Posts by Ryan Nelson5

Kimberly Cox59 said:I mean, in a truly socialist society, nobody would actually be threatening anyone. It’s just that the whole idea got completely trashed by Lenin and his successors with their whole Gulag and Secret Police routine. A socialist society should work pretty simply, I guess, because people would actually see the fruits of someone else's labor for their own work. They’d realize that if they don't pull their weight, nobody else is going to work for them either. It's like a pure self-regulating system—you work for others, and others work for you. Honestly, the worst thing that could happen is that things stay just about the same. Free riders... man, they're everywhere, aren't they? I guess you could say they're just part of the deal, but still. It’s funny how that works. Maybe it's just human nature or something, who knows? Anyway, just a thought.But honestly, that’s just a tiny fraction of what the economy actually has to deal with. I mean, it's really just a small weight on the scale, if you think about it. Maybe it seems big, but compared to everything else? It's peanuts. I guess it's just one little part of the bigger picture.

Take the Spanish Civil War, for instance. In a few small communities back then, they actually managed to set up this incredible food distribution system based entirely on volunteers. It only took them a couple of months to get it running. I mean, according to that text—and I’m not even exaggerating here—it was so simple that if you needed supplies, you could basically just walk into the warehouse and grab what you needed. It sounds wild, but it happened.

I guess I’m assuming that Kimberly Cox59's version of a perfect world doesn't really account for property rights, which, you know, are pretty much the bedrock of freedom. Or am I totally off base here? Maybe I'm wrong. 😉

I mean, you're mistaken there. Personally, I don't think anyone should touch private property like your house, your car, or a vacation home. I guess individualism is actually a super important part of socialism—especially anarchism, for that matter.

I can't get around to watching that Milton Friedman video right now (my speakers are acting up). 🤣Anyway, I'll just leave it at that for now and catch you guys tomorrow...

So, why do you think I put that signature there, genius? I guess it's just my way of showing how much I can't stand those Stalinists and that whole crowd. They always seemed to have this weird fetish for anything labeled "people's." 😉

I probably could have gone with, "Freedom without socialism is just a privilege and an injustice, while socialism without freedom is nothing but slavery and brutality." I guess that fits pretty well with anarchist philosophy, anyway.

Whoops, you guys might have a point there. Sure, the poverty rate in India is dropping, but I guess that’s mostly thanks to government handouts for the poor rather than capitalism doing the heavy lifting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17441347

Right, and that’s only happening now because they are cooperating with the capitalist West.
What was the poverty rate like before this cooperation? Say, 20 or 30 years ago?

Peter Reyes63 said:

I've already made this point. When capital concentrates in the hands of a few individuals—regardless of how much they actually deserve it—those people will do everything in their power to stay on top. They do this by keeping workers and other lower-income groups under their thumb through the wage system. Essentially, these wealthy elites push the working class deeper into poverty just to squeeze out more profit. Capitalism is inherently hierarchical, which makes "anarcho"-capitalism an oxymoron at its core.

There’s no doubt about it. Buffett, Bill Gates, and the rest of that crowd spend all day figuring out how to keep employees under their control and how to screw them over 🙄

How exactly does the wage system keep workers down? I run my own small business and I mostly contract out to one other firm... I don't really see how they're "keeping me under their thumb" when I can walk away whenever I want. Plus, I'm not exploiting my staff; they can quit whenever they feel like it too. 🤷

So... does your worldview even account for property rights? Go find my previous post (or the one before that, where I linked those 4-5 Milton Friedman videos) and then come back and try to argue with me.

I'd also love to hear an answer to the bolded part here... 🤷

Jack Smith5 said:Look, the state would just have a specific agency dedicated to the task, and we’d still have independent judicial bodies to step in if subsidies started being handed out based on nepotism.

Plus, the way they handled funds would eventually come back to haunt them—especially regarding things like tax evasion or election interference. But I've said this before: I'm fundamentally against politicians running the show. They are quite possibly the least qualified people to be making these calls.

The main issue isn't that money would be handed out based on nepotism; it's that under such a system, the people would simply vote for whoever promises to print and redistribute the most cash until everything goes to hell. It’s the exact same pattern we've seen with politicians constantly running up debt just to pass it around.

Even within our current system, they could have used those credits to kickstart actual production. Instead, they just handed them out for salaries and pensions.
Why do you think printing new money would actually change anything?

Jack Smith5 said:Yeah, well, value is generated by having capital to work with...

The government funds forward-looking projects to kickstart production, and from there, the market takes care of itself automatically.

Who’s going to know the government conjured that cash out of thin air, and how exactly is the market supposed to revolt against a move like that?

It doesn't matter if someone knows the money was printed or not. The mere existence of more currency devalues it regardless.
Banks fund those strategic projects, and they do it better than the government ever could. I can't imagine the disaster if the state took charge... it would be ten times worse than their usual vote-buying schemes.

Jack Smith5 said:Alright, let's tweak the question slightly: what actually happens if money suddenly appears without any backing—basically, if nobody knows where it came from or how it was printed, obviously excluding the people who actually pulled the lever on the press?

You can't cheat the system by printing money. 😁
Real value must be produced.

Kimberly Cox59 said:I mean, if I wanted to be a nitpicker, I could argue that no country has actually maintained socialism for half a century straight. But I won't get bogged down in semantics, so I'll just say Cuba. Life expectancy there is pretty much on par with the USA, and their schools and healthcare systems are honestly some of the best in the world. You don't see hunger; everyone has access to food, water, medical care, and they've got housing sorted out too. Sure, when you look at GDP or total national wealth, Cuba is way behind the USA, but for the average little guy? I guess they might actually have it better. Of course, Cuba is an authoritarian state, and that’s really my only gripe about it.

Besides that, Cuba is pretty much the only place left in the 21st century where you can actually claim it's a socialist state. There isn't anyone else (well, maybe Venezuela).

Well, China and India as nations? Sure. But the Chinese people and Indian people themselves? Not really. I think that's where our communication is tripping up. To me, it matters whether the *people* are doing okay economically, not just the government.

Some data, some statistics... anything?
Harold Martin10 posted a graph above regarding poverty rates that completely contradicts your argument.

Kimberly Cox59 said:So, we've got an anarchist here who’s actually pushing for a social welfare state as the big alternative to libertarianism. That's interesting, I guess. Personally, if it were up to me, I’d get rid of the government entirely, but probably through a different route with totally different outcomes. But hey, if you're forcing my hand and making me pick between "anarcho"-capitalism and some kind of social welfare model—like what you see in Scandinavia or just a general social safety net—I don't really have a dilemma. I'm fine either way, maybe.

Honestly, I think the anarcho-capitalists are the biggest joke of all. They just don't seem to get that capitalism... well, you know. It’s kind of wild, really. Always. It all just leads straight to injustice and those rigid hierarchies we see everywhere, which is basically the polar opposite of anarchy. I guess that’s just how it works, maybe?

Here we go again—another "anarchist" out here pushing for state solutions. I guess it’s funny how that works. To me, it seems like the whole socialist philosophy you're peddling—and honestly, I call anyone who wants to redistribute wealth based on some imaginary "social" metric a socialist—is basically built on this one idea: it's better for everyone to be equally miserable than to have any inequality when it comes to freedom. Maybe that's just how you see it, though.

What kind of freedom are we even talking about? I just don't see it. I mean, take a worker in India making shoes on an assembly line—they don't have any real freedom at all. And honestly, I guess workers in the US aren't much better off either, since their whole lives basically depend on whether their boss decides to be kind or not.

I honestly think socialism always ends up lifting the standard of living for most people. And please, let’s not even get started on North Korea—that’s just not what socialism is about at all.

If you had actually looked into this issue, you might have realized that if we're talking about China—which I assume is the main reason you're so obsessed with "Asia"—this place was basically a massive, unindustrialized rural wasteland just fifty years ago. Like, seriously, 90% of the people were just poor farmers living off whatever they could scrape together from the dirt, with absolutely zero chance of ever escaping that poverty. Communism pretty much wiped them out during those insane Maoist "Great Leaps Forward." It wasn't until a little bit of free enterprise managed to sneak its way into that massive country that things actually started moving forward in a big way. For instance, there’s this one super famous case from the late seventies that really shows how crazy socialism and planned economies can be—it almost completely destroyed China:
I was just reading this piece from NPR about how much the landscape in China has shifted over the years. It’s pretty wild to think about, honestly. You look at how they've handled their economic growth and it really makes you wonder about the sheer scale of the transformation. I guess it’s one of those things where you realize just how fast a massive economy can pivot when the direction changes. Maybe it's just me, but seeing that kind of shift—it's almost hard to wrap your head around. Just a lot to process, I suppose.

That’s an interesting point. Look, I’m definitely not trying to defend Maoism—that stuff is pure evil, plain and simple. But, I guess you could look at it this way... here's an example of something that actually worked. Voluntary. I mean, maybe that's just how things work sometimes? It feels like everything is becoming so much more... well, organized lately. But yeah, voluntary. I guess. Well, you also have those instances of collectivization that actually ended up driving production through the roof and really bumping up the standard of living. I guess it happened sometimes, maybe? It’s interesting how that works out.
I was just reading through this deep dive on how various revolutions actually play out, and man, it really makes you think about the cycle of things. It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of a big uprising, but looking at history, there's always that messy transition period where everything feels like it's spinning out of control. I guess it's one of those things where the initial spark is easy, but keeping the momentum without falling into total chaos is the hard part. Maybe that's why so many movements end up looking exactly like what they were trying to overthrow in the first place? It’s a bit heavy, I know, but honestly, it’s pretty fascinating to see how these patterns repeat themselves over and over again.

I guess the modern Chinese person is actually making massive strides precisely because of how much free market they have, not despite it. It’s kind of wild when you think about it. I’d really suggest checking out this TED talk if you want to start seeing how those "exploited" workers have actually come out on top. Honestly, they seem way happier today than their parents were just twenty or thirty years ago.

So, I was just checking out this TED talk by Leslie Mitcheson about how we handle workers and productivity, and man, it really gets you thinking. It’s one of those things that seems simple on the surface, but once you dig in, there's so much more going on. I guess she's looking at how we structure everything in the workplace. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like such a huge part of our daily lives, right? You know, how we spend most of our waking hours just trying to stay ahead of the curve. Anyway, it's definitely worth a watch if you have a few minutes to spare. Just some food for thought!

Well, he's more or less saying that people are actually volunteering to come work for the city. And I mean, yeah, that’s true, obviously. But they aren't exactly heading over there just so they can...They picked up some new skills and really got out there to see the world.But honestly, how would they even make enough to actually live? Most of them are still stuck in poverty, I guess.

Nah, I think the other way to go is just being self-employed. In a truly free society—one that isn't constantly squeezing its citizens just to fund some massive social welfare programs—where taxes on small business owners and entrepreneurs are kept at a minimum or maybe even nonexistent, things change. If you can take a hobby or something you're actually talented at and turn it into your own little venture, I guess that’s just a way better move. It's probably a much more profitable option than just sitting around the house, complaining about how there are no jobs out there.

So, what happens next? You go out and start a small business, only to watch it tank because you're getting crushed by massive corporations. It’s the same story we saw with local watchmakers, tailors, and all those other small shops that just couldn't hang. Even the mid-sized factories are struggling to stay competitive these days. So, if I'm following your logic, people are supposed to just keep pouring their hard-earned cash—where would they even get that money, I guess?—into tiny startups that will probably fail 90% of the time anyway? It just doesn't seem to add up.

I mean, sure, some fields really do require you to go through the motions at a specialized university. But for most everyday jobs? I guess you don't necessarily need a fancy degree. Think about things like retail, accounting, construction, or even all those various trades. Even more technical stuff, like computer science and its cousins—you can pretty much tackle that on your own. Honestly, having a membership at your local public library and just a tiny bit of willpower and ambition to learn something new is probably enough. Maybe that's all it takes, really.

I mean, seriously, how is some kid out there—someone who’s actually got tons of potential but zero dollars in their pocket—supposed to go after a degree in the sciences or social studies if they can't afford tuition? And please, don't give me that "just go to the library" line... I guess it's just not that simple.

I guess that’s just another thing about libertarianism. It kind of leads to this spiritual emptiness, you know? Since everyone is just hyper-focused on chasing the next dollar, there isn't much room left for anything else.

I mean, you're totally mixing up your terms here—and I bet you're doing it on purpose, too. Look, the world we’re living in right now isn't some free-for-all of laissez-faire or pure entrepreneurship. It's actually dominated by corporatism, or maybe neo-mercantilism if you want to get technical. It’s all about markets that are centrally controlled and partially managed by big players. Just my two cents, I guess.

I get that, but honestly, I don't think a pure laissez-faire approach would be any better. Right now, it seems like the wealthy prefer corporatism because the government provides them with a certain level of security. Just look at China—it’s basically just total cooperation between big business and the state, where the party manages any social unrest using funds provided by the industrialists.

Look, I guess it’s just a statistical fact that when you look at the entire history of the human race, despite all the massive headaches we deal with today, things are actually... well, different. Maybe they're just feeling less hungry? I guess. Or maybe they're just more satisfied. It's hard to say, really....fewer wars, at the very least. Less sickness, less illiteracy. I guess that’s really all we can aim for, right? Maybe just keeping things simple like that.And, you know, at the very least, we're looking at political inequality.

I guess you could say those socialist systems are largely to blame for how things turned out...

I honestly think we’re living in the most peaceful and prosperous era since humans first crawled out of their caves. It’s pretty wild when you think about it. And look, regardless of how you personally feel about all that, the statistics really tell a story. They show this massive upward surge that lines up perfectly with the start of industrialization and the rise of capitalist—or even quasi-capitalist—ways of running an economy. I guess the numbers don't lie.

It obviously aligns with industrialization—I mean, how could it not? 😕
Also, I wouldn't bother making comparisons to the pre-industrial era.

And hey, driftingjackal5, how would the justice system actually work in "anarcho"-capitalism?

This tired narrative about the poor Indian or the poor Chinese person always resurfaces, implying that capitalism is responsible for their poverty. That's a lie. The West didn't cause poverty in India; India was impoverished long before they started working with the West. In fact, since cooperating with Western markets, both China and India have experienced massive growth and live better than ever before.

driftingjackal5 said:If you read that text and decide you're totally on board, you gotta ask yourself: do the people you call "leaders" actually believe what they wrote? And if they don't, why the hell are you following them? I’m convinced the only way to shift the political and social vibe is to start with the individual, not by shouting opinions from some political soapbox. It’s about getting individuals to realize that begging the state—or whoever’s in power—for handouts is straight-up immoral, and actually understanding *why* it's wrong.

Take the last census, for instance. Almost 90% of Americans identify as Christian. Isn't the whole foundation of Christian morality built on things like "love thy neighbor as thyself," "turn the other cheek," and "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you"? So why don't people actually live like that? Why is it that kids who were sitting in religious studies class yesterday are out on the streets tomorrow screaming for "free education"? Let's break down what "free education" actually means for a second. There are really only two options: either they think teachers should work for zero pay, or they think the state needs to provide them with fair compensation. But can the state pay for anything without taking it from someone else first? Obviously not. The state is just a monopoly on the legal use of force. When they respond to this demand for "free schooling," they’re going to use coercion—using taxes to snatch property from one person to give it to another. In this case, they’d strip all taxpayers to fund the education of the people demanding it. That’s the state initiating force on their behalf. Yet, the people demanding "free school" would never dream of breaking into their neighbor's house and grabbing a few thousand bucks to pay for their tuition. So why is it okay when the state does it for them?

I completely agree with that bolded point. In fact, that is exactly why I am here: to convince as many people as possible.
Politics is a reflection of the people, and better politics won't arrive until the people themselves improve.
Unfortunately, most citizens expect the government to take the initiative... it's just the leftover mentality of the old system. 🤷

driftingjackal5 said:If you read that text and decide you're totally on board, you gotta ask yourself: do the people you call "leaders" actually believe what they wrote? And if they don't, why the hell are you following them? I’m convinced the only way to shift the political and social vibe is to start with the individual, not by shouting opinions from some political soapbox. It’s about getting individuals to realize that begging the state—or whoever’s in power—for handouts is straight-up immoral, and actually understanding *why* it's wrong.

Take the last census, for instance. Almost 90% of Americans identify as Christian. Isn't the whole foundation of Christian morality built on things like "love thy neighbor as thyself," "turn the other cheek," and "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you"? So why don't people actually live like that? Why is it that kids who were sitting in religious studies class yesterday are out on the streets tomorrow screaming for "free education"? Let's break down what "free education" actually means for a second. There are really only two options: either they think teachers should work for zero pay, or they think the state needs to provide them with fair compensation. But can the state pay for anything without taking it from someone else first? Obviously not. The state is just a monopoly on the legal use of force. When they respond to this demand for "free schooling," they’re going to use coercion—using taxes to snatch property from one person to give it to another. In this case, they’d strip all taxpayers to fund the education of the people demanding it. That’s the state initiating force on their behalf. Yet, the people demanding "free school" would never dream of breaking into their neighbor's house and grabbing a few thousand bucks to pay for their tuition. So why is it okay when the state does it for them?

The majority gives politicians legitimacy; nobody gives a burglar legitimacy. 🙂

Otherwise, I am a proponent of capitalism, but I believe education is one of those areas that should remain social and accessible to everyone. I think it is humane and decent to provide equal starting conditions for all (as much as possible), and after that, whatever anyone builds within those conditions is theirs to keep.
And for equal starting conditions, accessible education is key... if someone chooses not to go to school, that's fine... but if they end up working for low wages because of it, they simply have to deal with that. No one is obligated to share their salary with them.🤷

I expected this to be more about societal freedom—democracy, really—rather than individual liberty, especially since this forum is flooded with sentiments like "the people have no say and can't change anything."

Otherwise, the quoted text in the opening post sounds noble; I doubt anyone here would disagree with it. However, once you try to apply those ideals to real-world scenarios, everyone will just interpret them however they please.