
Hello, my name is Reginald and I am a Socialist - 0x12
http://raganwald.posterous.com/hello-my-name-is-reginald-and-i-am-a-socialis
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maratd
You can turn blue in the face sifting through all the wonderful labels people
have constructed over the years. Let's keep things simple.

Either you're for a direct command and control structure, you want a mix, or
you want free markets. It doesn't matter why you want that, in the end, it
boils down to those 3 options.

Self-organizing cooperatives are not anathema to free markets. As long as some
jackass somewhere isn't making them mandatory, I think they're fantastic and
I'm a Capitalist with a big C. Open source software is a perfect example.

~~~
mtts
The issue with free markets is that they tend not to stay free for very long.
Efficiencies of scale cause monopolies and before you know it self-organizing
cooperatives, open source software and anything else you can think of that
doesn't directly benefit what few winners have resulted from unfettered
capitalism cease to exist.

Like you, I'm a Capitalist with a big C. However, I do see it takes some
rigorous government intervention to keep free (ish) markets free (ish). If you
want to call that government intervention "socialism" then, sure, go ahead,
but I'm pretty damn sure evidence points to big C capitalism never having
worked as well as it did between 1950 and 1980 in the "western world" where
every government, including the US, did its damnedest to keep the capitalists
in check to make sure the market would stay as free as possible.

Marx was right. The free market is inherently self-destructive. But it the 100
years since the communist manifesto smart people have figured out ways around
that.

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raganwald
Previous discussions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653063>

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achristoffersen
The whole idea of capitalism is to make it possible for people like you to
experiment with different ways to organize and sell your work. If one method
works really well for you - thats great. So I would say you are a capitalist
enjoying the freedom in the free market. That includes the freedom to play
small "s" socialist.

~~~
raganwald
This is why I think of myself as a “local” socialist. Of course, the whole
idea of capitalism is also for other people to experiment with different ways
to accumulate capital, and one of those ways is to hinder and restrict my
ability to be a libertarian socialist on a small scale, e.g. patent trolling.

I’m not saying capitalism doesn’t work, just that as practiced today it’s a
mixed bag.

~~~
davidw
> I’m not saying capitalism doesn’t work, just that as practiced today it’s a
> mixed bag.

Like democracy. It kind of sucks, and produces people like Silvio Berlusconi.
But it still beats the alternatives.

~~~
mtts
Or it only works in societies that are egalitarian enough to prevent an
oligarch like Berlusconi or Thaksin Shinawatra ( _) from using his wealth to
incite the poor to become his foot soldiers.

(_) or Julius Caesar

~~~
davidw
Much as Berlusconi sucks, he'll be gone some day, and people will pick up the
pieces, and things will still be an awful lot better than in places run by
real dictators. I'm still free to call Berlusconi an asshole without secret
police swooping down and taking me away in the night.

~~~
mtts
Julius Caesar gave way to Augustus (who in turn gave way to Tiberius, Nero,
Claudius and Caligula).

I wouldn't get your hopes up.

~~~
davidw
> Julius Caesar gave way to Augustus (who in turn gave way to Tiberius, Nero,
> Claudius and Caligula).

> I wouldn't get your hopes up.

What do Roman emperors have to do with Berlusconi, besides being short, and
the geographic location they have in common?

Are you seriously suggesting a parallel between the events of 2000 years ago
and now, based on the fact that they happen to be based in Rome? Do you
suppose Berlusconi is going to march over the Alps and invade France? Perhaps
Sarkozy and a band of stalwart Gauls will resist Berlusconi's onslaught in a
small village?

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martythemaniak
Hello Reginald, my name is Martin. I believe that society should promote a
meritocracy where a person's success is highly correlated with their work
ethic and abilities and that people should reap the rewards/losses of their
risks. I used to think that made me some kind of right-wing type, but
according to the current political climate, I'm actually a socialist too. Go
figure...

~~~
mtts
Hello Martin, my name is mtts. I'm pretty sure that having a work ethic and
abilities to succeed is strongly correlated to what family you're born into.

I'm not sure what exactly the consequences of that knowledge should be, but
I'm pretty sure it should at least involve not allowing those who have been
born in fortuitous (and work ethic and abilities enhancing) circumstances to
get so far ahead the less fortunate no longer have a chance to catch up.

~~~
maratd
> the less fortunate no longer have a chance to catch up.

You just spit in the face of every "less fortunate" individual who worked
harder than everybody else and did catch up. It makes his accomplishment seem
rather worthless. After all, he could have simply accepted the charity of
someone like you or supported a system where that charity was systematically
dispensed. Why bust your ass and work hard?

Oh, that brings me to the next point. Incentives. You just killed any
incentive to work hard and bust your ass if you're in the "less fortunate"
group. Why bother? You can just wait until someone helps you up.

~~~
atakan_gurkan
For every less fortunate that works hard and succeeds, there are thousands
that work hard and do not succeed; their efforts simply go to increase the
wealth of the wealthy who hold the capital. My heart goes out to them, and I
wish their exploitation would stop.

Reducing the wealth gap, or more to the point, not allowing it to expand
exponentially is not the same as removing it. There will always be a gap,
there will always be incentives.

~~~
maratd
What people like you don't understand is that there is real value in failure.
A system that removes failure from the equation reduces the quality of life
for everyone. You are hurting the very people you claim you are helping.

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jakeonthemove
Heh, collectively ownership and decision making would be great, only it's
impossible in our world. There will always be a person who has more influence
over others, therefore making him the leader.

Capitalism is kind of like advanced socialism, since everyone IS compensated
based on merit or amount of work, only most people aren't ambitious or want to
put in the amount of work that others will (i.e. not everyone wants to
"maximize their potential"), therefore creating the inequality.

The exact same happened in the USSR, actually, and what did they do? They just
put those uninterested people to work on the same jobs, for the same pay, as
those who actually liked working there, and that brought the overall
productivity down, because why would anyone work better and faster if the
slacker next to him gets paid the same for half the work?

But hey, everybody had jobs, right? Problem solved! :-)

Capitalism would work amazingly well at advancing society/humanity and making
individuals wealthy and happy IF every single one of them would want to always
maximize their potential and do their best at everything, but sadly that will
not happen very soon (or at all)...

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powertower
> They generally share the view that capitalism unfairly concentrates power
> andwealth within a small segment of society that controls capital and
> derives its wealth through a system ofexploitation.

Capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, etc, all end up like this, where
power and control remain with the few.

You can't force or educate out human nature. Self-interest always ramains.

But people keep playing their games. Always looking outside, trying to change
the world, rather than within. And they fail, fail, fail, over and over again.
Same shit, different flies.

~~~
scarmig
This claims too much. Differentials in power may always exist, but that
doesn't mean power has the same distribution in all systems.

Social democratic systems coupled with vibrant civil societies lead to
societies where power, though still distributed unevenly, forms a more
interconnected and open network, instead of one centralized institution or
small set of institutions that dominates society.

It's a bit unclear, though, which one leads to the other. Or if they're simply
the same.

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moo
If I had cancer and science showed chicken soup could cure it, I'd take the
chicken soup over chemotherapy. When I have the flu I'm not thinking
chemotherapy. Marx talked about those with nothing to lose but their chains.
People in the U.S., Europe, the West, are not in that situation. Chemotherapy
has saved lives and people have won revolutions with Communist leadership.

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eevilspock
Socialist? As Inigo Montoya would say, "You keep using that word. I do not
think it means what you think it means."

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forensic
I think this got buried

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temphn
The world's most economically successful and secure states today (China and
Russia) would best be described as fascist or nationalist. The socialist
states of Western Europe and the mixed economy of the US are in debt up to
their eyeballs and careening through a series of financial crises.

So it will be interesting if in a few years, people start calling themselves
unrepentant fascists. Probably the word itself won't be rehabilitated, but you
may see more and more people declaring that the Chinese and Russian states
provide a better business model than the failed American and European models.

~~~
mtts
China economically successful? Ok, I can see that. Elevating 300 million
people out of poverty into the middle class is nothing to sneeze at, even if
it still leaves 800 million (or so) in desperation.

But Russia? Sure, its GDP is impressive, but the vast majority of that is
"produced" by oligarchs that are peddling out the country's natural resources
without anyone else benefitting. It's a thief-ocracry that makes fascist
Italy, Franco Spain and Samoza Portugal look like paradise.

