Is communism realistic/feasible?
Communism (perhaps in some ways going all the way back to Plato) is a neat enough idea.
That said, I'm not personally convinced communism is realistic or feasible in general, at least not as the political philosophers mused. In small communities like kibbutzes, sure. Yet, communism requires a kind of homogeneity or participation, which might explain why it has consistently failed in large communities. Less freedom, oppression, less transparency, less diversity, "enforced human streamlining", ... Some philosophers thought in terms of flattened class structures, proletariat rule, common workers realizing the power of standing as one, all that. Supposed communist countries tend to become something else, something that (to me anyway) is not what the philosophers envisioned. Anti-communist efforts have turned bad also. Much of this is just (non-theoretical) observation.
As it stands, it seems that reasonably civilized societies tend to include democracy, socialism, capitalism alike.
Soviet Union (1922-1991)
US (? 1947-1954)
China (1949-)
But, no matter, more importantly, what do you think?
That said, I'm not personally convinced communism is realistic or feasible in general, at least not as the political philosophers mused. In small communities like kibbutzes, sure. Yet, communism requires a kind of homogeneity or participation, which might explain why it has consistently failed in large communities. Less freedom, oppression, less transparency, less diversity, "enforced human streamlining", ... Some philosophers thought in terms of flattened class structures, proletariat rule, common workers realizing the power of standing as one, all that. Supposed communist countries tend to become something else, something that (to me anyway) is not what the philosophers envisioned. Anti-communist efforts have turned bad also. Much of this is just (non-theoretical) observation.
As it stands, it seems that reasonably civilized societies tend to include democracy, socialism, capitalism alike.
Soviet Union (1922-1991)
US (? 1947-1954)
China (1949-)
But, no matter, more importantly, what do you think?
Comments (244)
For some reason, it seems that some (Western) communists and socialists have become apologists for Russia.
Doesn't make sense.
Putin's Russia at least, is a capitalist/opportunist, ruthless autocracy.
Are such apologists going by ulterior motives?
That is the most important thing, yes. :razz:
I think Bronze Age economies were pretty close to communism. Farmers brought their produce into the temple where priests then distributed it to the people, taking their cut. There was no free enterprise, no free market. The people worked for the government and the government worked for the people.
It's a stagnant way of life. Time can roll on for millennia with nothing changing in that kind of world. That's how I imagine communism would be. The only way for communism to get off the ground now would be for the whole world to suddenly decide to do it. Unlikely.
I'd be interested in why communism is or is not realistic/feasible.
Perhaps someone that wishes to remain anonymous could have someone else relay their thinking on the matter? :up:
I think it's feasible because we've already done something similar in the Bronze Age. We could return to that way of life, maybe if climate change wrecks what we've got.
As a form of government to nation states?
We've ample examples where that didn't work - in fact, it created about as close to hell on Earth as we could ever be. And it wasn't a fluke either. It managed to produce that on multiple occasions.
If I had to make an educated guess as to why communism applied to nation states seems to end up that way, it's because of the amount of centralized power the state acquires upon abolishing private property. Since everything still has to be controlled, you end up with the same flawed individuals running the institutions, but this time with near-godlike power.
The problem is those flawed individuals running the show. It's the same folks everywhere. And the difference between hell and limbo seems to be how much power we give them.
Yep, of
Quoting opening post
In the left-wing community these people are referred to as tankies. It is indeed quite perverse. There are a few things that feed into it. The main, obvious thing is that Western leftists may tend to be sympathetic to whoever is opposed to their own governments and opposed to Western foreign policy. This means that Russian anti-western talking points coincide with their own.
Another factor is the flipside of the popular Western misconception that Russia is still in some sense socialist or represents a continuation of the Soviet Union. There is a small kernel of truth here, in that Putins priority is always the strength of the centralized state and the extension of its power, and if he ever expresses admiration or approval for the Soviet Union it is just for the strength of its government and its success in securing its borders. There are probably other aspects to it as well, like the Stalinist-lite cult of Putins personality.
In the present condition of our societies, no. There are too many of us and the wealth that has already been amassed by a few is not readily divisible among the many. Anyone who tried to distribute it would be up against enormous logistical obstacles. Not least of these is the forms in which modern wealth resides: digital data storage; luxury vehicles; useless bling... Simply consider the number of hours of labour performed by workers on the assembly lines and loading docks of the world that were subsumed in the purchase of a single picture. Or dress. Or wedding reception.
You can't convert it to currency - which one, anyway? - without buyers, and their money would, in turn, have to come from profit. You can't convert it to food or books or medications or anything the dispossessed can use, without a marketplace where those useful things are more abundant than the useless things you want to trade for them. The value system of our present society has been so badly skewed for so long, we wouldn't know where to start fixing it.
And that's before we even consider the resources and work-hours invested in the paraphernalia of death and destruction.
Then, there is the cultural climate. Competition, confidence, status; the ideals of success, leadership and winning prevail. What happens to the self-image of the person tasked with organizing a new regime? Does he do the best possible job and fade into the background, or puff himself up and try to take over? And all the people who have been powerless, marginal, insignificant and frustrated all this time? Do they behave sensibly and share, or squabble like feral children until they break this toy also, the way they broke democracy?
There are operating communes all over the world; all different, mostly functional. So, of course it's feasible. In fact, it's the most reasonable and efficient form of human organization. Unfortunately, it only works on a small scale. And since these communities are surrounded by oceans of dysfunctional monetary society, they have a high rate of death by drowning.
, yeah, thought about mentioning that as a motive, like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Didn't want to steer/push things tho'.
, apparently communism doesn't scale well. There are various kinds of extremes, say, Nazism, theocracy, anarchy, totalitarianism, ... Observations suggest communism goes (or perhaps started) that way. Democracy has a built-in feature of (sort of legitimately) potentially turning into any of those as well, just takes a majority.
What way is that?
More specifically, to distinguish between communal living and commun-ism. I'm pretty sure they didn't start the same way and have very little in common.
Not for scarcity-exploiting nation-states. As you say "communism doesn't scale well". Why? I think because, simply put, material scarcity amplified by increasing population pressures radical alienation and all that this existential condition entails individually and collectively. Of course, in a post-scarcity world, "communism" would be unnecessary.
[quote=graffiti on buildings in Paris, May '68]Be realistic, demand the impossible.[/quote]
:fire:
We often forget how Western communism is, how bourgeois Marx was, and so it would inevitably erect itself on the Roman, republican model. A written constitution, the rule of law, representative governmentall of it is subject to the iron law of oligarchy, in communist states as it in is the liberal democratic ones. In that sense communist rights and freedoms are little different than republican rights and freedoms, insofar as the sphere of allowable activity is dictated by the republican state machinery, subject to be taken away as quickly as it is given.
I would say any form of organization is possible if it is free to do so from the ground up, through voluntary association, and not through the dictates of a man, a group of men, or a piece of paper.
When were people not beholden to an establishment or an unproven alternative?
Whether a "socialist" system is viewed as the equivalent to "communism" is an important question, I prefer the term socialism,
Neither communism nor socialism has a snowball's chance in hell of getting anything other than a very hostile reception from the Establishment and us running dog lackeys. Whatever flag they fly under, the revolutionaries intend to take the wealth away from the bourgeoisie (all of it, pretty much). Not a popular idea in bourgeois circles! Distributing their wealth to the people is anathema to the rich, of course.
The USSR operated as State Capitalism. The State was the company for which everybody worked, and the company looked after its own interests. That wasn't what communism was supposed to be.
What we are suffering from is the cult of the individual masking itself under the guise of democracy. It's the fucking enlightenment again Sam. The individual cannot survive. Even Bear Grills cannot last a year without a camera crew, support vehicles, the global network of trade in survival equipment and a large audience to finance his exploits.
And yet, the very idea of collective action is considered treasonous. Until it's time for war. As soon as one takes off the blinkers of political rhetoric, it is obvious that individuals are powerless, and communities are powerful. Individualism does not work and cannot work and will never work. Communism is all there is to politics, and its just a question of who runs it.
Atomization is made possible because the state takes over roles which were previously fulfilled by social networks, and exacerbated by things like digitalization and mass media.
As per usual, the state (the collective) is the problem, and not the cure.
I think you're confusing the collective with the state. As per usual the individualist denies their responsibility for others and ignores their dependence on others. Social networks are the collective, as is "the market". The state is just the controlling interest of capital.
Communism as a means to organize states or similar large communities is the topic of this thread, so I'm not sure why you believe this is the result of confusion.
Quoting unenlightened
This has nothing to do with individualism, which is a theory pertaining to the relation between states and individuals, bringing us things like individual rights, etc.
Individualism, if anything, points towards the state's responsibility for its citizens. It doesn't deny the responsibility of citizens.
Oh wait, you mean why do I think differently? why do I question accepted dichotomies at the heart of the thread and the usual parameters of political discourse? I don't know, perhaps it's the influence of T.H.White, or George Orwell, or Aldous Huxley, I'm really not sure.
Quoting opening post
..., authoritarianism, totalitarianism, or the like. Anyway, though kibbutzes were mentioned, the opening post wasn't so much about the former as about the latter.
:up: :cool:
, I definitely differentiate communism and socialism, but maybe my use of the verbiage is off. Communism is a wholesale, overall system, whereas socialism could be exemplified by public schools infrastructures hospitals etc, some number of shared responsibilities maintained via taxes, so there can be a degree of socialism. Well, something like that (though I'm not keen on getting too deep into the semantics). That's what I meant by
Quoting opening post
And what I had in mind about realistic/feasible.
Yaay, more votes, and a tie. :)
Psychology shows that there's no pure individual or pure collective thinking.
So how can either system work without eventually collapsing?
Individualistic cultures fragment into clusters of ideas formed by a few who promote their individualistic ideals and concepts to weaker individuals that follow. Communistic cultures cluster as a whole around a common ideal and concept, disregarding everything not in line with those.
In individualistic cultures, the individual is highly valued but this creates problems for collective movement and change. In communist cultures, the group is valued highly but this creates problems for questioning the decided movement and change.
It's probably why most functioning systems in the world feature a commonly accepted group culture built on individual rights, but also duties. Promoting individual thought with free speech, but a collective culture of societal rituals, behaviors, and dynamics.
Kind of like games with teams. Each individual has the freedom to think and act, but a common goal and team dynamic to reach it. Individual strengths when needed and collective ones when needed.
Any society that gravitates too much towards either side will collapse.
How do you figure? Humans are still individuals, even if they don't fence off the commons or claim private ownership of natural resources. In a commune, each member is expected to contribute whatever they have a talent for, including intellectual endeavours, creative work, invention, etc.
There is no such thing as 'collective thinking'. People may echo and imitate other people, or simply agree on certain matters, but a thought that's eventually shared still has to originate in an individual mind. We don't have any other kind. We can pool knowledge and effort, but each contribution is still individual.
"Individualism" as an ideology is as illusory as "communism". There are no systems of either: all societies are collective, and to some degree dominated by a minority of privileged individuals, while the majority conforms to whatever norms are set for them.
Or Renaissance. This thingy on top of St. Peter's is a symbol of the individual, standing between the heaven and earth:
I understand that some people may sympathize with its ideals. I myself do too to some extent. Who wouldn't want a fair, idyllic, self-governed society that is the envisioned endgoal of communism?
Nirvana, however, is not for this world. And that has been made painfully clear throughout history.
"Not real communism", yada yada. We've heard it all before. Somehow the total centralization of power never seems to end in the state's abolishment, but instead, predictably, with totalitarianism.
If we want to discuss certain elements of communism, and how in a different setting they may benefit human societies, that's all fine and good. But right now we seem to be stuck in a state of cognitive dissonance between the pretty ideal and the ugly reality.
Lets answer the question: "is communism a feasible method of organizing states and large communities?" once and for all with a definitive 'no' (I mean, how many more corpses would it take to convince you?), so that we may move on to new, hopefully more constructive ideas, that may or may not contain aspects of communism.
Let's definitively decouple our ideas of a better, fairer society from what is tried and tested communism, and forever close the lid on that abomination, so humanity doesn't have to repeat its blackest chapters.
And it sounds wonderful in theory until the community goes into deciding what contributions are acceptable and what are not. There's not much headroom for deviant thought within this system and this is why it historically, consistently has ended up in disaster.
This all works on smaller scale societies, but at large scale, how do you "contribute"? What if you aren't good at contributing? What if your contribution doesn't align with the rest?
In order for this system to work on a large scale it requires some kind of alignment with the rest of the group, otherwise, it's no longer communism. Where do leaders draw the line? Where do you draw the line? Who decides?
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, there is, it's called bias. It's called groupthink, which is a common trait historically within these systems. Which individuals are forming this society? It's no longer communism if you allow everyone's thoughts to be part of shaping the society since then you are talking about individualism instead. Communism is about aligning the people towards a common goal. If you allow individual thought to influence this, then it will slowly just collapse like the Berlin wall. It's exactly what happened.
This was precisely the reason why Orwell wrote about thought crimes in "1984".
Quoting Vera Mont
That's what I said, both are extremes that eventually lead to collapse. And we've also seen somewhat of a pure individualistic society through the neoliberalism movement in the 80s. Most of the Millennial generation has been formed as individualists and many of the problems today are the result of individualism, even though we've not seen a nation embracing it fully, since that would almost be anarchistic.
Quoting Vera Mont
Scandinavian social democracy has ended up being the most middle way possible on a large scale so far, and has proven to be very successful at creating a good place to live. There's less corruption, a focus on common goals, social safety nets that work, and free education and health care, while still featuring a lot of liberal values, individualism, and freedoms for the individual.
The goal would be to improve upon systems that are proven to work well, but that's not what the world does. Everyone instead debates about what is best between the extreme ends of Marxism, Capitalism, Communism, Individualism etc.
The problem today is that we need to change the best system in place to accommodate the eventual automation of society through AI. So we need a new paradigm in place, otherwise, we're going to see a collapse, regardless of system.
BTW, the more egalitarian and inclusive the US becomes the less it would be a nation-state. A nation is usually a group of people who have ethnicity in common. So nation-state is an entity in which community bonds are cemented by common language, history, heritage, etc. The largest minority in the US is now latinos, who (in some areas) don't speak English at all. Their presence, maybe more so than the black population, diminishes the US's chances of ever being a nation-state again (they were at one time).
I never said it works on large scale. Of course, nor does any other ideology; all political systems are more or less dysfunctional; all collapse sooner or later in their history.
I said all thought is individual.
Anyway, in a nation-state or tribe or empire, you have to contribute. In a monarchy, a theocracy, a military dictatorship or a democratic socialist republic, you have to contribute in order to receive a share, unless the polity or ruling elite exempt you for some reason (illness, injury, extreme age or youth are the standard exemptions) and the society has the wherewithal to carry you. There is some variation in the range of choices any individual has in deciding what, when and how much to contribute, but that's more a function of prosperity and technological advancement than style of social organization.
No economic arrangement is any harder to organize than any other. What's difficult is deliberate transition from one kind of economy to another.
An 'ethno-nationalist state'? :eyes:
My concept of 'nation-state' is decidedly cosmopolitan, n o t "ein volk, ein reich, ein gott". :mask:
That's just a state, not a nation-state.
Some political scientists say it was between the Civil War and the early 20th Century. I think some say it still is. I guess it depends on your outlook on opportunity in the US? My point was just that if it becomes more egalitarian, it definitely won't qualify.
Granted that setting up a commune is comparatively easy. It's also the case that communes often fall apart. I don't know what the history of kibbutzim are. Perhaps there was historical precedence that members shared; perhaps there was institutional support. I don't know how long any particular kibbutz has been operating, I'm pretty sure the kibbutz were not the same as the 1960s communes that came and went pretty swiftly.
Quoting Christoffer
All societies eventually collapse, don't they, given time?
A given cultural region--pre-Columbian North America, Europe, E. Asia, South Asia, etc--may maintain consistent features over long stretches of time, but social structures within the cultural region collapse and re-form continuously. It seems like an organic process, different than when a society is crushed by outside forces of various kinds.
The soviet system collapsed, but not merely from internal flaws. There was the German invasion of 1941 which was immensely costly. Then there was the Cold War, which drained the resources of the soviet system. (The Cold War drained capitalist resources too, but the drain was proportionately more tolerable.)
It has zero track record on a large scale. A label is not a system. Quoting Tzeentch
Of course it is. Put an incorruptible AI administrator in charge instead of self-proclaimed leaders who seek power, glory and wealth.
It isn't the system that corrupts the organizers; it's the organizers who corrupt the system - every system.
It cannot be said that any of the problems of today are the result of individualism. Greed, egotism, self-concern, which are often associated with individualism, are all of them perennial problems, not limited to any specific political epoch, and found in collectivists as much as in individualists.
There is no individualism. There has never been any individualism. Everywhere we look the individual is subordinate to a collective state, bound to act in compulsory cooperation with people that are not his brethren or friend, and under rules that are not his own.
This is inherently built into the Westphalian system of international relations, which is essentially anarchistic. Look at which being in the world is considered sovereign. Look at which being in the world is afforded life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the dominion and jurisdiction over all lands, all behaviors, all interactions, that occur within the bounds of its property. Far from a liberal individualism, we have adopted the individualism of Carlyle, "the vital articulation of many individuals into a new collective individual". We have adopted collectivism.
The individual has no rights, but only the rights the state provisionally grants him; the state may suspend them, modify them, or take them away at its own pleasure. It's how a nominally liberal democracy can get away with subjugating its entire population, as they did during the most recent pandemic. That's why the notion of a res publica, a government for the people by the people, is the greatest stroke of propaganda ever written. It has convinced people that their master is themselves. They now believe the conditional life of a conscript, a serf, a slave, is freedom, and an absolutist oligarchy is democracy. They believe that since they get to exercise their sovereignty on an astronomical basis (according to how many times the earth revolves around the sun), every few years voting for which mammal gets to dominate them, that they too are in control.
I suspect that this condition more so than individualism has led to the problems of today.
This is where things start to fall apart for all your hard work that went into building or buying your house is wiped off at the states want of redistribution of wealth in the name of creating equality which although admirable are then distributed to say a crack addict in an extreme scenario.
This done in the name of equality of course
This sounds like the "not real communism" argument.
Communism, as stated earlier, is a clearly defined way of governing states.
As such, there are clear examples of it. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.
I'm assuming you have an idealized version of communism in mind, that (hopefully) doesn't include all the atrocity.
What you need is to put a new term on that idealized, non-horrific version of communism and call it something else, because there's no point in trying to defend something that has been so utterly and completely poisoned by its real, real-life implementations.
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree with the last part wholeheartedly - we (humanity) are for the most part trying to limit the damage done by the corrupt organizers.
Whether AI is the solution is a question I'll leave for another thread.
Indeed. And it has never been tried in a state.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes. The clearly defined "ism" according to which a state might be governed, which entails no atrocity. The experiments so far attempted on a large scale did not conform to that definition - partly because of the means employed to achieve them. The means always determine the ends; that's why the USA is also a failed state.
I can comment on one or the other: governance as witnessed in those authoritarian states or the communist theory of government - it obviously can't be both, as they are not congruent.
Quoting Tzeentch
Sorry. I will not collude in the corruption of language to conform to the corruption of philosophies.
The future is open. And we can demand the impossible.
Quoting Ying
Nope.
Quoting invicta
As I've come to understand it (which may be wrong), you're part of that state. It's not supposed to be "elsewhere", "hidden" or "them", rather it's supposed to be you in part.
, possible (technically), sure, what about realistic/feasible (in light of observations)? You mentioned "not fixed", which might imply diversity, yes?
Yet so many still defend capitalism. Responsible for more deaths and brutality than imaginable.
Yes, of course. There is no pure, official statement of communism so its hard to talk about. But if we take worker control of the workplace, the means of production in workers hands then yes, USSR and China are very different indeed. But there are different stands. Some statist, some anti-statist.
So it goes for capitalism too, incidentally. What we see today in our neoliberal era is pretty far from anything in, say, Adam Smith.
Individualism is perhaps the biggest myth and scam of modern times. Philosophically dubious at best, ignores one of human beings most basic traits (social creatures), accepts the illusion of self as a kind of irreducible entity a la the atom, and is an outgrowth of some of the worst parts of Western culture.
All that aside, the most important point is that this kind of self-worshipping fundamentalism has been adopted and used by the ruling class, since at least Von Mises and Hayek in modern times, culminating in Friedman and, to a less serious degree, Ayn Rand. Much like Christians who want to justify what they want, they cherry-pick the ideas, these ideas become the ruling ideas, and provide cover and justification for plutocracy.
We see the results of neoliberal policies, as you rightly point out. By almost every measure, the results have been egregious except for the ruling class, to which 50 trillion dollars have been transferred over 40 years. All in the name of individualism: small government, government is the problem, and other libertarian (read: unwitting plutocrat apologists) slogans.
And when this undeniable wealth inequality, monopolization, failure of the free markets (another useful fantasy), financialization, bailouts, etc., is pointed out whats blamed? The state, of course.
So yeah, individualism is a complete sham. But even if it wasnt used to rob the population to enrich .0001% of the world, itd still be quite ridiculous.
:clap: :clap:
But some functions better than others, and the ones that don't function well are the ones falling into the extremes.
Quoting Vera Mont
And with careful programming, over a long period of time, you can Pavlov an entire people into obedience, i.e thought crimes.
Quoting Vera Mont
What is easier, higher taxes for social welfare/UBI? Or that everyone individually thinks of ways to contribute? Problem is that people are more laid back and apathetic the better a nation has it. I wouldn't trust any of my fellow Scandinavians to pick up the tools and contribute on their own accord. A minority does, but a minority won't carry the rest of society on their backs. That's why a large-scale communist society either forces people to contribute or programs them to do it. And yes, it is the same as in neoliberal capitalism, in which society programs you to value work as a form of high status and achievement.
Pavlov-driven societies are always in a downward spiral.
Quoting Vera Mont
Which is what will happen soon with automation if predictions fall correctly.
Quoting BC
Mainly due to influences from other nations and economies that people want more. They don't collapse just for the sake of it, they collapse due to the foundational supporting pillars being corrupt or badly built, and hopefully, the new pillars of the new system are built better.
The problem with just looking at history is that we don't know how modern times function on that scale since we've never had a globalized society before. Earlier in history, new cultures and ideas flowed into society at a constant rate and influenced progression, but today we see those influences happening over the course of months, not nearly enough time to reshape the foundation of society while the foundation also isn't clashing against other cultures in the same manner as before.
The cultural clashes today are primarily between fringe ideologies and larger nations with morons at the top, but we have all cultures out in the open, everyone is looking at every culture everywhere and evaluating what they think about them. Cultures and ideologies aren't "imported" as whole systems, we take fractions here and fractions there and form a collage of stuff rather than tumbling into a nationwide adapted singular ideology that later falls and a new rises. Society today falls and rises on a yearly basis, sometimes monthly, daily.
Quoting BC
Sure, but it was the people's will to be part of the rest of the world that broke the camel's back. Viewed through a simplified lens, it showed that the strict collective ideology that tries to hold everyone together towards a singular goal couldn't accommodate the chaos that is individual thought and will.
The bottom line is, if someone doesn't want to contribute because they feel like the state isn't moving in the direction they want, are they punished or are they allowed to try and change that direction? Is it even possible to manage a collective direction without force? And without that force, is it even possible to keep such a state in its form for longer than an instant? People do not agree with each other, it's basic human nature, so how can a society be built upon keeping society moving in a singular direction without force? The more singular that collective direction, the more force is required to keep on that path.
Therefore, communism is a house of cards in a hurricane.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, but we have a society (western society) where the neoliberal explosion of the 80s pushed individualism to a greater extreme. The "me me me" generations and narcissistic behaviors being handled like virtues for such a long time formed generational behaviors that influence society on a large scale. Basic human traits of course exist in any form of society, but these things have formed cultural behaviors that aren't just basic human traits.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, I'm not speaking of individualism as a form of state, but as a form of opposite to communism. What I'm describing is individualism in the extreme, when the ego becomes so important that the only incentive to participate in society is through state force. The rise of extreme right-wing groups is a result of this. There are so many people today afraid of the ghost of Marx and scared of any form of collective movement and at the same time, there are a lot of people on the opposite side who are fed up with this ego-focus and blindly want to march into communism. I'm saying both sides are hopelessly confused, but I'm not advocating for any passive centrism, I'm advocating for taking the best from both sides of the spectrum and building a society based on a balanced principle that is constantly evolving based on problem-solving per problem that arises using empathic strategies, knowledge, and science, but that's just me. Society will still crumble at the hands of AI automation so we need a system that works in that kind of world, which we don't have a system for yet.
Quoting NOS4A2
Isn't that just the result of cultural extreme individualism? As I mentioned initially, individualism today creates a clustered society of smaller ideologies since things like the internet today work as a radicalization machine. We actually don't see nations as collectives with individuals, we see groups that are borderless, forming pseudo-societies online, groups that adhere to extreme ideologies or ideas. It can be harmless like a community of Apple users trash-talking PC users, or it can be harmful like racist Qanon conspiracies and anti-vaccers.
Society today, in the west, is structured as a globalized clustered system based on individualized chaos gravitating towards groups of similar ideas and ideologies that radicalize them further. There are no real actual borders today, figuratively speaking.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, I agree about how society today is basically a slave state in which the slave thinks they are the master. A brilliant scheme to hack the literal interpretation of the master/slave analogy. And to top it off, confuse everyone through extreme capitalism that creates a white noise experience of life in which value and meaning are infused into materialistic wants so that the needs get confused with the want.
I'm not really defending Western society, I'm just pointing out how both communism and individualism (as foundational virtue in Western society), are extreme forms of societies that collapse fast.
But I don't think liberal individualism works either. It is further fragmenting society and can easily just tumble down into anarchism. There's an illusionary idea that society can work without a collective quality. People are selfish and the problem with liberal individualism is that it only works for the ones fortunate to find balance within it. Any stroke of bad luck, which most liberal individualists ignore as an existing problem, can throw anyone out of this wonderful freedom since there's no one in society that have any incentive to help them on their feet. Some liberal individualists argue for just letting them die off, and some think that people will help them out of empathy. Looking at the world today, the virtue of individualism forms narcissists who pay a small sum to charity in order to program themselves into feeling good while not actually helping to fix the underlying problem that put people in harm and trouble, it's clear that this idea of self-forming collective empathy without incentive is an illusion in order to brush the dark side of liberal individualism under the rug.
There has to be both a collective and individual part of society that works in tandem. Just look at how Sweden handled the pandemic, we had no lockdowns. We had recommendations, and people followed them for the most part because we culturally have a collective sense that isn't forced by a state, but by cultural values. I'm not saying we have the perfect system, but we still exist high on that list of best places to live. But we also live in the "slave" system like any other capitalism. I'm just saying that the solution is never to turn to extremes.
Quoting Mikie
Exactly, and it's scary that Millennials and Gen Z have been brought up in one of the most extreme forms of this myth and we now see the result of this. The falling mental health, the fragmentation of society into extreme groups who desperately seeks out these social places because society as a whole doesn't have that place for them. As mentioned above, the enslavement of the people by the radicalized allure of individual greatness that has been a pipedream fed to everyone under the age of 45.
In some ways, I'm really impressed by the ruling class's ability to form a perfect system of oppression. While previous states tried to beat the people into submission, the modern era has been feeding self-improvement opium and divine meaning to the people based on a Baudrillardian simulacra of existence.
In fact, there's nothing individualist about our society. In the west it is not uncommon for half one's income to be taken directly in the form of tax. Meanwhile governments infringe pretty much at will upon individuals' constitutional and human rights whenever it suits them.
These are signs of a deeply collectivist society. We simply do a good job at hiding that fact, because governments have no interest in furthering ideas that would seek to limit the powers of government. Likewise, people who seek power over others have no interest in futhering ideas that seeks to take that power away.
Better pretend that philosophies of individual worth and freedom are the problem.
In my experience feasibility is an assessment from the perspective of the people in charge. But realistically we only need other people which we unite with, so insofar that enough people unite together for something that they want then you can obtain it. The main barrier to communism is how people don't seem to want it. The cultural antibodies are simply too thick at the moment, and we ourselves are too sick for such a beautiful idea.
But given that the world isn't static it doesn't have to stay that way. That's what I mean by not fixed. The way we relate to each other is ultimately up to us.
What I said about individualism is not that there's any individualist states, but individualist traits. Politics didn't form individualism during the 80s, individualism is a trait that has become a virtue out of the neoliberal movement during the 80s and it's a foundational ideology not in practical politics but as a value system that forms how people act and group together. It's what fragments people into small radical groups, intensified by the internet as a catalyst for such fragmentation.
We can view society as collectivist, but that's not a conclusion for society as a culture and social structure. The political system has collective functions, but we as a Western society are not even close to communism as a collective. We're at the opposite end, infusing the individual, the ego, with fantasies of greatness that blinds the individual into believing irrelevant trivialities has existential values.
Society isn't structured around collectivism, it's structured around a simulacrum of individualism and subjective agency, while a ruling class builds wealth and power on the backs of the people.
The fact that a state has systems in place to form some communal functions in order to balance society does not mean we live in a purely collectivist state. Social structures and culture are far more complex than a simple label.
Scandinavian social democracy is more politically collectivist than the US, which is more individualistic. But Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, are extremely individualistic on a cultural level, while the US has an extreme focus on collectivist cultural forms like the ideology about hegemony and national identity. This is why such labels don't really work or mean much. Most Western nations today have individualistic values in their culture. It is what forms how people behave, regardless of how the political system looks.
Quoting Tzeentch
That's the positive side of individualism, but the negatives like social fragmentation, inequality, egoism and selfishness, lack of social responsibility, loss of meaning and connection. Forming radicalized groups, incel culture, narcissism, and personalities like Trump. These are consequences of a culture with a focus on the individual.
As I've argued above, there has to be a balance. Individualism is the polar opposite of communism, but individualism itself does not produce a society that is good for everyone. Any stroke of bad luck and there's nothing to help you, so everyone is living on the edge and that leads to only caring for the self and the people closest to you, i.e society fragments into groups and everyone ends up alone in their own misery.
What I'm trying to get across is that those negatives aren't necessarily the result of individualism.
Individualism first and foremost states that the individual has inherent value, and from a moral perspective cannot simply be bulldozed by states or collectives. In my opinion, that idea is the very cornerstone of humanism. Wherever the value of the individual is not acknowledged we find, pretty much categorically, inhumanity. Human rights and constitutions are based on the idea that individuals have rights. I could go on.
This is why I find it deeply disturbing that people on this forum have taken such an adversarial stance towards individualism, apparently attributing to it all the negative traits of our society.
Individuals left to their own devices will generally seek voluntary, mutual beneficial relations with others. They will pursue happiness, but that happiness often includes the happiness of others. They will prefer coexistence over conflict, etc.
Note also that individualism understands every individual to have inherent value, so self-aggrandizement at the expense of others - egotism - has nothing to do with individualism.
Yes, agreed about the positives, but if you say that those things aren't part of individualism you simply ignore those parts of it. "Individualism" is more than just those humanistic positives and it's not wrong to postulate that the narrow focus on uplifting the individual, the singular subjective individual, also creates negatives as a result. To argue that individualism as a societal trait and cultural value has formed those negatives, is a logical conclusion out of the psychology that emerges from such cultural and societal perspectives.
To uphold humanistic values does not equal individualism. To give individuals human rights and inherent value is not the same as individualism. Individualism is the central focus on the individual, the singular person as separate from the rest. It spills over to not just be about rights and values, but about putting the individual at the center, which forms a detachment from the collective. That's the basic foundation of individualism. What you refer to is simply humanism and human rights.
We can still set those human rights as an axiom and still talk about individualism as a negative without it conflicting with that axiom. Because the focus on the individual has just as much to do with individual rights as it does with egotism and narcissism.
Quoting Tzeentch
I would say that is a misunderstanding of the concept being discussed. You interpret it as being against human rights, but that's not what's being argued.
Quoting Tzeentch
That is a very simplistic psychology of people and not at all true in all situations. That is true for people who had the best upbringing, good luck, a good social circle forming a balanced social psychology and who have time to care for themselves and strangers. In the real world, however, people don't always, even rarely, have a really good upbringing, many don't have good luck in their life, far too many ends up in bad and dangerous social circles or they don't find any people in their life and all of that forms a toxic psychology that more often than not doesn't lead to any care for strangers and other people in their life.
To say that people function perfectly well left to their own devices is pretty much a utopian ideal of the individual and I don't think anyone with insight into psychology and sociology would agree that this is a general truth that can be applied at mass.
Quoting Tzeentch
You are still talking about humanism, not individualism.
The way they're all doing right now? Even the more robust socialist-leaning democracies. They're not all the same age, or at the same point in their economic development, or in the same circumstances and international relations. But they are all facing the same global threats and reacting individually, with mutual distrust - which pretty much assures their destruction.
Quoting Christoffer
I doubt any authoritarian regime has the longevity to control a people's collective thought. Obedience is easy to obtain through fear; controlling thought is a different matter. In that, capitalism is much more effective: they do it though misdirection, flattery and blandishment, rather than threats. Religion, of course, is the ultimate system of thought-control.
Quoting Christoffer
Level of difficulty doesn't come into it: what's easiest is whatever people are willing to support, and the government is competent to organize - but coercion works, too. In all social organizations, it is necessary for members to contribute. The more fairly and evenly the burden is distributed, the more stable a political system tends to be.
Quoting Christoffer
I'm not convinced that that transition is deliberate. It seems more like a logical conclusion of capitalism which has been steadily sawing at the branch it sits on. The contingency plans for when the inevitable happens seem to me far less developed than the catastrophe. (Not unlike the covid crisis: it had been predicted for a couple of decades; intelligent precautions laid out by responsible health agencies -- governments balked, blathered and pretended to prepare, each according to its systemic nature.)
Quoting Christoffer
But the Russians had Pavlov! Why didn't they program all those individuals?
Quoting Christoffer
Who picked the singular direction? It's relatively easy to get general consensus on matters that benefit the population at large. People contribute for their common good or defence. What they object to is making sacrifices for the benefit of a few. And they usually put up with quite a lot of that, too, as long as the system feels stable; they don't revolt until the rulership is already teetering on its corruption.
Scandinavian social democracies aren't falling, they're far more stable than most other nations with less socialist systems. Not sure what you are referring to, but what I meant is that systems that aren't leaning toward the extremes survive better, and some function better than others. Generally speaking, we haven't had such stable systems historically as we have today because of things like the EU, the UN etc. pushing people not to invade each other and defend against developing dangerous ideas without intervention. The transparency is far greater today than ever before so we're in a better place than ever in terms of stability. Overall we don't know where this leads, but the clash of cultures happens far less now than back at the start of the industrial revolution. Even the analogy about the fall of the Roman Empire is not really valid since the Roman Empire wasn't all that "modern" in sense of human rights and stabilizing systems, so the collapse was much more likely and it still managed to keep going far longer than we've seen of this modern era. Forming a prediction based on history requires a much more detailed analysis of the contemporary than just "big empire fell then", "big empire will fall now". The fall of large societies requires a fundamental flaw that takes over every part of that society. We have flaws in the world today, but we view the world as a globalized unity of many societies wrapped in a global society through systems of unities (EU, UN etc.). Little today actually resembles something like an empire or singular society. If someone falls today, the others still stand, we even try to help nations in trouble through peaceful means, something that didn't really happen in history before, other than through trade and war.
Quoting Vera Mont
Well, we had Nazi-Germany, which formed the reason why psychologists and sociologists conducted psychological studies post-war to figure out why people behaved like that. They didn't all act through fear, they were convinced, and they put their blindfolds against the holocaust on willingly. The ideals and ideas echoed throughout society, they deified Hitler and cried at his appearance as if he was Elvis. They believed the bullshit, deep into their souls.
And having extensive knowledge in marketing I can say that this brainwashing happens all the time and is extremely effective. Reprogramming people is so easy that I think one of the worst problems in the world is that people don't understand just how gullible and biased they actually are. People actually believe they have control over their thoughts, far more than what psychology has shown us. It's even so bad that people agree and talk about bias, disinformation, and manipulation, but they still think they are immune to it.
And yes, as I also said, capitalism, our simulacra of life through materialistic meaning is far more impressive as a means of control. And marketing controls so effectively, it has pretty much-replaced sermons in a world where the store and mall became our church.
Quoting Vera Mont
Of course it is more difficult to hope that people will just contribute on their own. Taxes are just like money itself. Before money, we traded with goods, it was cumbersome and problematic on a large scale, and hard to scale value differences. So we invented money which made it a hell of a lot easier for trade and transactions. The same goes for taxes, a much better way to distribute means to support society than hoping people will just do it on their own. It is impractical on a large scale and it is prone to collapse very easily if people just stopped helping on such a large scale that it stops vital functions of society. Of course, we have problems with corruption within taxing systems, but to say that people will just help out on their own and everything just falls into place naturally is a utopian idea in the same manner as wishing money disappeared and that we just traded with goods again.
So all you have outside taxes as a form of means to manage societal functions is coercion, whip that comrade into doing his job, or send him to a working camp.
Quoting Vera Mont
Of course governments and people aren't prepared, because they didn't care. AI was about Terminators and The Matrix, that they would take our jobs wasn't part of the fiction and that it was about to become reality soon wasn't on anyone's map, except those who actually understood the tech and have been warning about this for a long time.
But that is what governments and people need to develop right now. We need a system that's philosophically prepared and can house 99% of unemployed people hundred years from now. An economic system that doesn't revolve around our traditional "work for money, pay for goods"-economy, but an economy that produces the means of living without anyone getting paid, since no one is working. Or rather, pay people for not working so they can finance a small industry still existing as a traditional economy.
Quoting Vera Mont
They have, and even now there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in Russia still believing in the Soviet dream. Some people still believe that Russia is the biggest empire in the world. And everyone who doesn't think like that should be shot like a dog.
Quoting Vera Mont
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Even a society that in its formation formulates a singular direction that everyone at that time thinks is a good collective direction might soon end up disagreeing and then the leaders need to remove such people to protect the glorious nation and singular vision that everyone agreed upon. So even if everyone agrees at first, it's still the leaders and rulers who decide the direction and to uphold a collective form, a commune where everyone is on the same page, it's always easier to just remove the deviants than to try and work with the chaos of individuals who disagree with the direction. This is why communism always fails, it's a pipe dream of collective will in the utopian idea of "one people". As I'm saying, arguing against both individualism and communism, both produce negative sides that slowly degrade and destroy society. There's no future in either extreme and we have far better examples of fusions like social democracy that evidently produced far better societies with healthier and happier people... if we ignore the overall eldritch monster that is capitalism and simulacrums of meaning.
Conflating selfishness and individualism is a collectivist canard as old as the word itself, and flips the dictum that man is a social animal on its head. I cant take anyone who repeats it that seriously because it posits a glaringly false anthropology, that man is a fundamentally anti-social animalas soon as individuals were set free from the bonds of subordination and are afforded rights theyd become hermits and care only for themselves.
It was the conservatives and royalists who invented the term and the communists, socialists, and fascists that keep using it with this meaning today. Consequently it was collectivists who historically stood in opposition to freedom, human rights, individual worth, and human dignity. Apparently this meaning persists on philosophy forums.
Yeah, like I said, individualism is a pretty stupid religious belief even without it being used as a veil for plutocrats. Mostly just a cover for extreme selfishness. A good example is the constant whining about taxes.
What it really boils down to is a rejection of the idea of democracy and a denial of human beings as social creatures. And this is why those who profess to care about individual rights always end up defending corporations, billionaires, Republicans, Donald Trump, neoliberalism, etc. Literally on the wrong side of ANY issue. You name it: abortion, drugs, education, voting rights
Another important aspect is that these ideas basically grew out of the desire to own and keep slaves.
When a set of beliefs lead to such absurd and embarrassing outcomes, trying to engage it rationally is as productive as talking to a creationist about science.
Yet. But they are heading rightward, and all the way far right: xenophobia, isolationism, repression, authoritarian conformity. If they fall in lock-step with the anti-vaxx, climate-change-denying faction, they won't take long to fall. https://civic-nation.org/finland/society/radical_right-wing_political_parties_and_groups/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/15/far-right-sweden-intolerance-liberalism-election-results
In the face of global threats - especially climate change, which hits fastest and hardest in northern climates, which also affects the incidence of virulent epidemics, they're in far more trouble than they seem to realize.
Quoting Christoffer
They've also flocked back to the Orthodox church, embraced western fundamentalism and consumerism, supported conservative measures regarding the personal life of citizens, fresh waves of antisemitism; lots of illusion, delusion and collusion, as well as lots and lots of organized international crime. All the symptoms of a very sick nation. What's any of it to do with communism?
Quoting Christoffer
Sez who? And what does it mean? That anyone who intends to do good is damned? God hates good intentions and Satan likes them? So, if you want to be saved, plan to do evil?
Quoting Christoffer
Where does this "singular direction" idea come from? Who said a nation needs to go anywhere? What's wrong with just living the best way you can and making decisions as circumstances demand? The majority can usually agree on what to do in a flood or fire; they usually know who on the scene is best qualified to organize the effort.
Quoting Christoffer
What leaders? Whose vision? Why shouldn't both change as circumstances change? Comunal life doesn't requite stasis; it merely requires the shared ownership of resources. Beyond that, it can be based on religious principles, or utilitarian ones, or secular humanist; it can be agrarian or urban, highly technological or primitive, paternal or maternal, hedonistic or puritanical, segregated by sex or one big extended family. Why would you expect it to be rigid or authoritarian?
Against taxes (along the lines of @NOS4A2)?
That would rule out communism and whatever socialist aspects of society.
There's a bit of the tired old "Us-versus-Them" here.
I suppose, with
Quoting Jan 27, 2023
that might be understandable, for the US at least.
Yes and no.
Taxes are literally taken from you at gunpoint. I am against taking things from other people at gunpoint, whether it's done by a common thug or a state.
I'm not against voluntarily contributing to one's community.
Communism proposes the absence of a state and self-governance. That doesn't imply taxes.
Obviously an almighty state will never abolish itself, so the communist utopia is pretty much a pipedream, but that's a different discussion.
Quoting Mikie
.
Quoting Tzeentch
Case in point.
Against taxes then, more or less like @NOS4A2. (The latter ain't taxes in this context.)
Quoting Tzeentch
In principle at least, you don't own a company under communism, whether you run/started it or not. Everyone ("the communist state") does, and gains/losses are a state thing if you will.
Had it not been for the obvious flaw in this plan, I would have been a communist myself.
No state, imagine that!
No, but Dunbar's number also predicts that you cannot scale society based on such principles larger than a very low number. Even if Dunbar's number has been criticized regarding the actual size that we are cognitively limited to handle, it will never be able to include an entire large society the size of a nation or global ideal.
And I'm not even talking about such selfishness, I've mentioned numerous times that individualism leads to a clustered society in which people cluster into smaller groups with similar-minded ideals. This has already happened to some degree and it is not a good foundation in society to be that fragmented, especially if there are intentions to solve large-scale problems, and especially if those problems come with conflicting ideas among the people. The selfishness comes from these groups polarizing themselves against others and not caring for anyone else than that group. If you are unable to see these things in society, I can't help you, but they're a glaring result of all of this.
I think you are deliberately straw-man what I said down to only having to do with individual "selfishness", but that's just true for some people in such a society, the rest are selfish through the group that they clustered to.
Quoting NOS4A2
And here you simplify everything into a polarized position in which anyone who speaks critically of the term gets thrown into the communist fascist camps. This is just low quality.
Instead of actually caring for the nuances that I wrote about. As you would have seen, I'm criticizing both communism and individualism, I don't defend either and I think both lead to collapse.
Apparently, you don't seem interested in engaging in another way than throwing around these strawmen. Why? I don't know, but ignoring the negatives of individualism is just bad as ignoring the negatives of communism.
Quoting Mikie
Exactly. There's little philosophical value to be found in someone who points to an ism and does everything in their power to try and paint it as a perfect utopia, rejecting any notion of any negative sides to it. What I see is mostly just a rejection of basic psychology from people defending it without any critical afterthought.
Quoting Vera Mont
This is a global trend as a result of the clusterization of people through individualistic culture. When there's less of an overall collective sense of culture and people are blasted with an overload of conflicting information while having a deeply rooted ideology of individualism, they tend to gravitate toward groups that position themselves within similar ideas, a result of extreme confirmation bias.
I see Scandinavian nations as being far less prone to nationalizing these extremist ideas and there is still a large majority that openly and clearly opposes it. With that said, it's important to stay vigilant and not sleep on the watch and wake up with these nutjobs running the show.
Quoting Vera Mont
Nothing, but the people still believe in it. The point is that they were so deeply programmed by that society that they still embrace it even if it's not even around anymore.
Quoting Vera Mont
It's a proverb.
When people aren't evaluating their ideas and ideologies, believing in utopian dreams, and thinking they have solved pain and misery, they usually install a system that unintentionally creates hell on earth because they ignored looking at the downsides of their "good idea".
Quoting Vera Mont
From the leaders of that nation, or from the revolutionary manifest created by those who conducted a revolution, or whatever became the foundation for that society. Or it's just the end result set in place by the new leaders trying to formulate a new system after eradicating the old. Ever read Animal Farm?
And of course a nation needs to "go somewhere". How do you expand society when the population grows? How does the nation solve any large-scale problem? All of that comes out of society collectively or through an elite, figuring out solutions, and that ends up forming societal culture. If society is built upon everyone needing to contribute and be part of a whole and have a singular momentum so that things actually get done and not just go to chaos, you have to force people in that direction.
How do you form a large-scale collective society where everyone contributes to the same thing and cause if there aren't any agreed-upon guidelines?
Quoting Vera Mont
Of course, that works for a small-scale society. How do you manage that with the complexities of a nation of around the size of 100 million people? Then there aren't just floods or fires to fix anymore, but how to manage food supply and production, building infrastructure and housing. What happens if some people want more? If they start to accumulate resources and start to disagree with how things are run?
It quickly tumbles down into chaos. And the solution is either a system that incorporates individual thinking together with collective action... or a collective goal where everyone is forced to comply.
Quoting Vera Mont
How do you practically apply all of that into a system that functions together with human psychology? The basis for that communal life that you propose is exactly the kind of stasis you say wouldn't exist. Society doesn't function with such foundations for long before people start to question and think of new ideals that start to conflict with the old. Communal life requires the entire community to be on the same page. It works well for a small-scale society but you cannot possibly incorporate that on a large scale without authoritarian power systems starting to form in order to keep everything and everyone in line with the rest of the community.
People aren't mindless husks that will comply with everything the community decides and the larger the society, the less possible it is to keep everyone on the same page. It is inevitable that such a society breaks down when fractions and groups start to form around different ideas that they believe are better than the status quo.
What I'm asking is, how do you apply a decided community ideal to 100 million people and have everyone agreeing with that over the course of decades or hundreds of years? What happens when some people disagree with the people who organize different parts of society? What happens when large groups want more than the standards they have? Because if some people have more than others, do you think people with less will just accept that and feel it's fair? Some people will eventually have more than others because people are different and have different skills and capabilities.
It doesn't require a lot of deduction to see how such a system crumbles and falls apart very soon. And the only way for it not to is to force the people into complying with it. That is exactly what has happened in every communist society ever.
Well said.
There would be no such thing in any offical capacity, or it would just be the state under a different name, and thus totalitarianism under a different name.
What communism proposes as its end stage is quite idyllic. No one possesses anything. The "commune" doesn't possess anything. The leaders don't possess anything, no secret state that we now call a commune that continues to levy taxes, etc.
People living together in harmony, producing what they can and taking what they need.
I can show any number of quotes from socialists, fascists, conservatives, communists, throughout the ages about the atomization theory of individualism, and the resulting fear of selfishness, hermitic lifestyle, and the anarchy that is supposed to result because of it. But again all of it rests on a false anthropology.
All of it was designed in service to the power of tradition, religion, the monarchy, the state, all of which imply subordination and obedience. So I do not care about your nuance when I can see what it is designed to protect: the sanctity and prestige of one or more collectivist and anti-social institutions. Collapse of what? The state? The church? The monarchy? No doubt its some amorphous institution set over and above the value of human beings qua human beings.
Anyway
Quoting yes?
Are you for or against appropriating the fruits of someones labor?
I can appreciate that. It was a loaded question, anyways.
In almost 60 years of paying various taxes, I never saw a gun. I have, however, driven on literal highways, sent literal packages through the mail, travelled in an airplane that was safely guided to the ground by a literal air traffic controller, walked on sidewalks cleared of garbage and snow by literal removal crews and received treatments in very literal hospitals. No literal guns.
Of course, I would be very happy to abolish money altogether and share out the contributions and benefits equally. The major obstacle to that is calculating fair shares, and the major difficulty is the transition.
There are literal guns stashed in the police office down the road, and they will literally be used if you don't want to go to jail after not to paying your taxes.
Let me emphasize that taxation is completely dependent upon very real and literal threats of violence.
One of the greatest conceits is that only man in his government form can lay asphalt, deliver packages, pick up garbage, or care for the sick. Here in the great white north we have abandoned state-controlled air traffic control, one of the first countries to do so. It's one less thing I am forced to pay for even when I don't use it.
Lovecraft invented an alien who doesn't understand the earth's devotion to individual forms, so it freely combines the patterns of the living things it comes across on earth. It's the subject of The Color Out of Space, The Thing, and Annihilation, all of which of are beyond horrifying. Individuality is actually basic. We just take it for granted until we're presented with the extreme alternative.
And when you do you use those privatized services, you pay more for less. This also holds true for the public services that have been privatized but still paid for though government taxation.
After 99% of the population is killed off in the closing panic, you'll have to hack your own path through the devastated landscape and depend on nobody. Until then, there are too many of us to do everything independently. So we have elected governments or some other kind - military, corporate, theocratic, oligarchic. Any kind will demand contributions from the citizenry and collect by some means and some method.
So thinking taxes are taken at literal gun point is calling a spade, eh?
:up:
In the US you could (conditionally) get 5 years behind bars, according to H&R Block; apparently something similar in Canada. (I'm no expert on this stuff though. Don't we have some lawyers in the forum?)
In the US, it seems more likely you'd be gunned down in a school shooting.
But, if it's such an issue, you could go to the Caymans (or find a good spot in Baffin Bay and do your own thing) or something? Isn't that the sort of thing you're suggesting?
By the way, Somalia has no taxes, but I wouldn't recommend going there. (Hint?)
Well, living in a society is voluntary too. You can leave the country if you dont like how its run or truly dont like having to pay for a service you may not use. You know, just like you can leave the company if you dont like their policies.
If these so-called individualists had any integrity whatsoever, the first thing theyd be attacking is private tyrannies. But like well trained dogs, they defend them to the bitter end.
Again, all of this comes out of the arguments in favor of slavery. And it leads to decisions like voting for Donald Trump, siding with gun manufacturers over childrens lives, extreme abortion restrictions, etc. In other words: its hifalutin bullshit to justify a very clear agenda.
Dont look for consistency.
:blush: :up:
Indeed. But thats not a gun killing you its freedom.
That's assuming you would start paying taxes after the sentence.
If you don't pay taxes, you'll spend your life behind bars.
Quoting jorndoe
I suppose the next time someone brings up gun violence in the US I will recommend them to immigrate somewhere with stricter gun laws. :snicker:
So you are basically just engaging in a debate through a guilt by association fallacy, rather than having a discussion?
Quoting NOS4A2
How am I protecting that when, if you even cared to read more or think about what I actually write, you would see that my criticism of pure collectivism/communism is far more strong than that against individualism? I'm just not an individualist evangelist like you seem to be in this discussion because ignoring the negative sides and the psychological fallout of such absolutism is just as biased as anything you are criticizing. That smells more of red scare than any kind of rational perspective on this topic.
If you are nothing more than a sock puppet for your ideology, then you're not able to have a philosophical discussion and will just do what you're doing right now, "guilt by association" to position yourself above others in order to make the appearance of having some higher moral ground. It's rather transparent and I don't think I'm alone in rolling my eyes toward this approach of yours.
Quoting NOS4A2
Why are you constantly just inventing loaded interpretations about what you believe others mean? Are you unable to engage in a discussion without constantly trying to bully your way through others' arguments? That kind of writing is just petty. You don't even try to get what others are writing before you slam on a negative value trying to ridicule it. Why should anyone care to engage with you if this is your level of engagement?
We are talking about the collapse of both a state and the social culture around it. When the wall fell, it wasn't just the state that collapsed, it was also the culture it had formed. By "collapse" I mean that the general overarching guiding ideals, politics, and mentality changed, it doesn't mean everyone flipped the page, only that the overall politics and culture changed form and start to move in another direction than the previous. Most large societies, when they fall or collapse, don't end up as a clean slate, the old slowly rots away or lingers and perhaps influences the new direction. This is clear in how modern Russia looks, in which there are echoes of Soviet all over the place and in many people's values and behaviors.
But that would have been clear to you if you actually read more than skimming through in order to jump on the defense and label others to simulate some moral superiority for yourself.
The question is, what do you defend? Please describe, in your words, individualism in the complexity that incorporates human psychology and sociology. No one is questioning the humanistic and moral importance of liberty for the individual. That is humanism. Individualism, on the other hand, with its emphasis on prioritizing the individual above all else, can have societal and psychological consequences, some of which may be negative. This perspective often centers on the ego and disregards the potential adverse effects of such an approach, including the impacts on people's psychology and group dynamics that may arise as a result.
Imagine a world where everything is privatized and nothing is taxed.
You have your own house and the land it was built on, and you paid for it. You will pay a fortune for the water you get, or you can have your own well. So now everyone has their own house, land, and well... or not since that's not possible for anyone and that's a hard life. So you live in an apartment instead because that's more convenient, but as a collective living there, you need to pay a share to finance the maintenance for the entire building. Oh no, that's a commune, that's collectivism, get out of there... back to the house.
So you have the house and your land, and then you want to go somewhere to buy food. You have to pay for walking on that road, though, so you pay a monthly fee or per walk, as long as you don't own the road. If so, you need enforcers to keep track of everyone walking on that road so you can get an income for that, but you also need to pay those enforcers... better to just have someone else own it and you pay for it, that should be cheaper in the long run. So you get to the farmer and you pay for food, a lot more than when there were taxes since the complexity of producing food requires enormous costs when subsidies are gone, and all that needs to be paid for.
Walking home, you need to pay again, more this time since the owner of the road also feels the pain of paying much for their own living, maybe the enforcers have driven up the costs, so they need to charge more. Now you need to charge more for what you do for a living, but they can't pay you before increasing their own income as they also have roads to walk on.
You try to produce as much as you can yourself, growing food, using solar panels, and managing the well and human waste. It's a lot of work, so much so that you don't have the time to do work to earn a living to be able to pay for services you actually need. One day you don't have enough to walk the road, the cost is too high, and you haven't been able to make your monthly income. Enforcers guard the road to make sure you actually pay for walking on it since you tried to sneak out one time when you were desperate.
And the one thing you hope in all this stress is that you don't fall off the ladder while fixing the roof. If that were to happen, you wouldn't be able to afford your health since you can't work to earn enough to get the help you need.
If only there were some form of generalized pay so that the economy balances out. To make it easier to just do day-to-day stuff without being at risk all the time.
:shade:
If people were to add up all the things in society that are financed through taxes, it becomes clear just how much things actually cost, as well as how impractical modern life is without taxes. It's also easy to see how fragile such an economy is since there's no societal cash flow balancing trade and transactions. But the most glaring problem is how ignorant such a society would be towards those less fortunate, those who stroke bad luck and fell of the ladder. There's no incentive to help them and there are no good broad examples of automated help coming out of empathy from the rich, which basically means, letting the poor die.
The most interesting aspect in all of this is that nations with low corruption and high taxes generally puts them at the top of the list of best places to live in the world. Based on statistics from the people's perception of life living there. Scandinavian nations frequently top it and then there's the case of the rapid improvement of life in the US in the 40s and 50s when taxation reached a marginal income tax of 94%.
Maybe the problem is that taxation is viewed as part of your own money when you get paid. But instead of that, maybe view the money kept as the actual income and taxation as the cash flow that circulates a nation keeping it healthy.
The problem with taxes has never been the percentage of income, it has always been about corruption and misuse. In highly corrupted nations, taxes go straight into the pockets of some rich elite or are mishandled by stupid politicians who don't know how to handle a nation with care for the people. But those problems seem to get mixed into the general idea of taxes itself. Like it's part of the whole deal, which it clearly isn't.
How can taxes be a problem if we remove corruption and mishandling? Shouldn't the question about taxes instead be about how to best care for that cash flow so that it is handled with care and never flows into corruption? It's almost like the polarization of the arguments on taxes boils down to, "are you for or against taxes?". I don't think anyone with any insight into how modern economies and societies work would agree that no taxes is a functioning society that cares for the people's well-being. But every time the subject is brought up, people start to fight about whether or not to have them, which is just showing how naive most perspectives are on this subject. Look at the evidence and how economies work, and look at which nations score best at their population's impression of life quality. It is quite clear where the truth leans towards.
Quoting Tzeentch
Describe a society without taxes, in which you don't have to worry about spending your life behind bars because of not paying taxes. You are now free, how do you live in this society? You are born into the world having $100 000 as a starting sum when moving from home, how does that life look like? Now, you're not as fortunate and start your life with $0, how do you live?
Quoting Christoffer
So one answer is: communism.
Or a privatized hell, which was my point as the argument against taxes usually comes from those who want to be left alone while still being part of society.
The other answer, as you say, is communism.
Yes, communism is merely the best taxless society among alternatives.
Sure, but before I do, do you agree that taxation is essentially taking people's things at gunpoint?
If we can't agree on that, there's no point in discussing an alternative because you don't seem persuaded that there is any necessity for an alternative.
Why do you see taxes as "your" thing? When you get paid, you get paid after tax is drawn. The sum of the tax is not yours because you haven't actually owned it. If the state increases your tax, they aren't "taking your things", they are increasing the sum of the cash flow in the nation's economy. They are increasing the sum that the company pays to the state when paying you for your work. The company can deduct that from its own income tax of production. The company can, if they want, increase your salary so that the increase in taxes doesn't change your actual income from before.
What things does the state take at gunpoint? You are creating a loaded question that is ridiculous in the first place. You can absolutely leave the place that collectively agreed upon a system that generates a cash flow to help stabilize society and generate equality. You are not forced to live in this agreement and are able to move somewhere where this does not exist. But instead, you phrase it as being theft at gunpoint.
Your entire life you have reaped the rewards of this type of society, the amount of value that you have gotten out of tax funding helped you get to where you are today, and now you view it as theft at gunpoint? Is this not a very naive way of looking at large-scale economies?
So no, I don't agree that it is "taking people's things at gunpoint" because that is a fundamentally wrong way of describing the economic system of taxation. It's you looking at the sum before tax and claiming, "That should have been mine!"
Let me ask you this. If you were denied services that were funded by taxation while you were growing up, then the police would force the ones conducting these services to do them against their will and they would be forced at gunpoint if needed (in the same kind of situation you paint), because it is your right in a taxed economy to receive this service. So, essentially, you could rephrase your whole idea to force people to give you services at gunpoint, because otherwise, you don't get anything for the taxes that you or your parents pay, or rather, that is drawn from the company that pays you or your parents. Now, what things are being taken here, and by whom?
I voted yes, but I have no idea how it could be achieved. To the extent that I'm optimistic and believe that freedom is possible, I believe that communism is possible, because freedom is possible only in a society of abundance in which individuals are not under pressure of poverty, are not exploited or dominated, are not merely used as means to the ends of others, and are not treated merely as representatives of a class, race, or other kind of group.
Notice that according to this description of communism, it is not anti-individual. The needs of society and the needs of the individual are reciprocally linked, at least in my conception and the conception of Marx.
[quote=The Communist Manifesto]In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.[/quote]
As I say ("I have no idea how it could be achieved"), this is Utopian. However, if we look at the variety of the forms of society in which people have lived, I do not see any great impediment to communism in principle, i.e., according to human nature. I could be wrong about that. If I am, human emancipation is impossible.
Quoting Moliere
:up:
On the other hand, I am still unsure about how to approach the concept of human nature. Is the claim that human nature is not fixed the same as the claim that there is no human nature at all? Is it enough to say tempting things such as, "if there is a human nature, it is in its endless flexibility," and so on?
But I actually do think it's crucial: what distinguishes us from (other) animals is history, the fact that the future is open. So we could say that the openness of the human future is human nature.
On the other hand (how many is that now?) that is rather vague. Maybe that's as it should be?
For myself, no. If pressed I'll say human nature leans bad, but contingently so. For one, it's not always easy to determine what is good, so there will be bad from ignorance, and for two, the societies that have tended to survive so far are intentionally built upon selfish desires which tends to make people, unsurprisingly, act more selfishly.
I'm a little doubtful of endless flexibility, but surely the evolutionary picture points out how we're not fixed biologically speaking. And the diversity of cultures shows that we're not fixed culturally speaking either. I think of it as loose constraints and tendencies, some of which are pretty heavily embedded.
But, hey, the Kings don't rule the world anymore either.
So asking me to describe my alternative was pointless at best (and dishonest at worst). :up:
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
These are non-arguments.
If you don't like capitalism, why don't you just leave? You've lived your whole life reaping the benefits of a capitalist society, etc. etc.
If you don't like America's gun laws, why not just leave? Etc.
Not worth responding to.
The rest of your argument seems to hinge on the idea that the state owns the individual and their labor, and that only by the extraordinary grace bestowed by the state the individual is allowed to have property. A rather archaic image of what the relation between citizens and states should look like.
It's a bit ironic to think how much this view of the state resembles the idea of the worst kinds of capitalism, with 'trickle-down' and all, only this time it also holds a monopoly on violence.
Let's also not forget what taxation makes us complicit in - wars, corruption, failed government projects (the lists of which are truly endless), etc.
Would a Russian be within their moral right to refuse to pay taxes, because they don't wish to support the war in Ukraine?
I would say so. And you would say no.
Yeah, I guess that's how I think about it too.
So you refuse to provide any kind of description of the society that you argue for? How convenient.
Quoting Tzeentch
The same as just summarizing tax as "theft at gunpoint", which is just a loaded statement and a naive idea disregarding the very function of tax, and on top of that saying that you won't bother engaging in any explanation of your viewpoint or view of society if the one you are discussing with isn't first agreeing with your point of view. I would say those are even less valid arguments than what I provided.
Quoting Tzeentch
So how would you rate your own arguments in this regard?
Quoting Tzeentch
Really? I seem to explain taxes as a cash flow that keeps society healthy by creating equality and providing services to the people. In other words, you need to explain how the state owns this and not the people as a group. Isn't the tax money flowing back and forth between people in society? Compare that to the private banks that actually take money through interest while giving back just a minor fraction for having your money in the bank. What does the "state" actually own in terms of taxes?
Quoting Tzeentch
What doesn't? Do you think that taxes are the be-all and end-all relation to those things? Do you think the free market, even outside of any taxing system, is innocent of supporting those things? What do you think is driving wars, corruption etc. most? Taxes or capitalism?
But if you have actually read what I wrote about taxes you would realize that the discussion that should be held about taxes is not about the existence of taxes or how high or low, but how they are handled, if they are misused or flowing into corruption. You are deliberately ignoring my points in order to try and paint taxes as bad because of whatever guilt-by-association fallacy you want to make of it.
I'm talking about taxes as a system, a function. You cannot use corruption and mishandling of tax money as an argument against taxes because that has to do with the quality of the state, not taxes as a system. You are presenting an argument against taxes by talking about a state that is bad at handling taxes, which is not the same as taxes as an economic system, and this is the point I'm making, you are arguing against taxes by reasoning about failed state systems. A failed system can act as thieves having people at gunpoint, but that is not what taxes as a system is, that is whatever failed system you live in. Here, in Scandinavia, I don't think many would agree we feel robbed by the state at gunpoint and we have among the highest rates of tax in the world. Because we have a system that for the most part works, most of us wouldn't dream of lowering taxes or living in a society without them.
So, you can't use your experience of a nation with a corrupt and shitty economy and state as an argument against taxation as a form of economic system.
Quoting Tzeentch
Another loaded question that focuses on a failed state and not the actual system. You simply don't seem to understand that taxes as a system have nothing to do with the quality of the state.
Of course. There's no point in wasting time describing an alternative if you're completely sold on the idea of taxation. Pearls before swine, as they say.
Quoting Christoffer
It's not really a loaded statement. It's simply a true statement that taxation is predicated on threats of violence, and I would argue therefore little more than an elaborate method of theft.
Quoting Christoffer
Not only would I consider my arguments worth responding to, I would consider them essentially mandatory to deal with for anyone who wishes to coherently make an argument for why taxation is ok.
Quoting Christoffer
That sounds fantastic. It would almost make one wonder why anyone would have to be threatened with violence in order to pay up? Or perhaps it's not as rosy as you sketch it.
Quoting Christoffer
I disagree. Since taxation enables all kinds of misbehavior by states, which pretty much all states are guilty of one way or another, I think they go hand in hand, and it's essentially impossible to view them seperately.
In a perfect world where a state uses taxation only to do good things, again, why would anyone need to be convinced by threats of violence to pay up?
Quoting Christoffer
This sums up pretty much every nation, so I certainly can.
Quoting Christoffer
I could ask you the same question about the United States, or any of its European dependencies, or any state in the world.
Is an American tax payer justified to refuse to pay taxes when that tax money is directly being used to bomb people in third world countries?
Am I justified to refuse to pay taxes when the Dutch government is utterly incompetent and demonstrably responsible for destroying innocent citizens' lives?
Or are these all "failed states" too?
Now we're getting to the meaty bits.
For starters, where did you get the money? Who prints the currency? Who regulates the exchange value?
Quoting Jamal
I think the problem was individual contribution. No society works without its members contributing an effort toward its preservation and welfare. In a money-based economy, all exchanges are valuated and transacted by way of currency. So, whether the means of production is owned by individuals, corporations, the crown or some other form of government, the citizens are required to pay their share ax taxation and military service.
That depends on the form of communal organization. In the purest form, money and taxation would not be required - but only if that commune were entirely self-sufficient and didn't need to trade with non-communist social entities.
Social classes are superfluous - in fact, have always been a hindrance to good social order. And it doesn't matter whether you call the social unit a state, country, nation, community or tribe - it has finite limits and occupies a defined territory.
But there would certainly be governance and administration; there would, indeed, have to be some
organizing for allocation of resources, planning energy production and infrastructure projects, sharing out and pooling work for the commonweal, providing for care of the very young and the infirm, storing up reserves, preparing for response to an emergency. Even if the group is only an extended family, or small like-minded group one or two responsible adults are usually in charge. It doesn't need to the be same ones for every function; they don't need to give orders or wear titles. There is no hard line on how the leadership in any particular circumstance is selected or who is eligible to serve on the steering committee or what the designated responsibilities of each elder may be.
In the Iron law of oligarchy, Michels for instance describes step by step how the unions he was part of gradually became stratified and hierarchical over time, because of the simple reason that at some point you need specialists, because everybody doing every job all the time just doesn't make much practical sense (people can't be bothered basically).
Because of specialization you inevitably get differentiation in power (some become representatives, or leaders eventually, for instance), and then those specialists tend to group up with like-minded people, to eventually consolidate their power-advantage over the rest (because they have better access to decision-making processes, and therefor can make rules that benefit them more, get more money, resources and power etc etc...).
Ultimately these oligarchs do seem to always take it to far however, at which point you get revolutions because of to much inequality... and all of it can start over again basically.
All of this seems pretty human, and actually seems to describe a process that we have seen over and over again in history. I think good political philosophy should start from description.
The key word there is "history". We may need to look farther back for sustainable systems of human organization. And even when we've found a model that could work for us, we'd still have to find its vulnerabilities and insure against the identifiable threats. And, having done all that, prepare to change whatever needs changing in response to new developments and circumstances.
Back in the days of Ancient Israel, you were married by 12, a seasoned combat veteran by 20, a grandfather by 30, and dead by 40. No one complained. You know not always but that was a typical pattern.
The mainstay about capitalism is, after taxes, its all your money. You can spend it on blow and hookers or donate whatever you don't need to not starve to death and keep a roof over your head to charity or random people or causes if you so choose. People like choice. It's a very powerful dynamic in modern society.
The farther back one goes, the less relevant human organisations become for present times it seems to me... There were a lot less people and a lot more space and resources to go around. There's also the practical problem that we can't really know what came before written history.
What I would agree to is that we are heading for truly unprecedented times in a lot of aspects... so maybe none of history will remain all that relevant shortly.
You realize literally every person, intelligent and not, said this exact same thing, in complete sincerity and absolute truth, since the beginning of language. Correct?
Man discovers fire. Same thing. Man discovers cooking. Same thing. Man discovers ChatGPT. Same thing.. there truly is nothing new under the sun.
Maybe they said that, but they were wrong :-).
I have actual reasons that are more that just "I feel special". I could elaborate, but this isn't really the thread for it I think.
EDIT:
For much of history progress was very slow, and general energy consumption and economic growth modest. Since the industrial revolution, and exploitation of fossil fuels, this has accelerated exponentially. Now we are nearing the end of that exponential growth, with climate change fundamentally altering the climate we developed our civilizations in, fossil fuels that need to be phased out and populations stagnating. That, combined with unprecedented scientific knowledge and technology makes for I would say unprecedented times.
No, you are avoiding providing a description of an alternative system. You demand others to provide info, explanations, and ideas, but you refuse to do the same if people do not already agree with you on the point you are trying to argue, it is dishonest and garbage.
Quoting Tzeentch
It's not a true statement because it doesn't relate to the system or function on its own, it only refers to whatever failed state system you live in. Your experience of your state system and its way of handling taxes is not universal, therefore you cannot claim any truth like you try to do. You are using your own anecdotal evidence to argue against an economic system that in itself doesn't equal what you say.
Quoting Tzeentch
Are you for real? :rofl:
Quoting Tzeentch
Or perhaps the nation you live in is shit and mine isn't. The problem is that you evaluate a basic economic system with the measurement of the quality of the state. Or maybe you just believe that whatever system you live in is universal.
Quoting Tzeentch
No, they don't go hand in hand. That is what you apply to it. You invent this connection, but if you look at taxes as an economic system, there's nothing in it that includes corruption and misbehavior as an absolute consequential fact of that system. Once again you fail to understand the simple fact that the quality of the state and society does not equal a universal truth for the economic system of taxes. Your idea that "all states are guilty" is not evidence for taxes being part of that failure, you are doing a simple correlation is not causation fallacy trying to link them together without any kind of actual correlation being true. A failed state system does not mean taxation as an economic system is a failure. You are creating patterns and links where there are none and don't seem to understand basic economic theory.
It is only impossible for you to view them separately because that is a bias that you project, you fail to create an argument that is deductively rational and instead just claim this because you emotionally feel it's true. Which, philosophically, is a garbage argument.
Quoting Tzeentch
It doesn't have to be perfect, I live in Scandinavia where the vast majority happily pay our taxes because we understand the benefits that we reap from it. We also have low corruption and low misuse of these funds.
You are still arguing for improving the handling of taxes and lowering corruption, just like I do, but you fail to understand that such a position has nothing to do with the economic system of taxes in itself. You are applying blame on taxes for problems that require other solutions than removing taxes. You won't get rid of corruption and misuse of means by removing taxes, you understand that right? A society with corruption and misuse of means will be a shitty society regardless of the existence of taxes.
Quoting Tzeentch
Because of what? Because you say so? How was it again? Your arguments are worth responding to? They are great arguments? This is your argument, you say something, therefore it is true? :rofl:
You seem to know very little about the world outside of your own nation, that's for sure.
Quoting Tzeentch
Ok, do so with Sweden.
Quoting Tzeentch
Is it? Maybe it directly helps people get access to schools and education. Maybe it helps some kids get through treatment for a sickness that would otherwise kill them. Saying that it is "directly used to bomb people in third world countries" is not accurate because that's not how taxes work, they're pooled into a big pile and you cannot conclude such a statement about what it directly pays for. You do that to once again create a loaded question, to apply some kind of absolute guilt on the system of taxes. And then there's the fact that I don't give a shit about the US, it is pretty much a failed state system with a lot of corruption. You are using such a failed system as an argument against taxes once again, and once again being unable to understand that an economic system is not the same as a failed system misusing it. If you are unable to understand this simple fact, then you are unable to see through the biases and fallacies that you keep producing in an attempt to desperately connect two things that don't have causation between them.
Quoting Tzeentch
Once again, you talk about a failed government or system, it has nothing to do with taxation as an economic system. If you were able to install a government that didn't do that but kept the tax system, what then? Would taxes be equally bad in your opinion? How so?
Quoting Tzeentch
Your experience of your state is not an argument against taxation.
Explain to me, what is taxes? Please provide a factual explanation of this economic system. In your explanation of the taxing system, is it a factual description that it "helps to finance corrupt politicians and has a primary use in misguided ways to kill people in third world nations"? Is this your description of this economic system?
If so, provide a link to any economic theory anywhere, that explains that this is the primary function of the taxation system or has anything to do with it. If not, then it's not the factual truth you seem to believe.
Taxation is a system, failed usage of that system is not equal to the system itself. If you can't understand it, try making a deductive argument out of it and see if it becomes logical. If you can't, stop saying it's any kind of truth.
Quoting Vera Mont
Not really relevant to the thought experiment, it could be the result of accumulated wealth in your family, which drives the point further, some are lucky, some aren't. And then you could drive the argument that some made money on the backs of the poor long ago and that money came from there, which makes it even more clear that without a system to push for equality, inequality will rage rampage.
No. That melodramatic representation of taxes is both inaccurate and unacceptable. People's things aren't taken; only a predetermined and agreed-upon portion of the money which was issued and guaranteed by a government agency, and which they receive in return for some function they perform that is of value to somebody who is in possession of those funds.
People don't get their things out of thin air; they buy things, at will, with the money they've received (earned or otherwise) from other people, in consensual transactions and the full knowledge that part of the price will be paid to the government in the form of sales tax or tariff or surcharge. We are fully cognizant of these conditions when we sign a contract, accept a job offer or make a purchase. We are fully cognizant of them when we cast a vote for a representative, or take an oath of citizenship.
We are also informed, somewhere along the way, that refusing to pay taxes, or cheating on the amount, are punishable crimes, exactly like taking other people's money and things at gun-point. And that is why most of us willingly pay taxes to buy the guns and police hours to protect our things from our fellow citizens with guns.
It will be relevant again. See my first post on this topic. I always differentiated between ideology "ism" and a communal system of organization.
Yes, of course. Because I don't see the point in providing one to you. I'm not making a secret of that fact, so I don't think I'm being dishonest.
Quoting Christoffer
Sweden, like every European nation, enables the United States' misbehavior by outsourcing its national defense to the United States. That makes every European nation complicit in the United States' misbehavior, and also makes it complicit in, for example, poverty in the United States. European nations have a social system because the United States pays for their defense.
Also, didn't I recall you calling Sweden a capitalist "slave system"?
Quoting Christoffer
And yet you see no problem in piggybacking off it to avoid having to pay for national defense?
How odd.
Anyway,
When a government conducts immoral behavior, like waging war on other countries, destroying the lives of its citizens, etc. am I justified in refusing to pay taxes?
This is of course a key question.
Quoting Christoffer
Taxation by its very definition is taking part of the value of a person's labour under threat of violence.
I view coercion as something that is inherently immoral, and thus a system that is predicated on it as inherently flawed, regardless of how it's used.
The fact that taxation is exclusively used by imperfect entities known as states further compounds my problems with it.
Essentially your line of reasoning reminds me of someone who tries to justify a war while refusing to concede that killing people is immoral.
Quoting Vera Mont
Are you suggesting a whole lot of people will die? Or at least our dysfunctional global monetary system will die, which probably also implies a lot of people dying.
Because that's the only way i see it really becoming relevant again. Global geo-politics won't go away on its own otherwise, and so communal systems of organization will continue to be drowned out.
Its either/or, collectivism or individualism. There is no middle ground.
Im not saying youre guilty of anything, either. Im just showing youre not writing anything new or nuanced, that you are making the same arguments that they have, and in so doing have revealed which side of the fence you have taken. The fact that that side of the fence is a veritable rogues gallery of evil, tyranny, and mass murder is not my fault. Youve blamed individualism for the same things they have. You hold the same ideas.
Your description of the parts of individualism you like as humanism reveals only how badly you wish to avoid being associated with the label individualism. It does not indicate which political unit you believe exists, let alone which political unit you think ought to have rights or ought to be paramount in its relation to power and the state.
Yes they are taken. You agree to a wage with an employer; the government takes a portion of your income. Neither you nor your employer determine how much is taken. This occurs involuntarily, whether you agree with it or not.
It makes you a dishonest interlocutor and pretty childish to demand people to agree with you before you explain your argument on a philosophical forum. You demand us with this...
Quoting Tzeentch
If you won't explain yourself you cannot demand us to view your arguments as anything other than garbage. This is just low quality.
Quoting Tzeentch
What the hell does this have to do with taxes being an economic system? You don't even seem to understand what page this discussion is on, have you confused this thread with another?
Quoting Tzeentch
I called modern society a slave system in the sense of how capitalism and materialism in the modern world create a simulacrum of meaning in which people believe to be free, but essentially are cogs.
Still doesn't change the fact that Sweden, in comparison to many other nations, has very high taxes, low corruption, and is pretty much up there at the top with other similar state systems that are considered the best places to live. Oh, we are also historically known for pouring our tax money into helping poor nations. A good example of a functioning tax system, not perfect, but functioning on a level where your arguments make absolutely no sense in reality.
Quoting Tzeentch
You think we're not funding our national defense? What the hell are you talking about?
And once again, why are you arguing this nonsense when we're talking about taxes as an economic system? You just come off as fundamentally confused as to what this discussion is about.
Quoting Tzeentch
Still has nothing to do with taxation as an economic system. Why do you have such a problem understanding this? It's no key question, you are just confused.
Quoting Tzeentch
No, it doesn't, find that definition please, that includes "violence". I'm still waiting for you to provide any support for your wild interpretations.
And, you forget that you are taking part in the value of services in your society, services paid for by taxes. If you don't want to pay taxes, you should not be allowed any services that those taxes are paying for. It's pretty simple. Oh, and you cannot buy many of the goods and services either since many get subsidies that lower their costs, which means you cannot get them or need to pay a price equal to the full cost.
I bet that you could actually drive a petition to be excluded from the taxing system if you also agree to remove yourself from any kind of service and economic help in society.
Let me ask you, how do you get to work? How do you conduct your day-to-day labor? Because you cannot use roads either, they're funded by taxes. So, I would say that you can actually definitely exclude yourself from paying taxes by simply stopping working and doing labor that helps you instead. You could probably buy land and a house and just provide your own food. Of course, you cannot get any medical help since those are tax-funded and you won't have any money to pay for the full sum.
In the end, this is what my question was for you, what society do you see when taxes don't exist anymore? Because people can absolutely protest the state by not paying taxes, it just requires you to rid yourself of all services and help that any tax pays for. Or do you think that you should be able to stop paying taxes, but just reap the rewards of other people's taxes?
I still want you to provide a clear factual definition of the tax system that mentions violence, because it's simply not true. You don't get violence or a gun pointed at you because you stop paying taxes, you get it because you live off the services that others pay for through taxes, that's your crime, not that you don't pay taxes. The door is open for you to stop paying taxes, you just don't understand the consequences to your own life that entails and think the state will punish you for not paying. They're punishing you for walking on a road you don't pay for.
Quoting Tzeentch
No one is actually forcing you. But you seem to think that you can get tax-funded services and help without paying for it. If you work in a nation you will use tax-funded services, help, and subsidies whether you realize it or not. You have the option to not work and not get any of that, but then you need to provide for yourself in some other way. You can do that but don't expect anyone whose paycheck is tax money to help you or provide you with any service.
Quoting Tzeentch
Depends on the state and how low in corruption and misuse of tax money they conduct. Still doesn't change the fact that a taxation system is inherently neutral. You are the one assigning blame to it by guilt by association. You are unable to see that the solution isn't getting rid of the tax system, it's to get rid of corruption and misuse of tax money. A five-year-old would understand this logic.
Quoting Tzeentch
What the hell does that have to do with taxation as an economic system? That's one of the most childish fallacies I've ever encountered on this forum :rofl: I'm talking about taxation as a system of balancing society in order to create equality between the rich and poor, about having a system that manages the parts of society that helps people living a decent life, and you boil that down to me arguing about justifying war and refusing to view killing people as immoral. Are you mentally incapable of understanding what people are actually writing? This is fucking hilarious :rofl:
Sweden doesn't have a credible military at all. That goes for all European nations, with the possible exception of Poland.
So yes, Sweden is certainly piggybacking off the US military budget. Yet you confess a certain disdain for the United States, while simultaneously seeing no issue with being dependent on it for your security, and even profiting from it? Quite hypocritical.
Quoting Christoffer
It's not very complicated. States use tax money to fund immoral practices. So taxation enables states' immoral practices.
And all states conduct immoral practices, including Sweden, which is what I've just explained to you.
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
If a person doesn't pay tax, they are thrown in prison. If being physically thrown into prison isn't a method of forcing, a method of violent coercion, then I don't know what is.
I'm not sure how more obvious I can make it to you.
Quoting Christoffer
It's a pretty good analogy, actually.
See if you can wrap your head around it.
Perhaps the dream is to go back to the articles of confederation. That worked out wonderfully.
Before getting too worked up, just remember that this entire philosophy is regurgitated propaganda from the ruling class that says the state is enemy #1. Meanwhile we have 40 years of small government policy results all around us, to really see what it all comes to.
But thats not true capitalism, of course. Not TRUE free markets, not REALLY what was meant. China and the USSR, however, are exactly the embodiment of communism.
And on and on we go.
So the way out: forget the ideas of these people its just pure dogmatism, in the same sense as creationists. Rather, if you need to prove to yourself that their thinking is completely irrational, look at specifics. See what they think of gun regulations, of social security, of stock buybacks, of climate change, of externalities generally, of these abortion bans, of union busting.
Low and behold, itll align exactly with whatever benefits the plutocrats. (In the creationists case, itll align with whatever proves the Bible is literal: Noahs flood is responsible for the fossil record, carbon dating is all wrong because the earth is 6,000 years old, etc.)
My point is: dont expect a real argument. The ideology will shift as needed. Like playing whac-a-mole.
No they dont. Stop with the theatrics just to serve your confused libertarianism. (But nice to see youve moved on from literal gun to your head to a more nuanced view.)
You can be thrown in prison for speeding and jaywalking too, or any number of other things that are against the law of the land. But we never say that. Lets not dramatize taxes.
The reality is that throwing someone in jail for taxes can occur, but is rare. What usually happens is that penalties are accrued and, if one cannot prove a reasonable reason for not paying, liens and levies can be imposed. That takes a decent amount of time. The charges are usually for fraud anyway.
https://www.levytaxhelp.com/can-the-irs-really-send-me-to-jail-for-unpaid-taxes/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20the%20IRS%20cannot,failing%20to%20pay%20your%20taxes.
1. Someone who doesn't pay tax once, and then (understandably) is coerced by the state to start paying taxes, might avoid a prison sentence. Someone who refuses to pay taxes gets thrown in prison.
2. Being thrown in prison happens, literally, under threat of violence, and that generally involves armed policemen. The gun is literal.
Violence and subsequent imprisonment underlies the entire justice system. Perhaps that is somehow justifiable, but there's no point in trying to sugarcoat it.
Someone who refuses to obey speed limits gets thrown in prison too.
So I guess the state has a literal gun to my head there as well.
In which case, all youre saying is: if you break ANY law egregiously and repeatedly, youll perhaps be convicted and thrown in prison. Yeah, no shit. So should we eradicate laws now too? Or just tax laws?
Lets start with property laws.
Yep. That's how the state operates.
So youre just reiterating that youre against states and laws. Brilliant. :ok:
That wasn't the point. It's like a 100% tax throughout.
[sup](more of a semantic/dictionary difference, like "state" versus whatever you might call it, not all that relevant in this context)[/sup]
Leave the country and try to find one that has more favourable laws and that will have you.
Be a hermit and live by your wits, off the grid, shunning all transactions.
Become a criminal and acquire money by means in which the state has no stake.
Be so rich that you can get away with tax legal evasion.
Work for cash under the table.
Take holy orders; enter a monastery; found a church.
Give away all of your taxable income.
Don't work at all and hope your fellow citizens take pity on you.
Each "out" has some perks and some risks. Like life.
The places I call home have what some would call fairly high taxes. Yet, I know a few ordinary families with, say, more than one car. Societies with public transportation and self-made rich folks. And reasonable general standard of living.
Such like suggests (to me at least) that anti-taxers go by (dogmatic) ideology, but I could surely be wrong.
Quoting Tzeentch
Fair enough.
Quoting Tzeentch
The true anarchist/individualist is always outnumbered. Will it be by organized thugs or a democratic majority? Or will they be alone? Choosing the "least bad" is rational.
Personally I dont care if your tax money built me a home made of gold and furnished me with every luxury I could imagine. Its wrong to take fruits of someones labor and use it to benefit others, just as it was wrong to do it to exploit the fruits of the slaves labor, and for the same reasons. So I wouldnt oppose it because I was told to, or because it furthers my lot in life, but because it is wrong to behave that way towards others.
But compare your tax burden with the tax burden in the UAE or the Cayman Islands or Monaco.
Which happens to an extreme degree in corporate America, the private sector. Oddly, we never hear you railing against that. It always works out somehow that this kind of exploitation is perfectly justified. :chin:
Why would I rail against the voluntary activity between consenting adults?
So it has nothing to do with principle. But we knew that already. Which is why your claim against slavery is absurd as well. What of the people who wanted to be slaves? Who are you to interfere with an individuals freedom?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/opinion/republicans-abortion-guns-big-government.html
Reminds me of someone.
So much for someones fruits.
Then why do you?
Laughable, isnt it? This coming from the same guy in favor of child labor. What about the kid who wants to work?
Apparently its not just consenting adults. Its whatever corporate America wants.
The principle is that I rail against the involuntary activity between non-consenting parties, not the voluntary activity between consenting parties. Your principle seems to be the opposite.
I dont.
The employer consented to deduct a specified amount of every employee's salary for specified remissions to specified agencies. When you take the job, this is one of the conditions you agree to.
So slavery and child labor is fine, as long as its done voluntarily. Got it.
The employer is forced to deduct a specific amount or else he is breaking the law.
Great advice. The criminal avenue of course can lead to loss of liberty such as jail or shot by rivals or even police.
Depending on your method of wealth acquisition such as a start up it could parallel that of criminal enterprise. I remember a certain taxi hailing company using bribery to push out rival companies I believe they are called Uber. The ceo being under investigation.
Tax evasion by the ultra rich is a tactic thats essentially untouchable by most government laws as in some cases its not even illegal but simply smart off shoring is very easy. The rich only make the news when they slip up somewhere and some journalist dig up money trails.
Can you blame the rich or even ultra rich for paying as little tax as they can when most governments misspent taxpayers money? That is the question
If you want to call voluntary activity between consenting parties slavery, be my guest.
So if a child of 10 wants to work, it ceases to be child labor. If a person voluntarily becomes a slave (as has happened throughout history), its no longer slavery.
Cool. So, again, you dont really give a shit about taking the fruits of anothers labor. Youre fine with it, provided its voluntary (wink wink).
Unfortunately, the use of voluntary is complete garbage.
Yea, if someone wants to be a slave, learns to be under the dominion of a master, and have his money taken from him without his permission, like you want, I say go for it.
The employee is forced to work, or else he doesnt eat. Guess one is voluntary and the other isnt though.
Keep shilling for corporate America buddy. Youre doing a great job.
Do you think food just falls in someones mouth? All food is acquired with work, buddy.
Oh no, WITH permission. Its totally voluntary. Just like working for a corporation.
For those who dont want to obey laws they dont like such as paying taxes they have the same choice a person who doesnt want to be exploited by an owner has: dont do it! Just move to a place where they dont tax, or dont tax as much.
Seems simple enough to me.
Yeah, so I guess babies, the disabled, children, the elderly, etc., better get off their asses.
Until I see you feeding any of those people I will never deny them any means to acquire food. You would.
:lol:
Yes, Im often in the habit of pulling babies away from their mothers.
I wonder of the two of us, who is in favor of food assistance programs and who isnt? :chin:
Oh well, guess that doesnt count as means.
I am not in favor of stealing peoples money so Mikie can say he favors legislation, no.
So you WOULD deny them the means. Got it. Apparently paying taxes is worse than poor children and the disabled starving. Cool.
Your sick worldview never fails to deliver. :clap:
I think I get it. I hope Im made an honorary libertarian.
If you want to delegate your responsibilities to your fellow human beings to someone else, go for it. But I dont think that favoring a piece of legislationin other words sitting around and doing nothingis any sign that youre helping anyone but yourself. Until I see you out there feeding people or giving them housing, your sanctimony falls on deaf ears.
Perhaps the state will want to share my wife too how abhorrent.
A mildly socialistic government or even a Scandinavian version of socialism would be preferred to outright communism for the simple reason that shelter should be a basic human right in the face of homelessness and the discomforts of natures harshness.
But to strip off someone elses house/property/farm through no fault of their own strikes me as a cruel blow to his hard work and graft in attaining them.
No, youre confused. Im the one voluntarily paying for these programs so that other people who cant work can get something to eat. Youd deny them these programs because youre an apologist for plutocracy. But thankfully youre on an island somewhere, so it doesnt matter.
Quoting NOS4A2
Nice projection.
Not nothing: paying taxes. Which hardly helps me. Some of that goes to things like social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That helps a lot of people indeed far more than I could ever help individually.
On the other hand, the onus is on the person crying about paying taxes and about state programs to be going out of their way to help others. Show all us suckers how its really done in a libertarian paradise. So until I see YOU out there feeding people or housing them, take your bullshit elsewhere.
So he made a choice: comply with the laws of one country - at least until he can use the legislative process to change them, move to another country, or stop doing business.
You have the same choice.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yah. Somebody's work - not necessarily the diner's.
Quoting invicta
Some states do that. They don't have to adhere to, or even profess communist ideology to do that.
Private business does that, too.
Communes don't.
Quoting invicta
Capitalism has no respect for any kind of basic human right to shelter, food, health care or anything else. Communism - the principle, absolutely; the bastardized practice, half-assedly - does state: "to each according to his need".
If you mean the seizure of private villas in Eastern Europe after WWII, in order to accommodate families left homeless by bombing, yes, states did do that. They also amalgamated privately held (I won't go into the history of feudalism; it ain't pretty.) lands into farming collectives, most of which were badly mismanaged - because the planners were political city boys who had no clue about agriculture - but that didn't leave the farmers without shelter; it just turned most farmers into employees of the state, from employees of the hereditary landed gentry.
Of course, those pseudo-communist regimes carried out the nationalization programs brutally and inefficiently, and not at all in accordance with the ideal.
Communes don't.
And people have the choice not to exploit their fellow man. Stop taking anothers stuff. Quit forcing another to labor for you. Find other means to satisfy your wants that do not involve exploiting others.
My gripe with states goes further than taxes, but you are right - it's ideological in nature.
I'm against violence of any kind (with the possible exception of self-defense), whether it's committed by a common thug or organized and condoned by millions of people.
States operate on unethical principles and make me complicit by force.
Quoting jorndoe
I think there is a point in discussing the principles that underlie our societies, regardless of whether there is a feasible alternative.
The understanding that states operate on a principle of violence is an important one, especially on a thread about communism, since communism first requires feeding the beast (in the hopes it will eventually abolish itself).
Quoting Vera Mont
I don't believe in the legitimacy of a "contract" that has been unilaterally imposed.
I also don't believe I should bear a cost for avoiding something that was unjustly imposed on me in the first place.
The government could, quite easily, simply take what it believes is its property without any violence at all. I could just remove the money from you bank account. It could rock up to your house whilst you're out, break in, and take your stuff. Or, it could do so whilst you're in (since the same proscription applies to you - you can't use violence against them to make the stop).
It sounds like you can base it on non-violence, but it still revolves around property rights, when it comes to taxes.
That in itself could be seen as an act of violence (or at the very least belonging in the same category), however it's probably useful to understand that the state's violence is a direct reaction to this act of resistance.
An individual that resists the state's will, will eventually (usually quite swiftly) be met with violence.
That the state has means to put the individual in a position where resistance is impossible, is not a redeeming factor to the way states operate.
I would not judge a person who takes things from others by putting them in situations where they are completely unable to resist any more favorably than a person who takes things by force.
Quoting Isaac
There are ways other than physical violence against persons with which one could resist, and they would be met swiftly with actual violence against your person by the state.
Not at all. Many individuals are capable of the sort of hacking, or deception needed to extract money from a bank account. It happens all the time, it doesn't require extraordinary state power, an ordinary thief could do it.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, I agree. That's my point. If merely putting someone in a position where it is difficult to resist their will is 'violence' then all corporate activity counts as violence too. All activity by any person or entity that is more powerful than another in any way counts as 'violence'. We have way bigger fish to fry than the state.
Quoting Tzeentch
I didn't say anything about resistance. I just said the state could take your money non-violently. You could try and take it back non-violently too. We could oppose violence entirely. It wouldn't stop people taking the property they thought was theirs. The best hacker/thief/con-man would have all the money. No violence needed.
Quoting Tzeentch
Again, I'm not denying anyone the ability to resist. By all means do exactly the same to get your property back. Sneak into the government's vaults, hack their bank accounts... The best thief keeps everything.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes. I'm agreeing with you about violence. I'm going on to say that it's got little to do with taxation, which is about property. If we banned violence, if the state no longer had the monopoly on it, there would still be exactly the same issue about who owned what only it would be resolved by non-violent means (theft) instead of violent means. It doesn't lessen, or increase the tax burden to change how it's collected. Deception, or threat of violence. Both equally viable means of collecting taxes owed.
You seem to be arguing against the result (property distribution), but using the method (violence).
Quoting Isaac
If physical violence was off the table completely, protecting one's belongings would be easy enough. I could chain myself to my belongings so that any attempt to seperate me from them would result in an act of physical violence and voilá.
Physical violence is something particularly insidious.
I can protect myself from a hacker or a thief easily enough. I cannot protect myself from the violence of the state, which is of course exactly the reason why states use and protect their monopoly on violence, why conflicts have a tendency to devolve into violence, etc. The last argument of kings, as Louis XIV famously enscribed on his cannons.
Quoting Isaac
I disagree with this.
While I agree that ever more powerful corporations are a problem on the same line as states, I view states as being equally responsible for that problem, and not as a viable alternative. They're two sides of the same rotten coin.
Then there's the added dimension that states are actively trying to make me complicit in their misdeeds by forcing me to contribute to their purse.
I have little power and moral ground (or desire, for that matter) to decide for others what they should do. I do however have a moral ground not to be made complicit in the misdeeds of others.
What about your money? Any land you think you own? Possessions like boats, cars, buildings...?
Quoting Tzeentch
Only if you're better than them. As I said, the best hacker/thief/conman gets all the money. That might still be the state. No violence is needed.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, absolutely.
Quoting Tzeentch
This is the argument I'm challenging. You said...
Quoting Tzeentch
...that describes most of the world's larger corporations. In Indonesia, for example, it is impossible to get insurance without using a company majority owned by Black Rock. They've simply bought out (quite legally) all competition.
Google, Black Rock, Vanguard, Microsoft...
All do exactly that to an extent that is larger than most governments. The US government might still come out as public enemy number one, but we'd come to Black Rock way before the majority of the rest if the world in terms of "tak[ing] things from others by putting them in situations where they are completely unable to resist"
I'm not a particularly materialistic person.
Quoting Isaac
I consider all of that to be unethical as well. But I view physical violence a degree worse than the coercive power of powerful corporations (if only by a little), which is why the physical violence of states is, in my view, not an actual alternative.
Consider for example that I wouldn't even have insurance if I wasn't directly obligated by the state to be insured. An example of how the state's violence gives coercive power to the corporation.
Likewise, big pharma is problematic, but it becomes inescapable when states start mandating their product.
Sure, but you have a car, yes? A house? Else you've certainly no concern about taxation if you're so frugal.
The point I'm making here is that what we can rightfully possess (what it would be 'theft' for the government to take) is a separate issue from the means by which government takes it.
Using violence (or threat of it) might be wrong in all cases, but it doesn't in any way preclude the current distribution of property - including your tax burden - it just changes the means by which it can be collected.
Are we in a better state if the most violent entity has all the property, or the most cunning thief? I can't see how one is much better than the other. The weak still suffer the same abuse whether they are weak physically or weak mentally.
Quoting Tzeentch
As above, I'm not unsympathetic to this view but I'm struggling to see an argument as to why violence (as opposed to cunning) creates a somehow less tolerable inequality.
I don't personally see how I'd care if my land was taken from me by threat of violence or by cunning. I'm no less landless either way. So for example...
Quoting Tzeentch
The state might make someone take a product by threat of violence, the physically weak would comply.
The company might do so by clever advertising and psychological manipulation, the mentally weak comply.
What's the difference? The resultant inequality is the same, the resultant abuse of power is the same. I'm not seeing how having one's stuff taken from one by threat of violence is worse than having one's stuff taken from one by cunning. One is equally left without one's stuff in both cases.
Assuming I understand your point correctly, I would argue that the way people should distribute property is through voluntary means.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Simply put, the state maintains a monopoly on violence, which means any act of resistance will be further cause for violence. Resistance is forbidden.
The thief holds no monopoly on cunning, and I can (fairly easily, I would argue) use my own wits to protect myself against it. Without a monopoly on violence the thief can't stop me from resisting their efforts.
The company holds no monopoly on manipulation, and I can use my mental capacity however I wish to resist the company's influence.
Further, I distinguish between actions against one's body and action's against one's belongings. The body is the one belonging that irrevocably belongs to the individual, while there can be a debate about the rest.
That isn't to say that companies cannot also perform actions that are or are akin to physical violence. Depriving people of their basic life needs, for instance, is in my view on par with actual physical violence, and I would judge it just as harshly.
I agree, but I'm quibbling over what 'voluntary' means in the light of other individuals manipulating the environment within which that decision is made.
So, we can draw a line at someone literally extracting your possessions from you by force. that's clearly not voluntary. But what about them taking your possessions when you're out? Is that voluntary (you left them insufficiently guarded)? If not, then we have any possession taken without consent being 'involuntary'. So If I think I own the river from which some company is extracting water, they're taking that possession of mine without my consent, yes?
Quoting Tzeentch
I don't understand this use you're making of 'monopoly' here. As far as I can tell, I can do violence right now. The government doesn't appear to have a monopoly on it. I own a rifle. I could go out right now and start threatening people with it, getting them to give me their stuff, and I'd probably get quite a bit of stuff that way. The government would then, of course, threaten me with their much bigger guns and take all that stuff off me. We've both used violence to get stuff, the government has no monopoly on it, it's just the biggest.
But someone (or something) is always the biggest. Line up people (or entities) in order of capacity to harm, and something will be the top of that list, that something will then be able to treat those way down the list in exactly the way the government treats us now. I understand you're merely saying that's wrong, and I agree. But there's no distinction, for me, between the government being at the top of the 'violence' list, and a corporation being at the top of the 'manipulation' list. Someone/thing is always at the top of whatever power list and those at the top can use that power to extract stuff from those much lower down the list.
I don't see any justification for calling the fact that the government tops the 'violence' list a 'monopoly', but saying that the fact that a small cabal of corporations top the 'manipulation' list as not a monopoly.
I therefore also don't see how removing one form of power has any relation to property. It will simply be distributed according the the remaining forms of power.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes. that's rather the point I'm making. Tax comes under 'the rest' since it can be extracted by means other than violence (theft, deception, market manipulation, psychological manipulation...)
Quoting Tzeentch
That's a good foundation for agreement. Can we agree, further, on what constitutes "basic life needs?"
Basically, yes.
Quoting Isaac
Depending on the circumstances, it could be called a monopoly. I think for something like "manipulation" that would get rather complicated, but in theory it's certainly possible. Monopolies are generally going to be problematic and another source of unethical behavior. If a monopoly on manipulation, as you call it, comes to a point of "mind control", perhaps that can even be considered a form of violence.
I will argue though that the fact that the individual can try to resist, so therefore the state does not hold a monopoly on violence is misleading. There is obviously some threshold at which point the entry barrier becomes too high to overcome, at which point we start viewing things as monopolies. That goes for companies and states alike.
Quoting Isaac
Possibly so. In a theoretical case where violence is taken out of the picture completely, I would argue distribution by those remaining forms of power is preferable, albeit not perfect either.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, so discussion about what belongs to who is of course possible, and to a certain extent probably inevitable. However, the means of arbitration that states use - unilateral imposition under threat of violence - is arguably the absolute worst way to do it, hence my protests.
Quoting Isaac
Let's leave this for another time, as to not derail the thread too much. :up:
Excellent suggestions!
"People's money." "People's stuff." How does that happen?
How many babies have squirmed into the world with a bag of money or deed to a house clutched in their tiny fists?
People are born naked, helpless and homely: they own nothing.
Later they get things, by various means, through the altruistic, co-operative, contractual or coerced efforts of various other people.
In order for people to own anything, there has to be a pre-existing social infrastructure. Social organizations have rules, protocols, flaw and injustices. Participants in a society influence what form the society and its institutions take.
Griping is one of many ways to to express a desire for change.
Quoting Tzeentch
"I never asked to be born!!!" Tough; you're here now. The exit is over there.
Have you ever considered taking your own advice in response to your criticism of modern society?
I'm not the one railing against having to pull my weight - but yes; it's under consideration; exit strategies are in place.
Sounds more like an exit fantasy if you're still here. Why are you wasting your time complaining on an internet forum?
Huh? What have I complained about?
I'm happy to pay taxes. I'm at ease with having laws and regulations. I have suggested ways in which one or two who are emphatically unhappy with laws and taxation might change their circumstances or change the society or opt out of their contractual obligations. All positive.
To get back to the OP (apologies for contributing to its derailment): of course communism is possible. That a community can control production, and produce things for need and use and not for profit, is not hard to imagine. The word communism is so loaded, however, as to make a discussion about it rather tricky.
Has it ever been tried? Not in modern history.
Has capitalism (in the sense of Adam Smith or laissez fair) been tried? No.
Both ideas have been used as a guise. For what? Well, look around. Look at history. Look at the distribution of wealth and power. Whether it be the USSR, China, Cuba, Sweden, the US, or Japan nowhere do you find capitalism or communism. All you find is varying policies of what C. Wright Mills called the power elite.
So yes, its possible. But for now its a pipe dream. Similar to the pipe dreams of the couple libertarians (i.e., unwitting corporatists) we have here who drone on about abolishing the state. They could very well be communists for all we know! All it really serves as, however, is an obfuscation of real world issues.
So take healthcare. Whats the strategy for better healthcare in, say, the US? Abolish the state people will be violently against any government intervention. It must remain in the hands of the private sector, despite some of the worst outcomes and despite what other countries do (national healthcare). Result? Poor people suffer and die unnecessarily.
Or take guns. Cant have government regulations, because they do everything wrong, and we must abolish the state. So we mustnt impose the undue burden of going through training or filling out some extra forms before we place an assault weapon in the hands of a lunatic. Thatd infringe on freedom. Results? More mass shootings than days in 2023. People suffering and dying, unnecessarily.
So once again its just a cover for those in power. In this case, insurance companies, private healthcare, and gun manufacturers. They dont want the government to interfere, so it doesnt happen. And our libertarian friends, and some communists as well, who think theyre being so very principled and consistent, are simply a new kind of useful idiot.
I drone on about abolishing the state, yet Im a statist. :lol: (Says the guy who whines about taxes and monopolies of violence. Now thats hilarious.)
Nobody likes being told what to do. Even when it would save their life, either literally in a biological sense or fundamentally in a purpose and potential sense. It's a thankless job. One often rewarded with disdain or alienation and sometimes even death. But it has to be done.
What people don't get, especially good or at least moderately decent people, is the level of depravity some hold and will perform on others, individuals and wholesale, without the slightest care. With glee, even. As a normal, sane person in a well-structured and productive society, we often forget the horrors that occurred in its formation, horrors that can and most likely certainly will occur again without due vigilance. That's the point of society. Freedom of the body is simple. Freedom of mind however, especially with intellect and care for others, that's what even the grandest of utopias cannot guarantee. It's an ever shifting pendulum. One you do not want to be caught on the opposite end of.
Often times talk of "the state" in relation to even socialism is muddy. For some "the state" is roads, military, police, courts, and everything else is excess -- the liberal state as an ideal. For others the post office is an example of socialism, even though it's funded by the capitalist mode of production -- taxation is somehow socialism even though the capitalists require the liberal state to enforce the norms of capital.
I think it's important to emphasize that it's really just the people around you who matter with respect to politics. In a way that's a radical idea that's certainly inspired by communism and anarchism: it's not the talking heads, the books, the ideas or ideals, or even the leaders of social organisms that matter as much as the people who show up.
All state systems are capitalist, the socialist ones included. I don't think the existence of one precludes the existence of others because any state that does not consider the production and management of capital is unimaginable. I avoid using that term as mucn as possible because it was a term of abuse invented by socialists and in its common use is essentially incoherent. But the increasing interventions into the social affairs of human beings proves to me that the state has a "social" rather than a "liberal" or "individualistic" tendency, and therefor socialism is the reigning ideology.
The state has never manifested as the liberal night-watchman, as far as I know, preferring to exploit and monopolize rather than protect. Instead, it increasingly expands its scope and power until finally it intervenes in all human activity. Communists promised us the state would just wither away but it became more and more totalitarian under their rule, as it invariably does. The teleology of each state is to capture society until both society and the state are indistinguishable. Notice how some can't help but conflate society and government as if they were one and the same.
There is a difference between a legitimate and an illegitimate authority. One's status as an official, or employment within a bureaucracy, is not good enough to justify the legitimacy of their own authority. It is for this reason that their job is thankless.
Society should be vigilant but delegating that vigilance to some job-holding bureaucrat, subject to the whims of a political class, is to be the opposite of vigilant.
Surely. Through valiant and democratic means won through wars, civil and various other action both civilized and not. However. Much like the child who believes the parent disappears into oblivion in a simple game of "peek a boo", men can be fooled or perhaps incorrect, can they not?
Quoting NOS4A2
I want to dissect and unpack what this word "bureaucracy" means to you in intimate detail. Just to make sure we're on the same page here. There are no "unelected" officials absent of judges and magistrates. Perhaps a few others I fail to recollect. Police officers too. It's a bit complicated. Let me give you a principle example.
Say a man murders another man for believing he slept with his wife, when no such thing ever occurred. The judge sentences him to life in prison for murder. That murderer, is still a citizen. And in the off chance he has friends who are perhaps unhinged and want to run amok like animals, in enough numbers, they could perhaps vote to "un-elect" him by simply voting "for the other guy" thus defeating the democratic process of voting for someone for merit or desire but simply to "get rid of" someone you don't like. Do you see what I mean? Some positions in government are truly, as my old man would say "damn if you do, damn if you don't". You can't make everybody happy. Nor do some deserve to be. Can we agree on that?
This is the point of long term appointments to positions. Otherwise it just turns into a revolving door of inexperienced novices too afraid to lose their job/livelihood by dealing a difficult but necessary rulings, and before you know it, criminals walk the streets with impunity. Is that what you want? I thought you were on the side of necessary justice.
Beyond that, your own statement of "legitimate and [...] illegitimate authority" seems to substantiate this.
Quoting NOS4A2
I want to play a little metaphor game with you, if you don't mind. Not so much a game but rather a direct analogy. Say a man or someone he cares about has a heart attack or serious physical injury. Now what if, right in the middle of being wheeled into a qualified and licensed brain surgeons operating room, I just jump in the way and start saying "Hey, surgery should not be monopolized by the medically educated class!" You'd throw me out the damn window. So think about that. We need qualified people for positions that effect life and society as a whole. How could you disagree with that?
(Chomsky)
:chin:
Somehow and at some point people were convinced that voting was tantamount to democracy, that marking a piece of paper every few years constitutes the rule of the people. This is not any kind of rule of the people that I can employ in any seriousness, so I refuse to believe that since a man was nominally voted into power he has any legitimate authority over other people.
By bureaucracy I mean the state machinery and its employees, dependant as they are through the appropriation of other peoples labor and money. And we can agree that the appointment of these people will not make everyone happy.
Quoting Apr 21, 2023
So my version of what I think is my property (shared property) involves massively more 'theft' by private corporations than by governments, hence my different priorities. In terms of getting that property at least cared for, I need an entity big and tough enough to fight the corporations. Government are the only contenders. They're very much the lesser of two evils in terms of environmental management, and I consider the environment to be at least partially my property.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, this is where I was going with this idea. Effective monopolies in this respect don't have to be very unified or cohesive to have the impact on people's choices, and it's the impact we're concerned about here. It can simply be a facet of an economic system that some strategy is in the best interest of a specific power group. They will all make that decision, and so act as a monopoly. When the government exercise their monopoly on violence, they don't all agree, and they change entirely every few years. Its the institution that acts as a monopoly... So 'CEOs' can equally act as an institution, shopkeepers, estates, etc... You only need look at the way pay disputes are settled. There's only two relevant powers, the unions and the employer's representatives, those two groups act as a monopoly on those services when determining pay and conditions.
To touch back on the topic - the capitalists become an effective monopoly on the means of production which power is used to exploit workers.
Basically, the only reason there's such mass poverty and misery is because the 'entry barrier' as you put it, for resisting wage-slavery options presented by the capitalist class is too high. People can resist only theoretically (the same as people can theoretically resist the violence of the government), but in practice it's just too hard for most so they are forced, against their will, to work according to the terms set by the capitalist class. Pointing to a few entrepreneurs and self-sufficiency buffs to show that there's no absolute stranglehold on the supply of basic needs would be like me pointing to the few countries in civil war and saying "see, there's no monopoly on violence".
There is an effective monopoly on the means of production - the land and raw materials required to make one's own living - and that monopoly is used to extract labour people would otherwise prefer not to give.
Quoting Tzeentch
Why? Bearing in mind we're talking about the threat of violence here. Most people are rational enough to do what the man the with the big gun tells them, so actual bodily harm is not a concern (numbers of people physically harmed by our governments in the Western world is relatively small). So we have threat of violence vs theft. You either have your stuff taken because someone bigger than you demands it (and you're sensible enough not to fight), or you have your stuff taken by someone more deceptive than you when you're not looking.
In each case you can do something about it (get stronger or get cleverer), but those options are limited (there'll always be someone stronger than you and always be someone cleverer than you). So you get your stuff taken in either case, and there's little you can do about it. I just can't really see the big difference.
Quoting Tzeentch
As above really, I'm just not seeing it. Threat of violence and theft look exactly the same to me - they have the same outcome and the same limited ability to prevent it.
In one scenario, I have my labour/stuff taken by threat of violence by the government who then use it for their own ends (some of which benefit me) and I have a small amount of say in what they do.
In the other scenario I have my labour/stuff taken from me using manipulation/deception/thievery by the capitalists (owners of the means of production) who then use it entirely for their own profit (some of which benefits me) and I have no say whatsoever in what they do.
I'm not seeing how the second scenario is preferable.
That's fair enough.
The current status quo involves a massive amount of coercion too. I suppose we just value the two differently.
Quoting Isaac
It's all hypothetical of course, but assuming violence is completely off the table as we've discussed, and that means you are not being deprived of your basic needs, why even care about big corporations at that point?
Let them build their sand castles.
The difference to me is, I would not be forcibly made complicit in what the big corporations get up to, in the way I am now being made complicit in what my government gets up to.
This is a real problem for me. Because the state makes me a part of its wicked scheme, I am forced to care, and protest.
Quoting Isaac
Billions of people are being threatened with violence by governments, but millions are being violently assaulted by governments - wars, the prison system, etc.
While coercion is more wide-spread, actual violence is definitely a part of my argument, and it is the capacity for actual violence that underlies the state's power.
Quoting Isaac
A difference would be, in one case resistance is met with possible bodily harm and your loss of freedom. In the other, resistance seems perfectly acceptable, and the price, at most, seems material possessions(?).
That's a big difference, because to me resistance to being made complicit is an ethical duty.
:up:
A point thats almost always glossed over when discussing wage jobs. Youre free to go elsewhere, you consented to it. Way too cavalier, and ignores reality.
As justified as saying dont like the state? Leave the country. Which Ill often say; the connection is not readily understood, in my experience.
Yes, it seems that way.
Quoting Tzeentch
As I said, I think the corporations make us part of their 'wicked schemes' using techniques other than threat of violence. they monopolise resources, for example, which forces us to take part in their system. They monopolise ecosystem services (such as air, rivers, ocean systems) which forces us to take part in their schemes.
From the very moment one farmer said "I own this bit" (picking the most fertile patch, the rest of the world not wanting to be part of that scheme has to live off 'the rest', the land slightly less fertile. The remaining hunter-gatherers are on the most desolate inhospitable land left, and they're still having it forcibly taken from them by corporations claiming ownership (legal trickery, usually). It's testament to their determination and skill that they're still around, but imagine how much easier and (most importantly) more of a reasonable choice their lives would have been with free reign over the most fertile land.
I'm an anarchist when it comes down to it, and I have a great deal of sympathy for your views on government. It's also probably true that without government to back them up, the corporations would never have amassed the power they have. But...
The problem is how we get there from here. Corporations now have that power, they have the resources and they have the land. So removing government influence at this stage seems more than a little reckless. It might work. It might call off their attack dog, so to speak and render them powerless. But I doubt they're going to give up so easily.
Take away the government's monopoly on violence and the corporations will fill that power vacuum in seconds (assuming they haven't already - private contractors outnumber the military of some states).
Take away the government's provision of benefit for the homeless, jobless, disabled and helpless and I suspect private charities would step up to a point, but;
a) there'd be a considerable harm during the transition, and
b) I strongly suspect that the majority of the funding would come from rich philanthropists and companies looking to 'ethics-wash' their image, both of whom are capable (especially without government regulation) of obtaining full monopolies on services. So you'd be paying anyway. If 'National Food Services' (the new food supplying monopoly which bought up all farmland in the country) decides some of its profits are going to help the poor, then helping the poor is part of the price you pay for food, like it or not. No different to taxes.
Again, it's the monopoly that give the institution its power to compel, not the type of institution. Corporations can engineer monopolies easily (especially without government rules banning it) It's easy for them to simply buy up all the mines, all the farmland, all the skilled labour, all the libraries...etc
Quoting Tzeentch
I don't see how. I don't really pay any income tax, for example (a very small sum in reality). I pay goods taxes (VAT, Road, Fuel, Alcohol), but those are added by the vendor, so not my mandate. Barely any of my wages go to the government, and I don't vote, so I'm quite content that I'm not complicit in their schemes.
Quoting Tzeentch
I think this is a good point. The risk of dissent matters and risking bodily harm is clearly worse than risking further loss of goods - to a point (starvation-level loss of goods is identical to physical harm).
But, above. I pay minimal tax. I dissent from funding the government's schemes, I haven't received any bodily harm yet.
Yes. Plus, as I've just pointed out above. One needn't pay tax either if one is committed to not supporting some government or other. One can organise one's finances to become a net draw on government finances.
Yes to say nothing of tax protesting and tax resistance. Each have a long history, as you know I know some people who have done it for very valid reasons. Last time I checked, none of them were in prison, nor had a gun placed to their heads.
Oh, indeed. I hadn't even thought of those. I was just thinking of staying under the tax bracket (is there such a thing in the US?). In England, if one earns lower than a set amount, then one pays no tax. Charitable donations are tax deductible, so I just give away my excess earnings to charity. I don't know if this arrangement is universal, but it works in England. We have this scheme for employment, and the self-employed can use Gift-Aid.
I obviously still pay goods taxes, but one only need take on a few fund-able projects (I help run a community farm, for example) and one can draw out government money for good purposes.
It also just so happens that one of my consultancies is for a government department. I charge them the full going rate (way more than I need) and give the excess away to tax deductible projects. I'm effectively taking money from the government.
I haven't done the maths, but I reckon I must in total, be a net draw on the government's finances to the tune of several thousand ponds a year. I certainly don't net 'contribute' to the pot, and the government would have to work very hard indeed to persuade me to start doing so when the alternatives are so much better right now.
States have certainly streamlined the activity of taking peoples money to the point where violence isnt necessary. But tax evasion and tax fraud is still punishable by law and carries with it a range of life-altering penalties, from fines to prison sentences.
So though people may have been convinced that paying taxes is some sort sacrificial duty to a higher power, at bottom the threat of being kidnapped and imprisoned against ones will still remains.
With the monopoly on violence comes the monopoly on crime. If any one, or any group, were to engage in any of the activities of government, including collecting taxes, theyd be imprisoned as criminals. Does that not say anything about the nature of their behavior?
No it isn't. As I've said to @Mikie above, I pay virtually no tax and it's all perfectly legal.
Tax evasion and tax fraud arent crimes in the UK?
You also disclosed that you profit from tax collection insofar as you draw from the governments finances.
Taxes are necessary for any regime that cannot generate its own revenue. The exploitation of both the labor and finances and the property of its citizens is inherent in a communist regime, but not exclusive to it.
Fraud is, tax evasion isn't. As I said, I largely avoid paying tax.
Quoting NOS4A2
I don't profit. One cannot simply take government money. But I can take government money to satisfy many of my own personal goals, so long as they're vaguely charitable. I've had thousands in government money to support efforts I think are worthwhile.
Taxes is a distraction from the real issue here and the OP: systems of governing. Thus, about power.
Im in favor of democracy. Our libertarian friends are not. Theyre in favor of free market fantasies which, however noble the intention (although I dont see that here really), only serve to shift blame from the plutocrats who own and run the government, to the government itself as an abstract entity.
This is exactly why these ideas have been disseminated for decades, making their way into the minds of said people. Theyre very useful to the ruling class.
The low hanging fruit in the US and elsewhere is to reign in corporate power, as weve done before with far better socioeconomic results. Not to drone on about abolishing the state, or whining about having to pay taxes.
That would just drive them out of the US, leaving people unemployed and prone to vote Nazi. You'd need a global government to accomplish what you have in mind.
If you don't like the country, leave it? American corporations have been doing that for a good while now. That's one reason the ones that are left have so much power.
Which ones did you have in mind?
I don't care about communism and capitalism as much as I care about democracy and autocracy. In other words, if someone acts against civil liberties, I don't care if he is left or right. One can observe that an alliance of right-wing and left-wing radicals is formed when it comes to supporting Putin. In this respect, I am in favor of all moderates who support freedom and solidarity and an enemy of all radicals who strive for the oppression and enslavement of the weaker, be they individuals or states.
I don't see how the one follows from the other. It's perfectly possible for laws opposing civil liberties to receive sufficient support to be implemented in democracies.
There's nothing intrinsic about the method by which a government is chosen which prevents that government from restricting civil liberties.
A communist regime owns the means of production, and generates income thereby, It therefore does not need to tax, like the kings and barons of the good old days. Once everything has been privatised, then taxes are needed.
You are right. What I said is because I have noticed that both right-wing and left-wing radicals get along very well when it comes to restricting citizens' freedoms and to support dictators. So at some point, I stopped taking sides with the left or the right. Since then, the dividing line for me runs between those who support and those who fight freedom. In the meantime, left and right have lost their importance, I have nothing against conservatives or progressives as long as they are moderate and as long as they prioritize the preservation of civil liberties above all else.
Report a person or business you think is not paying enough tax or is committing another type of fraud against HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
This includes:
https://www.gov.uk/report-tax-fraud
According to the government, your words alone might make any scrupulous tax man report you to the authorities, submitting you to investigation, which is itself a punishment. I think youre right to avoid taxes as much as possible, and am confident it is all above board, but Id be careful because the government is forever set on closing the tax gap.
A system whereby your neighbor can report you to the authorities for avoiding taxes is just another layer of threat among the rest of them. That you are arbitrarily subject to their whims is unavoidable. What you do today may be a crime tomorrow.
I favor the rule of the people; you favor the rule of a few. I favor democracy; you favor representative government. I favor sovereign persons; you favor the idea that people get to exercise their sovereignty at the ballot box one day every few years. Ironically, I am a democrat, youre a republican.
All the ones that moved their manufacturing overseas. Globalization, basically.
Really? Like whom?
Quoting Jacques
Whatbdo you mean by 'civil' liberties here? Is, for example, freedom from deprivation a 'civil' liberty?
Have you read my post? I use government schemes to avoid paying tax.
A concerned, ethical individual (which is what we were talking about) need not pay any net tax (in my country at least)
They haven't left America then. They're still subject to any laws America might implement. For example the modern slavery legislation in my country includes overseas labour.
:rofl: Thanks for the jokes, I needed that laugh.
I missed it. After having read it, it doesnt appear that youre avoiding or evading taxes at all. Availing oneself of the tax system is not the same as avoiding taxes in my eyes.
I don't pay the government any net tax. How is that not avoiding tax?
Its tax relief. The tax relief you get depends on the rate of tax you pay. Youre using money that is already taxed. If you do not earn enough money to pay tax, you probably wont get tax relief on your donation.
No, that's not how tax relief works. The money that I would have paid in income tax is paid instead to the charity. The government doesn't get it, the charity does. My charity. The one I chose of my own free will. I've literally avoided giving the tax to the government by giving it to a charity of my choice.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's right, but if I didn't earn enough I wouldn't pay any taxes at all.
Still not paying taxes to the government.
Also, you're ignoring the many ways in which I extract tax money from the government for my own purposes. I get thousands in grants. Way more than I ever pay (my scheme isn't perfect so sometimes I pay a small amount of tax).
The net flow of tax money is from the government to me (my schemes), not the other way round.
Ok?
Good. Glad we understand each other. Perhaps give things a little more thought before posting next time? It might make for a better exchange.
Knowing where the state's money comes from, is that a good thing, though?
I get the idea. I can hardly blame someone for seeking to profit from a system that is imposed on them.
However, this is not a cost we're imposing on the state, but on the people who finance the state - ordinary people caught in the same trap as you.
Well, possibly... But since everyone is in the same boat as me, then it's everyone's free choice to give that money to the government (as opposed to a charity doing what they think is best). So the money I'm taking is money given freely to those projects, since it's a free choice to pay the tax to the government and not to some other charitable organisation.
People can payroll donate too (if they're employed), so it's not limited to the self-employed. If one doesn't like what the government are doing with one's excess income, one can give it to a charity one prefers (or set one up oneself).
So the only people whose money I seem to be taking for my schemes are people who didn't have a scheme of their own they'd prefer to give it to, or people who had more money that they needed anyway.
I can think of two main counter-arguments;
1. The low tax bracket isn't high enough for a comfortable life.
If this is the case then there's a problem in that people cannot avoid tax by charitable donation since they need the 80% remaining to pay for their own well-being. This would, however, be a case for raising the tax thresholds, not for abandoning tax altogether (a much more achievable goal).
2. Tax on savings is a problem (I already have savings and already paid tax on them before I started these schemes, before I was even aware I could do it). I don't use my savings, but I'm aware that they're a safety net which others starting this scheme from scratch would lack. Walking the tightrope without a safety net is quite a different prospect to doing so with one, even if one never falls! But again, this is a much more remediable problem to focus on than taxes as a whole.
Basically, some people have excess wages - more than they need to live off, and other people in the community have needs (bad luck, disability, etc), and the community has collective projects (its air, water, infrastructure, education/innovation, etc) from which people benefit collectively (ie they can't directly pay for what they use).
The question (for me) is how to manage this situation with the maximum autonomy, as the autonomy of the individual is a primary right in my view.
I don't think taxes are a major problem here because it seems that my excess wages can be easily distributed to charities dealing with those other matters instead of the government, and I can exercise my complete autonomy in deciding where they go. I might have to fiddle a few things, jump through a few hoops (like Charity commission registration, funding applications, etc), but by-and-large I can take care of my obligations to the rest of my community in whatever way I see fit using my excess income.
Hence my contention that there's bigger fish to fry in regards to offences against the autonomy of the individual. Tax doesn't seem to be a problem, I can pay whomever I want to carry out my social ethical obligations, it needn't be the government...
...but a school leaver looking to work as a farm labourer, for example, has their working conditions and pay entirely determined by a monopoly of agricultural commodities sellers and investors who fix the price of goods, and so fix the price the farmer can get, and so fix the limit to the labourer's wage. He's had his freedom reduced to a far greater extent - he might not even be able to choose where to live (follow the work), he certainly couldn't choose what to do with his time (14hr days are not uncommon in agricultural labour), he can't choose how to spend his money (monopolies of energy suppliers, banking, manufacturers etc all constrain his choices), he can't choose how to educate his children, ...he can't choose anything I consider important. And it's not the government restricting any of those choices. It's not tax (he probably doesn't pay any). It's capitalists. It's the owning classes setting the conditions which restrict his choices.
The state is an alien Kafkaesque entity, remote and distanced from oneself.
(Almost like an implicit definition.)
What's up with that?
Well... it's that the state is an alien Kafkaesque entity, remote and distanced from oneself.
So people are saying that.
Is there something you don't understand about people saying things which seem to them to be the case?
I'm not sure I can really explain it to you any more simply. Let's say I look out of my window and there seems to be a deer in the garden. I might say "there's a deer in the garden". Does that help? People say things that seem to them to be the case.
... It's like I'm having to explain how language works...
Quoting Quentin · Cube (1997)
Nice start of an explanation, though. Please go on.
That's literally the point of the quote function.
Quoting Quentin · Cube (1997)
Ahh! I see now. You "disagree". That's when you think one thing is the case but other people think something else is.
Do I have to explain how disagreement works now too. I'll try and find a diagram
Quoting just above
Please do. Looking forward to checking later.
Diagrams too. The forum supports drag-and-drop, should be easy for you to attach.
Far too often philosophers as well as ordinary men fail to ask the right question. Of course it is. So is torturing people in castle dungeons and hanging them upside down. I could do that now. The real question is, should it be done? Is the chase worth the prize? Are the known risks and guaranteed difficulties worth the indeterminate reward or is it but like so many of man's endeavors, merely mirage? These are the questions men fail to ask themselves before far, far too late.
Like indirectly supporting Putin. For example, right-wing and left-wing extremists are united in calling for an end to supporting the Ukrainians' struggle for freedom with weapons.
Ah, I see. Much the same way as you support racism then?
Whoa! Everyone's here taking friendly potshots at one another, soft jabs to the midsection and you come in with a spiked bat to the face! What is up with that my man?
Those are fightin' words and legal slander because even if anybody in earshot couldn't care less, it can still get the man killed later down the road.
I grant you, you should always call a spade a spade. Kettle me black. But where are you getting this information from? Surely a moderator not remiss would have dealt with such long ago.
Well, it's just that my preferred way of opposing racism is the sort of radical socialism @Jacques disagrees with. Since we're deciding that anyone who doesn't agree with our preferred methods of opposing anything must be indirectly supporting it, the only conclusion I'm left with is that @Jacques must be supporting racism, since they disagree with my preferred method of opposing it.
Or... we could agree that it's puerile to just simplify a very complex issue into "anyone who isn't frantically chucking guns at the problem is basically a war criminal", and that there are a range of solutions which different people support from different perspectives, not all of which are militaristic.
Quoting Outlander
@Jacques accused me and pretty much my entire social group of supporting a ruthless war criminal responsible for the massacre at Bucha. Can you explain in what way that's a "friendly potshot"?
Hmm Tu quoque?
Okay, see I missed that. You have the blood of what you perceive to be innocents fueling your dogma. I understand that. And apologize. We could talk endlessly about such topics but in the interest of remaining on the intended subject focus of the poster, I digress. Perhaps, it was even the interlocutor who derailed and, perhaps I don't know, baited you. Either way.
Let's use this alleged massacre as a stepping stone back to the original topic. "The State" or those employed by it killed citizens. You're saying they were innocent, non-treasonous, and unarmed. This can happen regardless of any economic model a given society operates under. So where do we go from here? It is an association (possibly an indirect one) that communism removes an individual of personal responsibility and ownership of property, seeing as such property must be maintained and used responsibly or else penalties and negative outcomes, be they enforced by men or happen organically will occur (example, if you own a machine gun to defend your farm and family from riots, some unhinged and suicidal person could steal it and enter a mall with the intent to kill as many as possible). Correct?
That's an extreme example of course. Let's use the shell game metaphor. Say the item under the shell is the innocent man and, per example, the player is an immoral man who wishes to do harm. The favored and popular argument seems to be, under communism, you have one shell. You compromise that, all under it are subject to your malevolence. If you have multiple, hence the idea of goods and services being privately owned, you get what you compromised, perhaps, though the idea is you really didn't or at least your malevolence was isolated and contained later to be neutralized by others, yet others have a chance. How do you respond to that?
Edit: That is to say, one man - unscrupulous in nature - could occupy the sole position of government and all duty bound to it, and cause it to be used for what is socially deemed negative, controlling, or destructive. Now all goods and services are subject to this maligned pursuit. But if you have freedom of ability to produce or not produce what you want when you want, it now requires greater effort and coordination to ensure the average citizen is now subject to said pursuit. Make sense? That's the argument at least.
That was the idea, yes.
Quoting Outlander
Makes sense, but as I've been discussing above, there's more than one way to restrict freedom and government-type actions aren't even top of the list. This "freedom of ability to produce or not produce what you want when you want" is easily constrained by total monopoly over the means of production. Which is what you get in a capitalist state.
The INBOX for example, or set up a "Flamery" thread in The Lounge or something for more readers. (Could be used as a bin for out-moderated posts as well I guess, as long as it doesn't show up in the front/main feed.)
I don't think this stuff encourages newcomers or random visitors either.
As of typing, the votes are about fifty-fifty, so I'm wondering about the certainty you express.
(Please keep in mind, it's not so much about "possible" (technically), as it's about "realistic/feasible"; maybe the opening post wasn't clear enough, my bad if so.)
I'm guessing some sort of sweeping changes would be needed, perhaps cultural/ethical, but that's just conjecture on my part.
Please produce this list for us, in your own words.
Quoting Isaac
"Total" is where I would question your sentiments. People die. Spoiled kids make poor choices. Things grow anew. Is this not so? Sure, wealthy families often remain wealthy and can often avoid legal actions or repercussions the average citizen cannot. Potential competitors can be neutralized through a variety of means both legal and extrajudicial. See it all the time. However the difference is one can get "caught" and social outrage justified whereas in state-controlled production one who criticizes is metaphorically "in bed with the enemy" and against the well being and future of the children ie. a traitor. At least, that's the principle argument put forth.
As well as if my sole household provider dies of a food allergy from a negligent menu omitting ingredients, I can't do or get anything from a dude on the side of the road selling seafood. What do I get his cart? Some minute three figure amount from his savings? Gee, that's nice. Whereas if I'm eating at a large corporate chain you better believe I'll be living the rest of my life waking up when I please not knowing if it's 7 AM or PM and loving it. Slippery slope. At least, that's the argument.
I have already done so in the discussion above, but broadly it is through the appropriation of the means of production in the hands of groups of individuals whose united objectives cause them to act as a monopoly.
If the system is set up such that the winning strategy for, say factory owners, is to support some employment strategy, then they will all do so (those that don't will lose - it's the 'winning' strategy). Considering that they will all do so, and they own the factories, a stakeholder in those factories has no means to alter course, the preferred strategy of the owners will be the one under which they have to work.
Same goes for every single other resource. the group that own that resource get to dictate how it is used and other stakeholders have to just lump it.
A communist system is, in essence, saying that it is stakeholders, not owners who should dictate how a resource is used.
Quoting Outlander
This is, again, no less the case in a capitalist system. Powerful interests only need to monopolise the media (one the 'resources' I mentioned above), and it is they, not the stakeholders (readers in this case) who get to dictate how that resource is used. It's not hard to create social movements by manipulating media outputs, possibly even easier than government's trying to do it.
Quoting Outlander
The evidence does not support this. Big businesses have big legal teams and most attacks on them fail. They might pay out, but it is inevitably less than the profit they make. so they continue to harm people, and pay less than they make in compensation. That's not a world I want to live in.
You mean like...
Quoting jorndoe
...?
If you don't like it, perhaps refrain form doing it, at least in your own threads, or maybe just try dialling down the sanctimony.
You thought the tankie comment was about you...? Wasn't even particularly about the forum.
(Hmm What "sanctimony"? What did I just write again...?)
So basically "damned if you do, damned if you don't" seeing as both are present in each system. We're not progressing here, at least from that generalization.
Quoting Isaac
What is a stakeholder? Any citizen? Which includes some pothead college dropout with no understanding of the world who after reading the outlines of economics thinks he's suddenly Adam Smith? Gee, what could go wrong there.
Good intentions pave the road to hell, it is said. Perhaps rightfully so, perhaps not. We live in a world of free, unrestrained thinking and upbringing. You got religious types who think the world is basically dead or going to be destroyed, you got people who are too nice, and much more who are too cruel, and you got those who are anarchistic and in their words "just want to watch the world burn". Now seriously in all judgement, is that the demographic you would have in charge over goods and services over those raised from birth to study and perform efficiently in economics? One would hope not.
At the end of the day the average person is a "go getter", a "risk taker". People barely think about where or what they'll be doing in 15 minutes let alone 15 years. And that's the point of civilized society. So the average person doesn't have to think about war, death, famine, slavery, abuse 24/7 and pursue their own personal desires, be they beneficial to others and society or not. That's literally the definition of freedom. It's a recipe for disaster, plain and simple.
Quoting Isaac
This I would agree with. Difference is sometimes you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette. Meaning, sometimes a little rain must fall in order to prevent a drought. Short term inconvenience is always worth it to prevent long term fatalities, neither of which the average person does or is expected to understand. As Star Wars puts it "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Interestingly enough, in a broader sense absent of time, it's speaking about future generations, not whatever majority may be present at the time of speaking. Some "psychology" is good. This is leadership. "A leader is a dealer in hope". Some of it is bad. This is propaganda. Everybody thinks they're way of life (a normal function of the brain, what worked before will work again) is right. Until it's not. But by then it's often far too late.
Quoting Isaac
Okay then that's justice. Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be? You can't pay out more than you have now can you? Believe me, people will harm other people plenty enough especially without laws, order, and strict governance. The devil is in the mirror. Metaphorically, I mean. Nothing personal. You seem cool.
To summarize: the average reasonable person will want as much as possible with as little as possible as quickly as possible. there's nothing wrong with this. it's efficiency. how the brain works and how we managed to survive and come so far. however, there is much more to consider than instant gains to avoid bleeding an economy dry to the point of non-sustainability. ignorance may be bliss, and myopia, it's own heaven. but it never lasts long.
I am sympathetic to communism, but I think we're too selfish right now, and that the limits of human organization are unknown. That we're too selfish, though, isn't a surprise given what behavior is rewarded -- and I should say we're collectively too selfish. I should say by selfish I don't mean individual selfishness, but more like a clannish selfishness -- we care for ours first, just behaviorally, because that's our responsibility and no one else will. Our society is set up in such a way that you kind of have to put you and yours first. Selfishness is a necessity for family life, and family life is usually the concrete place where people encounter the economy: through a paycheck and the power which comes from that paycheck and how the economy effects whoever earns that paycheck is where most people have contact with the economy's rules. The other time is as the buyer of goods.
I don't know about "sweeping" changes. In a way since how we live together is ultimately up to us it's us that would have to change. But it couldn't be a spiritual change for it to count as political, it'd have to be a material change -- a change in the way we relate to the economy. Given that the limits of human organization are unknown, though, we don't know how much would need to change to get there. Beyond a dream we don't even know what "there" is. If you ask me I tend to believe there is no end of history, really. People will always have issues to work through -- but that's not a bad thing. The bad thing is how we work through issues, now, and its results. A realistic communism would have to have a process by which human issues could be worked through, because we'll never reach a society where conflict just doesn't exist at all. It'd just be better than, say, recruiting soldiers through the usual means of propaganda to maintain border claims to ensure stability within a physical geographic region.
Further, while dreams and thoughts have their place, we need others for any material change. So it all kind of goes back to building relationships with people -- the limits of what's socially possible depend upon all of us. As such communisms realism and feasibility are more like social facts that could change in light of how we decide to behave, given that our personalities nor our cultures are static entities.
Communism was a kind of ideological colonialism that has lad some countries, like China or Russia, to sever its own history and adopt a European myth in its place. If it had tried to be normative rather than scientific, had led by example rather than violence, it might have become a sort of religion, like the Amish, where its adherents are looked upon fondly as they go around working together and sharing the fruits of their labor.
It's only by actively organizing that the ideas even begin to make sense as anything other than a philosophical exercise.
Political philosophers envisioned the masses transcending countries (or any such partitioning I suppose). The masses could find common ground and solidarity, like refuse being sent to wars against each other. With the advent of mass communication, discussions + organizing should be technically possible more or less worldwide; well, except that having sessions where all of the masses attended isn't feasible, so representatives would be needed. The likes of ideologies, religions, cultures, traditions, distrust, certain ambitions, greed, extremism, whatever, might get in the way of such efforts, yet, surely the masses + commoners + whatnot, if in voluntary agreement, could force an agenda across large regions, across multiple countries. After all, if they all (or most of them) plainly said "No" to go to war killing each other, or perhaps sanctioning each other, then it would be less likely to happen. Conversely, the more people, the more diversity can be expected. (And what of personal relationships?)
The top honchos of the old USSR didn't follow the philosophers, but instead forced themselves on others, right off the Russian revolution. They didn't seek out voluntary solidarity, but instead replaced old with new honchos that became ruthless dictators, and rolled over other countries regardless of what any masses might have to say there. (Is it easier to force involuntary compliance than for voluntary cooperation to come about?) Would-be communism that wasn't.
The UN doesn't have that much power, and there's plenty of globalization-phobia to come by, though one could sometimes wish otherwise. Well, centralization and concentration of broad and wide powers are known to carry inherent dangers, balances and limits are warranted. Conversely, cooperation can and does achieve markedly more than any individual.
Why have these ideas not caught on?
On a smaller scale, unions are around though, in part going by similar objectives, with top honchos of their own by the way.
The world has an unholy mix of dictatorships, theocracies, authoritarianism, corruption, semi-democracies, civilized democracies, ... It only takes one, for others to be threatened.
Anyway, I remain skeptical that communism is feasible/realistic; don't see anything particularly better than democracy, and that takes work to maintain.
(I'd quote a variety of people, fiction and non-fiction, but have already babbled long enough here.)
I would say that communism is a tool for the world state. Which, is, to make the farmer leave the farms for the town. Or something like this.
Also, in my book, communism is no rich. Which is impossible.