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The world is socialist

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Re: The world is socialist

#51

Post by thelastuser »

kungfooguru wrote: post #38
guard-of-terra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the point was attacking capitalism. Capitalism and socialism are not mutually exclusive in a society.

They are. Socialism is an economy where production is owned and run by the workers for the benefit of the working class, which would be the ruling class at that time. Simply having a welfare state or some nationalized industries is not socialism. The source of power and ownership of production is still in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Mises as serious? Hah. But yes, he and the others are attacked less but only becaus…

>Simply having a welfare state or some nationalized industries is not socialism.

Yes it is. It is a matter of degree. When you have an income tax, you have socialized income. If you have a "workers factory", you have socialized the means of production.

Your first paragraph seemed like you had the right insights, yet you contradicted yourself by the second.

Re: The world is socialist

#52

Post by staccatomeasure »

pandaman wrote: post #29

I wonder why some people cannot stop saying how wrong Ayn Rand had been in general and how wrong is Atlas Shrugged in particular. If it's a book of lies then why do you care so much? Don't you think for the book to have any effect on you it has to be true, at least in your own opinion.

People care about books not only for their truths but also for the lies that influence others. The former should be lauded while the latter needs to be combatted.

Re: The world is socialist

#53

Post by scarmig »

dmfdmf wrote: post #12
lkrubner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Her books provided wide-ranging parables of "parasites," "looters" and "moochers" using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor)." http://www.alternet.org/story/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against...

This is a common smear spread by Rand's haters. She explained the principle in this article which the haters conveniently ignore; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government_grants_and_scho...

So, her principle is basically "it's always bad to accept government handouts, unless you're an Objectivist, in which case it's fine so long as you complain very loudly while receiving them."

I wish I were kidding.

Re: The world is socialist

#54

Post by valtron »

pron wrote: post #27

Ayn Rand was a strange and interesting woman who, among other things, sexually abused her most devoted fans and manipulated them in horrible ways. She was never considered an important, serious, or good writer, and her works were ridiculed pretty much as soon as people first first laid eyes on them. But, her novels are, to this day, bestsellers, especially popular, as you write yourself, with teenagers. They are mean…

> sexually abused her most devoted fans

Source?

Re: The world is socialist

#55

Post by falk »

ororlrlrlylyly wrote: post #42
johnnyg wrote: post #14

1. Can we agree that both full socialism and full rand style capitalism end in tears? 2. Token rebuttals. a. Someone lives irresponsibly, I live responsibly. The sick that comes for us all devastates them early and I'm told "since we all get sick, they got sick much earlier due to all the crack and booze, they can't pay because they were grasshoppering it up while you worked, so now you pay". This is an extreme examp…

I assume that by "full socialism," you're referring to Stalinism, something that's actually rejected by most socialists, and any serious socialist. To answer your question, no, we can't.

It doesn't help that there are varying definitions of all these words. I have always understood socialism in the Marx sense. It's the stage after capitalism but before communism where the workers control the means of production. There are still markets, but things are run as cooperatives. I'm not saying if it's right or wrong, just that a lot of people get the definitions confused and what not.

Re: The world is socialist

#56

Post by rtpg »

jessriedel wrote: post #11

> All these people who are so great aren't really that much greater than the average schmuck on the subway. There really isn't that much range in the smartness or fitness of human beings. Whelp, you've lost me. The difference in productivity and smartness---as measured by the consistent ability to impact the world---of people is enormous (the additional importance of luck notwithstanding). I'm not sure why you though…

If you had a group of near-equivalent individuals, but you still had to elect a leader, the leader would end up being de facto more productive if only by his position.

There are also extremely productive people and very unproductive people, but I think it's safe to say that a very large percentage of the population falls in a specific productivity window. And the very skilled can "take one for the team" on the issues described here.

Re: The world is socialist

#57

Post by bdcravens »

These discussions on HN are a bit ironic to me. HN seems to cut across several areas of discussion, and a large one is the startup world (principally the SF one). In general, the culture seems to be very liberal and sympathetic to socialism. Socialism isn't necessary mutually exclusive with capitalism, but it tends to be opposed. At the very least, it aims to level out the bell curve a bit, eliminating capitalistic excess.

Today's startup scene: Talk about capitalistic excess. Everyone's running around with MacBook Airs and Pros, iPhones, and iPads. The true "rebels" running Android: they're cheerleading for a phone that's backed by a mega-corp with a $300B market cap, so from an excess perspective, not much different.

The culture wants home runs. 9 or 10 figure exits. Built a photo sharing app or game moving blocks around on the your phone? Is $1B for your company really the best way for society to allocate its resources? VC's throw money away everyday on dumb companies that they know will fail; they're just keeping skin in the game knowing that if they do, they'll inevitably hit some home runs.

tl;dr Went all meta on the idea that startup culture that drives HN is capitalistic excess, opposite of socialism

edit "opposite of capitalism" should have been "opposite of socialism"; some grammar

Re: The world is socialist

#59

Post by pandaman »

staccatomeasure wrote: post #52
pandaman wrote: post #29

I wonder why some people cannot stop saying how wrong Ayn Rand had been in general and how wrong is Atlas Shrugged in particular. If it's a book of lies then why do you care so much? Don't you think for the book to have any effect on you it has to be true, at least in your own opinion.

People care about books not only for their truths but also for the lies that influence others. The former should be lauded while the latter needs to be combatted.

I don't see every other liberal blogger going on and on against the whole host of lying books (e.g. astrology, esoteric etc). And please don't tell me they are not influential. Much more people know their astrological sign and how bad is to hurt one's Karma than people who know who is John Galt.

Re: The world is socialist

#60

Post by falk »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #48
kungfooguru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are. Socialism is an economy where production is owned and run by the workers for the benefit of the working class, which would be the ruling class at that time. Simply having a welfare state or some nationalized industries is not socialism. The source of power and ownership of production is still in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Mises as serious? Hah. But yes, he and the others are attacked less but only becaus…

"Socialism is an economy where production is owned and run by the workers for the benefit of the working class" Isn't that communism?

No. There's a reason why they are two different words. Socialism is after capitalism but before communism in terms of Marxist theory. From my understanding the big difference is there is still competition in socialism and things are privately owned by the workers, where as everything is publicly owned in communism. Remember that during Marx's time it was unusual to have the boss down on the production line working with his employees. Now a days people have become what Seth Godin like to call linchpins. It's not rare to have your boss coding or designing with you if you work at a start-up.
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