Socialism

[Paidion]

I have heard testimonies of people who claimed that their lives were saved by not having worn a seat belt. During a crash they became ejected from the vehicle. Had they been strapped in, they would have been cut open by their seat belts.

[steve]

A person who refuses to wear a seat belt endangers those who do, because in an accident, the one who is not belted becomes a "missile" and often slams into those who are belted.

I am having a hard time picturing the scenario described, though this does not mean you are not describing an actual possibility. It seems that the only accident that would tend to propel a body like a missile would be that of a head-on collision at high speed. An unbelted driver or passenger would certainly be propelled forward, but his velocity would normally (I would think) be halted or greatly reduced by the intervention of the windshield. If he happened to plow through his own windshield without significant reduction of speed, it would seem, he would then have to penetrate the windshield of the other car before coming into contact with another human being. My guess is that the other human being is more likely to have been injured by the collision itself, than by a human missile that was thrown through two windshields into his lap.

[steve]

I came across the following statement by C.S. Lewis that seemed relevant to our earlier discussion. In the book, "God in the Dock," in the essay, "Man or Rabbit?", he was discussing the difference between the way Christian and Materialist policy makers would differ. He wrote:

In the same way, a Christian and a non-Christian may both wish to do good to their fellow men...Now, there are quite a lot of things which these two men could agree in doing for their fellow citizens. Both would approve of efficient sewers and hospitals and a healthy diet. But sooner or later the difference in their beliefs would produce differences in their practical proposals. Both, for example, might be very keen about education: but the kinds of education they wanted people to have would obviously be very different. Again, where the Materialist would simply ask about a proposed action "Will it increase the happiness of the majority?", the Christian might have to say, "Even if it does increase the happiness of the majority, we can't do it. It is unjust." p.109

Though Lewis does not identify a specific proposal to which this objection might need to be raised, it seems likely that he is thinking of the forcible socialization of government services, at the general expense of the reluctant taxpayer. There may be other popular programs that compromise justice wholesale, but none seems more suited to the description than this one.

[Paidion]

But what is the meaning of "just"? That everyone gets his own individual way at the expense of the multitude?

[dwight92070]

https://www.prageru.com/courses/politic ... le-selfish

Socialism makes people more selfish. Capitalism does the opposite.

[dwight92070]

Steve,

When I said "missile", I may have used the wrong word. What I meant to convey is that an unbelted passenger can easily be tossed about violently inside the car he is riding in, causing him to hit other passengers in that car, as well as hitting the inside of the car. Obviously, there are so many types of collisions, not just head-on collisions, where this could easily happen: A rollover, a broadside hit, a rear-end accident, falling asleep at the wheel, etc.

[Paidion]

Socialism makes people more selfish. Capitalism does the opposite.

What is your basis for those statements? I say it's just the other way around. Capitalism generates monopolies, so that a few large businesses crowd out the small ones, and thus wealth tends to be concentrated in the hand of the selfish few.

Democratic socialism (not the type that is not democratic but professes to be) tends to distribute the wealth of a country among the many with people unselfishly willing to have less in order that those who are poor may have more.

Socialism of the Communist variety is not much different from an oligarchy, or for that matter Nazism. They force their policies upon the public. It is thought by some that Nazism and Communism are at opposite poles, but instead of "left" and "right" concepts, look at the political spectrum as a circle. The extreme so-called right, and the extreme so-called left, meet at the other side of the circle, the side that tries to control the people and take away their rights.

[dwight92070]

If you look at the website I referred to, you will see my basis, or should I say, THE basis for saying that.

[Paidion]

I did look at it, and didn't find it at all convincing.

[steve]

But what is the meaning of "just"? That everyone gets his own individual way at the expense of the multitude?

No. At no man's expense. This does not mean that men live cost-free. There are expenses in living. Justice, however, means that when a man surrenders his honestly-acquired resources, he is entitled to do so voluntarily. Apart from his acts of voluntary charity, a man in a just society will receive, in exchange for the money he lays out, the equivalent value in goods or services. Thus, it is in no sense "at his expense," because there has been an exchange in equivalent value.

I do not see how you can speak of a man having his own way (in a free market economy) "at the expense of the multitude." The latter phrase can only refer to a case in which the multitude is laying out expenses for which they do not receive goods or services in return. In a free society, the multitudes do not pay for anything they do not choose to pay for (with the exception of criminal justice and national security, which the Bible ordains that the state should provide and for which it may tax its citizens). The prosperity of the rich is not at the poor man's expense—and, more often than not, is that which provides the poor man with employment.

Perhaps you mean "at the expense of the multitude achieving their dreams." But then, a man's achieving his dreams is not a "right" defined either in scripture, nor in any secular civil code. Why should it be? What if a man's dreams involved him having your wife? Would you think this to be a right, and that, by your having her, you are "getting your way" at "his expense"? How is that different from the case where he dreams of owning your house, or your money. Dreams are not rights. Some people produce little, and must (usually) live on little. This was my circumstance until I was in my sixties. If my income was less than I was content to live on, I would have produced more, in the normal and just way. Some people produce more, and often live more comfortably as a result. Do you know of any ethic that would find this not to be his right? By being prosperous, in what sense is he living at the expense of the rights of anyone else? Do you covet what he has, or sympathize with those who do? God does not. He clearly forbids it.

There is no crime in living poor. Paul said, "Having food and raiment, we will with these be content." Would you advise the poor man to reject this attitude, and instead to covet the wealth of the more productive man? Of course, a man may be poor due to age or disability, which is cause for compassion and charity. But, as I have said previously, charity is not involved in the act of one man taking something involuntarily from another man in order to give it to a third man.

Justice means people are free to steward their own time, skills and resources without groundless interference from other men and women ("government" is another way of saying "other men and women"). This means that "just" policies are at the expense of no man's rights. If you do not recognize a man's right to his life, his property, and his true reputation, then it would appear that the sixth, eighth and ninth commandments have failed in their intended educational objective, in your case—along with the tenth. Your socialist views are apparently a product of your culture, not your exegesis. The fish in the frozen pond does not know it is cold.

Capitalism generates monopolies, so that a few large businesses crowd out the small ones, and thus wealth tends to be concentrated in the hand of the selfish few.

In all societies, wealth has tended to be concentrated in the hands of a few. Is this bad? Most people (not all) who gain wealth lawfully, do so by being the kind of people motivated to start and run businesses (thereby providing employment for the mass of men who have neither the skill nor the desire to start their own companies—people like me, when I held a day job). Not everyone wants to be the boss. It seems good for society to allow the most energetic and competent members to keep and reinvest the fruits of their labors, skills and initiative, so that they can keep providing such jobs for the rest of us, who would not start such companies or generate much wealth, even if we had the wealth given to us.

To arbitrarily decide that wealth should not be "concentrated" in this way, and to steal most of it from its producers, giving equal amounts to those who lack the will or the skill to be entrepreneurs, would mean we would have less resources available to employ those who want to be employed, and those who have no desire or capability of benefiting the economy would now be sitting on large sums of money earned by other people. What will they do with such money? Buy gadgets? Buy rounds for everyone at the bar? Who can say, but knowing human beings, we can be sure that many of them will do little more virtuous than to imitate, to the degree their resources will allow, the opulent lifestyles of the rich who were lately robbed for this purpose. A few may start businesses, but there is little likelihood that a man who wanted to be a wage worker before the redistribution will suddenly want to become an entrepreneur (I certainly would have no taste for it). What is the point of giving the less productive, less motivated man, gobs of cash?

Of course, the above paragraph presupposes that the wealth of the rich, if redistributed, would be sufficient to elevate the standard of living of the less productive members of society. The reality is usually otherwise. Socialism tends to only reduce the rights and privileges of the productive, without really giving the masses a real shot at that affluent lifestyle of which they dream. For that, at least, we may be thankful.

Given what is known about human nature, one of the worst things that can happen to a man is to win a big lottery. Leaving a fortune to one's lazy children is a good way to destroy their lives and to squander a fortune. For every adult who has received a free living (whether from parents, charity or the government dole) and who has improved his character and life thereby, there must be a greater number who have, by this means, become less motivated to work, more dissolute and more discontented with the amount they are receiving from those whom they believe owe them a living. People who have actually earned money have a tendency to appreciate the value of money, and, on balance, are also the types who have the skills and initiative to know how to reinvest it—which is good for everybody, because it is good for the economy.

You suggest that capitalism generates greed. I doubt it. Capitalism is simply human freedom extended to the realm of one's financial stewardship. Freedom tends to reveal both virtue and vice. Men of vice, in a capitalistic society, will be selfish and greedy in their financial dealings, as in others realms of their lives. You do not make virtuous men of them by stealing what they have earned and redistributing it to the general public (where a similar percentage of the recipients will be similarly men of vice). Freedom exposes hearts. Those who have good hearts will use that freedom to practice generosity. Even those who are selfish, though, while living in luxury themselves, are not necessarily living at the expense of anyone else, and their very selfishness lead most of them to invest in such ways as to increase their wealth—ways that usually create jobs (something more and more difficult to find in this country as we adopt more and more socialistic policies).

Democratic socialism (not the type that is not democratic but professes to be) tends to distribute the wealth of a country among the many with people unselfishly willing to have less in order that those who are poor may have more.

You have not described a socialist economy, but a charitable one. The two are opposites. Those "unselfish" people of whom you speak, could as easily give to the poor by voluntary charity without governmental enforcement. And they would be content to do so, unless they begrudge the un-generosity of others who do not willingly give as much as themselves. Thus they force the unwilling (which is in no sense an act of unselfishness!) to make the same sacrifices involuntarily that they themselves have made voluntarily.

There are probably the same number of unselfish and generous people in a free society as in a coerced one. In a free society, you can tell who they are. In a coerced one, the vices of the selfish are hidden under the veil of compulsion, and can congratulate themselves for their forced submission.

I am surprised that such a champion of "free will" as yourself would betray the principle in your political theories.