Socialsim is only possible through Coercion, by Paul (old title: Equity v. Equality and Government Policy) (2 Viewers)

[coldseat]

I thought of posting this in the All Things Racist thread, but ultimately felt it would be better in it's own thread. I ran across this opinion by George Will warning about the creeping danger of equity based government policy pushed by progressives. His overriding point is:

Harlan’s Plessy dissent insisted that the Constitution’s post-Civil War amendments forbid “the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that constitute badges of slavery or servitude.” Today, 125 years later, multiplying departures from colorblind government — myriad race-based preferential treatments — are becoming a different but also invidious badge: of permanent incapacity.

Laws or administrative policies adopted for (in the words of today’s chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr.) the “sordid” practice of “divvying us up by race” can be deleterious for the intended beneficiaries. Benefits allocated to a specially protected racial cohort might come to be seen as a badge of inferiority. Such preferences might seem to insinuate that recipients of government-dispensed special privileges cannot thrive without them.

Government spoils systems, racial or otherwise, wound their beneficiaries. Getting used to special dependency, and soon experiencing it as an entitlement, the beneficiaries might come to feel entitled to preferences forever. Hence, progressives working to supplant equality of opportunity with “equity” — race-conscious government allocation of social rewards — are profoundly insulting, and potentially injurious, to African Americans and other favored groups.

Canellos’s stirring biography resoundingly establishes that Harlan was a hero. So, what are those who today are trying to erase the great principle of colorblindness that Harlan championed?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/30/pursuing-equity-over-equality-reveals-nations-moral-regression/

This is a very convincing argument for equality based government policy, one that I used to believe in, but it ignores a lot of realities and history. First, it ignores that centuries of purposeful inequality in government policy have directly led to the economic, social, and community destabilization and destitution that prevented black families for accumulating wealth. And how those purposeful actions have lead to the astonishing difference in the wealth gap between black and white families that has only worsened over time. While conservative will acknowledge this wealth gap and pay lip service to closing it, they fail to admit/consider how equality based public policy (something we've been trying to implement in race neutral government policy since the 60's) has failed to correct the issue and in many case has served to exacerbate it. While race neutral, equality based government policy may be easier for white voters to accept, it fails to address the historic inequalities entrenched by centuries of purposeful government based inequality. John Oliver make this point perfectly in this piece on housing discrimination. It's a 30 minute commitment, but well worth it because he provides a lot of prospective.



My overall point here is that if we you actually care or want to correct the effects centuries has purposeful government inequality, you actually have to target the aid and remediation to the people who where targeted in the inequality (i.e. equity based government policy). Anything else is paying lip service to the problem and asking black people in particular to "just get over it".

 

[RobF]

Let's try again.

Let's not. Because all you're doing is constantly redefining your terms and contradicting yourself, pretending you haven't by literally ignoring that being pointed out - as you did in this post - and then repeating yourself. That's not what discussing things in good faith looks like. And if you can't do that, eventually people stop bothering to engage with you.

To give one more example, here. As I said earlier:

And we already went over showing that to reach that conclusion you're simply, and wrongly, ignoring the democratic part, along with redefining socialism as suits whatever argument you're trying to push at the time, where one moment it's 'full-on in the most absolute sense or it's not socialism at all' and the next it's just 'a commune or a worker-owned business within a capitalist system'.

We already showed you're ignoring the democratic part. And you just did the second part again as well.

Could there be a Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos in North Korea or Cuba? Obviously no!

So the left comes up with the term democratic socialism to soften the blow. They assume that people will vote for socialism at the polling station during elections. OK, assume the voters elect socialism. What happens to the business owners? Can they continue to function as capitalists?

Here you equate democratic socialism with North Korea and Cuba, assert that a Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos simply couldn't exist, and then imply, yet again, that any form of socialism including democratic socialism must be absolute and must exclude business owners and any form of capitalism completely.

Sure, but let's talk about this in philosophical terms. The truth is that a man would not be allowed to have a business in a 100% socialist nation. OTOH, anyone can be a socialist in a 100% capitalist nation. No one is stopping American socialists to establish workers owned businesses.

And then you turn right around and argue that "anyone can be socialist in a 100% capitalist nation" because socialism can just be a workers' owned business.

It. Can't. Be. Both. If socialism necessitates excluding capitalism, then a 100% capitalist nation necessarily excludes socialism by mere virtue of being capitalist, and your notion that socialism uniquely can not be democratic by that criterion falls apart.

But if socialism doesn't need to be absolute and can coexist with a capitalist nation, through structures like workers' owned businesses, then democratic socialism can coexist with capitalism and your notion that socialism is not democratic by that criterion falls apart there too.

You can't make an argument by redefining your terms to fit whatever frame you're trying to shove things through. You're not Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. No matter how many times you repeat yourself.

 

[Saintamaniac]

Free stuff is hard to come by because someone has to pay for it. There is no such thing as free.

There most certainly is free stuff. Last year 55 Fortune 500 companies got free stuff paid for with our tax dollars. They got free roads, free bridges, free infrastructure and more. It was free to them but it cost us a shirt ton of taxes. And don't talk to me about the tax laws. The end result is that they paid $0 damn dollars last year in taxes and reaped the benefit of those freebees while enriching themselves. And it wasn't free. As I stated earlier, the American tax payer footed the bill.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. Adam Smith. Do you understand the Adam Smith quote?

The quote in layman's terms means that the butcher, the brewer or the baker don't give a shirt about their customers. His only concern is for his profit. Poor customers who can't afford their product are of no concern for them. They only benefit from the customers who are willing to pay the price that they set or that the market dictates for his product.

The question is do you fully understand the quote?

 

[Saintamaniac]

Strawman

straw man
/ˌstrô ˈman/

noun
noun: strawman

1. 1.
   an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.
   "her familiar procedure of creating a straw man by exaggerating their approach"
   
   
   
2. 2.
   a person regarded as having no substance or integrity.
   "a photogenic straw man gets inserted into office and advisers dictate policy"
   
   
   
   
   I'm posting this to help you with your understanding of a term and fallacy that you keep accusing others of doing when in actuality, it is you who are constantly using strawman arguments and then attacking that strawman when people show you to be a fraud. You toss around words from your thesaurus that you yourself don't fully understand and you paste articles and use obscure references that you don't understand or haven't fully researched to try to impress others with your "expanded knowledge". Case in point, your favorite feminist. Hopefully now that you have the definition of strawman in front of you, you will refrain from 1.) making strawman attacks and 2.) accusing others of strawmen when someone destroys your weak argument.

 

[Paul]

Let's not. Because all you're doing is constantly redefining your terms and contradicting yourself, pretending you haven't by literally ignoring that being pointed out - as you did in this post - and then repeating yourself. That's not what discussing things in good faith looks like. And if you can't do that, eventually people stop bothering to engage with you.

To give one more example, here. As I said earlier:


We already showed you're ignoring the democratic part. And you just did the second part again as well.


Here you equate democratic socialism with North Korea and Cuba, assert that a Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos simply couldn't exist, and then imply, yet again, that any form of socialism including democratic socialism must be absolute and must exclude business owners and any form of capitalism completely.


And then you turn right around and argue that "anyone can be socialist in a 100% capitalist nation" because socialism can just be a workers' owned business.

It. Can't. Be. Both. If socialism necessitates excluding capitalism, then a 100% capitalist nation necessarily excludes socialism by mere virtue of being capitalist, and your notion that socialism uniquely can not be democratic by that criterion falls apart.

But if socialism doesn't need to be absolute and can coexist with a capitalist nation, through structures like workers' owned businesses, then democratic socialism can coexist with capitalism and your notion that socialism is not democratic by that criterion falls apart there too.

You can't make an argument by redefining your terms to fit whatever frame you're trying to shove things through. You're not Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. No matter how many times you repeat yourself.

For your argument to work you need to redefine socialism and somehow fit it within the framework of a capitalist economy.

 

[samiam5211]

For your argument to work you need to redefine socialism and somehow fit it within the framework of a capitalist economy.

Can you give us an example of an economy that is pure capitalism?

 

[RobF]

For your argument to work you need to redefine socialism and somehow fit it within the framework of a capitalist economy.

It's one thing to not read the posts you're replying to, but not even reading your own posts is going a bit far:

anyone can be a socialist in a 100% capitalist nation. No one is stopping American socialists to establish workers owned businesses.

 

[V Chip]

DEMOCRACY: government by the people especially : rule of the majority.
A democracy is to to obey the will of the majority.

OK, assume the majority wants 100% socialism. How about those that did not vote for socialism? What can they do?

Why oh why do you keep insisting that Democratic Socialism involves 100% socialism?

HINT: It. Does. Not.

Why don't you define what you think Democratic Socialism means, because it sure as hell isn't what we have been defining it as for the last 10 pages of this thread. Then we can point out where you are wrong, and you can ignore it yet again.

 

[Paul]

Can you give us an example of an economy that is pure capitalism?

There is no pure capitalist economy in the world.

There is no pure socialism either. In fact, that is the most common reason given by socialists to excuse the atrocities of the 20th century.

The discussion has no end point when socialism and capitalism are not pure or well defined. In fact, that is the argument made by many here.

However, if we desire a true philosophical discussion it is useful to see socialism and capitalism as well defined concepts.

 

[Paul]

Why oh why do you keep insisting that Democratic Socialism involves 100% socialism?

HINT: It. Does. Not.

Nice straw man. I have said that for a philosophical argument one needs the strict definition of socialism.

Why don't you define what you think Democratic Socialism means, because it sure as hell isn't what we have been defining it as for the last 10 pages of this thread. Then we can point out where you are wrong, and you can ignore it yet again.

Democratic socialism​

Political philosophy

Description​

Description​

Democratic socialism is a political philosophy supporting political democracy within a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist economy or some form of a decentralized planned socialist economy. Wikipedia

Is social democracy and democratic socialism the same?

Social democracy has been described as the evolutionary form of democratic socialism that aims to gradually and peacefully achieve socialism through established political processes rather than social revolution as advocated by revolutionary socialists.



The preferred definition is to slowly bring about a worker's owned socialist economy via the democratic process rather than a bloody revolution.

A QUESTION FOR YOU: DO we have democratic socialism in America?

If YES, how and why?

If NO, how and why?

 

[V Chip]

Nice straw man. I have said that for a philosophical argument one needs the strict definition of socialism.

Democratic socialism​

Political philosophy

Description​

Description​

Democratic socialism is a political philosophy supporting political democracy within a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist economy or some form of a decentralized planned socialist economy. Wikipedia

I asked for what it means to you, not Wikipedia.

And my question was not a strawman; maybe you should post what *that* means to you as well since you’re not getting that definition right either.

The goal of Democratic Socialism isn’t 100% socialism no matter how many times you say it is. People who like DS do not want to eliminate private ownership. *That* is an actual strawman you have been arguing for pages and pages. DS is a form of capitalism/market economy where social welfare is very good, where some industries are socially owned but most are left to the market, where strong controls are placed on capitalism to benefit the workers and employees from being run roughshod over by the corporate and upper class. Now not everyone believes the same for DS as in all hybrid economies; but to repeatedly say the goal is 100% socialism is a false arguing point as none of us here are advocating that — again, *THAT* is an actual strawman fallacy.

 

[samiam5211]

There is no pure capitalist economy in the world.

There is no pure socialism either. In fact, that is the most common reason given by socialists to excuse the atrocities of the 20th century.

The discussion has no end point when socialism and capitalism are not pure or well defined. In fact, that is the argument made by many here.

However, if we desire a true philosophical discussion it is useful to see socialism and capitalism as well defined concepts.

Economies are complicated systems made up of things that include capitalism and socialism. Every single economy.

Discussing economics like capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive has no basis in reality.

 

[Paul]

I asked for what it means to you, not Wikipedia.

And my question was not a strawman; maybe you should post what *that* means to you as well since you’re not getting that definition right either.

The goal of Democratic Socialism isn’t 100% socialism no matter how many times you say it is. People who like DS do not want to eliminate private ownership. *That* is an actual strawman you have been arguing for pages and pages. DS is a form of capitalism/market economy where social welfare is very good, where some industries are socially owned but most are left to the market, where strong controls are placed on capitalism to benefit the workers and employees from being run roughshod over by the corporate and upper class. Now not everyone believes the same for DS as in all hybrid economies; but to repeatedly say the goal is 100% socialism is a false arguing point as none of us here are advocating that — again, *THAT* is an actual strawman fallacy.

OK, that is a fair point. I don't believe you guys are naive enough to believe in all out socialism. The philosophical point is that wishing for the so-called mixed economy is really capitalism paying for robust social programs. I am not even sure it should be called a mixed economy as the social programs consume wealth rather than generate wealth. One would hope a much larger number of workers owned businesses such as Publix or Mondragon in Spain. The USA already pays for social programs. What else do you want? I can only think of free college tuition in state universities and Medicare for all. What else you think is needed?

As for my own definition of democratic socialism: I get it! You guys claim to be in favor of a free market economy, however, for the hard core lefty democratic socialism is the first step towards establishing full blown socialism. This is where coercion comes into play as individuals would not be allowed to own a business. Let's not forget that Venezuelans elected Chávez because they wanted socialism. That was a democratic election! Once Chávez got into power coercion was the order of the day. They nationalized private enterprises and the economy went into the tank. I do not think there is anything democratic about socialism and the state is always coercive. However, you guys make it look benevolent because you all say capitalism is OK. I am distrustful as I have heard that story before.

 

[samiam5211]

I am not even sure it should be called a mixed economy as the social programs consume wealth rather than generate wealth.

I think roads, educating the workforce, and providing security generate more wealth than you are willing to admit.

Try generating wealth without those things.

 

[Dragon]

OK, that is a fair point. I don't believe you guys are naive enough to believe in all out socialism. The philosophical point is that wishing for the so-called mixed economy is really capitalism paying for robust social programs. I am not even sure it should be called a mixed economy as the social programs consume wealth rather than generate wealth. One would hope a much larger number of workers owned businesses such as Publix or Mondragon in Spain. The USA already pays for social programs. What else do you want? I can only think of free college tuition in state universities and Medicare for all. What else you think is needed?

As for my own definition of democratic socialism: I get it! You guys claim to be in favor of a free market economy, however, for the hard core lefty democratic socialism is the first step towards establishing full blown socialism. This is where coercion comes into play as individuals would not be allowed to own a business. Let's not forget that Venezuelans elected Chávez because they wanted socialism. That was a democratic election! Once Chávez got into power coercion was the order of the day. They nationalized private enterprises and the economy went into the tank. I do not think there is anything democratic about socialism and the state is always coercive. However, you guys make it look benevolent because you all say capitalism is OK. I am distrustful as I have heard that story before.

So you use Chavez as an example? I'd rather call him a classic example of a South American dictator and there have been plenty of those in South American contries who call themself capitalists too. And a few of those SA. "failed" socialist experiments got plenty of help failing from mercenaries paid by american companies who suddently lost their rigths to do whatever they wanted in those countries.

 

[Paul]

So you use Chavez as an example? I'd rather call him a classic example of a South American dictator and there have been plenty of those in South American contries who call themself capitalists too. And a few of those SA. "failed" socialist experiments got plenty of help failing from mercenaries paid by american companies who suddently lost their rigths to do whatever they wanted in those countries.

Chávez was democratically elected to establish a socialist state. Do think that is democratic socialism?

 

[Dragon]

Chávez was democratically elected to establish a socialist state. Do think that is democratic socialism?

Nope - A dictator even when intially being democratic elected is still a dictator once he throw away the democratic process which put him in power initially..


Just like your last president. If he had succeded in remaining in power through non-democratic means, your country would no longer be a democracy.

 

[coldseat]

Chávez was democratically elected to establish a socialist state. Do think that is democratic socialism?

Trump was also democratically elected and he attempted and almost succeed in a coup had it not been for a very few people in power at the DOJ and different states standing up and saying NO. Just because somebody is democratically elected doesn't mean they actually believe in democracy, whether they're capitalist or socialist. The very same tyranny almost happened here.

 

[SystemShock]

Let's not forget that Venezuelans elected Chávez because they wanted socialism. That was a democratic election! Once Chávez got into power coercion was the order of the day. They nationalized private enterprises and the economy went into the tank.

Funny story about what did Venezuela in: the weight of their portfolio. I thought all Latin Americans knew that.

Took you long enough to trot out Venezuela... I was expecting it much earlier.