From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Fri Sep 08 2000 - 12:14:47 MDT
Emlyn O'Regan wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > I keep hearing this sort of thing from apologizers and fellow travelers.
> Logic
> > should tell you that when every instance where communist societies were
> > attempted the result was militaristic oppressive totalitarian regiemes,
> then the
> > 'communism' you claim to be 'true' communism is nothing but a chimera, a
> bait to
> > con people into slavery, and in never actually achievable with human
> beings
> > outside of very small groups.
> >
>
> Mike, I've heard you claim the same thing about capitalism; that you can't
> go on past implementations, because they've never faithfully realised the
> capitalist dream. Doesn't this same logic then imply that a pure free
> market, like a pure communist society, has credibility up there with the
> tooth fairy?
Only if you ignore the failure modes. Communism tends to fail into totalitarian
oppression that kills 20-40 million people and enslaves the rest under terror
tactics of secret police that keeps 10-20 million people in jail at any given
time (for a US sized country), and where technological advancement stagnates,
infrastructure crumbles, average life expectancy and standards of living
plummet, and the leadership is only interested in taking bribes and gutting the
system for the own personal aggrandizement.
Capitalists have never:
a) operated concentration camps
b) exterminated people they refused to do business with
c) exterminated anyone who looked at or talked badly about the bosses
d) waged war against people
etc etc etc
The facts are that 'perfect' communism was TRIED to be enacted, but failed
miserably, several times.
You also misrepresent what I've said. I never said that capitalism has never
been realized. On the contrary, it has occured at several periods in history,
with little or no government. David Friedman has written at length about two
periods in particular: medieval Iceland and the Law Merchant period, and the
pre-civil war period in the US as well. What I have said is that the US is not
now a capitalist system, but is a mercantilist/socialist amalgamation, and that
this is mostly due to a failure of our civil justice system in the late 1800's
to properly deal with negative externalities.
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