Why Socialism (and Communism) Fails and why our society is being destroyed

[ccccpie]

Communism:
Communism is an ideology that claims every man on the planet owns every item of value on the planet in joint ownership, including one another. That is to say: All matter and the lives of others are 0wned equally by everyone.

Now there a several flavours of communism, but they tend to amount to the same thing. All advocate the eradication of the 'social classes', they aim to make every man equal, regardless of his talent and ability.

The reason communism is a fallacy is simple: People cannot jointly own one another. The concept is fallacious. How can one man be a slave to another, when the other is a slave to the first?

The second reason communism is a fallacy is the statement 'communism destroys the social classes and makes everyone equal'. This is fallacious because public assets must be controlled, and therefore 0wned, by a small group of people. Mass ownership could never work, because there would be too many divergent opinions as to what the asset should be used for (6.5 billion divergent opinions to be exact.) So, in order to have public assets, you must now elect a group to manage those public assets. And that group needs to be paid to do their job. And once that group is elected in their cushy jobs they won't want to leave. Low and behold you have just created a new ruling elite. The exact thing you were trying to destroy in the first instance.

So, we have explored why communism, as an ideology, is a fallacy. But now let us examine why it fails when put into practice.

In a free society man is free to own his assets, work has hard as he pleases, employ whoever he pleases at whatever price they will accept. A man is free to buy property and build industrial facilities thereon. He is free to grow his business. All of these activities create wealth. The innovative nature of the entrepreneur is that he sees what could be, not what is. A worthless piece of land, some iron ore, the unemployed. He adds his energy and capital and turns these worthless things into a factory, or an institution, something of great value. And furthermore, the thing he has built continues to produce value in its day to day operations.

This is where wealth comes from. It comes from the innovative middle class. The capitalist and his fresh ideas, his understanding of markets and economics, and his freedom to pursue his own goals.

Now, communism, on the other hand rejects the man's right to own land, build a factory, it rejects his right to employ people and pursue his own goals, and thus rejects his right, and ability, to produce wealth.

Communism instead holds that everything must be centrally planned by the government (or what is essentially the government). This group does not create wealth. They have no economic interest in industrial projects. Their job is to sit in a room and put marks on paper. If the project fails they do not go broke, and if they are blamed they can shift the blame elsewhere. So, rather than creating wealth, the government destroys wealth by stealing it from those who create it and wasting it on projects which make a loss, not a profit. A negative sum game.

So what have you here? You have enslaved man and forced him to remain docile, rather than going out and creating wealth as his instinct demands of him. AND you have a huge wealth consuming entity called the government, or central planning committee. It gets its wealth through taxation, stealing it from the people. The people have no wealth because they have been forced to stop creating wealth by their enslavement.

What you get is immense poverty, to the point of cannibalism (which did occur in Soviet Russia). And that is why communism fails.


Socialism

Socialists are similar to communists but they consider the free market to be a 'necessary evil' -- how anyone could see the process of wealth creation as being evil I'll never know.

Socialists maintain that large government is needed to 'keep the public safe' 'for their own good'. These are the people who advocate the socialisation of industries such as schooling, health, transportation. And so: we have public schooling, public health and public transport. All of which are complete failures in every country they have ever been attempted in.

Now the problem with socialists is they too, like the communists, don't understand the free market. They have one objective 'help the people who are worse off than themselves' and this in itself is morally correct. But because of their ignorance they end up actually hurting the underclass, and the rest of the nation.

In order for the government to be able to afford public institutions it must raise taxes. In doing so a number of things happen.

To have taxes at all wastes a week of every business man's time every  day of every year to begin with. So straight out of the gates you are wasting their money, because time is money in business. You force them to register their business, keep books and so on.

Now here we hit our first disincentive. If I have to pay the government one thousand dollars, every year, just to hold a legal business in my ownership, how likely am I to actually want to start a business, especially if I am uncertain of its prospects, and how far it will go.

Second disincentive: taxation, and increases in taxation. Real taxation in most countries (Australia especially) is about 50 - 70%. Take into account income tax, fuel tax, import tax, capital gains tax, sales tax, stamp duty, inflation tax, and all the rest. How much incentive do I have to make money knowing that 70% will be stolen from me by the government? I have very little incentive to put in 10 times the effort and build a business. Why not just work a dayjob and make the same money doing one tenth the work?

Third disincentive: public subsidies. If I want to go into business providing water, electricity, transport, education or health to people. I am automatically put into competetion with government services. Now while the government services are undoutably :censored:ty, the fact is people have already been forced to pay for them. They've already been forced to make a choice from the aviable choices. True, they could pay a second time, but most people only want to pay once. So they use what they have already paid for, the public system. Now, the government can't go broke, you can't undercut their market; so they naturally hold a monopoly on such things.

Forth disincentive: labour laws. If I want to employ people to do a job, then I want the reserve the right to stop paying them if they fail to do the job for which they were employed. This seems natural, right? But the law does not permit me to do this. When I employ someone I must give him days off, I must only have him work between certain hours, and so forth. And, if I do not feel he is doing a good job, I need to be able to justify that feeling to a court in order to get rid of the bastard, as he would no doubt take me to court over unfair dismissal laws. So why should I bother? Why should I bother owning a business when I know I can't get good people to do the jobs I need done; and if I make a mistake in employing someone they can feed off my business and run it into the ground.

Fifth disincentive: zoning and other regulations. A new law is passed virtually every day. There are so many laws that it is impossible to be obeying the law from minute to minute. Something as simple as crossing the street in the wrong fashion is illegal thesedays. For business it is much worse. You can only build certain things in certain places. You can't mine land you own unless you have a permit. You can't broadcast radio unless you buy an hideously expensive license from the government. You need a licensed electrition to wire your building. You need a licened plumber to do your pipes. You need a licened book keeper to keep your books. The regulations are a huge waste of time and money and are a huge disincentive toward building a business.

There are many other disincentives, but in the interest of time lets briefly explore why socialized industries always fail.

When an industry (such as health) is first socialized it is generally found to be very promising, very good. Then as the next generation of professionals (doctors, teachers, etc.) come through, it's not so good. By the third generation is in an advanced state of disrepair and everyone is running around asking how this could have happened. Further; throwing money at it doesn't seem to help, it is perpetually broken.

The answer is simple. When the industry was first socialized the government took professionals out of the free market to work in the socialized environment. In the case of health this would have been private doctors, in the case of schooling, private school teachers, and so on. So for a while the socialized industry is really very good because these professionals have developed their service skills in the free market and are used to losing customers if they are rude or make misjudgments, or are unable to fulfill their requirements.

The next generation that comes through has not had free market experience. They come straight into the job and the first thing they notice is that they get paid the same amount regardless of how much work they do. So straight out you have slackers out of university who's income does not depend on their service and who have no free market ethics. Suddenly the system is a lot worse. But at least the old guys are still there to keep it running properly.

The third generation is where it comes crashing down. These slackers from the second generation get into management positions where they do little or no work with little or no idea about how to manage anything or anyone. The whole thing turns into a microcosm of communism and no one does any proper work, the few who do are completely overworked, the whole industry implodes.

And that is why socialism fails. Because it screws over the wealth creators and promotes lazy public servants to leech off the public wallet.


Libertarianism and Anarcho-Capitalism

The most pure form of libertarianism is anarcho-capitalism. Libertarianism is built on the non-aggression principle. To outline this: any action is legal provided it is done with the mutual consent of all involved. This means compulsory taxation would be illegal. Slavery would be illegal. War would be illegal.

In libertarianism man is free to do what he does best: build things. Build a business, build a life, build a family, build a house. A libertarian is a free man, able to purchase and own property, able to educate his own kids, or purchase education from the free market.

But best of all, the libertarian is free to run a business unimpeded. This is exceptionally important. Without all the disincentives provided by socialism virtually everyone would be interested in running their own business. If you are good at something, turn it into a business. Sell your art, sell your software, sell your services as an engineer. Build your business, plow the profits back into it; Compete with others for market share.

In the free libertarian society EVERY MAN OWNS HIS OWN PERSON and his own property. He is truely free to prusue his own goals in harmony with everyone else. He is free to create wealth. Every man is free to create wealth; and no man can consume the wealth of others.

America was a very rich country for a long time because of their freedom. The american experiment was to create the smallest, most tightly controlled, government of all time. The result was the largest empire of all time. Why? because government feeds off the free market; And America had a long time to grow, its dynamic powerful free market producing untold billions. The government stole this wealth and used it to its own ends; to grow, to conquer.

Government is the last true evil in the world. When it is destroyed (and the communists starve themselves to death) we will be free to pursue science, to pursue wealth, to pursue our own goals, and finally, to pursue happiness.

[Tec_]

so is this the start of a manifesto of some kind?

[ccccpie]

so is this the start of a manifesto of some kind?

I guess.... But I'm just trying to start discussion.

[Tec_]

yeah i get that and im fine with it, but i don't think this is the place for it. you have to remember that the average age on this site is some ware between 12 and 14 and your talking about some heavy topics.

i get ware you coming from and your want for a discussion but i don't think your going to get much of one hear.

[ccccpie]

yeah i get that and im fine with it, but i don't think this is the place for it. you have to remember that the average age on this site is some ware between 12 and 14 and your talking about some heavy topics.

i get ware you coming from and your want for a discussion but i don't think your going to get much of one hear.

Mmm... I guess... Oh well.

[Tec_]

i don't mean any offense by it, and i do understand your want for a actual discussion. its nice to be mentally stimulated every once in awhile.

[Reaper]

You should make a topic about waffles versus pancakes, thats sure to get some replies 

[dedafmonteur]

i agree with reaper....but the pie would win

[ccccpie]

i agree with reaper....but the pie would win

Pie always wins ^_~

[GhoSt]

very moving, and go pie

[robin1989]

i just woke up so i think im going to come back to this to read it later

[T3KN1K4L]

Only one problem, communism isn't a social/governing system it's an economic system, so as the cold war was Democracy against Communism it was actually Capitalism against Communism...  Many people make this mistake, since it seams that within a "true" communistic environment, the equality of all the members would bring a free flowing, borderline anarchistic, government.  Of course no "true" communistic environment has ever existed, due to man's inability to completely shed his wants.  Many children learn the word mine before they learn yours.  The former CCCP (Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, or Soviet Russia)(If you don't know, in cyrilic (Russian) C is S, they have 36 or so letters to english's 26, ranging from single letters to letter groupes, and sometimes hard to pronouce sounds...  But I digress)  was more a dictatorial communistic environment in practice, where those with power also had wealth, while those of the masses, had what the "state" provided to them and never really owned any of it.

I don't exactly agree with your analysis of the co-ownership of all persons within the communist state, since ultimately the worth of life is null compared to the overall worth of the state, I just think stating a sense of co-ownership amongst all is trying to water it down too much.

Other than that I would have to agree completely with your analysis...

[Timmy]

Very interesting read but you forgot the major reason every communist government has failed

Most all of them have been a dictatorship, now how the hell can you have a dictatorship where everyone is equal......

Mind (sexual intercoarse term that rhymes with duck) : When you hear it, you (excrament term that rhymes with fit) bricks

"You dont have a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution, you have a revolution to safeguard a dictatorship" (Paraphrased form 1984 by George Orwell)

^ Thats why, to provide a less sophisticated definition of communism then Musiks, its where a group of people who (female dog) about the current political system of there nation and preach that with them utopia will be reached and that they must rise against the current government (revolution) , when in reality there motiv is to simply gain control and hope that no one realises they are procrastinating Utopia in order to retain control. And as we have seen in many texts, and real life situations, they create the opposite- Dystopia

[T3KN1K4L]

Hmmm, just got done with the libertarian part...  Yeah I know, I work on one part at a time, and think out a good topic to bring to the table...

First, I have to say that I have more than a couple libertarian friends and all of them understand the worth and need for government, although they don't want the government directly involved in their lives.  The fact is this too comes back to the true nature of man, although all want freedom they also want to be told what to do, or at least know they don't have to worry about some aspects of life on their own. 

And just to clarify, the United States Of America, is a Democratic Republic, and I have a hard time seeing it as an empire, misguided big brother yes, empire no.  Many would say that I actively disregard any notion of an empire USA because of my deep seeded patriotism and my decision to serve the nations government in the military.  But, I can see how some people could misconstrue the USA's actions around the world as imperial...  What is an empire?  Classically, an empire extends it control over it's neighbors, with an ultimate goal of rule of the whole world.  The actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are far from being an act of exerting rule over those areas, in fact they have allowed the people of the area to control their own governing.  The other countries the US has military bases in, have been set by treaty.  In the case of Korea, the bases have been kept since the Korean war hasn't yet ended, so the threat on our ally Republic Of Korea, is still present.  Asserting the the US is an empire using economic control, is to be honest laughable, since human nature dictates that consumerism, and the urge of control is ingrained in each and every one of us...

[Timmy]

Also, do be an empire, you would need an emperor, and for an emporer you would need a Monarchy government, bush is the president of a republic

instant logic headshot kill