Libertarian versus Marxist- equally unreal?

[Darat]

Again Libertarians, stop me when I lie.

I believe the response there is that if the company does not offer accident insurance while on the job as a stated benefit of employment, the person is free to seek a job from a competing company that does offer it.

Which is one of those points at which we get to a "Wouldn't it be nice if..." fantasy of that particular ideology.

 

[Chaos]

Which is one of those points at which we get to a "Wouldn't it be nice if..." fantasy of that particular ideology.

Correct me if I´m wrong, but was the situation "Take this job, or you are reducing to begging, and your daughters to prostitution" rather than "Take the horrible job at this mine, or the wonderful job at the other mine"?

 

[Skepticemea]

Which is one of those points at which we get to a "Wouldn't it be nice if..." fantasy of that particular ideology.

Indeed. That hypothetical also presupposes that there are competing companies that offer accident insurance. How that would make that company competitive with those companies that don't off insurance is another matter entirely.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I would say that Marxists are worse because they killed 100,000,000 people and capitalism is superior to the laughably inefficient and retarded economies that Marxists created.

Stop with how many people Marxism killed. Arguably capitalism has just as much blood on its hands. However, in terms of economic efficiency, capitalism is far better than communism, and when cheap labor is available it can also provide an affordable high standard of living. I would also like to add that Nazi Germany practice a commonly abused word in American politics "fascism." Fascism is the combination of state and corporate power under the guise of hyper nationalism. Fascism is indeed a nationalistic form of capitalism. So if you want to argue that Marxism is responsible for "x" amount of deaths then you must also argue that capitalism is also responsible for "x" amount of deaths. Not to mention the extermination or captivity of several hundreds of millions of indigenous deaths, ESPECIALLY when Leopold was over the Congo that was a humanitarian crisis if I ever saw one.

 

[Darat]

Correct me if I´m wrong, but was the situation "Take this job, or you are reducing to begging, and your daughters to prostitution" rather than "Take the horrible job at this mine, or the wonderful job at the other mine"?

No other mine would have taken him after his accident since he couldn't mine (that's ignoring the fact that it was usual at the time that if you were dismissed by any mine you would not be employed by another mine - blacklisting). But even prior to his accident his choice would have been between criminal activities, starving or taking any job he could. Which in the area pretty much meant a choice between the mill or pit.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Massive famines were caused by people trying to stop Marxism? Care to back that up?



It's not Stalin's paranoia that concerns me. It's what actually happened to people. And people actually starved to death in vast numbers. So your comparison in nonsense.

Well, then make up your mind, I should say. Either you care enough about the causes to blame Marxism and then yes, it matters if it actually was Marxism that caused it or what, or you don't care about the causes and then you can also stop it with the blaming Marxism as a cause. One or the other. Just doing canned talking points while refusing to be concerned with the actual causes and conditions isn't a valid analysis any way I want to slice it.

Not being interested in what caused it, but just wanting to link it to Marxism because it happened in an... erm... actually Stalinist state, is at best the guilt by association fallacy.

The fact is that Stalin's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. There isn't a single paragraph in Marx or even Lenin that says "starve one population to industrialize another", not the very least, because Marxism assumed that any country which switched to socialism would be already massively industrialized.

What it does resemble however is other acts of oppressive dictators and puppet governments that happened regardless of political orientation. E.g., the genocide of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia in the mid 60's was done in the name of stopping communism, and definitely not by Marxists. E.g., the Phoenix Program in South Vietnam, with the US's blessing, actually demanded more people be killed (most without any trial or any checks to make sure they were even communists and not just revenge on political opponents) per capita and year than even Stalin's purges. And again it was done in the name of stopping communism.

 

[EGarrett]

Cool. I've already read it. Now, past your assumption, I was answering your assertion that Hong Kong's free market is very productive (you brought up GDP). What you are forgetting to include is the a lot of the products and services in Hong Kong are sold illegally. You (hopefully) and I both know that bootleg products are at least a little bit of a problem in HK. Giving people a book to help them find scams isn't really working, either. Do you think they should do anything else about it, and if so, what?

Do you have any evidence that Hong Kong's economy grew BECAUSE of bootlegging? There are many, many countries that have little or no controls over knock-offs being produced, but none of them have experienced the incredible economic growth that Hong Kong has. What Hong Kong has, that the other countries don't is an economy ranked as the world's most free.

I were referring to the Irish famine, there were no government ban on food exports. The food merchants "motivation to care for themselves and their loved ones" by exporting food gave a less than perfect outcome for the rest of the population.

How? How do you feel that this motivation caused famine?

Yes, you've stated that, but it doesn't make it true. It's actually wrong. Full tilt communism is supposed to work that way. Socialism even as imagined by Marx, plus in every single country that called itself socialist, was always still supposed to work by incentives, including different incomes, bonuses, promotions, etc. So yes, you actually described socialism too. It's that generic and uninformative.

Nope. In practice, pay in communist countries was not linked to performance...but instead to fulfillment of quotas that were not adequately researched, assigned or enforced. That's why hotels in China, for one example, tended to claim to be fully booked even when they were half-empty. You're also confusing the pre-communist stage that most "communist countries" were stuck in with the end-goal of Marxist theory. It's cute though, that in the process of arguing you're attempting to define socialism out of existence.

 

[Toke]

How? How do you feel that this motivation caused famine?

Are you being deliberately dense?

How about you explain the libertarian ideological merits in not banning food exports from a starving country.
Or are you some kind of socialist that would have mitigated the starvation by interfering in the food merchants right to do business as they saw fit?

 

[Ziggurat]

Well, then make up your mind, I should say. Either you care enough about the causes to blame Marxism and then yes, it matters if it actually was Marxism that caused it or what, or you don't care about the causes and then you can also stop it with the blaming Marxism as a cause. One or the other. Just doing canned talking points while refusing to be concerned with the actual causes and conditions isn't a valid analysis any way I want to slice it.

A consistent pattern of brutal oppression exists with every single Marxist revolution. Attempts to blame those consistent results on something other than their common feature of Marxism don't really interest me. It's just a way to avoid the obvious.

The fact is that Stalin's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism.

And Mao's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. And Castro's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. And Che Guevara's Marxism had nothing to do with Marxism. And Kim Il Sung's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. And Pol Pot's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism.

Quite the coincidence we've got here. Maybe next time it will work out OK.

There isn't a single paragraph in Marx or even Lenin that says "starve one population to industrialize another", not the very least, because Marxism assumed that any country which switched to socialism would be already massively industrialized.

And yet, it just keeps working out that way. Poor Marx.

What it does resemble however is other acts of oppressive dictators

That might be relevant if I was trying to claim that Marxism is unique in its brutality. But since I didn't...

 

[Toke]

That might be relevant if I was trying to claim that Marxism is unique in its brutality. But since I didn't...

You get thinking about Allende and Pinochet, one were somewhat pink, the other a brutal dictator. Iran is another example.

I think you are getting confused because revolutions tend to be violent and most recent ones have been marxist inspired. They have also been big countries and there have been great effort to vilify* them in the west.

If you abandoned the ideological bias you would likely find that all dictatorships abuse their populations and that facistoid capitalism is quite common among them.


*And a tendency to ignore the excesses of allied dictatorships.

 

[Darat]

Could it be explained why Somali can't be used to illustrate problems with the ideology of libertarianism but Hong Kong can be used to illustrate the success of the ideology of libertarianism?

I thought the objection against using Somali is that there was no attempt to create a society based on the ideology of libertarianism? If that is so the same objection can be applied to Hong Kong i.e. there was no attempt to create a society based on the ideology of libertarianism.

 

[Ziggurat]

You get thinking about Allende and Pinochet, one were somewhat pink, the other a brutal dictator. Iran is another example.

I think you are getting confused because revolutions tend to be violent and most recent ones have been marxist inspired. They have also been big countries and there have been great effort to vilify* them in the west.

If you abandoned the ideological bias you would likely find that all dictatorships abuse their populations and that facistoid capitalism is quite common among them.


*And a tendency to ignore the excesses of allied dictatorships.

Umm... what?

This response makes no sense. It's like you're arguing with a totally different person, even though you quoted me. I've never claimed that only Marxists are brutal. I'm quite aware of the fact that dictatorships of pretty much every stripe are brutal. But the thing is, every single Marxist implementation ends up as a brutal dictatorship. The obvious conclusion is that there's something intrinsic to Marxism that leads it there every single time. You have not presented any counterargument to this argument of mine.

As to capitalism, first off, capitalism is not synonymous with libertarianism, and this thread was started to compare Marxism with libertarianism, not capitalism. But even if we're comparing Marxism with capitalism, the fact is that capitalist implementations, while sometimes dictatorships, are frequently not. Capitalism may not preclude brutal oppression, but it's also quite clear (by many counterexamples) that such brutal oppression is in no way intrinsic to capitalism. And this distinguishes it from Marxism.

 

[Ziggurat]

I thought the objection against using Somali is that there was no attempt to create a society based on the ideology of libertarianism? If that is so the same objection can be applied to Hong Kong i.e. there was no attempt to create a society based on the ideology of libertarianism.

Sure. Hong Kong is an illustration of the success of capitalism, not libertarianism. There's significant overlap, but they aren't synonymous.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

A consistent pattern of brutal oppression exists with every single Marxist revolution. Attempts to blame those consistent results on something other than their common feature of Marxism don't really interest me. It's just a way to avoid the obvious.

As opposed to what? As opposed to your refusing to even discuss anything that could contradict your guilt by association attempt?

And Mao's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. And Castro's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. And Che Guevara's Marxism had nothing to do with Marxism. And Kim Il Sung's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism. And Pol Pot's brutality had nothing to do with Marxism.

Quite the coincidence we've got here. Maybe next time it will work out OK.

Requiring one to not notice that similar atrocities were committed by Diem, and by Sukarno, and by Papa Doc Duvalier, and by Augusto Pinochet, and by Ion Antonescu, and by a bunch of other self-proclaimed ANTI-communists. And for that matter that the only actual common denominator is unchecked power in the service of some agenda (which, again, for Stalin it wasn't even particularly about Marxism), rather than any particular economic ideology.

But generally, by that logic, Stalin was a man, Mao was a man, Castro was a man, Che Guevara was a man, and Kim Il Sung was a man, and Mussolini was a man, and Papa Doc Duvalier was a man, and so on. Quite the coincidence you have there, eh?

Do you understand now why you can't just pick whatever trait you wish and do a cum hoc ergo propter hoc?

And yet, it just keeps working out that way. Poor Marx.

It keeps working that way because that's what happens when you give an extremist unchecked power, regardless of economic views. When someone is extremist enough about an ideology to lead an armed revolt or coup in its name, big whopping surprise if they still keep being an extremist afterwards.

It worked just as well for any extremists, and any ideology, including

- communism

- anti-communism (see Augusto Pinochet in Chile and several others)

- nationalism (see Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti)

- religion (see the Taliban or Iran)

Etc.

Tarring all Marxists with the same brush as Stalin and Mao is just as silly as tarring all right-wingers with the same brush as Pinochet, Sukharno and Diem.

That might be relevant if I was trying to claim that Marxism is unique in its brutality. But since I didn't...

It is relevant if the actual common denominator in brutal dictatorships is something entirely different.

 

[Darat]

Sure. Hong Kong is an illustration of the success of capitalism, not libertarianism. There's significant overlap, but they aren't synonymous.

Then that would mean it should be discounted as an example to illustrate the ideology of libertarianism, if the same logic is applied to both countries.

 

[Ziggurat]

Then that would mean it should be discounted as an example to illustrate the ideology of libertarianism, if the same logic is applied to both countries.

I would say so.

Does that surprise you? I said from the beginning that I think libertarianism fails in the real world. But I also said that the failure mechanism for libertarianism is completely different than the failure mechanism for ideologies like Marxism. Libertarian states will simply stop being libertarian. No bloodbath is necessary, people just start implementing non-libertarian policies and that's it.

 

[Toke]

Umm... what?

This response makes no sense. It's like you're arguing with a totally different person, even though you quoted me. I've never claimed that only Marxists are brutal. I'm quite aware of the fact that dictatorships of pretty much every stripe are brutal. But the thing is, every single Marxist implementation ends up as a brutal dictatorship. The obvious conclusion is that there's something intrinsic to Marxism that leads it there every single time. You have not presented any counterargument to this argument of mine.

As to capitalism, first off, capitalism is not synonymous with libertarianism, and this thread was started to compare Marxism with libertarianism, not capitalism. But even if we're comparing Marxism with capitalism, the fact is that capitalist implementations, while sometimes dictatorships, are frequently not. Capitalism may not preclude brutal oppression, but it's also quite clear (by many counterexamples) that such brutal oppression is in no way intrinsic to capitalism. And this distinguishes it from Marxism.

I were trying to point out how revolutions tend to be violent, and point to examples of elected "Marxist" who did not suppress their populations.

BTW: I understand libertarianism to be capitalism without a government to limit the excesses resulting from e.g. uneven power distribution between employer and employees.

 

[Darat]

I would say so.

Does that surprise you? ...snip...

No.

 

[Toke]

I would say so.

Does that surprise you? I said from the beginning that I think libertarianism fails in the real world. But I also said that the failure mechanism for libertarianism is completely different than the failure mechanism for ideologies like Marxism. Libertarian states will simply stop being libertarian. No bloodbath is necessary, people just start implementing non-libertarian policies and that's it.

The strikes and lockouts were sometimes rather bloody.
There are still places where union organiser is a risky job.

 

[Ziggurat]

As opposed to what? As opposed to your refusing to even discuss anything that could contradict your guilt by association attempt?

I'd be fascinated to hear your explanation for why every single example of Marxism ends in violence and oppression. Please, do tell us all about how it's just a coincidence, it's never been done right, but next time they're sure to pull it off without all that violence.

Requiring one to not notice that similar atrocities were committed by Diem, and by Sukarno, and by Papa Doc Duvalier, and by Augusto Pinochet, and by Ion Antonescu, and by a bunch of other self-proclaimed ANTI-communists.

You can notice it all you want to. But it contradicts nothing I've said. And it doesn't absolve Marxists of their own violence either.

But generally, by that logic, Stalin was a man, Mao was a man, Castro was a man, Che Guevara was a man, and Kim Il Sung was a man, and Mussolini was a man, and Papa Doc Duvalier was a man, and so on. Quite the coincidence you have there, eh?

It might be, if not for the fact that George Washington was a man, Winston Churchill was a man, etc. Notice what I can do with your comparison: I can provide counterexamples. Those counterexamples disprove the claim that being male leads heads of state to become oppressive tyrants. Where are the counterexamples of Marxists who got it right? There are none.

It keeps working that way because that's what happens when you give an extremist unchecked power, regardless of economic views.

Evidently the only Marxists who ever come to power are extremists with unchecked power. You've come up with a mechanism for how Marxism fails, but since that failure is still consistent, we're still back to concluding that there's something wrong with Marxism that it always fails by this same mechanism. The fact that other ideologies can also fail by this mechanism doesn't actually fix Marxism. Nor does it matter to my argument that Marxism is not unique in being a failure.