That means we need to find an alternative economic model ... I propose that we give socialism a try (maybe eco-socialism).
Are they? Seems to me that the problem with Stalin's 5 year plans wasn't that they failed but that success came at too high a price. A planned economy is what won WW2. A planned economy is what put China in the global position it is in today.
Yes, this is yet another Straw Man that desperately needs debunking. (Is debunking what one does with a strawman?). Let me just spell out the argument here (it's the same one that comes up again and again, especially on this thread). Communism bankrupted the countries who tried it in therefore we must have unfettered capitalism; it's the only thing that works...
This is just nonsense.
As Alan put it so well the so-called 'market economy' is not the runaway success that it is portrayed to be. We actually live in a mixed-economy anyway. It is particularly notable that the big US tech giants benefited hugely from public-sector money in terms of the basic research 40-50 years ago that jump-started the whole process. Monopolies actually kill markets. The only way to stop that is to regulate the markets such that monopolies are not allowed to control sectors. And on and on. A free-for-all is not actually, paradoxically a free market.
Once again, I point to the work of Joseph Stiglitz. Markets do not exist in a vacuum. They are not a natural phenomenon. They are shaped by the rules we choose to place around them. Democratic socialism has a view (or views) on what some of those rules should be.
Firstly, it was you derailing by deciding that everyone had to talk about personal vs private property the way that you do.
Again, no. In order, Marvin thought I could somehow appropriate his toothbrush because it was his private property, and obviously all socialists want to abolish private property. I mentioned the (well known legal and not particularly socialist) idea that private property was not personal property.
That's not exactly true, is it? Here's the sequence of posts:
To my mind (and experience), one of the chief functions of the state should be to protect communities from powerful individuals, who believe they can operate outside of the law - be they powerful politicians, rich landowners or crime bosses. That the state fails to do so (or worse, enables them to rewrite the law) is a failing of the state, not of the ideal.
The right to enjoy your personal property and have a peaceful life is less intruded on by the state than it is by bad actors within and without your community.
As long as you don’t have too much personal property, of course.
*derailment into discussion of the definitions of personal and private property ensues*
Firstly, in the context of a discussion of State versus individual power, the risks and perils thereof, and the State's function to protect us from evil rich and powerful people, it's perfectly reasonable to have read "personal" as meaning "of or belonging to a person", as it usually does. The fact that virtually everyone else - regardless of their side in this discussion - seems to have read it that way supports this.
Secondly, using the more technical meaning of "personal property" means the claim itself is misleading (if not completely untrue), because it only applies to a particular subset of what is normally considered to be a person's property. This leaves the question of whether the right to enjoy ones "private property" is more intruded on by the State or by bad actors within and without the community very much unanswered, though the strong implication is that the State would intrude more.
My reply about having too much personal property is valid either way. Firstly, it points out that socialist states generally favour redistributive policies which mean someone with "too much" property will see a reduction therein (especially if that property falls into the "private" category). But secondly, even under the technical definition of "personal property" it is rare for a socialist state - especially one that only concerns itself with protecting an individual's right to "personal property"! - to not have a maximum amount thereof that any individual can own. This is a question that you have repeatedly ducked for the last two and a half pages.
You're trying to dismiss this as quibbling about the definitions of words, but it gets to the very heart of why some of us don't trust State power. What good is a promise from the State to protect our right to our own property if the very definition of "property" can be changed such that some of our property is no longer included? Can you not see how many people would have legitimate concerns about that?
This whole thread is about how socialism affects property ownership, and the rights thereto. Claiming that a socialist State won't just seize people's property but then deciding that certain types of property don't count as such and therefore can be seized with impunity is hardly conducive to open and honest discussion of that issue, especially when it's being done by hiding behind technical definitions and language ambiguity. Better to just outright say from the start what (and how much) we'll be allowed to own and what we won't and take it from there.
Firstly, it was you derailing by deciding that everyone had to talk about personal vs private property the way that you do.
Again, no. In order, Marvin thought I could somehow appropriate his toothbrush because it was his private property, and obviously all socialists want to abolish private property. I mentioned the (well known legal and not particularly socialist) idea that private property was not personal property. Cue the rest of the participants in this thread throwing their toys out of their prams.
But you do you. I'll be back if there's something worth discussing.
It's been explained to you any number of times that the "well known legal and not particularly socialist" idea is in fact not well-known and is particularly socialist - as referenced by the Wikipedia article on the very topic, as was pointed out to you I don't know how many days ago.
And now you're trying to tell me, a lawyer, who learned the real vs personal property distinction in law school (not the private vs personal distinction, the real vs personal distinction) that this idea you're waving around is a legal one. Nope. Nope. Nope. The opposite of personal property is real property.
I'm not just doing me. I'm doing the same thing that a whole wealth of other people have done on this thread over however many days, and you are the one who just continues to blithely ignore a whole string of people all telling you the same thing.
Markets do not exist in a vacuum. They are not a natural phenomenon. They are shaped by the rules we choose to place around them. Democratic socialism has a view (or views) on what some of those rules should be.
I think markets (in the sense of people selling things on stalls in street or square) are a natural phenomenon that arises spontaneously in many different cultures. And that markets (in the sense of the supply-demand interactions that economists study) are an emergent phenomenon from individual behaviour that is natural (not dependent on a particular ideology, but just free people doing what comes naturally).
If what you really mean is that government has a role in well-functioning markets then I fully agree. And punishing cheaters ("bad actors" who undermine trust) and preventing monopoly are part of that role.
But what you seem to be implying but not quite owning up to is the idea that there is no such thing as a role for government because the legitimate role for government is whatever we want it to be.
Meaning anything that the demos can be persuaded to vote for. Because at the scale of a society, collective wants and collective decisions are something of a fiction. Reality is that a majority think or want one thing and a minority think or want something else.
Russ I think markets (in the sense of people selling things on stalls in street or square) are a natural phenomenon that arises spontaneously in many different cultures.
Honestly, Russ, much as I admire your persistence in promoting unpopular views, this observation is absolute rubbish. I can almost guarantee that even the meanest market is nothing like what you describe because the stallholders fight tooth and nail to defend their interests against would-be competitors coming to join them. I invite you to study the market women of the Makola Market, Accra, who not only fiercely defend their hard-fought privileges but have brought down regimes and governments. As for the history of trading in any burgh in Europe.....................Natural phenomena, my aunt fanny!
I can almost guarantee that even the meanest market is nothing like what you describe because the stallholders fight tooth and nail to defend their interests against would-be competitors coming to join them. I invite you to study the market women of the Makola Market, Accra, who not only fiercely defend their hard-fought privileges but have brought down regimes and governments.
If you're saying it's human nature for established traders to seek to restrict competition from new entrants, then yes.
But why would they seek to do that if it were not the case that there is a tendency for rival traders to spring up ?
You're supporting my point here by giving examples of the same behaviours across different cultures.
Hold on, Russ, you were challenging alienfromzog's statement that: "Markets do not exist in a vacuum. They are not a natural phenomenon. They are shaped by the rules we choose to place around them." It would seem that I have misunderstood your argument, but having re-read your recent posts I'm unclear as to what it is.
Seems like the question "what is the legitimate role of government ?" is a hard one to answer.
Is it fair to say that socialists want that role to include limiting the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income? As a goal in itself ?
Is it fair to say that such a goal is outside the legitimate role of government as historically conceived (for example in the debates around framing the US constitution) ?
So I'm suggesting that a challenge to socialists is to think through whether they believe in the idea of a legitimate role for government (defined with some level of intellectual rigour, and which constrains their policy ambitions rather than being infinitely malleable to accommodate them) or whether exercising power is in fact its own justification.
In that context, I'm reading AFZ's assertion that "markets do not exist in a vacuum" as implying that since governments have created and sustained them, governments can legitimately dispense with them at will. The "if we made it we can break it" principle. (Which meaning I acknowledge he may not have fully intended).
And I'm saying no.
Markets (think car boot sales if you will) don't need government encouragement in order to happen. They will happen (I'd like to say in any culture, but clearly I don't know all human cultures) if they're not actively suppressed. They appeal to something deep in human nature.
If you truly own a personal possession you can give it away. Or give it away conditional on someone giving you something in return, i.e. barter it.
Currency helps markets function better. Standard weights and measures help markets function better. Rule of law helps markets function better. But governments didn't invent them and don't have the right to prohibit them.
Is it fair to say that socialists want that role to include limiting the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income? As a goal in itself ?
Is it fair to say that such a goal is outside the legitimate role of government as historically conceived?
I’d say the answers to those questions are yes and no, in that order.
That’s not to say I agree with that goal, or with any particular method of working towards it. But it’s just as legitimate a goal as any other that people might choose to vote for. After all, believing in democracy has to include accepting that sometimes you’re not going to get the policies you want, and that’s ok. I’ll take a true democrat who implements policies I disagree with over a tyrant who implements policies I agree with any day of the week.
it’s just as legitimate a goal as any other that people might choose to vote for. After all, believing in democracy has to include accepting that sometimes you’re not going to get the policies you want, and that’s ok. I’ll take a true democrat who implements policies I disagree with over a tyrant who implements policies I agree with any day of the week.
So you think anything that people vote for is morally legitimate ? And the role of government has no limits ?
it’s just as legitimate a goal as any other that people might choose to vote for. After all, believing in democracy has to include accepting that sometimes you’re not going to get the policies you want, and that’s ok. I’ll take a true democrat who implements policies I disagree with over a tyrant who implements policies I agree with any day of the week.
So you think anything that people vote for is morally legitimate ? And the role of government has no limits ?
That’s a massive logical jump from what Marvin said, particularly since your ‘So’ implies a logical connection.
it’s just as legitimate a goal as any other that people might choose to vote for. After all, believing in democracy has to include accepting that sometimes you’re not going to get the policies you want, and that’s ok. I’ll take a true democrat who implements policies I disagree with over a tyrant who implements policies I agree with any day of the week.
So you think anything that people vote for is morally legitimate ? And the role of government has no limits ?
Morality is defined by society, so if a society approves of something enough for it to win a free and fair election then it is by definition not immoral in that society.
As for governmental limits, who would decide what those are if not the people themselves?
None of that means I would approve of any particular policy that might be enacted. I might even completely hate it, and fight as hard as I can to get it overturned. I just don’t think that because I feel so strongly about it I should have the right to prevent it happening if it’s what society as a whole wants.
tl;dr - just because I think something is morally illegitimate doesn’t make it an objective truth.
Russ: In that context, I'm reading AFZ's assertion that "markets do not exist in a vacuum" as implying that since governments have created and sustained them, governments can legitimately dispense with them at will........
Markets (think car boot sales if you will) don't need government encouragement in order to happen. They will happen (I'd like to say in any culture, but clearly I don't know all human cultures) if they're not actively suppressed. They appeal to something deep in human nature.
I don't disagree with you that as far as one can tell market trading is a natural phenomenon and that it would exist in a theoretical state of nature in some form. It may even be argued that government cannot create markets, for the sake of this discussion, and their only impact is to regulate and even remove them. I don't think, however, you can hold that because markets are created for the reasons and way you describe it follows that governments ought not to get rid of them if they so wish. There are all sorts of activities that are imbedded "deep in human nature", some of which are good and some that are negative to the point of being downright evil, and governments are expected to promote good and restrain vice. More prosaically, they undertake tasks like town planning to ensure that car boot sales don't spring up willy-nilly, and that commercial activities are excluded from residential areas. A suburban local authority may decide not to permit any markets at all: an expression of something deep in human nature called "not in my back yard". Such value choices are not immoral, just decisions that political authorities make, wisely or not.
Seems like the question "what is the legitimate role of government ?" is a hard one to answer.
Is it fair to say that socialists want that role to include limiting the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income? As a goal in itself ?
Is it fair to say that such a goal is outside the legitimate role of government as historically conceived (for example in the debates around framing the US constitution) ?
So I'm suggesting that a challenge to socialists is to think through whether they believe in the idea of a legitimate role for government (defined with some level of intellectual rigour, and which constrains their policy ambitions rather than being infinitely malleable to accommodate them) or whether exercising power is in fact its own justification.
In that context, I'm reading AFZ's assertion that "markets do not exist in a vacuum" as implying that since governments have created and sustained them, governments can legitimately dispense with them at will. The "if we made it we can break it" principle. (Which meaning I acknowledge he may not have fully intended).
And I'm saying no.
Markets (think car boot sales if you will) don't need government encouragement in order to happen. They will happen (I'd like to say in any culture, but clearly I don't know all human cultures) if they're not actively suppressed. They appeal to something deep in human nature.
If you truly own a personal possession you can give it away. Or give it away conditional on someone giving you something in return, i.e. barter it.
Currency helps markets function better. Standard weights and measures help markets function better. Rule of law helps markets function better. But governments didn't invent them and don't have the right to prohibit them.
Hmmm, car boot sales... interesting example.
Here's a typical setup:*
1. Organiser charges for cars to turn up and sell whatever goods they want to out of their boots...
2. People with things to sell turn up in car and try to sell things
3. People who want to buy things turn up with cash.
Now, ignoring the role of the state, which is subtle but still real, the market rules that shape this market are glaringly obvious.
If the organiser only allows people to sell from cars then people who don't own a car have no access to the market to sell. Only car-owners can be sellers. If the organiser decides to allow stalls, that changes the conditions again, and there's multiple permutations depending on how much they charge for each stall and how this compares to the car price. Not to mention that the site is probably only a car boot sale at certain times, like maybe a Saturday morning.
All of these factors shape the market. If you change the rules, you change the shape of the market. Now this is a microeconomic example but it does illustrate the point which also applies on the macroscopic scale.
All markets depend on a set of agreed rules. However micro you want to go or macro for that matter, it's true. They do organically grow out of human society to some extent but there are external factors too and when talking about nation states, deliberate policy decisions play a massive role. The Great Lie is that these are not decisions at all but natural, unchangeable situations.
An interesting historical example is how the bubonic plague affected feudalism in the UK. Serfs suddenly had more freedom and independence as their was a shortage of labour. The same forces have massive impact today. Full employment greatly empowers workers as it means employers have to complete for their labour. Conversely, high unemployment makes labour cheap and easily obtainable and thus massively shifts the power to employers. There is a huge body of evidence that governments can have a very big impact on employment levels and thus a knock-on effect for everyone.
It is inescapably a function of government to oversee the economy. Even if just because it runs the currency and creates the legal framework for trade. Therefore the government must make choices about the rules that shape this market. Democratic Socialism says such rules should favour redistribution. Traditional conservativism says these rules should be as minimal as possible. Neoliberalism says these rules should favour capital. As an aside, it is worth noting the focus varies here between an ideological view of the role of government and the effects of policy positions.
The traditional conservative argument says "government shouldn't do this." I respect and disagree with this. Democratic socialism isn't in favour of big government. Democratic socialism says the conservative 'neutral' position is not neutral at all and thus (potentially) big government is a necessary means to a vital end. Neoliberalism says the role of government is to drive inequality...
The US founding fathers believed that the role of government was to allow the people to be "we the people" and thus able to protect themselves from tyranny. Redistribution of wealth is a very loaded term but is simply another form of 'we the people' resisting a different form of tyranny. I will go into this further in another post.
Markets depend on a concentration of people. You don't have markets in a village in which everyone is largely self-sufficient, and people who need additional supplies drop in on their neighbours who may have a surplus. Markets are for strangers and occasional visitors. That means towns.
Towns grow up because local rulers need administrative and cultural centres.
No local government; no towns. No towns; no markets.
it’s just as legitimate a goal as any other that people might choose to vote for. After all, believing in democracy has to include accepting that sometimes you’re not going to get the policies you want, and that’s ok. I’ll take a true democrat who implements policies I disagree with over a tyrant who implements policies I agree with any day of the week.
So you think anything that people vote for is morally legitimate ? And the role of government has no limits ?
You always were a big fan of the undistributed middle.
In the Soviet controlled zone of Germany after WW2 the various re-instated political parties, with the help of the liberating Soviet forces, decided to put aside party rivalry and work together under the umbrella of the Socialist Unity Party - there were Social Democrats,Christian Democrats,Communists,Peasants' Party etc all united under the.S.E.D..(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) aka Socialist Unity Party. Since there were no real political arguments, real progress could be made and one of the watchwords of the zone was 'progressive' (fortschrittlich) as opposed to 'reactionary' (reaktionaer) to describe the other zones of occupied Germany or even 'imperialist' (imperialistisch) especially where Americans were involved.
70 years ago the Soviet Zone of Germany refused to join the other more reactionary zones of occupied Germany and set up its own German Democratic Republic - 'democratic' because apparently everyone agreed that the 'people' owned the state and all within it.
It was a State consisting of agricultural workers (Bauern),industrial workers(Arbeiter) and academics (Intellektuellen). Of course,the State/the people aknowledged that even in this socialist Paradise there were still some reactionaries and some who still had to progress more swiftly (the Church was considered a major reactionary force !)
In time the peasants were able to see the disappearance of landed estates and everything on the land brought under the LPGs (landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften ) or communally owned farms. In towns everything from small bakeries to big factories proudly displayed the letters VEB or Volkseigener Betrieb ( the people's own business).
People who lived in the Federal Republic if they attempted to enter the Democratic Republic would be reminded by huge placards such as
Kapitalismus = tote Welt Sozialismus = bluehende Welt (capitalism = dead world socialism = flourishing world) that they were entering a worldly paradise.
Strangely enough few people did attempt to transfer from the West to the East and even more strangely the whole system of the German Democratic Republic fell apart at the time of the demise of the Soviet Union.
@Forthview, if that is an argument (you don't actually make one but I'm sure we can infer what you mean), it's either sophistry or another scarecrow.
It is well-documented and known by probably everyone on this thread that Communist states frequently liked to coopt the word 'democratic.' That in itself does not make it true. Pravda being the original fake news of course. Communism is neither socialism nor is it the only alternative to neoliberal capitalism. Pretending it is does nothing to further your argument.
If we see the ideas of socialism as virtuous, then we should remind ourselves of the saying that 'any virtue carried to excess becomes a vice'
There is much to be commended in the ideas of socialism but like any other 'ism' it can be carried to excess and take away people's ideas of freedom.
Satire aside, there were a number of good things in the German Democratic Republic - there was always a job for everyone, rents on houses remained as they had been in 1938 until the end of the GDR. However life could be and was made difficult for those who did not agree with everything which the leaders of the Socialist Unity Party decreed.
The heading for this thread is 'Socialism means the government owns everything !'
There is no question mark at the end of the statement but rather an exclamation mark.
It was indeed the understanding of the meaning of the word 'socialism in the GDR, but the government were ably to make people believe that the Socialist Unity Party meant indeed 'the People' and that the 'People' owned everything.
States of all political colours can make use of similar ideas, whether they be right wing or left wing. During the Nazi regime times many coins in Germany had stamped around the edges 'Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz'. (Use by the community takes precedence over use by an individual). This was an idea propagated by a right wing regime that public usefulness is more important than usefulness for one person.
It would be echoed later by a left wing regime in the East of Germany.
The saying is actually an German saying meaning 'service to others before self' and can be used by followers of many political or religious movements.
The heading for this thread is 'Socialism means the government owns everything !'
There is no question mark at the end of the statement but rather an exclamation mark.
I think markets (in the sense of people selling things on stalls in street or square) are a natural phenomenon that arises spontaneously in many different cultures. And that markets (in the sense of the supply-demand interactions that economists study) are an emergent phenomenon from individual behaviour that is natural (not dependent on a particular ideology, but just free people doing what comes naturally).
A few observations:
Markets in the sense @Russ describes them seem either very uncommon or non-existent in stateless human societies. Given that states are a relatively recent social invention (~5,000 years old), I'm not sure how "natural" markets are given that most of human existence (~200,000 years) was devoid of such entities.
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Given that the existence of markets seems contemporaneous with the emergence of states, suggesting some kind of linkage, I'm not seeing any good reason to consider one to be "natural" and the other to be artificial.
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I'm also not sure why certain human activities get described as "natural" while others are
"artificial". Aren't all deliberate human activities "artificial" in the sense of being products of human artifice? I'm also not convinced by the natural = good equation. Polio is natural, but usually not considered good from a human perspective.
Croesos: I'm also not sure why certain human activities get described as "natural" .
I agree with you, but I don't think it's worth getting bogged down in such a debate in this instance because it's not necessary. We can go along with Ross in agreeing that markets might be a feature of a pre-government state of nature, but that's no reason why any old market spontaneously springing up has some sort of inalienable right to exist where there is governmental authority and, indeed, no moral reason why any market should exist at all. In any event, I remain unconvinced that a certain feature of human behaviour rising naturally from human nature is somehow sacrosanct because of its origin, as there are aspects of that nature which are socially dysfunctional if not downright evil, constituting an argument for government in the first place.
We can go along with Ross in agreeing that markets might be a feature of a pre-government state of nature
We can, but why should we? The evidence - archaeological, historical, anthropological - is that markets are not a feature of a pro-government state of nature.
That said, I agree that the moral argument is incoherent anyway. After all, the one institution that must have arisen in the state of nature with no prior government is government itself.
Dafyd: We can, but why should we? The evidence - archaeological, historical, anthropological - is that markets are not a feature of a pro-government state of nature.
My concern was that the discussion shouldn't get side-tracked by yet another of Russ' s diversions.
You always were a big fan of the undistributed middle.
At first I read that as "excluded middle". Meaning that you think there is some middle ground between
- Marvin's stated position ( vox populi vox dei ?) that any goal that people vote for is thereby legitimate
- my stated position that there are limits to what government may legitimately do (and that therefore those who want government to do something which would be judged morally wrong if a private individual did it have to make the case for its legitimacy).
But maybe you mean that there's some logical fallacy in talking about markets in general without being clear as to whether the words apply to all markets or only some markets ?
Seems true that governments can create markets. When they make it illegal to emit radio waves on particular frequencies without a licence, and then auction transferrable licences to do so, then they are creating a market.
But tolerating an existing market and "shaping" it isn't creating it.
Seems true that governments can create markets. When they make it illegal to emit radio waves on particular frequencies without a licence, and then auction transferrable licences to do so, then they are creating a market.
But tolerating an existing market and "shaping" it isn't creating it.
I have to go with "so what?" Why is the distinction between "creating" a market and "shaping" a market, both things you claim states can do, relevant?
But tolerating an existing market and "shaping" it isn't creating it.
A lump of clay can be shaped by a potter. Was the pot created by the potter or did it always exist within the clay? The Market as we know it is something that has been created by a combination of forces, governments probably only a smaller player in that mix of forces. So it developed from place where goods were bought and sold. So what? The differences between the Markets and a car-boot sale are so massive it's almost irresponsible to use the same word to describe them.
Russ: My stated position that there are limits to what government may legitimately do.
Most people, I suspect, believe that there are moral boundaries which governments ought not to transgress. The problem, of course, is that there is disagreement as to what those boundaries ought to be. What, Ross, do you expect a government to do in the absence of consensus? To the extent you defend markets on the grounds they exist in a state of nature is unconvincing, if only because governments are formed to rectify deficiencies identified in the natural state, which might include markets.
What .. ..do you expect a government to do in the absence of consensus?
Maybe approach the task of governing in a spirit of trying to do what is right (acknowledging that right is but seen through a glass darkly) instead of a spirit of "we can do what we want" ?
And certainly in a spirit of trying to govern in the interests of everyone rather than trying to promote the interests of one faction against those of another.
This came up as a response to AFZ, who (as far as I can tell) does recognise the need to argue that socialist policies are a legitimate thing for governments to do.
His first argument was to the effect that governments create markets and therefore have the right to dispense with them. Which I'm inclined to accept as valid for those few markets which governments have actually created.
The US founding fathers believed that the role of government was to allow the people to be "we the people" and thus able to protect themselves from tyranny. Redistribution of wealth is a very loaded term but is simply another form of 'we the people' resisting a different form of tyranny.
Which seems to hinge on the notion that being wealthier than your neighbour constitutes tyrannizing him. Which seems obviously false...
Which seems to hinge on the notion that being wealthier than your neighbour constitutes tyrannizing him. Which seems obviously false...
Significant differences in wealth mean significant differences in power, and power corrupts. That doesn't mean every wealthy person will deliberately abuse that power, but concentrated wealth distorts everything around it. Take, for example, the impact of the super-wealthy on London house prices, or the comfortably-off second-homers on rural communities. Wealth also allows you to hire help to navigate everything from planning applications to enforcing contracts. How many people did Trump screw over by burying them in lawsuits until they ran out of money?
It's not the fact of some people being wealthier that is the problem but the secondary effects. If all being wealthy meant was being able to swim in a pool of coins, Scrooge McDuck style, it would be a matter of personal morality, but as it is it's a political concern.
This came up as a response to AFZ, who (as far as I can tell) does recognise the need to argue that socialist policies are a legitimate thing for governments to do.
His first argument was to the effect that governments create markets and therefore have the right to dispense with them. Which I'm inclined to accept as valid for those few markets which governments have actually created.
Doesn't the absence of market economies among hunter-gatherers (i.e. humans without states) suggest a causal relationship between the state and market economics?
The US founding fathers believed that the role of government was to allow the people to be "we the people" and thus able to protect themselves from tyranny. Redistribution of wealth is a very loaded term but is simply another form of 'we the people' resisting a different form of tyranny.
Which seems to hinge on the notion that being wealthier than your neighbour constitutes tyrannizing him. Which seems obviously false...
I'm not so sure it's obvious. Take, for example, the South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania. Originally constructed by the state, it was eventually sold to private interests who wanted to use the lake created by the dam as a luxury resort. Later alterations and neglected maintenance weakened the integrity of the dam and, well . . . Killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement might not fit the dictionary definition of "tyranny", but it's at least tyranny-adjacent. I'm also not seeing anything particularly tyrannical about redistributing wealth from rich club owners to perform necessary maintenance so their resort lake doesn't end up killing a bunch of people downstream.
His first argument was to the effect that governments create markets and therefore have the right to dispense with them. Which I'm inclined to accept as valid for those few markets which governments have actually created.
That's not quite what I said. It reveals an implicit bias in your thinking. You seem to think that any socialist idea is intending to destroy the market. I have never advocated destroying. My point is simply that the rules that shape the market are what we decide they should be. We can make different choices and thus have a different shape.
You also seem stuck on the idea that they just happen. As @Arethosemyfeet noted, they don't exist in Hunter-gatherer cultures, thus some level of human society organisation is a prerequisite for a market economy. At the very least, some form of currency is needed to get to a functioning economy beyond bartering.
If you're looking for an analogy, I suspect smarter philosophers/ economists than me (as I'm neither) have come up with several but here's mine:
Imagine water flowing down a hill. For the purpose of this analogy, please ignore the geological processes that decide river courses over millions of years. Imagine that the flow direction and speed is only controlled by man-made mechanisms such as canalisation. The market is natural only in the same sense that the flow of water in response to gravity is natural. Where it runs and which fields get irrigation and thus become fertile is entirely dependent on the dams and gullies we build to direct it.
Now Imagine that one landowner dams the river so that one of his neighbour's field is flooded and has no crop and another's is dry and suffers the same fate. As the only landowner with crop, he employees labourers by means of a simple bargain; work my field and you will have all you need to feed yourself and your family.
Of course these same labourers guard the dam so neither neighbour can change the flow.
If the story of the dam is not widely known or fades a little with time, then it begins to appear 'totally natural' that one field is fertile while the other two are not.
That is the reality of the market economy. Gravity is natural but we choose where to let the water flow and where not to. It is entirely possible and reasonable to make different choices.
Not a perfect analogy by any means but it will do for now.
It's quite fashionable to disparage economics by saying that it's not a 'real science' - as if that statement makes the whole discipline pointless. Of course it's not a natural science like physics and it faces some specific vulnerabilities to bias and political influences but for me, the most remarkable thing about economics is how often mathematics does describe the real world of the aggregate effects of billions of individual choices and actions.
There are some key lessons in all this that often get lost in the noise.
1. The 'market' is simply the aggregate of supply and demand equilibria.
2. It is not a zero sum game.
3. As with chemical equilibria; change the conditions, change the equilibria.
4. There are LOTS of ways to change the conditions.
Ok, so 'Communism' is synonymous with a 'planned economy.' That's probably fair. One of the basic lessons of economics is that a supply/demand equilibrium is generally the most efficient way to distribute resources hence the argument that a planned economy impoverishes everyone. That's broadly true.
Neoliberalism says that any action on the economy other than allowing equilibria to form is a planned economy and thus inefficient and thus impoverishes us all. Neither of those arguments are remotely true. You can demonstrate that empirically in lots of ways. You can also show it by multidinous thought experiments. I'll give you the ones that matters most to me but first a bit of jargon. I am of course, talking about things like 'Monopoly formation' or 'Rent-Seeking.' Happy to discuss both further but both are inevitable in the kind of market-structure Neoliberalism demands and both reduce efficiency of resource allocation. You can show this very easily, both theoretically and empirically. Happy to come back to that in another post.
Asymmetry of information and Supply-induced demand
I want to talk about these two because they are a large part of why free-markets in healthcare make everyone sick. Exhibit A is the third world and Exhibit B is the USA.
So firstly, how does supply and demand work? Well this is obvious: if I am selling something, the greater the demand, the higher price I can charge and vice versa. Similarly if what I sell is widely available, my potential customers will go down the road to my competitor where it's cheaper, forcing me to lower my prices. But if supply is limited and my competitor can't get any to sell then all the customers come to me and prices go up. I think I am correct in saying that 'price-stickiness' is the technical term for how easily prices can change and thus how quickly the equilibrium can be reached.
But there are a number of things that distort this process, these are but two examples. Asymmetry of information is key in healthcare; I know whether this operation or that drug is likely to be most effective for you. You possibly don't. What if I am paid more for doing the operation? Might that shape the information I give you? Similarly the drug company might bombard you with adverts as to why their drug is better than the surgeon's knife. There is a TON of empirical evidence that these factors drive up costs. A competing surgeon in a nearby hospital isn't much help as you probably cannot easily access the information as to which of us is better and so you pay the price I ask. Sick patients generally do not shop around thus there is inevitable price-stickiness. In chemical terms this is like the energy barrier that prevents a reaction from starting.
Supply-induced demand is interesting as it breaks the equilibrium by both forces moving in the same direction. When a new treatment comes along, it is of course a new supply. But it creates a new demand as you didn't know you wanted/needed it until the supply existed. Remember that if the alternative to treatment if death, most people will pay whatever they can scrape together. If it's a new car, I'll wait until I can afford it.
These are classic market distortions. We choose to either fuel them or mitigate them. It is this choice that is the heart of the debate.
Land ownership is probably the biggest distortion across the world. For the farmer, owning the land may mean financial security. For the tenant farmer who works just as hard as his owner-neighbour, it means much less income and of course a reliable unearned income for the landlord.
The Duke of Westminster was asked for financial advice and reportedly replied "it helps if you have an ancestor who came across with William The Conqueror."
If you don't think the way that wealthy International corporations and individuals using their wealth to give themselves access to power and thus power to bring about legal and tax changes that benefit them at the expense of everyone else over the last four decades is not a form of tyranny, then I don't think you're paying attention. The most explicit form of this is the way big polluters push the cost of their pollution on to everyone else. This is seen in financial terms but often in health effects too. If you don't believe me, research cancer clusters and big coal mining companies as but one example. You get sick, I get rich and because I am powerful and you're not, there is nothing you can do about it.
Which seems to hinge on the notion that being wealthier than your neighbour constitutes tyrannizing him. Which seems obviously false...
I'm not so sure it's obvious. Take, for example, the South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania. Originally constructed by the state, it was eventually sold to private interests who wanted to use the lake created by the dam as a luxury resort. Later alterations and neglected maintenance weakened the integrity of the dam and, well . . . Killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement might not fit the dictionary definition of "tyranny", but it's at least tyranny-adjacent. I'm also not seeing anything particularly tyrannical about redistributing wealth from rich club owners to perform necessary maintenance so their resort lake doesn't end up killing a bunch of people downstream.
Phrasing that disaster as "killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement" is ridiculous. It was an accident caused by infrastructure neglect, not a deliberate act.
And infrastructure neglect can happen regardless of who owns the infrastructure in question. If South Fork can be used to argue against private ownership, then Aberfan can be used to argue against public ownership.
Phrasing that disaster as "killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement" is ridiculous. It was an accident caused by infrastructure neglect, not a deliberate act.
Agreed. Much as I'd like to have some sympathy for Croesos' arguments, this kind of hyperbole is a regular feature from several posters and is a real turn-off.
Quite frankly, a number of times since I've returned to the Ship I've been wondering whether my recollection is faulty and a bunch of people always resorted to cartoon villainy, or whether this is a new development.
Various people who appear to think Trump is abhorrent as I do nevertheless seem to have decided that his tactics are so successful they ought to adopt them. That seems the most likely explanation for the outrageous caricature-laden statements that get tossed out by some people around here these days.
Because heck, being outrageous sells, doesn't it? It's the way to make yourself a big hit on social media. Fuck nuance. Fuck fairness to your opponents.
I've seen better descriptions of the motivations of the bad guys in Marvel movies.
this kind of hyperbole is a regular feature from several posters and is a real turn-off.
And they're always the first ones to squeal about unfair misrepresentation whenever anyone else dares to suggest that Communist states have anything whatsoever to do with socialism.
So a single small club not paying sufficient attention to dam maintenance is evidence against all private ownership of infrastructure anywhere, but the policies and practices of a whole series of countries which explicitly claimed forms of socialism as their guiding principle can't possibly be taken as evidence about socialism. Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
Quite frankly, a number of times since I've returned to the Ship I've been wondering whether my recollection is faulty and a bunch of people always resorted to cartoon villainy, or whether this is a new development.
Various people who appear to think Trump is abhorrent as I do nevertheless seem to have decided that his tactics are so successful they ought to adopt them. That seems the most likely explanation for the outrageous caricature-laden statements that get tossed out by some people around here these days.
Because heck, being outrageous sells, doesn't it? It's the way to make yourself a big hit on social media. Fuck nuance. Fuck fairness to your opponents
Thanks for this.
I've noticed a lot of hyperbole and misrepresentation on Facebook and Twitter and I know what you mean. It makes me feel distanced from people and their beliefs, even those I otherwise agree with
So a single small club not paying sufficient attention to dam maintenance is evidence against all private ownership of infrastructure anywhere, but the policies and practices of a whole series of countries which explicitly claimed forms of socialism as their guiding principle can't possibly be taken as evidence about socialism. Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
I'm not sure that these are entirely on all fours as a comparison.
Supposing an advocate of socialism thinks communism as it actually existed in the twentieth century is undesirable. They can point to structural features e.g. no free press, no peaceful way to get wrongdoers out of office, that are not necessarily required to prevent undue build up of corporate wealth. In fact, if we look at China we can see that allowing the build up of corporate wealth and aspirational levels of personal wealth has not done anything much to mitigate the undesirable features of communism. For every million people lifted out of poverty by Chinese capitalism another couple of million are stuck working in sweatshops in highly polluted cities.
Now, if you want to stop private companies from mismanaging the effects of their activities on the commons, under capitalism without government intervention it's not clear what you can do. Making laws preventing companies from polluting the commons or letting dams fall into disrepair runs contrary to the general spirit of low regulation, and the general ethos encourages manoeuvring round the laws. Allowing people who are badly affected to sue as a civil rather than a criminal matter requires more government intervention, and runs into the problem of asymmetry of resources required to pursue legal cases: large companies have more money and time and peace of mind to defend their side than their adversaries. Even marketising the commons requires considerable government intervention. The risk seems more internal to the structure of the proposed economic model.
Meanwhile, in the UK the right to public protest under capitalism seems on course to be further curtailed.
Which seems to hinge on the notion that being wealthier than your neighbour constitutes tyrannizing him. Which seems obviously false...
I'm not so sure it's obvious. Take, for example, the South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania. Originally constructed by the state, it was eventually sold to private interests who wanted to use the lake created by the dam as a luxury resort. Later alterations and neglected maintenance weakened the integrity of the dam and, well . . . Killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement might not fit the dictionary definition of "tyranny", but it's at least tyranny-adjacent. I'm also not seeing anything particularly tyrannical about redistributing wealth from rich club owners to perform necessary maintenance so their resort lake doesn't end up killing a bunch of people downstream.
Phrasing that disaster as "killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement" is ridiculous. It was an accident caused by infrastructure neglect, not a deliberate act.
"Infrastructure neglect" is a bit like invoking the passive voice in this particular case. Active decisions made:
Lowering the dam to build a road across it for the convenience of resort members
Despite lowering the dam, raising the level of the lake, probably to make it more æsthtically pleasing and/or provide more lakefront
Selling off the system of relief pipes and valves for salvage value so there would be no way to lower the level of the lake in the event of an emergency
These weren't examples of "neglect", they were active steps taken by the dam owners/resort members to maximize their own enjoyment by increasing the risk to everyone downstream. It at least rises to the level of depraved indifference.
My larger point is that "redistribution of wealth" in the form of either government regulations requiring basic safety measures be implemented by property holders or in the form of taxation used by the state to implement such repairs themselves is neither theft as @Marvin the Martiansuggested nor tyranny.
Take, for example, the impact of the super-wealthy on London house prices...
This is the same old bait-and-switch. Pointing to the super-wealthy as a way of justifying your desire for redistribution of wealth within the middle 90%.
...or the comfortably-off second-homers on rural communities.
If you have a market in housing, one of the outcomes is a tendency for house prices to be higher in the more desirable bits of the country.
Perfectly reasonable to ask whether this is undesirable and consider what if anything can be done about it by managing the market. But trying to force everyone to have the same income so the problem will go away isn't the answer.
Wealth also allows you to hire help to navigate everything from planning applications to enforcing contracts. How many people did Trump screw over by burying them in lawsuits until they ran out of money?
Whether the US-led proliferation of lawyers and lawsuits is a problem is also a reasonable discussion to have. One that is not entirely separable from the role of government. But that's not really an argument for making everyone equally wealthy.
The housing market is a classic example of how government policies and the manipulation of the population by media have created the market as we know it. We could have a very different market, and many places in the world do.
Features of the UK housing market include an emphasis on housing being an investment. That means that it's considered bad news if house prices fall, which then knocks on to other policies - basically restricting supply of houses because if you have more houses on the market then house prices will fall. So, we have government always talking about building more homes (because it's patently obvious that we have too few homes) but the number of homes built is a trickle. We don't have adequate laws to force owners of properties to return them to use as housing (lots of empty homes). We have incentives for people who can afford it to take out second homes, or for homes to be removed from the housing pool entirely (eg: for short term holiday lets). And, the lack of housing is spectacularly evident for those at lower incomes - exacerbated by selling off publicly owned housing with deliberate restrictions that prevent the proceeds from being used to replace that stock, and policies for 'affordable housing' as part of new developments that are not enforced, and where the definition of 'affordable' looks nothing like that. Add into that a large largely unregulated private rental sector which traps millions of people into paying unaffordable rents without any chance of putting aside the money they'd need to escape that by buying (and, other options like council housing simply don't exist).
What would the market be like if we simply changed the emphasis, if we treat housing as providing homes not investments, and that having a decent affordable home is a human right rather than a privilege of wealth? What if we build millions of council houses, and cap private rents to the point of covering costs + a small profit which won't be much more than council house rents, and build millions more houses privately which are genuinely affordable? What if we remove incentives to take homes out of the housing stock (second homes, short term lets etc)? With more houses available, prices will fall ... but if that isn't an investment what does it matter? With reduced costs for housing, people will have more money to spend in other sectors of the economy which is better for the nation in relation to job creation (that might even include building trades if people have money available for fixing up their homes).
Changing how we view housing and the impact of that on the housing market isn't even particularly socialist. It just needs people to say that the right for everyone to have a decent, affordable home trumps the right of a relatively small number of people to make a lot of money out of controlling the housing market.
That also implies a needed change in how we fund care in old age, as so many peoples' care is dependent on funding they've built up in the capital in their houses. Which is an unearned income that possibly outweighs anything they could have saved otherwise.
There's also a pressure to get on the housing ladder, not miss out on building up capital in this way, which is absent many European countries with a higher proportion of rental properties. And if you think about it, it makes more sense to rent flats, leaving the landlord with the costs of, say, replacing the roof, and redistributing those costs in a rent that is set at a level that includes depreciation and repair. Meaning that the responsible landlord should be planning and budgeting the future of the building.
Thing is, take out a mortgage at 30, by 55 it's paid off and you have no housing costs for as long as you're able to live there. Renting is a continuous outgoing.
As things are currently structured, the incentive to buy is very high indeed.
Comments
Firstly, it was you derailing by deciding that everyone had to talk about personal vs private property the way that you do. It couldn't be clearer that this is not a generally understood usage (for my part, "real vs personal" and "public vs private" are 2 entirely different divisions that have no inherent connection to each other), and yet you persist in claiming that somehow it's everyone else's fault.
Secondly, I'm contending the exact opposite, which you would understand if you actually read what I said. If there was no difference between someone with a mortgage and someone without one, I wouldn't need to ask you whether you personally knew whether or not Marvin has a mortgage, or whether you're just assuming he must have a mortgage in order for your arguments to have any legs.
Thirdly, see the first point, and kindly don't talk about "your" bias when I hadn't said a fucking thing about the topic.
Again, no. In order, Marvin thought I could somehow appropriate his toothbrush because it was his private property, and obviously all socialists want to abolish private property. I mentioned the (well known legal and not particularly socialist) idea that private property was not personal property. Cue the rest of the participants in this thread throwing their toys out of their prams.
But you do you. I'll be back if there's something worth discussing.
Yes, this is yet another Straw Man that desperately needs debunking. (Is debunking what one does with a strawman?). Let me just spell out the argument here (it's the same one that comes up again and again, especially on this thread).
Communism bankrupted the countries who tried it in therefore we must have unfettered capitalism; it's the only thing that works...
This is just nonsense.
As Alan put it so well the so-called 'market economy' is not the runaway success that it is portrayed to be. We actually live in a mixed-economy anyway. It is particularly notable that the big US tech giants benefited hugely from public-sector money in terms of the basic research 40-50 years ago that jump-started the whole process. Monopolies actually kill markets. The only way to stop that is to regulate the markets such that monopolies are not allowed to control sectors. And on and on. A free-for-all is not actually, paradoxically a free market.
Once again, I point to the work of Joseph Stiglitz. Markets do not exist in a vacuum. They are not a natural phenomenon. They are shaped by the rules we choose to place around them. Democratic socialism has a view (or views) on what some of those rules should be.
AFZ
That's not exactly true, is it? Here's the sequence of posts:
*derailment into discussion of the definitions of personal and private property ensues*
Firstly, in the context of a discussion of State versus individual power, the risks and perils thereof, and the State's function to protect us from evil rich and powerful people, it's perfectly reasonable to have read "personal" as meaning "of or belonging to a person", as it usually does. The fact that virtually everyone else - regardless of their side in this discussion - seems to have read it that way supports this.
Secondly, using the more technical meaning of "personal property" means the claim itself is misleading (if not completely untrue), because it only applies to a particular subset of what is normally considered to be a person's property. This leaves the question of whether the right to enjoy ones "private property" is more intruded on by the State or by bad actors within and without the community very much unanswered, though the strong implication is that the State would intrude more.
My reply about having too much personal property is valid either way. Firstly, it points out that socialist states generally favour redistributive policies which mean someone with "too much" property will see a reduction therein (especially if that property falls into the "private" category). But secondly, even under the technical definition of "personal property" it is rare for a socialist state - especially one that only concerns itself with protecting an individual's right to "personal property"! - to not have a maximum amount thereof that any individual can own. This is a question that you have repeatedly ducked for the last two and a half pages.
You're trying to dismiss this as quibbling about the definitions of words, but it gets to the very heart of why some of us don't trust State power. What good is a promise from the State to protect our right to our own property if the very definition of "property" can be changed such that some of our property is no longer included? Can you not see how many people would have legitimate concerns about that?
This whole thread is about how socialism affects property ownership, and the rights thereto. Claiming that a socialist State won't just seize people's property but then deciding that certain types of property don't count as such and therefore can be seized with impunity is hardly conducive to open and honest discussion of that issue, especially when it's being done by hiding behind technical definitions and language ambiguity. Better to just outright say from the start what (and how much) we'll be allowed to own and what we won't and take it from there.
It's been explained to you any number of times that the "well known legal and not particularly socialist" idea is in fact not well-known and is particularly socialist - as referenced by the Wikipedia article on the very topic, as was pointed out to you I don't know how many days ago.
And now you're trying to tell me, a lawyer, who learned the real vs personal property distinction in law school (not the private vs personal distinction, the real vs personal distinction) that this idea you're waving around is a legal one. Nope. Nope. Nope. The opposite of personal property is real property.
I'm not just doing me. I'm doing the same thing that a whole wealth of other people have done on this thread over however many days, and you are the one who just continues to blithely ignore a whole string of people all telling you the same thing.
I think markets (in the sense of people selling things on stalls in street or square) are a natural phenomenon that arises spontaneously in many different cultures. And that markets (in the sense of the supply-demand interactions that economists study) are an emergent phenomenon from individual behaviour that is natural (not dependent on a particular ideology, but just free people doing what comes naturally).
If what you really mean is that government has a role in well-functioning markets then I fully agree. And punishing cheaters ("bad actors" who undermine trust) and preventing monopoly are part of that role.
But what you seem to be implying but not quite owning up to is the idea that there is no such thing as a role for government because the legitimate role for government is whatever we want it to be.
Meaning anything that the demos can be persuaded to vote for. Because at the scale of a society, collective wants and collective decisions are something of a fiction. Reality is that a majority think or want one thing and a minority think or want something else.
Maybe you don't mean that ?
Honestly, Russ, much as I admire your persistence in promoting unpopular views, this observation is absolute rubbish. I can almost guarantee that even the meanest market is nothing like what you describe because the stallholders fight tooth and nail to defend their interests against would-be competitors coming to join them. I invite you to study the market women of the Makola Market, Accra, who not only fiercely defend their hard-fought privileges but have brought down regimes and governments. As for the history of trading in any burgh in Europe.....................Natural phenomena, my aunt fanny!
If you're saying it's human nature for established traders to seek to restrict competition from new entrants, then yes.
But why would they seek to do that if it were not the case that there is a tendency for rival traders to spring up ?
You're supporting my point here by giving examples of the same behaviours across different cultures.
Is it fair to say that socialists want that role to include limiting the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income? As a goal in itself ?
Is it fair to say that such a goal is outside the legitimate role of government as historically conceived (for example in the debates around framing the US constitution) ?
So I'm suggesting that a challenge to socialists is to think through whether they believe in the idea of a legitimate role for government (defined with some level of intellectual rigour, and which constrains their policy ambitions rather than being infinitely malleable to accommodate them) or whether exercising power is in fact its own justification.
In that context, I'm reading AFZ's assertion that "markets do not exist in a vacuum" as implying that since governments have created and sustained them, governments can legitimately dispense with them at will. The "if we made it we can break it" principle. (Which meaning I acknowledge he may not have fully intended).
And I'm saying no.
Markets (think car boot sales if you will) don't need government encouragement in order to happen. They will happen (I'd like to say in any culture, but clearly I don't know all human cultures) if they're not actively suppressed. They appeal to something deep in human nature.
If you truly own a personal possession you can give it away. Or give it away conditional on someone giving you something in return, i.e. barter it.
Currency helps markets function better. Standard weights and measures help markets function better. Rule of law helps markets function better. But governments didn't invent them and don't have the right to prohibit them.
I’d say the answers to those questions are yes and no, in that order.
That’s not to say I agree with that goal, or with any particular method of working towards it. But it’s just as legitimate a goal as any other that people might choose to vote for. After all, believing in democracy has to include accepting that sometimes you’re not going to get the policies you want, and that’s ok. I’ll take a true democrat who implements policies I disagree with over a tyrant who implements policies I agree with any day of the week.
So you think anything that people vote for is morally legitimate ? And the role of government has no limits ?
Morality is defined by society, so if a society approves of something enough for it to win a free and fair election then it is by definition not immoral in that society.
As for governmental limits, who would decide what those are if not the people themselves?
None of that means I would approve of any particular policy that might be enacted. I might even completely hate it, and fight as hard as I can to get it overturned. I just don’t think that because I feel so strongly about it I should have the right to prevent it happening if it’s what society as a whole wants.
tl;dr - just because I think something is morally illegitimate doesn’t make it an objective truth.
I don't disagree with you that as far as one can tell market trading is a natural phenomenon and that it would exist in a theoretical state of nature in some form. It may even be argued that government cannot create markets, for the sake of this discussion, and their only impact is to regulate and even remove them. I don't think, however, you can hold that because markets are created for the reasons and way you describe it follows that governments ought not to get rid of them if they so wish. There are all sorts of activities that are imbedded "deep in human nature", some of which are good and some that are negative to the point of being downright evil, and governments are expected to promote good and restrain vice. More prosaically, they undertake tasks like town planning to ensure that car boot sales don't spring up willy-nilly, and that commercial activities are excluded from residential areas. A suburban local authority may decide not to permit any markets at all: an expression of something deep in human nature called "not in my back yard". Such value choices are not immoral, just decisions that political authorities make, wisely or not.
Hmmm, car boot sales... interesting example.
Here's a typical setup:*
1. Organiser charges for cars to turn up and sell whatever goods they want to out of their boots...
2. People with things to sell turn up in car and try to sell things
3. People who want to buy things turn up with cash.
Now, ignoring the role of the state, which is subtle but still real, the market rules that shape this market are glaringly obvious.
If the organiser only allows people to sell from cars then people who don't own a car have no access to the market to sell. Only car-owners can be sellers. If the organiser decides to allow stalls, that changes the conditions again, and there's multiple permutations depending on how much they charge for each stall and how this compares to the car price. Not to mention that the site is probably only a car boot sale at certain times, like maybe a Saturday morning.
All of these factors shape the market. If you change the rules, you change the shape of the market. Now this is a microeconomic example but it does illustrate the point which also applies on the macroscopic scale.
All markets depend on a set of agreed rules. However micro you want to go or macro for that matter, it's true. They do organically grow out of human society to some extent but there are external factors too and when talking about nation states, deliberate policy decisions play a massive role. The Great Lie is that these are not decisions at all but natural, unchangeable situations.
An interesting historical example is how the bubonic plague affected feudalism in the UK. Serfs suddenly had more freedom and independence as their was a shortage of labour. The same forces have massive impact today. Full employment greatly empowers workers as it means employers have to complete for their labour. Conversely, high unemployment makes labour cheap and easily obtainable and thus massively shifts the power to employers. There is a huge body of evidence that governments can have a very big impact on employment levels and thus a knock-on effect for everyone.
It is inescapably a function of government to oversee the economy. Even if just because it runs the currency and creates the legal framework for trade. Therefore the government must make choices about the rules that shape this market. Democratic Socialism says such rules should favour redistribution. Traditional conservativism says these rules should be as minimal as possible. Neoliberalism says these rules should favour capital. As an aside, it is worth noting the focus varies here between an ideological view of the role of government and the effects of policy positions.
The traditional conservative argument says "government shouldn't do this." I respect and disagree with this. Democratic socialism isn't in favour of big government. Democratic socialism says the conservative 'neutral' position is not neutral at all and thus (potentially) big government is a necessary means to a vital end. Neoliberalism says the role of government is to drive inequality...
The US founding fathers believed that the role of government was to allow the people to be "we the people" and thus able to protect themselves from tyranny. Redistribution of wealth is a very loaded term but is simply another form of 'we the people' resisting a different form of tyranny. I will go into this further in another post.
AFZ
Towns grow up because local rulers need administrative and cultural centres.
No local government; no towns. No towns; no markets.
You always were a big fan of the undistributed middle.
70 years ago the Soviet Zone of Germany refused to join the other more reactionary zones of occupied Germany and set up its own German Democratic Republic - 'democratic' because apparently everyone agreed that the 'people' owned the state and all within it.
It was a State consisting of agricultural workers (Bauern),industrial workers(Arbeiter) and academics (Intellektuellen). Of course,the State/the people aknowledged that even in this socialist Paradise there were still some reactionaries and some who still had to progress more swiftly (the Church was considered a major reactionary force !)
In time the peasants were able to see the disappearance of landed estates and everything on the land brought under the LPGs (landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften ) or communally owned farms. In towns everything from small bakeries to big factories proudly displayed the letters VEB or Volkseigener Betrieb ( the people's own business).
People who lived in the Federal Republic if they attempted to enter the Democratic Republic would be reminded by huge placards such as
Kapitalismus = tote Welt Sozialismus = bluehende Welt (capitalism = dead world socialism = flourishing world) that they were entering a worldly paradise.
Strangely enough few people did attempt to transfer from the West to the East and even more strangely the whole system of the German Democratic Republic fell apart at the time of the demise of the Soviet Union.
It is well-documented and known by probably everyone on this thread that Communist states frequently liked to coopt the word 'democratic.' That in itself does not make it true. Pravda being the original fake news of course. Communism is neither socialism nor is it the only alternative to neoliberal capitalism. Pretending it is does nothing to further your argument.
AFZ
Yes but it reads as 'anyone who is a socialist probably wants to eat babies...'
There is much to be commended in the ideas of socialism but like any other 'ism' it can be carried to excess and take away people's ideas of freedom.
Satire aside, there were a number of good things in the German Democratic Republic - there was always a job for everyone, rents on houses remained as they had been in 1938 until the end of the GDR. However life could be and was made difficult for those who did not agree with everything which the leaders of the Socialist Unity Party decreed.
The heading for this thread is 'Socialism means the government owns everything !'
There is no question mark at the end of the statement but rather an exclamation mark.
It was indeed the understanding of the meaning of the word 'socialism in the GDR, but the government were ably to make people believe that the Socialist Unity Party meant indeed 'the People' and that the 'People' owned everything.
States of all political colours can make use of similar ideas, whether they be right wing or left wing. During the Nazi regime times many coins in Germany had stamped around the edges 'Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz'. (Use by the community takes precedence over use by an individual). This was an idea propagated by a right wing regime that public usefulness is more important than usefulness for one person.
It would be echoed later by a left wing regime in the East of Germany.
The saying is actually an German saying meaning 'service to others before self' and can be used by followers of many political or religious movements.
It's also in quote marks.
Did you bother reading the opening post?
A few observations:
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"artificial". Aren't all deliberate human activities "artificial" in the sense of being products of human artifice? I'm also not convinced by the natural = good equation. Polio is natural, but usually not considered good from a human perspective.
I agree with you, but I don't think it's worth getting bogged down in such a debate in this instance because it's not necessary. We can go along with Ross in agreeing that markets might be a feature of a pre-government state of nature, but that's no reason why any old market spontaneously springing up has some sort of inalienable right to exist where there is governmental authority and, indeed, no moral reason why any market should exist at all. In any event, I remain unconvinced that a certain feature of human behaviour rising naturally from human nature is somehow sacrosanct because of its origin, as there are aspects of that nature which are socially dysfunctional if not downright evil, constituting an argument for government in the first place.
That said, I agree that the moral argument is incoherent anyway. After all, the one institution that must have arisen in the state of nature with no prior government is government itself.
My concern was that the discussion shouldn't get side-tracked by yet another of Russ' s diversions.
At first I read that as "excluded middle". Meaning that you think there is some middle ground between
- Marvin's stated position ( vox populi vox dei ?) that any goal that people vote for is thereby legitimate
- my stated position that there are limits to what government may legitimately do (and that therefore those who want government to do something which would be judged morally wrong if a private individual did it have to make the case for its legitimacy).
But maybe you mean that there's some logical fallacy in talking about markets in general without being clear as to whether the words apply to all markets or only some markets ?
Seems true that governments can create markets. When they make it illegal to emit radio waves on particular frequencies without a licence, and then auction transferrable licences to do so, then they are creating a market.
But tolerating an existing market and "shaping" it isn't creating it.
I have to go with "so what?" Why is the distinction between "creating" a market and "shaping" a market, both things you claim states can do, relevant?
Corrected quote attribution. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Most people, I suspect, believe that there are moral boundaries which governments ought not to transgress. The problem, of course, is that there is disagreement as to what those boundaries ought to be. What, Ross, do you expect a government to do in the absence of consensus? To the extent you defend markets on the grounds they exist in a state of nature is unconvincing, if only because governments are formed to rectify deficiencies identified in the natural state, which might include markets.
Maybe approach the task of governing in a spirit of trying to do what is right (acknowledging that right is but seen through a glass darkly) instead of a spirit of "we can do what we want" ?
And certainly in a spirit of trying to govern in the interests of everyone rather than trying to promote the interests of one faction against those of another.
This came up as a response to AFZ, who (as far as I can tell) does recognise the need to argue that socialist policies are a legitimate thing for governments to do.
His first argument was to the effect that governments create markets and therefore have the right to dispense with them. Which I'm inclined to accept as valid for those few markets which governments have actually created.
His next argument is
Which seems to hinge on the notion that being wealthier than your neighbour constitutes tyrannizing him. Which seems obviously false...
Significant differences in wealth mean significant differences in power, and power corrupts. That doesn't mean every wealthy person will deliberately abuse that power, but concentrated wealth distorts everything around it. Take, for example, the impact of the super-wealthy on London house prices, or the comfortably-off second-homers on rural communities. Wealth also allows you to hire help to navigate everything from planning applications to enforcing contracts. How many people did Trump screw over by burying them in lawsuits until they ran out of money?
It's not the fact of some people being wealthier that is the problem but the secondary effects. If all being wealthy meant was being able to swim in a pool of coins, Scrooge McDuck style, it would be a matter of personal morality, but as it is it's a political concern.
Doesn't the absence of market economies among hunter-gatherers (i.e. humans without states) suggest a causal relationship between the state and market economics?
I'm not so sure it's obvious. Take, for example, the South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania. Originally constructed by the state, it was eventually sold to private interests who wanted to use the lake created by the dam as a luxury resort. Later alterations and neglected maintenance weakened the integrity of the dam and, well . . . Killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement might not fit the dictionary definition of "tyranny", but it's at least tyranny-adjacent. I'm also not seeing anything particularly tyrannical about redistributing wealth from rich club owners to perform necessary maintenance so their resort lake doesn't end up killing a bunch of people downstream.
That's not quite what I said. It reveals an implicit bias in your thinking. You seem to think that any socialist idea is intending to destroy the market. I have never advocated destroying. My point is simply that the rules that shape the market are what we decide they should be. We can make different choices and thus have a different shape.
You also seem stuck on the idea that they just happen. As @Arethosemyfeet noted, they don't exist in Hunter-gatherer cultures, thus some level of human society organisation is a prerequisite for a market economy. At the very least, some form of currency is needed to get to a functioning economy beyond bartering.
If you're looking for an analogy, I suspect smarter philosophers/ economists than me (as I'm neither) have come up with several but here's mine:
Imagine water flowing down a hill. For the purpose of this analogy, please ignore the geological processes that decide river courses over millions of years. Imagine that the flow direction and speed is only controlled by man-made mechanisms such as canalisation. The market is natural only in the same sense that the flow of water in response to gravity is natural. Where it runs and which fields get irrigation and thus become fertile is entirely dependent on the dams and gullies we build to direct it.
Now Imagine that one landowner dams the river so that one of his neighbour's field is flooded and has no crop and another's is dry and suffers the same fate. As the only landowner with crop, he employees labourers by means of a simple bargain; work my field and you will have all you need to feed yourself and your family.
Of course these same labourers guard the dam so neither neighbour can change the flow.
If the story of the dam is not widely known or fades a little with time, then it begins to appear 'totally natural' that one field is fertile while the other two are not.
That is the reality of the market economy. Gravity is natural but we choose where to let the water flow and where not to. It is entirely possible and reasonable to make different choices.
Not a perfect analogy by any means but it will do for now.
It's quite fashionable to disparage economics by saying that it's not a 'real science' - as if that statement makes the whole discipline pointless. Of course it's not a natural science like physics and it faces some specific vulnerabilities to bias and political influences but for me, the most remarkable thing about economics is how often mathematics does describe the real world of the aggregate effects of billions of individual choices and actions.
There are some key lessons in all this that often get lost in the noise.
1. The 'market' is simply the aggregate of supply and demand equilibria.
2. It is not a zero sum game.
3. As with chemical equilibria; change the conditions, change the equilibria.
4. There are LOTS of ways to change the conditions.
Ok, so 'Communism' is synonymous with a 'planned economy.' That's probably fair. One of the basic lessons of economics is that a supply/demand equilibrium is generally the most efficient way to distribute resources hence the argument that a planned economy impoverishes everyone. That's broadly true.
Neoliberalism says that any action on the economy other than allowing equilibria to form is a planned economy and thus inefficient and thus impoverishes us all. Neither of those arguments are remotely true. You can demonstrate that empirically in lots of ways. You can also show it by multidinous thought experiments. I'll give you the ones that matters most to me but first a bit of jargon. I am of course, talking about things like 'Monopoly formation' or 'Rent-Seeking.' Happy to discuss both further but both are inevitable in the kind of market-structure Neoliberalism demands and both reduce efficiency of resource allocation. You can show this very easily, both theoretically and empirically. Happy to come back to that in another post.
Asymmetry of information and Supply-induced demand
I want to talk about these two because they are a large part of why free-markets in healthcare make everyone sick. Exhibit A is the third world and Exhibit B is the USA.
So firstly, how does supply and demand work? Well this is obvious: if I am selling something, the greater the demand, the higher price I can charge and vice versa. Similarly if what I sell is widely available, my potential customers will go down the road to my competitor where it's cheaper, forcing me to lower my prices. But if supply is limited and my competitor can't get any to sell then all the customers come to me and prices go up. I think I am correct in saying that 'price-stickiness' is the technical term for how easily prices can change and thus how quickly the equilibrium can be reached.
But there are a number of things that distort this process, these are but two examples. Asymmetry of information is key in healthcare; I know whether this operation or that drug is likely to be most effective for you. You possibly don't. What if I am paid more for doing the operation? Might that shape the information I give you? Similarly the drug company might bombard you with adverts as to why their drug is better than the surgeon's knife. There is a TON of empirical evidence that these factors drive up costs. A competing surgeon in a nearby hospital isn't much help as you probably cannot easily access the information as to which of us is better and so you pay the price I ask. Sick patients generally do not shop around thus there is inevitable price-stickiness. In chemical terms this is like the energy barrier that prevents a reaction from starting.
Supply-induced demand is interesting as it breaks the equilibrium by both forces moving in the same direction. When a new treatment comes along, it is of course a new supply. But it creates a new demand as you didn't know you wanted/needed it until the supply existed. Remember that if the alternative to treatment if death, most people will pay whatever they can scrape together. If it's a new car, I'll wait until I can afford it.
These are classic market distortions. We choose to either fuel them or mitigate them. It is this choice that is the heart of the debate.
Land ownership is probably the biggest distortion across the world. For the farmer, owning the land may mean financial security. For the tenant farmer who works just as hard as his owner-neighbour, it means much less income and of course a reliable unearned income for the landlord.
The Duke of Westminster was asked for financial advice and reportedly replied "it helps if you have an ancestor who came across with William The Conqueror."
If you don't think the way that wealthy International corporations and individuals using their wealth to give themselves access to power and thus power to bring about legal and tax changes that benefit them at the expense of everyone else over the last four decades is not a form of tyranny, then I don't think you're paying attention. The most explicit form of this is the way big polluters push the cost of their pollution on to everyone else. This is seen in financial terms but often in health effects too. If you don't believe me, research cancer clusters and big coal mining companies as but one example. You get sick, I get rich and because I am powerful and you're not, there is nothing you can do about it.
That is my argument.
AFZ
Phrasing that disaster as "killing a bunch of poor people for your amusement" is ridiculous. It was an accident caused by infrastructure neglect, not a deliberate act.
And infrastructure neglect can happen regardless of who owns the infrastructure in question. If South Fork can be used to argue against private ownership, then Aberfan can be used to argue against public ownership.
Agreed. Much as I'd like to have some sympathy for Croesos' arguments, this kind of hyperbole is a regular feature from several posters and is a real turn-off.
Various people who appear to think Trump is abhorrent as I do nevertheless seem to have decided that his tactics are so successful they ought to adopt them. That seems the most likely explanation for the outrageous caricature-laden statements that get tossed out by some people around here these days.
Because heck, being outrageous sells, doesn't it? It's the way to make yourself a big hit on social media. Fuck nuance. Fuck fairness to your opponents.
I've seen better descriptions of the motivations of the bad guys in Marvel movies.
And they're always the first ones to squeal about unfair misrepresentation whenever anyone else dares to suggest that Communist states have anything whatsoever to do with socialism.
So a single small club not paying sufficient attention to dam maintenance is evidence against all private ownership of infrastructure anywhere, but the policies and practices of a whole series of countries which explicitly claimed forms of socialism as their guiding principle can't possibly be taken as evidence about socialism. Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
Thanks for this.
I've noticed a lot of hyperbole and misrepresentation on Facebook and Twitter and I know what you mean. It makes me feel distanced from people and their beliefs, even those I otherwise agree with
Supposing an advocate of socialism thinks communism as it actually existed in the twentieth century is undesirable. They can point to structural features e.g. no free press, no peaceful way to get wrongdoers out of office, that are not necessarily required to prevent undue build up of corporate wealth. In fact, if we look at China we can see that allowing the build up of corporate wealth and aspirational levels of personal wealth has not done anything much to mitigate the undesirable features of communism. For every million people lifted out of poverty by Chinese capitalism another couple of million are stuck working in sweatshops in highly polluted cities.
Now, if you want to stop private companies from mismanaging the effects of their activities on the commons, under capitalism without government intervention it's not clear what you can do. Making laws preventing companies from polluting the commons or letting dams fall into disrepair runs contrary to the general spirit of low regulation, and the general ethos encourages manoeuvring round the laws. Allowing people who are badly affected to sue as a civil rather than a criminal matter requires more government intervention, and runs into the problem of asymmetry of resources required to pursue legal cases: large companies have more money and time and peace of mind to defend their side than their adversaries. Even marketising the commons requires considerable government intervention. The risk seems more internal to the structure of the proposed economic model.
Meanwhile, in the UK the right to public protest under capitalism seems on course to be further curtailed.
"Infrastructure neglect" is a bit like invoking the passive voice in this particular case. Active decisions made:
These weren't examples of "neglect", they were active steps taken by the dam owners/resort members to maximize their own enjoyment by increasing the risk to everyone downstream. It at least rises to the level of depraved indifference.
My larger point is that "redistribution of wealth" in the form of either government regulations requiring basic safety measures be implemented by property holders or in the form of taxation used by the state to implement such repairs themselves is neither theft as @Marvin the Martian suggested nor tyranny.
This is the same old bait-and-switch. Pointing to the super-wealthy as a way of justifying your desire for redistribution of wealth within the middle 90%.
If you have a market in housing, one of the outcomes is a tendency for house prices to be higher in the more desirable bits of the country.
Perfectly reasonable to ask whether this is undesirable and consider what if anything can be done about it by managing the market. But trying to force everyone to have the same income so the problem will go away isn't the answer.
Whether the US-led proliferation of lawyers and lawsuits is a problem is also a reasonable discussion to have. One that is not entirely separable from the role of government. But that's not really an argument for making everyone equally wealthy.
Corrected quoting code. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Features of the UK housing market include an emphasis on housing being an investment. That means that it's considered bad news if house prices fall, which then knocks on to other policies - basically restricting supply of houses because if you have more houses on the market then house prices will fall. So, we have government always talking about building more homes (because it's patently obvious that we have too few homes) but the number of homes built is a trickle. We don't have adequate laws to force owners of properties to return them to use as housing (lots of empty homes). We have incentives for people who can afford it to take out second homes, or for homes to be removed from the housing pool entirely (eg: for short term holiday lets). And, the lack of housing is spectacularly evident for those at lower incomes - exacerbated by selling off publicly owned housing with deliberate restrictions that prevent the proceeds from being used to replace that stock, and policies for 'affordable housing' as part of new developments that are not enforced, and where the definition of 'affordable' looks nothing like that. Add into that a large largely unregulated private rental sector which traps millions of people into paying unaffordable rents without any chance of putting aside the money they'd need to escape that by buying (and, other options like council housing simply don't exist).
What would the market be like if we simply changed the emphasis, if we treat housing as providing homes not investments, and that having a decent affordable home is a human right rather than a privilege of wealth? What if we build millions of council houses, and cap private rents to the point of covering costs + a small profit which won't be much more than council house rents, and build millions more houses privately which are genuinely affordable? What if we remove incentives to take homes out of the housing stock (second homes, short term lets etc)? With more houses available, prices will fall ... but if that isn't an investment what does it matter? With reduced costs for housing, people will have more money to spend in other sectors of the economy which is better for the nation in relation to job creation (that might even include building trades if people have money available for fixing up their homes).
Changing how we view housing and the impact of that on the housing market isn't even particularly socialist. It just needs people to say that the right for everyone to have a decent, affordable home trumps the right of a relatively small number of people to make a lot of money out of controlling the housing market.
There's also a pressure to get on the housing ladder, not miss out on building up capital in this way, which is absent many European countries with a higher proportion of rental properties. And if you think about it, it makes more sense to rent flats, leaving the landlord with the costs of, say, replacing the roof, and redistributing those costs in a rent that is set at a level that includes depreciation and repair. Meaning that the responsible landlord should be planning and budgeting the future of the building.
As things are currently structured, the incentive to buy is very high indeed.