[Truth To Power]

The more I look at @Truth To Power, 's posts, the more he sounds to me like a Maoist.

Inexplicable.

Yes the owners of capital and property may be freely deprived of their ownership rights. All it requires is a 'peasant' uprising!

<yawn> How's that been working out for you?

[Truth To Power]

The reasons why socialism is attractive to young people nowadays is because they see there is no future for them under capitalism. No homes. No healthcare. No education without massive debts for the rest of your life. No work benefits even if they have a job. Nada!

And because they have been prevented from learning the fact that there is an alternative to capitalism other than socialism.

As the current system continues to make things worse for the working classes all over, socialism will become even more attractive.

As long as they are kept ignorant of the fact that there is another, clearly superior alternative. If they fall for socialism again, they will enjoy the same tyranny, poverty, misery and stagnation again. Capitalism offers people very little, but at least it offers them more than socialism, for one simple reason: when capitalists steal people's rights to use land, it does not reduce the amount of land available for production; but when socialists steal people's rights to own capital, it DOES reduce the amount of capital available for production.

[Crantag]

Inexplicable.

<yawn> How's that been working out for you?

I was channeling you there, Tiger, not advocating for peasant revolution myself.

That is what is the eventual conclusion of your notions there on rights to property, Grasshopper. Just refer to a history of the Chinese Communist Revolution sometime and you will see what I mean there, Caribou.

But the ad hominem tact you now resort to there, Walking Stick, was clearly foreshadowed a page ago when you sought as a pejorative to label me a (*drumbeat) socialist. So Old Bat, having comprehensively lost the argument on its merits (no you can't out-economics theory me), that's clearly all you have left to stand on, Ladybug.

However, what I said in pejoratively labeling you reminiscent of a Maoist, that was actually quite explicable, and I have given the reasoning as to why, Alpaca.

[Truth To Power]

Yeah there is an element of truth in that except the culprit isn't "capitalism" but is collective intergenerational debt.

The collective intergenerational debt is directly caused by capitalism: private ownership of land. The productive young must pay (almost always older) landowners full market value just for PERMISSION to earn a living. They are then taxed both on what they earn and on what they consume to fund desirable public services and infrastructure. Then they have to pay the landowners full market value again just for PERMISSION TO ACCESS the exact same public services and infrastructure their taxes just paid for. All because of the capitalist institution of private ownership of land and the associated legal entitlement of the landowner to take everything above subsistence from everyone else.

The boomers had the votes, lack of integrity (so square) and sheer numbers to run up enormous debts for enormous benefits for themselves and left the debts for their children and grandchildren to pay.

No. The public debt was caused by finance capitalism: the private banksters' legal entitlement to issue money in the form of debt. If instead fiat money had been issued by the Mint, debt-free, to be spent into circulation by government instead of borrowed into existence from private banksters at interest, there would have been no need for government to go into debt.

It's like an entire generation getting royally drunk and then leaving the hangover, trash and vomitas for their children to suffer and clean up.

No, it's actually much more like a con artist persuading a naive victim to pay rent for using public roads.

I don't blame any millennial or gen x being mad at the previous generation and it is a problem that needs a solution.

It wasn't the previous generation's fault any more than it is theirs. Both are equally ignorant, because both are lazy, cowardly, and dishonest in their thinking.

I suppose the millennials might eventually get the political influence to ditch the debt, like Argentina style.

Good luck with that.

The odious Boomers won't live forever.

At least they were once idealists.

[QatzelOk]

What does it even mean to abolish private property? Everyone must live on a government owned slave plantation? ...

Both slaves and plantations are examples of private property.

Co-workers working on a cooperative farm is a better example of the abolition of private property.

A family could have its own small farm, but there would be no inheritance of the land.

Deconcentrating farming and getting rid of our massive factory farms (private property) for much more efficient collectives and small family farms, can only be accomplished by communism or something really close.

[SolarCross]

Both slaves and plantations are examples of private property.

Not if they are owned by government, eg North Korea.

Co-workers working on a cooperative farm is a better example of the abolition of private property.

That is still private property. More than one owner is not less private property than one owner, how did you manage to imagine otherwise?

A family could have its own small farm, but there would be no inheritance of the land.

So why would a family bother investing the blood, sweat and tears developing their farm if strangers will take it from them and leave their children destitute? Also why? Why is there never an explantation of why with all these kooky schemes? Just we make it the law that pancakes will be worn on the head like a hat on Sundays on pain of death or similar without a word as to what purpose it is supposed to serve.

Deconcentrating farming and getting rid of our massive factory farms (private property) for much more efficient collectives and small family farms, can only be accomplished by communism or something really close.

That literally doesn't make any sense at all. For one thing private property can be small or large there is nothing intrinsically tilted to scale, though it's opposite public property tends to be large.

--------

My take on this: Insane people should be culled.

[Tainari88]

Senor @SolarCross may I ask you a question? Before I go to bed? Tomorrow I will be back and hopefully you would have answered the question by then?

Have you ever studied societies in human history who don't have concepts of private property? About land or houses or food or anything material? How about commonly held properties in which the entire community owns it? Communally held property? Why would any society do that over private property under capitalism? Can you think of some advantages it may have?

Common sense for me means you don't own something a lot more powerful than you are and in which you depend in order to live? I need water. I need food. Land and rivers and wells, etc are therefore more powerful in a certain way than I am. The material environment has living cells and therefore it is a living organism. I depend on it to live. Someday I will die and my flesh and bones if I am buried will rot away and be eaten by worms and be food for the plants and the earth. I give back in a small way what I have lived off of. Who is the owner in that relationship? I think ownership of something is a bit on the self delusional side?

What do you think @SolarCross . Please don't give me an argument about it is the natural system. There is nothing natural about owning something many times more powerful than we are. We depend on the sun for life. If the sun goes nova? We are not going to be in good shape.

And private property can be very absurd. In Bolivia in a town this company tried to 'privatize' rain water. They had 'rights' to all the water that fell from the sky? The people of Cochabamba disagreed. Guess who won? People are going to need water. If they can't pay for it? Because they are too poor to pay for it? Should they be allowed to die of thirst? Because profit is more important?

I really want you to tell me how one views private property SolarCross as somehow 'common sense'? See you tomorrow.

[SolarCross]

Senor @SolarCross may I ask you a question? Before I go to bed? Tomorrow I will be back and hopefully you would have answered the question by then?

A question? You seem to have issues with counting, by my count that is 19 questions plus one that reads like a question though it doesn't have a question mark. No one ever answers my questions or not all of them, mine are a touch Socratic if you answer them honestly you will come to the truth for yourself, hence why some do not answer them, some people do not want the truth.

I'll answer your questions though it is an act of charity that will not be reciprocated.

Have you ever studied societies in human history who don't have concepts of private property? About land or houses or food or anything material? How about commonly held properties in which the entire community owns it? Communally held property? Why would any society do that over private property under capitalism? Can you think of some advantages it may have?

Much air is vented over the noble savages of mankind's pre-historical days, how they were all happy communists or whatever. They weren't but it doesn't matter, property conventions suitable for nomads who can own no more than they can carry are not suitable for agricultural people who can and need to accumulate more property than they can carry on their person, including land.
It proves nothing about the property conventions suitable to a civilisation composed of millions of internet engineers, cab drivers, florists, paramedics etc. It is a completely different thing.

Also communal property still exists alongside private property, since the Romans invented the concept of the republic, it has come to be called "public" property. It is essentially just like private property except the owner isn't a human being but a ghost that is somehow the amorphous aggregate of a million souls but cannot be commanded by most of them, just a few rulers. Public property has its uses, having a ghost own the roads for example is no great problem though there is no advantage over a king owning them, but that doesn't translate so well for the personal dominions of ordinary people: farms, homes, shops, workshops etc. They tried to make all land public land in the USSR and the results were pretty shitty let's be honest. A lot of people were murdered to make it happen and now they are undoing it all, what a waste of life, why don't any of you learn from the past?

Common sense for me means you don't own something a lot more powerful than you are and in which you depend in order to live? I need water. I need food. Land and rivers and wells, etc are therefore more powerful in a certain way than I am. The material environment has living cells and therefore it is a living organism. I depend on it to live. Someday I will die and my flesh and bones if I am buried will rot away and be eaten by worms and be food for the plants and the earth. I give back in a small way what I have lived off of. Who is the owner in that relationship? I think ownership of something is a bit on the self delusional side?

I don't know what any of this has to do with the topic at hand. In terms of power though, intelligence rules all, land is just rock and dirt, water is just water, it has no intelligence (unless you are an animist or something) consequently it is not more powerful than any human, not even more powerful than a bug, at least a bug has a brain. Property is an artifice to an extent, you can harshly call that a delusion, but such is civilisation, civilisation is built out of delusions then. Men shouldn't rape, don't steal, don't kill, respect one another's property.... all "delusions" we believe to make civilisation work. Anarchy is what happens when the delusions fall away, and the results are not pretty: rape, mass murders, vandalism, theft. Chaos, the return to the wild. Then some strongman comes along and restores order and the same delusions return and we are all the happier for it.

What do you think SolarCross . Please don't give me an argument about it is the natural system. There is nothing natural about owning something many times more powerful than we are. We depend on the sun for life. If the sun goes nova? We are not going to be in good shape.

And private property can be very absurd. In Bolivia in a town this company tried to 'privatize' rain water. They had 'rights' to all the water that fell from the sky? The people of Cochabamba disagreed. Guess who won? People are going to need water. If they can't pay for it? Because they are too poor to pay for it? Should they be allowed to die of thirst? Because profit is more important?

Private property, or indeed any convention of law, is not a "natural system", natural systems are witless rocks falling on each other randomly. Law is contrived, a work of intelligence, to make order out of chaos. So what of it? You should go back and read my post on Nordic myth. Humankind is at its best inside the wall, civilised, and we can't go back to the chaos of nature without really catastrophic casualties, for one thing the earth cannot support 7 billion hunter-gatherers. Going back to nature, living as "noble savages" means the 99% die with no children to follow them.

As for your rainwater company, I suspect you are misrepresenting them somewhat but it matters not, an instance of a daft claim does not make all claims daft. Do you live in a house? You know that is private property right? The reason you, either as an owner or as a tenant, can legally exclude the rapist, murderer and thief or indeed anyone you dislike to invite in is because it is private property. Do you really want to give that up?

I really want you to tell me how one views private property SolarCross as somehow 'common sense'? See you tomorrow.

It is common sense to a civilised person, that is clear, everybody (barring a few crazy cult leaders like Gerrard Winstanley) seems to get it even without being taught it in school or whatever. To a wild animal no of course it is probably incomprehensible without a lot of training at which point it is no longer wild but domesticated. We (or some of us) aren't wild animals anymore though.

[Tainari88]

@SolarCross thank you for answering my questions. I wanted to get to know your perspective on it. You did a great job. Thank you.

You did not ask me any questions so I don't have anything to answer now do I?

I think you would like reading Harari's books "Homo Sapiens" and "Homo Deus" he tackled all those points of yours extremely well and I think he would be the winner of the debate. He is a master historian from Israel.

[Beren]

I wonder whether a majority of young '68-ers rejected capitalism as well, and many of them were Maoists too I guess, but capitalism still stands and now they're greens as adults.

[SolarCross]

thank you for answering my questions. I wanted to get to know your perspective on it. You did a great job. Thank you.

You did not ask me any questions so I don't have anything to answer now do I?

I think you would like reading Harari's books "Homo Sapiens" and "Homo Deus" he tackled all those points of yours extremely well and I think he would be the winner of the debate. He is a master historian from Israel.

You are gracious to say so. Thanks. Perhaps I'll read Harari sometime then.

[QatzelOk]

why would a family bother investing the blood, sweat and tears developing their farm if strangers will take it from them and leave their children destitute?...

First of all, in a collective-good society, no one will be left destitute. Farming isn't for everyone, and the offspring of farmers would go on to appropriate a living arrangement that suits their needs.

Shared property means inheritance is forbidden, which it should be. Otherwise, increasingly violent clans end up owning everything via hucksterism.

[Igor Antunov]

fuck communism and a happy new year.

[Truth To Power]

I was channeling you there, Tiger, not advocating for peasant revolution myself.

So you were makin' $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote. Shocker!

That is what is the eventual conclusion of your notions there on rights to property, Grasshopper.

I don't agree that the privileged will always be so greedy and stupid that they will prefer to perish in blood and flame, and watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than give up even the smallest portion of their unjust advantages.

Just refer to a history of the Chinese Communist Revolution sometime and you will see what I mean there, Caribou.

Communism is inherently revolutionary. I'm not a communist, or even a socialist.

But the ad hominem tact you now resort to there, Walking Stick, was clearly foreshadowed a page ago when you sought as a pejorative to label me a (*drumbeat) socialist.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

So Old Bat, having comprehensively lost the argument on its merits

(no you can't out-economics theory me),

Uh, yes, ol' bean, I can and have.

that's clearly all you have left to stand on, Ladybug.

I have identified the relevant indisputable facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications.

However, what I said in pejoratively labeling you reminiscent of a Maoist, that was actually quite explicable, and I have given the reasoning as to why, Alpaca.

Oh? You have merely neglected to explain it...?

[Crantag]

Yes at @Truth To Power, it is clear that you have the indisputable facts which accord to the objective physical reality which exists only inside your own head.

[Crantag]

It's really hard to take someone seriously who resorts to, 'you're a _____! You're bad!'.

This has about the maturity of a 3 year old in it, in my opinion.

That said, ironically I don't even regard myself as anti-capitalist.

As one who actually understands economics (which puts me in rare company in this thread, to be sure), I actually understand the utility of many contemporary 'capitalist' functions, including the expedience of markets for resource allocation, for example.

Also, currently two of my most important possessions are my 2017 car and my phone, each of which I bought on credit, and used these implements to earn their worth over proceeding months. Computers and cars are two industries in which competition has been vibrant and consumers share in the proceeds of this. The case of such industries also does illustrate the scalability of the virtues of competition.

Most productive industries are better private. Energy and arms production are both industries which many countries in the world have decided to retain public control over, and there are good arguments as to why this might be preferred.

However, we still have the matter of one guy in here calling for the logical and reasonable dispossessing of the property of land owners, who fails to acknowledge the meaning of this sentiment, within the context of recent history.

He suggests I have untoward ideas, while accusing me of being a socialist despite my objections (I don't regard socialism as a pejorative, but I do think socialism is failing in Europe).

It is frankly quite offensive, and there's no other way to put it. And I might as well fire back, though I do mean this, it is also indication of a low degree of practical intelligence.

[SolarCross]

First of all, in a collective-good society, no one will be left destitute. Farming isn't for everyone, and the offspring of farmers would go on to appropriate a living arrangement that suits their needs.

Shared property means inheritance is forbidden, which it should be. Otherwise, increasingly violent clans end up owning everything via hucksterism.

First of all what society isn't a "collective-good" society? Socialists don't have a monopoly on that, in fact they tend to be below average at "collective-good" despite their preening and posturing.

You can't abolish inheritance all you can do is just change who gets the inheritance. An inheritance is a posthumous transfer of property, so since people will continue to die and property will continue to exist after people die then property will continue to be transfered to someone else. But who?

Ownership is authority over the property, that is literally what it means, whoever has the authority to decide who gets it next is in some sense the owner. That is how it has been since forever and always will be. If the farmer can't decide to give the farm to whoever he wants (his children most likely) then he isn't an owner, at best he is a tenant, if it is a bunch of blood soaked frothy mouthed communists deciding who gets it next then the commies are the owners. Ownership is authority over property.

So you are just saying that in your ideal society ordinary people will be demoted to tenants (if they are lucky) and the communists will own everything.

[Truth To Power]

As one who actually understands economics (which puts me in rare company in this thread, to be sure),

Your understanding of economics is actually quite shallow and often incorrect:

I actually understand the utility of many contemporary 'capitalist' functions, including the expedience of markets for resource allocation, for example.

Effective market resource allocation does not require capitalism, as China and HK prove. Capitalism is about OWNERSHIP, not MARKETS.

The case of such industries also does illustrate the scalability of the virtues of competition.

Effective competition is also orthogonal to capitalism. In fact, modern finance capitalism is roundly anti-competitive.

Most productive industries are better private.

True, but only where market failure conditions do not make competition counter-productive, as they do in most utility and infrastructure industries, medical care, education, and a few other sectors.

However, we still have the matter of one guy in here calling for the logical and reasonable dispossessing of the property of land owners, who fails to acknowledge the meaning of this sentiment, within the context of recent history.

It means liberty, justice, equal rights, progress and truth, just as dispossessing the property of slave owners did 200 years ago.

He suggests I have untoward ideas, while accusing me of being a socialist despite my objections (I don't regard socialism as a pejorative, but I do think socialism is failing in Europe).

No substantial part of Europe has been meaningfully socialist for over 25 years. If you are not a socialist, I apologize: I was interpolating from the types of disingenuousness that are characteristic of your responses.

[Crantag]

TruthtoPower has an amazing tendency to construct some sterotype avatar and substitute it in the place of the person he is talking to.

Now he treats me like an apologist for the failures of capitalism.

There is no substantial debate to be had here, at all. I could easily go into a lot of depth on a lot of relevant topics.

TruthtoPower prefers to merely take potshots on the basis not of anything qualitative in a person's posts, but rather on the basis of whispers inside his head. This prevents one from getting to the point of anything substantial.

P.S., maybe I should PM you my Master's degree in economics, or perhaps my undergraduate certificates where my professors twice voted me the top in my class in economics (top junior and top graduating senior).

I had might as well throw rank around, as you did so earlier, Mister philosophy degree holder.

You don't understand nuance, at all, along the full line. That is why you are incapable of substantial debate here.

[Truth To Power]

P.S., maybe I should PM you my Master's degree in economics, or perhaps my undergraduate certificates where my professors twice voted me the top in my class in economics (top junior and top graduating senior).

I might have known someone so completely misinformed and impervious to correction of his false beliefs on the subject would hold a graduate degree in it. The surest proof of not understanding economics is to be admitted into graduate studies in the discipline.

I had might as well throw rank around, as you did so earlier, Mister philosophy degree holder.

Unfortunately, holding a graduate degree in economics effectively disqualifies one from contributing anything of value to a discussion of the subject, as one cannot even be admitted to graduate studies in economics unless one has given at least a convincing simulation of being impervious to fact and logic on the subject. In effect, it is like some buffoon trying to contribute to a discussion of medical practice while holding a graduate degree in homeopathy.

You don't understand nuance, at all, along the full line. That is why you are incapable of substantial debate here.

I'm not the one who can't even tell the difference between something that was produced and something that wasn't. You have to hold a graduate degree in economics to have become that ignorant.