From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Sun Oct 27 2002 - 01:58:18 MST
On Sat, Oct 26, 2002 at 11:57:35AM -0700, Charles Hixson wrote:
> > ...
> > it so distorts the meaning of the term "socialism" as to render it
> > meaningless. The more common definitions include "a state wherein the
> > workers own the means of production" -- what, in your comment about
> > the power of arbitrary life or death, bears on the ownership of the
> > means of production?
>
> Isn't that syndicalist anarchism? I'm not sure, but it sounds like it to me.
> Socialism always seems to assume that there is some large government to take
> care of things. I *think* that both sides agree on that.
No, they don't. The core of socialism is about the worker's ownership of
the means of production, not about big government.
I *think* the big government meme crept in during the 1950's in the USA,
specifically during the McCarthy hearings. "Godless communism" had fellow-
travellers, and those fellow travellers were the socialists, so socialism
was ipso facto tarred with the brush of Stalinism. Which is a bit like
tarring the Republican party with the brush of Nazism.
> > You also need to bear in mind the divergence between theory and practice.
> > In theory, the free market should be the most equitable and ideal way of
> > reconciling the production of wealth and the requirements of individual
> > liberty. In practice, the "free market" system we've got today kills
> > thousands of children each day by starvation and disease. It's as big a
> > split as the split between the theories of socialism and its implementation
> > in, say, the Soviet Union under Stalin.
>
> I have a problem with this. To me if theory and practice don't match, then
> the theory doesn't apply to the situation, and you need a different one to
> cover that area.
We're in violent agreement; that's why I'm not a free-market capitalist
(*or* a socialist, you should note).
> That said, I'm not convinced that the "free market" ever
> yields optimal results, though in many circumstances it's better than most
> other methods. The problem is that the only place one ever sees a free
> market is in unregulated areas of commerce. Neighbors exchanging favors for
> a cup of sugar, etc. Once significant amounts of money get involved, the
> monopoly powers take steps to ensure that it ceases being free. This applies
> to drug lords as well as national governments. They get their rake-off by
> favoring certain parties at the expense of others, and taking a share from
> each transaction.
Which is why the system that works best in practice seems to be a mixture;
free market opportunities to generate wealth, regulatory oversight to
prevent incumbents in the market from abusing positions of strength to
lock out newcomers and competitors, and non-free-market systems to deal
with those externalities which don't have a fiscal stimulus attached to
them.
-- Charlie
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