State Socialism Vs Distributed Socialism

[Game_Over]

Funnily enough exactly the same is said about capitalism. Sadly, both are correct, unfortunately people have trouble seeing the reason why.

You would then have to explain why millions of people risk death to trying to get out of socialist societies

into capitalist societies

If you can explain why they do this you will convince me there is no difference.

[shipbuilder]

You would then have to explain why millions of people risk death to trying to get out of socialist societies

into capitalist societies

If you can explain why they do this you will convince me there is no difference.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that there's no difference, sorry. As an aside, your statement is more accurate when talking about totalitarian states and democracies - no mass immigration from Europe (the bastion of socialism according to you) to the US, for example.

If you can see why the same statement is made about capitalism then you can figure the rest out for yourself.

Edit - here's a clue - US incomes for middle or low earners have stagnated or fallen since the 70s. Income tax rates have also fallen from the same period. Top earnings have increased by hundreds of %.

Edited April 1, 2012 by shipbuilder

[Game_Over]

I'm not trying to convince anyone that there's no difference, sorry. As an aside, your statement is more accurate when talking about totalitarian states and democracies - no mass immigration from Europe (the bastion of socialism according to you) to the US, for example.

If you can see why the same statement is made about capitalism then you can figure the rest out for yourself.

Edit - here's a clue - US incomes for middle or low earners have stagnated or fallen since the 70s. Income tax rates have also fallen from the same period. Top earnings have increased by hundreds of %.

If the US invited British citizens to apply

millions would leave the UK.

Millions have already left for Australia in the last few years.

So why would people leave a country where you get more on benefits than you do by working?

Answers on a postcard..............

[Debbie568]

If you do in fact accept the moral argument that the creative individual should be rewarded for his efforts then you cannot at the same time advocate that it is acceptable to freely copy their work- this is a contradictory position.

In your OP you attempt to draw a contrast between 'bad' socialism and 'good' socialism- and the basis of your distinction is that bad socialism is one that is imposed without consent on the individual.

What clearer example of imposed socialism is there than to insist that the creative efforts of the individual can and should be used by the majority for free- you in fact advocate the socialisation of the creative process, taking the private efforts of individual creators and freely distributing them to society- against their creators will.

What you should be arguing for is that creative individuals have the right for their efforts to be recognised by those who make use of them- not simply appropriated by society without payment. You instead argue for the right of the majority to impose their desire for free stuff on the people who labour to make that stuff.

So it's not true to claim, as you do, that you reject imposed socialism- in fact you embrace it.

We seem to be a bit schizophrenic as a society on this very point. For example, a piece of artwork can be sold over and over again at auction, and, provided the artist is still living, a piece of the action will be passed to him/her every time the painting sells. The same with plays. A royalty should be paid to the playwright, if still living, every time the play is performed somewhere. But once you get away from uniqueness, and start to deal with books, including books of plays, or prints of original works of art, so to things either capable of being copied or which are copies of the original, we come to the point where, other than the first sale of a copy of a book, the only way you can get continuing royalties from the book is if it is leant out by libraries.

Actors have a similar problem. Their interpretation of a script is unique to them, yet, even if they own the copyright to the film in part, there comes a point where from a financial perspective, their copyright becomes meaningless, because people can sell their DVDs over and over again and never give the original actors any compensation.

I don't think we will get to the stage where creative individuals are properly compensated by the users of the fruits of their labour and talent simply because we have agreed, for whatever reason, to be a very low wage society. We compensate very few people properly, for any kind of work, least of all creative work. The levels of social welfare, by the measures of what is paid and the ever growing number of recipients, enable this inadequate direct compensation for work model to be continued. In this way we ensure that most people (and nearly all people who make any sort of a living from their creativity, probably) can't afford access to, and ownership of, the land.

Maybe this is something peculiar to Britain because we have so little land to start with? How much more creative could we be as a people if we had access to decently equipped workshops at a price we could afford? Instead, we seem as a people to have a hostility towards even using land, let alone settling it. Look at the hoo hah that went on recently over a piece of land the gypsies had bought and settled on. (Dale Farm, in Essex). The continuous countryside that we all seem to be committed to as a people has a lot to answer for.

[shipbuilder]

So why would people leave a country where you get more on benefits than you do by working?

Answers on a postcard..............

People downing tools because work doesn't pay - thanks for making my point for me.

Here's my previous point again, as I see I'm going to have to explain it - people downed tools because those calling themselves socialists took their surplus production, people downed tools because those calling themselves capitalists took their surplus production.

The common thread here is that there is only one mechanism whereby a group is able to legitimise taking more than their earned share of production.

[wonderpup]

Nope. My opinion on the morality of copyright is subjective, not objective. Just because I think that people should be rewarded, it doesn't follow that everyone else should think the same.

So why do you support their claim that copying without payment is not stealing- if you disagree with it?

You seem to hold two mutually exclusive views on this matter;

1) That creative individuals should be rewarded for their efforts

2) That those creative efforts can be freely copied and made use of without payment being required- against the will of their creator.

Maybe in your brave new world the creative people are to be uniquely disadvantaged for the good of the majority? They alone will be denied the right to be rewarded for their efforts, because the ideology of that information utopia demands that they have no right to expect their labour to be respected?

[easy2012]

So why do you support their claim that copying without payment is not stealing- if you disagree with it?

You seem to hold two mutually exclusive views on this matter;

1) That creative individuals should be rewarded for their efforts

2) That those creative efforts can be freely copied and made use of without payment being required- against the will of their creator.

Maybe in your brave new world the creative people are to be uniquely disadvantaged for the good of the majority? They alone will be denied the right to be rewarded for their efforts, because the ideology of that information utopia demands that they have no right to expect their labour to be respected?

Think Trakion is holding the view that while those creative efforts should be rewarded, they should be rewarded voluntarily (through agreement) without coercion.

Of course we know how 'well' that works in real life.

[Traktion]

So why do you support their claim that copying without payment is not stealing- if you disagree with it?

You seem to hold two mutually exclusive views on this matter;

1) That creative individuals should be rewarded for their efforts

2) That those creative efforts can be freely copied and made use of without payment being required- against the will of their creator.

Maybe in your brave new world the creative people are to be uniquely disadvantaged for the good of the majority? They alone will be denied the right to be rewarded for their efforts, because the ideology of that information utopia demands that they have no right to expect their labour to be respected?

We've already established two core things:

1. Ideas aren't property.

2. Copying isn't stealing.

These can be derived by:

1a. If you believe in self ownership, you believe in property rights.

1b. If you assert that ideas are property, you imply that you own the thoughts of another.

1c. If you believe in self ownership, someone else can't own your thoughts.

1d. Therefore, if you accept the above, ideas aren't property.

2a. Stealing is the transfer of property without consent.

2b. If you make a copy of something, no transfer of property has occurred.

2c. Therefore, if you accept the above, copying isn't stealing.

While there may be universally preferable behaviour dictating that the abuse of property rights is bad, copyright does not fall into this category.

As some give up their copyright (such as open source software), maintaining copyright isn't universally preferable behaviour. You could dig further into this, but I think this suffices here.

We can also assume the following:

3a. Near universally preferable behaviour can be considered objective in the sphere of morality.

4a. Non near universally preferred behaviour can be considered subjective in the sphere of morality.

As copyright isn't universally preferred behaviour, whether it should or shouldn't be respected is subjective. In other words, whether it is moral or fair to reward people for their efforts, depends on the opinion of the individual.

As I don't believe my moral beliefs should be forced upon another, I can both say that I think it is fair to reward people for their efforts, while maintaining that others are free to form their own opinion. This is why there is no contradiction - I'm suggesting that everyone is free to form their own opinions.

Whether you or I think that someone should be rewarded for their efforts is internal to us. It is based on our ideas of fairness and morality. What right would anyone have to apply their subjective opinions on anyone else?

Edited April 3, 2012 by Traktion

[Traktion]

Think Trakion is holding the view that while those creative efforts should be rewarded, they should be rewarded voluntarily (through agreement) without coercion.

Of course we know how 'well' that works in real life.

Indeed - coercion to adhere to someone's subjective belief on what is moral is just social engineering under the threat of violence.

If creative types don't think that people will have as high moral standards as themselves, when it comes to rewarding the creative efforts of others, I would suggest they use alternative business models. I've listed many on this forum already, including forming agreements, paying instalments, pre-ordering etc.

It is a false dichotomy to say that either subjective morality must be forced on people or creative efforts won't be reworded.

edit: typo

Edited April 3, 2012 by Traktion

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

We've already established two core things:

1. Ideas aren't property.

2. Copying isn't stealing.

These can be derived by:

1a. If you believe in self ownership, you believe in property rights.

1b. If you assert that ideas are property, you imply that you own the thoughts of another.

1c. If you believe in self ownership, someone else can't own your thoughts.

1d. Therefore, if you accept the above, ideas aren't property.

2a. Stealing is the transfer of property without consent.

2b. If you make a copy of something, no transfer of property has occurred.

2c. Therefore, if you accept the above, copying isn't stealing.

While there may be universally preferable behaviour dictating that the abuse of property rights is bad, copyright does not fall into this category.

As some give up their copyright (such as open source software), maintaining copyright isn't universally preferable behaviour. You could dig further into this, but I think this suffices here.

We can also assume the following:

3a. Near universally preferable behaviour can be considered objective in the sphere of morality.

4a. Non near universally preferred behaviour can be considered subjective in the sphere of morality.

As copyright isn't universally preferred behaviour, whether it should or shouldn't be respected is subjective. In other words, whether it is moral or fair to reward people for their efforts, depends on the opinion of the individual.

As I don't believe my moral beliefs should be forced upon another, I can both say that I think it is fair to reward people for their efforts, while maintaining that others are free to form their own opinion. This is why there is no contradiction - I'm suggesting that everyone is free to form their own opinions.

Whether you or I think that someone should be rewarded for their efforts is internal to us. It is based on our ideas of fairness and morality. What right would anyone have to apply their subjective opinions on anyone else?

I believe in copyright but think far too much goes to rights holders and there's little logic in how it is applied.

Say you are opening a cafe and pay an interior designer. You just pay them once for the work. The cafe visitors don't have to pay a royalty to consume the work every time they pop in for a coffee. Perhaps you bought some cool artwork from a local artist and hung it on the wall. Again you pay once, however many people consume the art when they gawp at it over a mocha.

But why is this creative work any different from taking a photo or writing a story or a song that is published? Why should some forms of creative work get 'money for old rope', so to speak, others not?

That's said, being a songwriter or a novelist can only work if you get an ongoing source of income wheel you work on you next project. You can't produce top-class work consistently as a hobby in the odd spare hour after a day job. Pop music has become dreadful now that only the manufactured acts can be full-time at it. So there should be copyright protection. However, why does it have to be so astonishingly generous, still in operation 70 years after you pop your clogs?! Your grandchildren getting royalties! How about letting it enter into the public domain, say, 10 or 20 years after the work was first published? Then others could use it, perform it, build on it, reproduce it. The public domain is a GOOD THING.

I once knew someone that had a nice to little business selling quality art prints of 50s starlets and dancers. These images were all in the public domain due to the way the US copyright system once worked (you had to renew it or lose it) . They obtained an income selling them nicely reproduced and framed, creating new economic activity. Should some now idle, aged photographer (or his estate) REALLY still be getting a slice of this pie? Really? Do you get paid for the work you did decades ago?

[Leroast]

You would then have to explain why millions of people risk death to trying to get out of socialist societies

into capitalist societies

If you can explain why they do this you will convince me there is no difference.

Historian William Blum argues that the Berlin Wall was built to keep the capitalists out. Capitalists are frightened to death of nationalist/socialist movements setting an example to others. This is one of the principle reasons why Iran is targetted.

The Western media will soon be revving up their propaganda motors to solemnize the 50th anniversary of the erecting of the Berlin Wall, August 13, 1961. All the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny will be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wall came to be will be repeated: In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don't like people to be free, to learn the "truth". What other reason could there have been?

First of all, before the wall went up thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returning to the East in the evening; many others went back and forth for shopping or other reasons. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will. Why then was the wall built? There were two major reasons:

1) The West was bedeviling the East with a vigorous campaign of recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East. As one indication of this, the New York Times reported in 1963: "West Berlin suffered economically from the wall by the loss of about 60,000 skilled workmen who had commuted daily from their homes in East Berlin to their places of work in West Berlin." 1

In 1999, USA Today reported: "When the Berlin Wall crumbled [1989], East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism." 2 Earlier polls would likely have shown even more than 51% expressing such a sentiment, for in the ten years many of those who remembered life in East Germany with some fondness had passed away; although even 10 years later, in 2009, the Washington Post could report: "Westerners say they are fed up with the tendency of their eastern counterparts to wax nostalgic about communist times." 3

It was in the post-unification period that a new Russian and eastern Europe proverb was born: "Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth." It should also be noted that the division of Germany into two states in 1949 — setting the stage for 40 years of Cold War hostility — was an American decision, not a Soviet one. 4

2) During the 1950s, American coldwarriors in West Germany instituted a crude campaign of sabotage and subversion against East Germany designed to throw that country's economic and administrative machinery out of gear. The CIA and other US intelligence and military services recruited, equipped, trained and financed German activist groups and individuals, of West and East, to carry out actions which ran the spectrum from juvenile delinquency to terrorism; anything to make life difficult for the East German people and weaken their support of the government; anything to make the commies look bad.

It was a remarkable undertaking. The United States and its agents used explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods to damage power stations, shipyards, canals, docks, public buildings, gas stations, public transportation, bridges, etc; they derailed freight trains, seriously injuring workers; burned 12 cars of a freight train and destroyed air pressure hoses of others; used acids to damage vital factory machinery; put sand in the turbine of a factory, bringing it to a standstill; set fire to a tile-producing factory; promoted work slow-downs in factories; killed 7,000 cows of a co-operative dairy through poisoning; added soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools; were in possession, when arrested, of a large quantity of the poison cantharidin with which it was planned to produce poisoned cigarettes to kill leading East Germans; set off stink bombs to disrupt political meetings; attempted to disrupt the World Youth Festival in East Berlin by sending out forged invitations, false promises of free bed and board, false notices of cancellations, etc.; carried out attacks on participants with explosives, firebombs, and tire-puncturing equipment; forged and distributed large quantities of food ration cards to cause confusion, shortages and resentment; sent out forged tax notices and other government directives and documents to foster disorganization and inefficiency within industry and unions ... all this and much more. 5

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, of Washington, DC, conservative coldwarriors, in one of their Cold War International History Project Working Papers (#58, p.9) states: "The open border in Berlin exposed the GDR [East Germany] to massive espionage and subversion and, as the two documents in the appendices show, its closure gave the Communist state greater security."

Throughout the 1950s, the East Germans and the Soviet Union repeatedly lodged complaints with the Soviets' erstwhile allies in the West and with the United Nations about specific sabotage and espionage activities and called for the closure of the offices in West Germany they claimed were responsible, and for which they provided names and addresses. Their complaints fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, the East Germans began to tighten up entry into the country from the West, leading eventually to the infamous Wall. However, even after the wall was built there was regular, albeit limited, legal emigration from east to west. In 1984, for example, East Germany allowed 40,000 people to leave. In 1985, East German newspapers claimed that more than 20,000 former citizens who had settled in the West wanted to return home after becoming disillusioned with the capitalist system. The West German government said that 14,300 East Germans had gone back over the previous 10 years. 6

Let's also not forget that Eastern Europe became communist because Hitler, with the approval of the West, used it as a highway to reach the Soviet Union to wipe out Bolshevism forever, and that the Russians in World War I and II, lost about 40 million people because the West had used this highway to invade Russia. It should not be surprising that after World War II the Soviet Union was determined to close down the highway.

Link

Edited April 3, 2012 by Leroast

[Leroast]

Or Portugal

In July of 1975 I went to Portugal because in April of the previous year a bloodless military coup had brought down the US-supported 48-year fascist regime of Portugal, the world's only remaining colonial power. This was followed by a program centered on nationalization of major industries, workers control, a minimum wage, land reform, and other progressive measures. Military officers in a Western nation who spoke like socialists was science fiction to my American mind, but it had become a reality in Portugal. The center of Lisbon was crowded from morning till evening with people discussing the changes and putting up flyers on bulletin boards. The visual symbol of the Portuguese "revolution" had become the picture of a child sticking a rose into the muzzle of a rifle held by a friendly soldier, and I got caught up in demonstrations and parades featuring people, including myself, standing on tanks and throwing roses, with the crowds cheering the soldiers. It was pretty heady stuff, and I dearly wanted to believe, but I and most people I spoke to there had little doubt that the United States could not let such a breath of fresh air last very long. The overthrow of the Chilean government less than two years earlier had raised the world's collective political consciousness, as well as the level of skepticism and paranoia on the left.

Washington and multinational corporate officials who were on the board of directors of the planet were indeed concerned. Besides anything else, Portugal was a member of NATO. Destabilization became the order of the day: covert actions; attacks in the US press; subverting trade unions; subsidizing opposition media; economic sabotage through international credit and commerce; heavy financing of selected candidates in elections; a US cut-off of Portugal from certain military and nuclear information commonly available to NATO members; NATO naval and air exercises off the Portuguese coast, with 19 NATO warships moored in Lisbon's harbor, regarded by most Portuguese as an attempt to intimidate the provisional government. In 1976 the "Socialist" Party (scarcely further left and no less anti-communist than the US Democratic Party) came to power, heavily financed by the CIA, the Agency also arranging for Western European social-democratic parties to help foot the bill. The Portuguese revolution was dead, stillborn.

Link

Or Venezuela

EVA: I read a quote of yours which said power is always illegitimate unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So in Venezuela right now we are in the process of Constitutional reform. And within that reform the People's Power is going to gain Constitutional rank, above in fact all the other state powers, the executive, legislative and judicial powers, and in Venezuela we also have the electoral and the citizen's power. Would this be an example of power becoming legitimate? A people’s power? And could this change the way power is viewed? And change the face of Latin America considering that the Bolivarian Revolution is having such an influence over other countries in the region?

CHOMSKY: Your word, the word "could", is the right word. Yes it "could" , but it depends how it is implemented. In principle it seems to be a very powerful and persuasive conception, but everything always depends on implementation. If there is really authentic popular participation in the decision-making and the free association of communities, yeah, that could be tremendously important. In fact that's essentially the traditional anarchist ideal. That's what was realized the only time for about a year in Spain in 1936 before it was crushed by outside forces, in fact all outside forces, Stalinst Russia, Hitler in Germany, Mussilini's fascism and the Western democracies cooperated in crushing it. They were all afraid of it. But that was something like what you are describing, and if it can function and survive and really disperse power down to participants and their communities, it could be extremely important.

Link

[PopGun]

Funnily enough exactly the same is said about capitalism. Sadly, both are correct, unfortunately people have trouble seeing the reason why.

+1

Yeah but no but my dogmatic propaganda is better than your dogmatic propaganda.........

[Game_Over]

Historian William Blum argues that the Berlin Wall was built to keep the capitalists out. Capitalists are frightened to death of nationalist/socialist movements setting an example to others. This is one of the principle reasons why Iran is targetted.

How many people were killed trying to get into East Germany?

And how many people were killed trying to escape?

Same applies to China, Russia, North Korea etc, etc

The left constantly attack the US, but if people want to leave the US they are free to do so

at the same time millions of people risk death trying to get into the US and Western Europe.

[Game_Over]

+1

Yeah but no but my dogmatic propaganda is better than your dogmatic propaganda.........

The truth isn't propaganda

It's the truth.

[PopGun]

The truth isn't propaganda

It's the truth.

Where have I heard or read that before........

[Game_Over]

Where have I heard or read that before........

How many US citizens were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night and worked to death in Gulags in the 20th Century?

How many US citizens starved to death as a result of government reorganisations of the economy in the 20th Century?

The contrast between Capitalist and Socialist economies is stark and undeniable

[PopGun]

How many US citizens were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night and worked to death in Gulags in the 20th Century?

How many US citizens starved to death as a result of government reorganisations of the economy in the 20th Century?

The contrast between Capitalist and Socialist economies is stark and undeniable

Are you serious? Oh you are.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/

http://www.dangerouscreation.com/2010/09/u-s-wages-war-while-its-citizens-starve/

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0308/S00011.htm

All aboard to Galtistan.... hoop hoop whooooop.

Edited April 4, 2012 by PopGun

[Game_Over]

Are you serious? Oh you are.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/

http://www.dangerouscreation.com/2010/09/u-s-wages-war-while-its-citizens-starve/

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0308/S00011.htm

All aboard to Galtistan.... hoop hoop whooooop.

All these stories are utterly meaningless.

If 1 person genuinely starved to death in the US there would be a national outcry - up to 60 million people starved in China

And 10's of millions were murdered in Russia.

We had a homeless guy in our area who froze to death in a doorway - but he had mental health problems and refused all offers of help and shelter - as we don't forcibly lock up mental health patients any more the guy died.

Also there are thousands of people sitting on pavements begging in the UK who make more in a week than most people earn in a month.

[Traktion]

I believe in copyright but think far too much goes to rights holders and there's little logic in how it is applied.

Say you are opening a cafe and pay an interior designer. You just pay them once for the work. The cafe visitors don't have to pay a royalty to consume the work every time they pop in for a coffee. Perhaps you bought some cool artwork from a local artist and hung it on the wall. Again you pay once, however many people consume the art when they gawp at it over a mocha.

But why is this creative work any different from taking a photo or writing a story or a song that is published? Why should some forms of creative work get 'money for old rope', so to speak, others not?

That's said, being a songwriter or a novelist can only work if you get an ongoing source of income wheel you work on you next project. You can't produce top-class work consistently as a hobby in the odd spare hour after a day job. Pop music has become dreadful now that only the manufactured acts can be full-time at it. So there should be copyright protection. However, why does it have to be so astonishingly generous, still in operation 70 years after you pop your clogs?! Your grandchildren getting royalties! How about letting it enter into the public domain, say, 10 or 20 years after the work was first published? Then others could use it, perform it, build on it, reproduce it. The public domain is a GOOD THING.

I once knew someone that had a nice to little business selling quality art prints of 50s starlets and dancers. These images were all in the public domain due to the way the US copyright system once worked (you had to renew it or lose it) . They obtained an income selling them nicely reproduced and framed, creating new economic activity. Should some now idle, aged photographer (or his estate) REALLY still be getting a slice of this pie? Really? Do you get paid for the work you did decades ago?

There are so many mixed feelings, because it is completely subjective. Creating legislation, to impose one set of morals by force, is just heavy handed social engineering.

Common Law, at best, protected the creator until they had released their product. However, many courts considered didn't even consider that just.

If it is a moral judgement, it should be left to the individual to decide what their opinion is. If creators don't want to leave their economic fate to the morality of others, then they should use business models (of which there are many) which don't rely on this.

[MarkG]

Are you serious? Oh you are.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/

A Marxist signs a bill allowing detention of citizens without trial. Why, I am just shocked, I tell you!

Here's a hint: imprisonment and murder are what Marxists do best.

[wonderpup]

We've already established two core things:

1. Ideas aren't property.

2. Copying isn't stealing.

We have established that this ideology is one you happen to promote- yet seem unwilling to face the consequences of.

You can either support that idea that creative individuals have a moral right for their efforts to be respected by those who make use of those efforts- or you can argue that those creative individuals have no such right and their efforts should be freely used without their consent by anyone who chooses to do so.

What you cannot do is seriously claim that these two positions are in some way reconsilable- they are not.

We can also assume the following:

3a. Near universally preferable behaviour can be considered objective in the sphere of morality.

4a. Non near universally preferred behaviour can be considered subjective in the sphere of morality.

Which is the template for mob rule. There is no reason at all to believe that the moral standards of the majority are any more 'objective' than those of the minority. This entire dichotomy is absurd. All morality is subjective since it exists only in the realm of human beliefs and opinions.

So you come on here and state that in your opinion 'bad' socialism is when the people involved are forced to participate- and then go on to claim that the efforts of creative individuals should be taken freely without payment and without consent- which meets your own defintion of 'bad socialism!

What you seek to do is take the individual efforts of creative people and socialise their work, freely distribute it against their will, and deny them the ability make a living- what else is this if not the worst kind of bad socialism?

As I don't believe my moral beliefs should be forced upon another, I can both say that I think it is fair to reward people for their efforts, while maintaining that others are free to form their own opinion. This is why there is no contradiction - I'm suggesting that everyone is free to form their own opinions.

So if in my opinion killing you for fun is moral you accept my right to do so? People in the concentration camps were shot for sport by other people who belived they had the moral right to exterminate them- and you accept this is ok?

The notion of subjective morality is ludicrous- either you believe a given act is moral or you don't- and if you belive it's a moral right for creative people to be rewarded for their efforts then to advocate the free distribution of their work- against their will- is to advocate an action that you belive to be immoral.

Whether you or I think that someone should be rewarded for their efforts is internal to us. It is based on our ideas of fairness and morality. What right would anyone have to apply their subjective opinions on anyone else?

Because that is what having a moral code means! It means steanding up for a certain set of norms and rules.

For example- you are walking down the street and a frightened child rushes past you being chased by a man with an axe. You ask what is going on and the man tells you that they believe the child is the devil and they feel morally compelled to chop the child into bits.

And you say 'Well- I don't agree with your moral position but since I have no right to impose my morality on you- go right ahead and butcher that child.'

Is that seriously what you are claiming- that all morality is subjective and therefore you would feel no need to prevent the murder of that child? After all the man involved is totally sincere in his moral belief that by killing the child he will be doing a good thing.

Or is the reality that you would try to intervene because in your mind to allow that killing would be an immoral act on your part?

So all this subjective/objective morality stuff is really just an evasion, an attempt to justify what is in fact impossible to justify.

It is wrong to advocate the appropriation of other people's efforts against their will- it represents precisely the kind of mob rule style of behaviour you claim to oppose- but your own ideological commitment to the ideal of information emancipation means that you attempt to justify it anyway- again the exact kind of obfuscation employed by every other authoritarian who claims that his truth is the truth.

The willingness to sacrifice the interests of the individual for the benefit of the majority is what you are supposed to be against- stop promoting it.

[Traktion]

...

The willingness to sacrifice the interests of the individual for the benefit of the majority is what you are supposed to be against- stop promoting it.

I'd suggest you read my post again.

Either you have reading comprehension problems or wish to deliberately misrepresent what I write, time and time again. I fear it is the latter and it's a sly tactic. You would rather smear me and my opinions than actually address the points being raised, likely because it affects your VI (you're in the fine art business, I believe?).

I find it laughable that you will defend legislation made with slim majorities, yet then call near universally preferable behaviour (ie. murder, theft, rape etc - the foundation of law) 'mob rule'. Not 1 in 100 people would disagree with these core positions, yet strangely you disregard this.

If you had comprehended my post, you would have realised how absurd your suggestions of butchering children and killings in concentration camps are. They are clearly against universally preferable behaviour, as neither the butcher nor the Nazis would trade places with their victims. What point are you even trying to make?

You have no logical definition of what property or stealing is, then disregard a decomposition from first principles and centuries of Common Law judgements, to reach your conclusions. Conclusions which, are not nearly universally accepted, I might add.

Lastly, and most tragically, you try to associate not using force to impose an arbitrary moral position, with using force to impose authoritarian rules. This, of course, is completely ass backwards. Authoritarians tend to use force to apply their rules, not the reverse - the clue is in the title.

Ofc, you're putting up yet another straw man with the authoritarian thing, with the intention of discrediting my character. Personally, I would never sink that low to try to 'win' an argument. It's childish and rather pathetic, tbh.

[sigma]

1a. If you believe in self ownership, you believe in property rights.

1b. If you assert that ideas are property, you imply that you own the thoughts of another.

1c. If you believe in self ownership, someone else can't own your thoughts.

1d. Therefore, if you accept the above, ideas aren't property.

Copyright would be concerned with the usage of the idea, not the understanding or the "thinking" of it.

2a. Stealing is the transfer of property without consent.

2b. If you make a copy of something, no transfer of property has occurred.

2c. Therefore, if you accept the above, copying isn't stealing.

Re: 2b. You might not transfer a physical item but there has been a transfer of value. A loss of value might be equated with theft.

What right would anyone have to apply their subjective opinions on anyone else?

This doesn't make sense to me (You, of course, have every right)

Have you given any real thought to the evolutionary pressures of the society you advocate?

[PopGun]

A Marxist signs a bill allowing detention of citizens without trial. Why, I am just shocked, I tell you!

Here's a hint: imprisonment and murder are what Marxists do best.

The very same Marxist who is also a goldman sachs sock puppet?!

Desperate post of the week #231