While in the US, Hayek drew off of the US Social Security and Medicaid system (both are programs that he wanted to see abolished).
He was encouraged to go on the dole by none other than Charles Koch, notorious Social Security hater and billionaire bankroller of various anti-Soc. Sec. groups.
Just like Ayn Rand (who also drew off Social Security in her declining years), he's another hypocrite who took advantage of social programs that they wanted to keep other people from getting.
People looking at "socialism" or people looking at "capitalism" as the source of all tyranny are making a huge mistake. Tyrants do not have bias, they will speak your language and tell you the sorts of things you want to hear to gain your trust. We have had socialism twisted by tyranny, we have not had libertarian tyrant yet, and some may think it's an oxymoron, but by God, there are bad people working around the clock to make such a thing work. That is the real Orwellian lesson.
@Magicwillnz All of Orwell's tyrants were socialists. There are no "libertarian tyrants" unless of course you are a minion of #Occupy, Hayek's lesson is -- socialism always begets tyranny.
@yeahlikewhatever a) Orwell was a socialist. b) There are libertarian tyrants, if you think the free market is libertarian and you know that not only a head of state can be tyrannical. Look up the Homestead Strikes and 19th Century History.
@Magicwillnz It's a fact FDR was the closest the USA came to having an outright tyrannical leader. Orwell was a socialist as a young man, who later provided lists of his fellow British communists to British inelligence after he reported on the Spanish Civil War. His satirical anti-socialist/communist works were published shortly before his death, when he obviously changed his views. It was his socialist background that made his satire so effective.
@yeahlikewhatever Not really. He was a democratic socialist which would always put him at odds with Stalin. He also held the view that the Soviet Union was not socialist, it had become a totalitarian state. I can't find any evidence at all that he renounced socialism.
@Magicwillnz Yes, really. The Soviet Union was communist, a variant of socialism, without private ownership, run with collectivist labor policy. Totalitarianism and socialist central planning are closely compatible concepts. Orwell's books 1984 and Animal Farm were themselves rebuttals to socialism and communism. Which fits in nicely with Hayek's contention that true socialism can only lead to tyranny. Still waiting for you to name a "libertarian tyrant".
@yeahlikewhatever Actually, the Soviet Union violated a couple of important precepts of communism, such as that the worker should get back the value of the labor. Yes, democratic socialism and communism have similar underpinnings, but so does anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism, which manifest quite differently.
Orwell never renounced socialism: read Orwell: the Road to Airstrip One, 238-239, available on Google Books.
@Magicwillnz Curious defense of communism -- a communist would just say "they had the right idea, just implemented it badly". "The worker [didn't] get back the value of the labor" is one such defense. What they got was the absence of punishment. Well, except for the several million that made mistakes or may have been disloyal, & weremurdered by Stalin.
Anarcho-capitalism? How quaint. Now you're really wingin' it.
The Koch brothers are the most recent target of the fleabaggers. Tsk, tsk...
@yeahlikewhatever OK, now you're making no sense whatsoever. You literally didn't make any points, nor did you try to refute what I said. You just said talking points back to me in a mildly sarcastic tone. Come back to me once you have an actual argument.
@Magicwillnz So you're indignant. The truth can be painful. I know a socialist when I meet one, and you're apparently on the Obama end of the scale. Orwell could have thought of himself as a socialist; then again everyone in merry old England is a socialist to some degree, just by virtue of living there under socialist rule. I think you still don't get it; that Orwell's books are some of the most effective critiques of socialism (not just Soviet communism) in western literature.
@WSMartin86 So one minute you're Magicwillnz, the next minute you're WSMartin86? Are you Magicwillnz's mother? Oh well, our protaganist apparently had two faces as well, one evolving into another. At least his evolution was in the right direction, as was the Great Communicator's.
Have you been to England since the birth of industrial capitalism?
@yeahlikewhatever 1) I have two email addresses. Not that this is remarkable in any way. 2) Yes. What's your point? That everyone in England is a socialist because Labor has won elections?
@Magicwillnz a) 2008: Obama wins election. b) 2009: Newsweek cover: "We Are All Socialists Now".
.....I'm not offended by the cover -- it's true, since Bush 43 was partly responsible for this trend to socialism (McCain too), but the disastrous experiment in socialism is rapidly coming to an end. 2012 will be even bigger than Nov 2010. We will be proud of America again.
Either that, or Obama wins, and we're in for a prolonged Depression just like under FDR.
@Magicwillnz Oh yeah, sure. (wink, wink) Could happen to anyone ;) One for the wife, one for the gf. Got it. Just be sure you double check who's in that "to" box when you write those sexy notes.
So if the Koch brothers are "libertarian tyrants", then what kind of tyrant does that make George Soros?
@yeahlikewhatever You: 1+1=3 Me: 1+1=2 You: Bullshit. Me: See, here's proof. You: There you go. 2+2=4. Me: What!? You: Indignant, are we? Me2: What!? You: 2 accounts? You must be a child molester. Me: What!? You: Have you ever been to England? Me: Yes. Why the hell did you ask that question? You: What about George Soros? Me: Goodbye.
@Magicwillnz Funny! You really are the sensitive type. I'm sure gf must be proud.
This just in: 'Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is running for president, said Monday that "too many Republicans ... aspire to be frugal socialists” who "share the same core political philosophy about the purpose of government" as President Barack Obama.'
So true. She's a real conservative. We are all socialists now! Struggling against the shackles of socialism.
@yeahlikewhatever Yes, I'm the sensitive one. Because when I was proven wrong I launched a slew of personal attacks, pointless segues and general sarcastic bitchiness in a sad attempt to prove I have a superior intellect to you. Oh wait, that was you. My bad.
I feel sorry for you. Clearly you lack the level of emotional sophistication to know what an ass you are making of yourself. I hope for your sake you don't act the same in your personal life.
@Magicwillnz If 1) we establish that Orwell was a socialist, and 2) Orwell was criticizing Stalin's tyranny, and 3) Stalin claimed to be a socialist, then you must take the position that Hayek was wrong when he warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning. You appear to say there is no connection between socialism and tyranny, but I (and Hayek) say socialism begets tyranny.
@yeahlikewhatever PART 1: I was going to make that my last post, but since you made an actual point I thought I might address it. It is true that greater economic control through the government can result in tyranny. Many people point to taxation as a form of involuntary slavery, and corporations can't be tyrannical because you buy their services out of free will.
@yeahlikewhatever PART 2: I believe that corporations can be tyrannical because they pass on externalities to unwilling 3rd parties instead of the buyers of their goods. In fact, they will attempt to gain control of government so they can continue negative externalities with impunity. A crucial role of the government is to manage these externalities through the law. The only way to manage the government itself is through democracy, transparency, and oversight.
@yeahlikewhatever PART 3: Basically, if you buy a Dixie cup (a Koch product), you're buying it for far cheaper than the actual cost of making it as the environmental and social costs the product caused in its manufacturing was absorbed by unwilling participants.
So, as I said from the beginning, you can have a "socialist" tyranny, but you can also have a corporate, libertarian tyranny.
@Magicwillnz The "externality" of increased welfare benefits by government is the 70 percent rate of black children born to single mothers and the destruction of the black nuclear family. Yes, I know what a social externality is, and it's far more serious than the cost of a paper cup.
Another "externality" is the subsidy of GM, when its Volt can't compete in the free market, even with a 7500 dollar tax credit. Or the fact GM won't have to pay over 45 billion in taxes on future profits.
@yeahlikewhatever Actually, that's caused by shit sex education, not by welfare.
I agree with you about GM subsidies.
No, I don't like the Koch brothers because they bribe politicians, they poison rivers and air, they have a campaign against climate science, they wage a war against the education system. I don't give a shit about AFP. So yes, the cost of a paper cup is a really fucking serious thing, and it's one of many serious, serious things libertarians like to ignore.
They fund NOVA and have for decades so I'll step in and give them a quick defense. If they poison rivers and air then they have violated federal laws and, if you have that knowledge, please bust them. The only allegations you really seem to make is that they have the audacity to believe in different policies than you. There's a real tendency amongst ideologues to posit some shady inner-circle cabal when encountering differeng viewpoints. I urge you to resist the temptation.
@Magicwillnz I suspect the real reason you don't like the Koch brothers is their sponsorship of the AFP conference -- the one the fleabaggers tried to disrupt by blocking the door with their helpless terrified children, and screaming profanities.
Anyway I like paper cups.They make sense sometimes, such as when you can't wash your dishes because you're out in the wilderness. They're sanitary. Drinking out of a dirty cup has "externalities". Just don't leave them on the ground when you leave.
Yourexample is an error in implementation, not in essence. We can address that issue by creating a market influence derived from people's enjoyment of the environment unpolluted. I assume even libertarians enjoy clean air and nice landscapes. The problem of the commons isn't in any way a tyranny as is the unholy union of central-planning and blind ideology. It always devolves into totalitarianism--the common thread between communism, fascism and colonialism of the 20th century.
@turbozed Well, what you are basically saying is that we should have ADMIT ENTRY to national parks. That runs into problems: what do you do with places that are too remote to visit by most people, thus undervalued? What happens when a wealthy person buys up that land at market value? Real democracies have been far more effective at protecting environments than any other system so far. Your suggestion is an interesting idea, I'll give you that, and serious, unlike this other joker.
I'm not saying that exactly. We could price the cost of these externalities into the products that do the most harm to the environment and let the market work. The problem lies in accurate pricing and avoiding values arbitrarily. People benefit health-wise and pleasure-wise from clean air and landscapes. That benefit can theoretically be assigned a dollar amount. We just need a creative way to measure this. Science, technology, and social media might help moving forward.
@turbozed OK, I get what you are saying about the environment. That's a potential solution, though I'm not sure it is the best one.
About the Koch Brothers: it is not that they disagree with me that is the problem. It's that they commit crimes. These are not allegations so much as facts. Look up the deals with Iran they did, the people dropping dead because of pollution in Crossett, Arkansas, the way they manipulate our democracy. Don't be fooled by their funding of NOVA.
@yeahlikewhatever I don't feel indignant. I was pissed because you were changing the subject rather than admitting you were wrong about Orwell. It looks you came around, though, in a funny sort of way. Anyways, you can continue to believe that 1984 is a critique of all socialists if you think Orwell was critiquing himself as a potential totalitarian tyrant. I don't really get your comment about England, it being the birthplace of industrial capitalism.
@Magicwillnz Your 'evil twin' (or mother?) WSMartin86 already posted a startlingly similar comment -- then the comment was mysteriously removed -- but anyway...
....To the entity anwering my comments, please take note that 1984 and Animal Farm were not defenses of socialism, and Orwell was neither politically ambitious nor a politician.
Now go ahead and visit merry old England, and be sure to buy an extra ticket for your alter-ego.
Before I had ever heard of this book, I could see how "socialism" was essentially neo-feudalism, and that it was going to destroy this country and enslave humanity. It will bring about such an enormous economic collapse that the world will be plunged into a crisis that will dwarf the second world war. Probably billions of people will die as a result, both as a result of nuclear bombing and starvation. We are fated to this conclusion if we do not turn away from our current course.
@yohannbiimu WWII wasn't a crisis of 'planning' - it was a crisis of accumulation. War and planning are the only things that saved our various economies by forcing us to industrialise. Astounding how many people have faith in the 'invisible hand' of the market. Adam Smith pretty much thought free markets were guided by God.
good video but i don't think that america is as far as the person who posted it think it is, I know that Obama is trying to be a dictator (and I am not basing it off of Glenn Beck either)but he doesn't have the balls to be dictator
Fox news rails AGAINST deficit spending and is my source for looking up RtS.
Is it coincidence that the caption with the lie about Fox news (2:09) appears in the picture of 'propaganda' and 'controlled press ' kind of condemns itself.
6) Markets can coexist with drastic forms of autocracy and despotism – as they did under eighteenth-century absolutism, not to speak of various sorts of military junta or fascist dictatorship in the twentieth century. But they can also be combined with advanced forms of parliamentary democracy. Market economies could also worsen the misery of broad masses, by an absolute lowering of their standard of living,
This is true, but those markets aren't efficient because those systems are plagued by corruption, cronyism, and abuse. While they can coexist, totalitarianism of any kind is a detriment to the efficiency of the market. Totalitarianism (aka planning) leads to misery, poverty, and massive human tragedy. Can you think of a market economy that also guarantees freedom of speech and other basic civil rights where markets have worsened misery of the broad masses? I can't.
5)Similarly, market economies in the sense of ex post allocations of resources have historically existed in the most variegated forms. In principle, there could be market economies with ‘perfect’ free competition: though in practice this has hardly ever been realized. There can be market economies skewed by the dominance of powerful monopolies able to control large sectors of activity and so to fix prices over long periods.
4) You can have planning based on routine, custom, tradition, magic, religion, ignorance – planning rules by rain-makers,shamans, fakirs and illiterates of all kinds. Worst of all, you can have planning directed by generals; for every army is based on an a priori allocation of resources. You can have planning organized in a semi-rational way by technocrats or, at the highest level of scientific intelligence, by workers and disinterested specialists.
3)Both basic kinds of labour allocation have existed on the widest possible scale throughout history. Both are therefore quite ‘feasible’. Both have also been applied in the most variegated fashions, and with most diverse results. You can have ‘despotic’ planning and ‘democratic’ planning .You can have ‘rational’ planning and ‘irrational’ planning. .
2)These are the two basic ways of allocating resources, and they are fundamentally different from each other – even if they can on occasion be combined in precarious and hybrid transitional forms, which will not be automatically self-reproducing. Essentially they have a different internal logic.They generate distinct laws of motion. They diffuse divergent motivations among producers and organizers of production, and find expression in discrepant social values.
1)The term ‘planning’. The concept itself needs to be more precisely defined. Planning is not equivalent to ‘perfect’ allocation of resources, nor ‘scientific’ allocation, nor even ‘more humane’ allocation. It simply means ‘direct’ allocation, ex ante. As such, it is the opposite of market allocation, which is ex post.
If we scrapped political parties overnight new ones would eventually form anyway and they would be exactly the same just new names for them. Humans form groups providing that tyrants aren't around to stop them. You might as well ask that we stop being human. If you're an environmental wacko that would explain your question.
At least one of Purple's comments is wrong. Exactly which talking heads or news anchors at Fox touts keynesian economics? If the Keynesian ideology gets discredited anywhere in the media it happens on FOX NEWS. Unfortunately thats probably one of only a few places this happens.
and here I thought the Road to Serfdom was a well-thought out treatise on economic policy, not a sensationalist equation of capitalism and representative governance.
The republicans commenting on the wonders of capitalism on this page are just being ironic as hell.
What could be closer to serfdom in the 21st century than millions of citizens who can't even afford to go to the doctor? Or to live in a system where the rich have the greatest HC system and financial security, and the Middle Class lose money every year?
Republicans are the worst people. Neighbor haters. Money lovers. Jesus wept.
Republicans obstruct social justice. Lincoln rolls in his grave.
Tell everyone you know! Americans all across the country have got to stand together and VOTE THE INCUMBENTS OUT, Democrat or Republican they all have to be taught a valuable lesson they seem to have forgotten. THEY WORK FOR US! It seems they have this upper class elitist attitude towards the rest of Americans, I really think they believe we are here to serve them. Do they deserve such a luxurious and extravagantly better way of life then the rest of working Americans or should it be the same?
@fullautodad - I agree. I never vote for incumbents, regardless of party.
But I also hate republicans on principle, so I have to vote libertarian, or green, or whatever party is lucky enough to fight through the lawsuits and harassment by the two parties to get on the ballot.
It's tough voting straight anti-incumbent, but it can be done. Just so you don't end up voting Republican and taking it up the ass from the super rich.
Wow,is that super rich mentality about republicans still out there. like there's no rich damocrats!! evidentally you and your grand children will like taking it up the ass from damocrats. you wouldn't know the principles of a republican if they bit you in the face. we're a two party nation. YOUR VOTE IS BEING WASTED ON THE SPOILER. do you even know what a spoiler is? BTW the reps support the free enterprise system. that's a fact. the dams support socialism. that's a fact. ur naive politically
@1yourtrust2 - I support highly regulated capitalism. Reps support zero regulation as they raid the public treasury. Reagan bankrupted the banks, Bush just bankrupted them again. so what's your point? I support the party that will keep capitalists as honest as possible, which, btw, is not very honest. I support FDR style governance. And finally, if anyone "spoiled" the reps money party of the last 8 years, GOOD. And good riddance to the dumb asses who just destroyed the economy, again. Stupid.
in fact,reagan brought bank deregulation into existence such that you can now go into a bank or a credit union or savings and loan institution and BUY insurance and variable contracts (stocks and bonds) whereas before reagan such was a foreign thought. ask your parents, they'll remember what it is was like to walk into a only get get banking contracts. Reagan deregulated the banking industry and brought forth prosperity via free enterprise. study your history and don't be naive
He bankrupted the nation, fed his base, the super rich on taxpayer money, and waged illegal covert wars that cost billions of dollars.
As for your next post about republicans "trusting", that's just so silly I won't even bother.
Republicans are the most cynical people in America. They run on distrust, of govt, of gays, of "socialists", of "liberals" - DISTRUST is their trademark.
omg are you politically naive. you seriously need to take a history class. the financial melt down under reagan started under carter and the dems lost that election because of government waste and attempted government control as is now being shoved down our throats. reps stand for freedom of enterprise. too bad it was taken advantage of. my God as far as cynical people go --- have you read your own comments. TALK ABOUT CYNICAL AND MISINFORMED,,, YOU TAKE THE CAKE.
@1yourtrust2 All the things you mentioned were openly available on the free market, you just could not get all of them from ordinary banks. THe total deregulation and blurring of borders cause wild speculation and conflicts of interest that had been avoided before. Please learn the real history and not just the slogans about "free enterprise." We are all for that, but it usually means in reality welfare for corporations. You are being a little naive about this reality yourself, you know.
BTW it was bush, who after 911 when our nation was in strife demanded tax insentives over the rich that brought a bit of prosperity until the the freedom that the republicans gave the financial institutions was taken advantage of. does that make it a republican mistake to TRUST. or should we just sit by and allow the government control our lives? obama is a socialist and everyone seems to be stupid about it. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!
@1yourtrust2 OK, you say. Democrats are socialists and Republicans in power are middle class ordinary Joes.
Now who is naive? Yes, some Dems are rich, but they are hardly socialists, nor are most Dems. Please study history to see what those terms actually mean. The sloganeering reductive nonsense you're repeating doesnt stand up to close scrutiny. In fact, people on the left think Obama is too cozy with Wall St Capitalism is going to have a long healthy life here in the USA-but do it right!
@kaneweb Wholesale ant-incumbent is slicing off your nose to spite your face. Please be INFORMED and vote for the right person. I hope it is a Democrat, but if you are making an informed decision, not just voting like a robot anti-incumbent, then I could respect that vote. Read the cartoon about manipulation and forced automatic behavior---that is one thing that did really happen in history when people voted rash emotions instead of doing the HARD WORK of THINKING!
your words should be a BATTLE CRY for all Americans who despise this government for it's destruction to our free enterprise system. IMPEACH OBAMA! start at the top and use the trickle down theory instead of allowing them to force us to accept their trickle up theory via taxation.
how the hell did a a great country like the united states ever manage to elect a moron like George w bush into office. i believeplanning is good. unfettered banking practices has got the world into a bankrupt state. they created yhe inflation . that is the bush administration in tandem with the lenders. and te printing of too many dollor bills by the federal reserve has devalued the the currency which is now in freefall. better get a plan boys and a good one!
Fox News is decidedly non Keynesian, that is anti: government control, monetary policy, and central bank. As far as I know, all Fox hosts support Supply Side Economics, and free markets, and side far more with our national founders and the likes of Arthur Laffer.
Supply side economics and a global military empire is totally contradictory, particularly with a debt based money supply controlled by a private banking cartel.
The US Federal Government is taking more and more power that the Constitution NEVER granted it. The US Federal Government is a Fascist System and wants to control your LIFE. Soon they will be counting your bowel movements and tax you on it.
if you DIDN'T pay for your sewage system, then THAT would be communism, there are some things that simply can't be handled effectively by private enterprise, at least not directly, sewage is one of them.
@ThoughtTraveler Please list the 5 (or 3) biggest things the government has taken from you in the last 10 years. Hard to think of real examples, isn't it?
Just don't call them next time disaster, chaos, or tragedy or war occurs. They might want to take YOU to defend what you apparently don't understand very well.
But please--really--list those big terrible things the government has taken from you personally/culturally. Can't do it? Politicians count on easy slogans so you won't have to think!
@tryggda i need only name one... i've worked 30 years to build a business and obama in one years takes it away from me. you're probably an employee somewhere and will never realize what the words free enterprise system mean. HEIL obama. nazis', socialist, facists, communists---- all love big government. you're very sarcastic--- too bad your words don't ring a word of truth. keep jumpin' on that bandwagon. you're in for the ride of your life... HEIL obama!!! look at what's happening in europe!
@ThoughtTraveler i totally agree. we need to get back to a two party nation and let the government return to a two party nation. this one party (damocrat) is a dictatorship. let's get the politicians to reps and dems to continue to fight!!!,, instead of this dictatorship that obama is creating. VOTE A STRAIGHT REPUBLICAN TICKET-- spread the message and let's get back to THE FIGHT for equality. immigrants included-- THE WAY WE SAY BY LAW.
And this is no wander, because the capitalism, racism, Nazism and even sexism has common base. It is the exaggerating the differences between the people, drawing lines between them and labelling superior an inferior. The superior has then no any moral obligation to the inferior. The superior may lie to, exploit and even kill the inferior. That is what Hitler did! And you talk about state control. I told you. A system that relies on the negative side of the human being can create only evil.
Racism, sexism, Naziism, and all the other things you mention do have a common base - its called collectivism. Capitalism, on the other hand, is about individualism and equal rights for all, regardless of what "group" the government tries to put you in.
Good luck with your fallacious arguments. Its because of people like you that the U.S. has gone down this road to totalitarianism, and I only hope for your sake that you don't suffer the consequences.
You don't understand the good side of human nature -the infinite worth of every being, and his inherent right to live free and enjoy his own free will, free from the violence and "planning" of the state. You can't see that there is no "society" that will plan our lives for us, but only little dictators who will be telling us what to do. You have never known freedom - the reality or the concept, and so its not your fault that you want live as a servant of the state...
But those free men who are still left will never submit to your "planning," not matter what you call it.
Socialism is slavery. And like Harriet Tubman said: "I freed a thousand slaves - I could have freed a thousand more, if only they have know they were slaves."
@purplepamphleteer and know this....our freedom is quickly being tackin away by this man in office, i dare not even call him a president. he is a socialist akin to a communist. do you understand? eagerly await your response. martin
@purplepamphleteer Woo are you yelling at? This book is over 65 years old? Who is this enemy you claim wants to tell you where to work or where to live. NO ONE in American history among the major parties has EVER proposed such things. Community, caring, sharing, respect, shared values, distributed responsibility for rich and poor alike---that is not the same thing as this antique.. You are railing against a shred of an antique scarecrow. TIme to catch up with the times. Freedom is shared.
dumbest thing i ever heard...ur probably referring to fascism disguised as capitalism which IS exploitative...but fascism is not capitalism, its actually more similar to socialism....i have a feeling u have not read the road to serfdom...so u probably have no idea
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
um no. capitalism is not about equality for all, its about people having the economic freedoms they wish for and to improve in society however they want. This leads to oppression from the more powerful/rich to the lower people. Racism and sexism have NOTHING to do with collectivism
Capitalism is about the rightly understood interest of all - it is about equality before the Law, and not about equality of wealth or material goods. You do not understand the social order based upon private property and the division of labor. The absence of the Rule of Law, or the presence of government-endowed privileges leads to oppression by those with more power.
Racism and sexism are just sub-types of collectivism.
@SeanRyanForCongress The rule of law, as was well-known in the US laws of 19th c. was based on the legal rights of people & community ALWAYS taking npriority over personal property on its own. Salus populi suprema est--the health and welfare of the people is the supreme law. THIS is basis of American Way. Not the late-arriving myth of protecting the corporation at all times. Read Novak's The People's Welfare, which gives this legal and cultural history. I'm pro-capitalist, too, but not like you
@SeanRyanForCongress i like you!! we think alike. HEIL obama. he loves big government--- just like the nazis', marxists, socialists and communists tout as best. any fee man knows that less government is best. too bad that most damocrats are poor and uneducated but that's a fact and now we live in a damocratic dictatorship. VOTE a straight republican ticket and let 'em return to goin' at each others throats.better than havin' big government shoved down our throats!!! HEIL obama--
You, the western people, you do not know how backward you are! You are technically developed, but socially and ethically backward. Just like nazi Germany. The history repeats itself. Finally, you will reside to racism, Nazism, and religious intolerance. As a mater of fact you already do, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Agree with you there. The U.S. police state and empire are out of control. Why? Because we've adopted socialism, gradually and over the course of 60 years. Let's hope that enough Americans realize what's going on, before its too late.
The soviet socialism was not perfect, but one has to be rather stupid to expect that after 500 years of chaotic capitalism suddenly an ideal social system will appear. Socialism was the first attempt of the mankind to take its fate in its own hands. USSR was completely new society build intentionally and without prior knowledge. And the fact that USSR survived over 70 years in an extremely hostile environment and won the most ever brutal war is already enough success.
LOL! Yeah, soviet socialism wasn't perfect - they couldn't even figure out how many shoes to produce, let alone how to raise the standard of living of the masses. If the soviet system was so good, why did as many people as possible leave the USSR and come to the U.S.? Why did they have to imprison their own people to keep them from emigrating? Why did they have to control all media? Man, you are living in a fantasy world. LOL!
i actually heard that the production was so sporadic that one day the plants would produce 10 000 left shoes, and everyone would get a left shoe that day, and maybe wait for 10 months to get the right one =p
I repeat: the western economics is not science! It is a lie! Its basic concepts are proven not by scientific methods, but by falsified economic history. It restricts the freedom of the people by stating that something is natural law while actually it is matter of peoples free will.
Due to such lies the western people, and especially the Americans, are completely ignorant about socialism and communism. The Zeitgeist movement for example unintentionally offers communism.
And yes, this lies were stronger than the bombs and the rockets. They are now popular misbelieve also in the eastern countries. The fall of the Soviet Union is the lost future of the mankind. O, poor planet!
I agree. The Zeitgeist movie turned out to be a piece of Marxist trash. The first movie was acceptable, because it at least began the process of teaching people about government-controlled fiat money.
YOU are "completely ignorant about socialism and communism." You should read a book some time, instead of trolling the internet making dubious claims.
I studied both capitalism, and socialism in the school of a socialist country. Yes, we studied that in the school. And I have red enough books, I guess much more than you. I also lived under both socialism and capitalism, so that I can compare, which can not be said for you. On this ground I can clearly say, that all statements of the communists about the capitalism and imperialism are true. Western economics is a lie! It is the ideological weapon of mean and low people.
I have NOT lived under "capitalism" - and neither have you. I have lived in the U.S. which does not have a capitalist economy. Unfortunately for dogmatists like you, the word "capitalist" does not mean "whatever economics is being practiced in the U.S. at the present time." The U.S. has a semi-socialist/ semi-corporatist system, in which the government plans by adding more and more regulations, and thus restricting free enterprise...
The third lie is this one. That the planed economy could not work while it actually worked. Note that even this movie admits that the planning was used during wartime. Why? The war is critical situation requiring mobilisation of full efforts, but then suddenly the society turns to ineffective planning?!? Why? Of course, the bad plan could hardly be successful, but this is no reason to discard competent planning which has proven much more effective and rational.
Please. In a "planned economy" - aka socialism - there is no way to determine people's subjective valuations of goods and services, and therefore no way to put a price on anything. Without prices, you can't do economic calculation. The Soviets based their calculations on the prices generated by markets in capitalist countries. Planning is inefficient - it results in capital consumption - stealing the wealth of future generations...
If a nation suddenly needs to focus all its efforts on repelling a foreign enemy, then in certain cases it might be OK to work inefficiently for a while, since if the war is lost then there won't BE ANY FUTURE capital at all. Planning can only be "successful" in the short term - no one denies the fact that if the government confiscates wealth from some (producers) and gives to others (the military), that certain activities can flourish for a little while. But it is destructive in the long run.
I still can not get the point here. In a war a high efficiency is needed in order to win. Why should the country turn to inefficient planning in any way? The war increases the need for bombs - let the market fulfil the demand? You do not understand basic things in a war economy. A lot of capital is created during a war by the people who produce the weapons played by the state with taxpayers money.
It is not a high efficiency that is needed - it is the immediate direction of production toward war materials, and not toward consumer goods. This is why various states have socialized production during wars - because they wanted to control production, not because they wanted to make it more efficient.
War does not create capital. War destroys capital. If war created capital, then the United States wouldn't be trillions in debt right now - we'd be rich!
Completely wrong. There is way to determine the prices on the basis of the used labour. That is what USSR did. I told you. You are completely ignorant about socialism. Believe me. I lived under socialism. Most of the things you write are simple lies. I told you.
Wow - the "labor theory of value." Like Marx's, your knowledge of economics is hundreds of years out of date.
You can keep saying that real economics is a lie, but saying so won't make it so. If the value of a good is determined by how much labor is put into it, then why is a diamond that I find on the ground so valuable? I didn't put any labor into it, right?
Why don't you make even the most rudimentary arguments in favor of your archaic theories, so that I can refute them, please?
because u r allowed to make as much money as you want pretty much anyways you want and there is alot of money to be made in america that is the only reason ..people coem to america for the money plain and simpel no other reason i was born and raised here and think the culture is fucking horrible
We still have many liberties but as the economy gets worse and the central bank looting intensifies, the USA will look more and more like a South American puppet state.
Freedom of speech. I know there are exceptions, but we can still oppose the private Federal Reserve and the military-industrial complex without fear of imprisonment or arrest. Soon these 'rights' may be taken arbitrarily.
The second lie is the crimes of the Soviet Union. To prove it the Soviet Union history is falsified. The victims of Stalin are exasperated over 60 times, completely omitting the fact that in a near war time SU has only from 1.5 to 2 times more prisoners than USA today. The mass repressions are actually a myth. The fact is that the USA applied more than 10 times more violence in the world (from Chile to Nicaragua) to keep the market economy there than USSR to keep socialism.
And when the developing economies, that accepted the free-market, failed, it was ascribed to peoples inferiority rather than to the wrong neoliberal theory derived from falsified history. Amazing! Now we need Hitler to deal with the inferior people. But contrary, the propaganda (Hayek being part of it) tries to put equal sign between Nazism and socialism. Orwellian world, isnt it?
The people in the world are brainwashed by a number of lies. The first one is the success of the liberalism. For this, the history of the developed countries is being falsified as if they are developed due to adopting the free marked while actually during their development they used heavy protectionism. All developed countries did that! From UK, and USA to South Korea. And opposite, all developing countries, from Bolivia to Russia, where the free marked was applied bitterly failed.
I agree. Most people act as if they are brainwashed. I think that they are simply ignorant.
All developed countries have hindered capitalism with government interventions, so you are right there. This has led to their economic decline.
Are you kidding? A free market in Russia? Please - they have state capitalism, just like the U.S. and China. You clearly don't understand that when government is huge and takes tons of money away from its people, that capital is destroyed...
...and that capitalism ceases to function correctly. Why don't you focus your efforts on socializing Germany - oh wait, you already tried that under Bismarck, and later Hitler. All you need to know about Capitalism vs. "Protectionism" (or whatever other name you apply to socialism to try and justify the planning of little men in rooms who understand nothing about how an economy works) is West Germany vs. East Germany. People were voting with their feet, which was why they made a wall.
Yes most people are brainwashed you among them. Find at least one book of the two I suggested to learn why the poor countries stay poor. Yes, it is just the opposite. Poor countries are poor because they adopt free market and shrink the government. Since you do not know what protectionism is then you do not know what free market is.
Poverty exists because of the lack of capital in certain areas of society, which decreases the marginal productivity of labor, which keeps wages from rising. Read an economics text book, please - even a socialist one will admit this simple fact. The bigger the government, the poorer the people - this is simple fact and you can see it everywhere. In which countries are the poorest the best off? Why, in the capitalist countries. Seriously, man - if you're not from Germany, are you from Mars?
Wrong! Poverty exists because the capitalism is ever contracting system. It always try to pay less for the labour and to sell at high prise. Since it pays less the people who can buy become less, then there is less demand, then less production is necessary and then more jobless people appear. The excess labour force decreases the price of the labour i.e. the salaries become even lower, and so on until the next crisis. Then the state has to interfere to clean the mess.
Wrong again. Capitalism increases the amount of capital in an economy, which leads to higher productivity of labor, which leads to higher real wages, which leads to more consumption and production for the masses, and so on.
Please read something other than Marx - the guy was proved wrong about almost everything he wrote, 100 years ago.
Historically, you are just wrong. Under capitalism, wages
The government does not destroy the or capital in any way. It can invest also invest successfully, and there are many examples of that (China). But the competition from the developed countries destroys every business in the poor countries. That is why they stay poor. How will you get rich if you compete for foreign investments by taking as mush work as possible for as low payment as possible? This is pretty stupid isnt it. I told you, economic liberalism is a lie!
Yes, the government can steal capital from its citizens by printing money. It is also called "forced saving." The Chinese have done OK, but I don't think you can say that investing in billions of dollars of soon-to-be-worthless U.S. Treasuries was a very smart idea.
The government destroys capital by spending it on wasteful things. Private business cannot spend wastefully, because then they would go out of business. Governments don't go out of business - they just raise taxes, or borrow.
The example that a plumber would be sent to work as a carpenter is a pretty stupid one, as if all planers should be as stupid as this movie suggests. And note that under capitalism, a carpenter that has no job (too many carpenters on the marked) will face the humane faith of starving or go to work as carpenter (too few carpenters on the market). You Americans have no bare idea how deep you are being manipulated!
To say that the U.S. has more than a single party is silly. Two parties, both of whom agree on the same warfare/welfare state is a pretty effective form of totalitarianism. Socialism appeared hundreds of years ago, not 30 - the intellectual midgets who advocated it only were able to force it on people starting with the Bolsheviks: and they did a bang-up job, right?
Yup, the market is a much better allocator of labor than any planner, no matter how smart or stupid. If there is no demand for new houses, then carpenters will have to do something else more productive, or risk not being able to feed himself. Nothing wrong with that.
You have no idea how ignorant of basic economics you are. You should read a little Mises instead of Marx. You should question your dogmatic faith in planners, especially as a German - remember when you guys tried to plan your own economy, along with the rest of Europe's? How did that one work out?
I think you are pretty dogmatic in defending the free market, and you should read something outside the popular capitalist propaganda. I told you that the economic liberalism is a dogma that was proven with falsified history. I did not made this up. Find the book Bad Samaritans: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism written by a Cambridge professor of economics, or How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor by Norwegian economist.
Protectionism is just one form of government interference in the system of free enterprise - it is not capitalism. It destroys capitalism. You are like Michael Moore - you're confusing capitalism with corporatism: aka state socialism, aka state capitalism - they are all the same thing.
Private property and the Rule of Law - that is capitalism. Public property (or simply control through regulation) and the Rule of Men - that is central planning, aka socialism.
Find, and read at least one of the books I suggest. The economic liberalism is backed by falsified economic history. The thought is just the opposite. The economic success in a capitalist environment needs protectionism!
On an ethical ground socialism grants that no one will ever be thrown overboard. It relies to the honest and thoughtful people that will find the pleasure in the socially useful work. Capitalism contrary, relies to greed, egoism and selfishness. What system is the one that relies on the negative side of the man? How you expect something positive from it?
Ah - now your Marxist drivel is coming to the surface. People don't take pleasure in work. If they did, then they wouldn't demand to be paid for it. I take pleasure in debunking sophists like yourself, which is why I'm doing it for free. It is leisure, not work.
Guess what? People are greedy! They always have been, are today, and always will be. We all want to eat, after all, so we are greedy and want food. We work to stay alive, and for no other reason. Is that greed?
Capitalist division of labor allows all men to work to feed themselves by doing what they are best suited to do, and to "collectively" but freely contribute to the common good. Unless to produce something for someone else, you don't get paid. You can't sell you wares to yourself.
Keep trying to convince yourself that you can change human nature by fantasizing. I'll see you when you come back from fairyland.
the irony in this statement is that sophists (the original sophists) were unbelievably capitalistic to the point where they thought it was o.k. to blatantly cheat people out of money under false pretenses. of course that is not the type of capitalism you and me want =p, just bringing it up that the sophists were anything but socialist.
defintion of a sophist is fallable reasoner. You would not stay in business for long if you cheated your customers out of money. Socialism cheats it's citizens out of money, under false pretenses of security and it went out of business too. The natural laws will not support socialism, theft or any lie that is perpetuated on the individual. Socialism was born from the Romantic Philosophies of Kant, and formally named romanticism when Marx was writing his material. The Romantics criticized pure
Reasoning, which Kant was the founder of. So yes, those of us who beleive in and who practice the Enlightenment beleive is the pinnacle of Philosophy, there is nothing past it. Empiricism vs Mataphysical is another way of describing the two forms. The empiricists does not beleive in arbitrary govt laws, the metaphysical beleives in some purpose. Socialism is moral, liberty is freedom. You trade your liberty for socialist security. Socialists are absolute fallabe reasoners. You can hear it.
Yes, you are right here. The two parties in USA are no choice and do not actually implement democracy. I was thought that in a socialist school some 30 years ago. :)
I never wrote that socialism appear 30 years ago. I wrote that USSR appeared about 30 years before the beginning of the Cold War.
Ooo. Pure propaganda! This short movie as well as probably Hayek and for sure his most prominent follower Milton Friedman avoid mentioning that the planed economy actually delivered in the Soviet Union and the western block though with over 300 years experience was forced to compete on pars with a country and a system that appeared less 30 years ago (at the time when this book was written).
To fit the theory the myth of totalitarizm was created on only mere ground that single party is ruling.
First of all, Friedman is not a follower of Hayek, although they both endorse capitalism (free enterprise) to varying degrees. Friedman is a Keynesian in that he thinks interest rates and the money supply should be "managed" by a central bank - which is plank #5 of the Communist manifesto, i.e. hardly a free market idea.
The Soviet economy was a disaster, even as America's corporatist/socialist economy is today. We'll see how bad it is when the Chinese stop subsidizing our socialism.
Ignorance! The Soviet economy was not disaster. It was just not focused on producing luxury goods for few and poverty for others, and USSR did not use cheap labour of the people in the third world countries. Soviets were people with dignity.
USA is not socialist! A corporate/socialist thing does not exist! Corporatism and socialism are opposite to each other. You are exact confirmation of my words that Americans are completely ignorant about socialism.
Sorry - socialists like you are the people who are invariably the most ignorant about socialism. The corporatism practiced by the Italian Fascists and the socialism imposed by the Soviets are just two styles of the same system - the economy planned by the government.
Give it a rest, or at least read "Socialism" by Mises before you comment again.
Socialism is something rather different from corporatism. The main point of socialism it the ownership of the means of production. The second main point is braking the accumulation of private profit that goes in the hands few. If the state company gets profit it does not go to the moon, and can not be distributed among few by any way because the socialism does not allow unreasonably large income differences.
They are two different varieties of central planning. Government ownership of the means of production is not the defining feature of socialism. Government CONTROL of the means of production is. It doesn't matter whether property is called private, if the government tells you what you can and cannot do with it. Ownership is meaningless without control.
It's really sad that you are so brainwashed that you can't even conceive of being free! I'm not free here, but at least I know it...
Hayek and Friedman are the most prominent economic liberals. Hayek was first, Friedman after him. I do not care even if they knew each other. Friedman is not Keynesian in any way. Again you put equality between opposite things.
Mises is the most prominent classical liberal (the word liberal in the U.S. means socialist, which is why I have to say "classical," to be clear about meaning). Friedman is Keynesian in that he supports having a central bank. Do you deny that Friedman was in favor of a central bank? If you do, you're wrong. Do you deny that Keynes was the biggest proponent of central banking? If you do, you're wrong again.
We are at "Step 12": inflame the majority in common cause against some scapegoat minority.
That "scapegoat minority" would be the 1 percenters, the "inflamed majority" is the self-proclaimed "99 percent".
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
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While in the US, Hayek drew off of the US Social Security and Medicaid system (both are programs that he wanted to see abolished).
He was encouraged to go on the dole by none other than Charles Koch, notorious Social Security hater and billionaire bankroller of various anti-Soc. Sec. groups.
Just like Ayn Rand (who also drew off Social Security in her declining years), he's another hypocrite who took advantage of social programs that they wanted to keep other people from getting.
MiHiVidz 4 months ago
People looking at "socialism" or people looking at "capitalism" as the source of all tyranny are making a huge mistake. Tyrants do not have bias, they will speak your language and tell you the sorts of things you want to hear to gain your trust. We have had socialism twisted by tyranny, we have not had libertarian tyrant yet, and some may think it's an oxymoron, but by God, there are bad people working around the clock to make such a thing work. That is the real Orwellian lesson.
Magicwillnz 4 months ago
@Magicwillnz All of Orwell's tyrants were socialists. There are no "libertarian tyrants" unless of course you are a minion of #Occupy, Hayek's lesson is -- socialism always begets tyranny.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever a) Orwell was a socialist. b) There are libertarian tyrants, if you think the free market is libertarian and you know that not only a head of state can be tyrannical. Look up the Homestead Strikes and 19th Century History.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz It's a fact FDR was the closest the USA came to having an outright tyrannical leader. Orwell was a socialist as a young man, who later provided lists of his fellow British communists to British inelligence after he reported on the Spanish Civil War. His satirical anti-socialist/communist works were published shortly before his death, when he obviously changed his views. It was his socialist background that made his satire so effective.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever Not really. He was a democratic socialist which would always put him at odds with Stalin. He also held the view that the Soviet Union was not socialist, it had become a totalitarian state. I can't find any evidence at all that he renounced socialism.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz Yes, really. The Soviet Union was communist, a variant of socialism, without private ownership, run with collectivist labor policy. Totalitarianism and socialist central planning are closely compatible concepts. Orwell's books 1984 and Animal Farm were themselves rebuttals to socialism and communism. Which fits in nicely with Hayek's contention that true socialism can only lead to tyranny. Still waiting for you to name a "libertarian tyrant".
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever Actually, the Soviet Union violated a couple of important precepts of communism, such as that the worker should get back the value of the labor. Yes, democratic socialism and communism have similar underpinnings, but so does anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism, which manifest quite differently.
Orwell never renounced socialism: read Orwell: the Road to Airstrip One, 238-239, available on Google Books.
The Koch Brothers are libertarian tyrants.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz Curious defense of communism -- a communist would just say "they had the right idea, just implemented it badly". "The worker [didn't] get back the value of the labor" is one such defense. What they got was the absence of punishment. Well, except for the several million that made mistakes or may have been disloyal, & weremurdered by Stalin.
Anarcho-capitalism? How quaint. Now you're really wingin' it.
The Koch brothers are the most recent target of the fleabaggers. Tsk, tsk...
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever OK, now you're making no sense whatsoever. You literally didn't make any points, nor did you try to refute what I said. You just said talking points back to me in a mildly sarcastic tone. Come back to me once you have an actual argument.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz So you're indignant. The truth can be painful. I know a socialist when I meet one, and you're apparently on the Obama end of the scale. Orwell could have thought of himself as a socialist; then again everyone in merry old England is a socialist to some degree, just by virtue of living there under socialist rule. I think you still don't get it; that Orwell's books are some of the most effective critiques of socialism (not just Soviet communism) in western literature.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
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WSMartin86 2 months ago
@WSMartin86 So one minute you're Magicwillnz, the next minute you're WSMartin86? Are you Magicwillnz's mother? Oh well, our protaganist apparently had two faces as well, one evolving into another. At least his evolution was in the right direction, as was the Great Communicator's.
Have you been to England since the birth of industrial capitalism?
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever 1) I have two email addresses. Not that this is remarkable in any way. 2) Yes. What's your point? That everyone in England is a socialist because Labor has won elections?
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz a) 2008: Obama wins election. b) 2009: Newsweek cover: "We Are All Socialists Now".
.....I'm not offended by the cover -- it's true, since Bush 43 was partly responsible for this trend to socialism (McCain too), but the disastrous experiment in socialism is rapidly coming to an end. 2012 will be even bigger than Nov 2010. We will be proud of America again.
Either that, or Obama wins, and we're in for a prolonged Depression just like under FDR.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz Oh yeah, sure. (wink, wink) Could happen to anyone ;) One for the wife, one for the gf. Got it. Just be sure you double check who's in that "to" box when you write those sexy notes.
So if the Koch brothers are "libertarian tyrants", then what kind of tyrant does that make George Soros?
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz Funny! You really are the sensitive type. I'm sure gf must be proud.
This just in: 'Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is running for president, said Monday that "too many Republicans ... aspire to be frugal socialists” who "share the same core political philosophy about the purpose of government" as President Barack Obama.'
So true. She's a real conservative. We are all socialists now! Struggling against the shackles of socialism.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever Yes, I'm the sensitive one. Because when I was proven wrong I launched a slew of personal attacks, pointless segues and general sarcastic bitchiness in a sad attempt to prove I have a superior intellect to you. Oh wait, that was you. My bad.
I feel sorry for you. Clearly you lack the level of emotional sophistication to know what an ass you are making of yourself. I hope for your sake you don't act the same in your personal life.
Goodbye.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz If 1) we establish that Orwell was a socialist, and 2) Orwell was criticizing Stalin's tyranny, and 3) Stalin claimed to be a socialist, then you must take the position that Hayek was wrong when he warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning. You appear to say there is no connection between socialism and tyranny, but I (and Hayek) say socialism begets tyranny.
So yes, you missed the point.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever PART 1: I was going to make that my last post, but since you made an actual point I thought I might address it. It is true that greater economic control through the government can result in tyranny. Many people point to taxation as a form of involuntary slavery, and corporations can't be tyrannical because you buy their services out of free will.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever PART 2: I believe that corporations can be tyrannical because they pass on externalities to unwilling 3rd parties instead of the buyers of their goods. In fact, they will attempt to gain control of government so they can continue negative externalities with impunity. A crucial role of the government is to manage these externalities through the law. The only way to manage the government itself is through democracy, transparency, and oversight.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever PART 3: Basically, if you buy a Dixie cup (a Koch product), you're buying it for far cheaper than the actual cost of making it as the environmental and social costs the product caused in its manufacturing was absorbed by unwilling participants.
So, as I said from the beginning, you can have a "socialist" tyranny, but you can also have a corporate, libertarian tyranny.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz The "externality" of increased welfare benefits by government is the 70 percent rate of black children born to single mothers and the destruction of the black nuclear family. Yes, I know what a social externality is, and it's far more serious than the cost of a paper cup.
Another "externality" is the subsidy of GM, when its Volt can't compete in the free market, even with a 7500 dollar tax credit. Or the fact GM won't have to pay over 45 billion in taxes on future profits.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever Actually, that's caused by shit sex education, not by welfare.
I agree with you about GM subsidies.
No, I don't like the Koch brothers because they bribe politicians, they poison rivers and air, they have a campaign against climate science, they wage a war against the education system. I don't give a shit about AFP. So yes, the cost of a paper cup is a really fucking serious thing, and it's one of many serious, serious things libertarians like to ignore.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz
They fund NOVA and have for decades so I'll step in and give them a quick defense. If they poison rivers and air then they have violated federal laws and, if you have that knowledge, please bust them. The only allegations you really seem to make is that they have the audacity to believe in different policies than you. There's a real tendency amongst ideologues to posit some shady inner-circle cabal when encountering differeng viewpoints. I urge you to resist the temptation.
turbozed 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz I suspect the real reason you don't like the Koch brothers is their sponsorship of the AFP conference -- the one the fleabaggers tried to disrupt by blocking the door with their helpless terrified children, and screaming profanities.
Anyway I like paper cups.They make sense sometimes, such as when you can't wash your dishes because you're out in the wilderness. They're sanitary. Drinking out of a dirty cup has "externalities". Just don't leave them on the ground when you leave.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz
Yourexample is an error in implementation, not in essence. We can address that issue by creating a market influence derived from people's enjoyment of the environment unpolluted. I assume even libertarians enjoy clean air and nice landscapes. The problem of the commons isn't in any way a tyranny as is the unholy union of central-planning and blind ideology. It always devolves into totalitarianism--the common thread between communism, fascism and colonialism of the 20th century.
turbozed 2 months ago
@turbozed Well, what you are basically saying is that we should have ADMIT ENTRY to national parks. That runs into problems: what do you do with places that are too remote to visit by most people, thus undervalued? What happens when a wealthy person buys up that land at market value? Real democracies have been far more effective at protecting environments than any other system so far. Your suggestion is an interesting idea, I'll give you that, and serious, unlike this other joker.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz
I'm not saying that exactly. We could price the cost of these externalities into the products that do the most harm to the environment and let the market work. The problem lies in accurate pricing and avoiding values arbitrarily. People benefit health-wise and pleasure-wise from clean air and landscapes. That benefit can theoretically be assigned a dollar amount. We just need a creative way to measure this. Science, technology, and social media might help moving forward.
turbozed 2 months ago
@turbozed OK, I get what you are saying about the environment. That's a potential solution, though I'm not sure it is the best one.
About the Koch Brothers: it is not that they disagree with me that is the problem. It's that they commit crimes. These are not allegations so much as facts. Look up the deals with Iran they did, the people dropping dead because of pollution in Crossett, Arkansas, the way they manipulate our democracy. Don't be fooled by their funding of NOVA.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@yeahlikewhatever I don't feel indignant. I was pissed because you were changing the subject rather than admitting you were wrong about Orwell. It looks you came around, though, in a funny sort of way. Anyways, you can continue to believe that 1984 is a critique of all socialists if you think Orwell was critiquing himself as a potential totalitarian tyrant. I don't really get your comment about England, it being the birthplace of industrial capitalism.
Magicwillnz 2 months ago
@Magicwillnz Your 'evil twin' (or mother?) WSMartin86 already posted a startlingly similar comment -- then the comment was mysteriously removed -- but anyway...
....To the entity anwering my comments, please take note that 1984 and Animal Farm were not defenses of socialism, and Orwell was neither politically ambitious nor a politician.
Now go ahead and visit merry old England, and be sure to buy an extra ticket for your alter-ego.
yeahlikewhatever 2 months ago
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Long live freedom from poverty.
ElCuloDelDiablo 1 year ago
Before I had ever heard of this book, I could see how "socialism" was essentially neo-feudalism, and that it was going to destroy this country and enslave humanity. It will bring about such an enormous economic collapse that the world will be plunged into a crisis that will dwarf the second world war. Probably billions of people will die as a result, both as a result of nuclear bombing and starvation. We are fated to this conclusion if we do not turn away from our current course.
yohannbiimu 1 year ago
@yohannbiimu WWII wasn't a crisis of 'planning' - it was a crisis of accumulation. War and planning are the only things that saved our various economies by forcing us to industrialise. Astounding how many people have faith in the 'invisible hand' of the market. Adam Smith pretty much thought free markets were guided by God.
Schniddo 1 year ago
the new national planis called bankruptcy
kroovyandcal 1 year ago
5:32:
"Let's get a man who can make a plan work!"
"The 'strong man' is given power..."
Thomas Friedman: "We need a dictator for a day..."
Woody Allen: "…it would be good…if he could be a dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly..."
We may be closer than many people think...
MittC3 1 year ago
good video but i don't think that america is as far as the person who posted it think it is, I know that Obama is trying to be a dictator (and I am not basing it off of Glenn Beck either)but he doesn't have the balls to be dictator
414deathmetalist 1 year ago
Long live Capitalism and freedom!
Hayek noted that too much government distorts the psychology of the serfs.
"And Winston loved Big Brother."
----Orwell
fairman1952 1 year ago
Fox news rails AGAINST deficit spending and is my source for looking up RtS.
Is it coincidence that the caption with the lie about Fox news (2:09) appears in the picture of 'propaganda' and 'controlled press ' kind of condemns itself.
2hamboigahs 1 year ago
6) Markets can coexist with drastic forms of autocracy and despotism – as they did under eighteenth-century absolutism, not to speak of various sorts of military junta or fascist dictatorship in the twentieth century. But they can also be combined with advanced forms of parliamentary democracy. Market economies could also worsen the misery of broad masses, by an absolute lowering of their standard of living,
zsylvana 1 year ago 9
@zsylvana
This is true, but those markets aren't efficient because those systems are plagued by corruption, cronyism, and abuse. While they can coexist, totalitarianism of any kind is a detriment to the efficiency of the market. Totalitarianism (aka planning) leads to misery, poverty, and massive human tragedy. Can you think of a market economy that also guarantees freedom of speech and other basic civil rights where markets have worsened misery of the broad masses? I can't.
turbozed 2 months ago
5)Similarly, market economies in the sense of ex post allocations of resources have historically existed in the most variegated forms. In principle, there could be market economies with ‘perfect’ free competition: though in practice this has hardly ever been realized. There can be market economies skewed by the dominance of powerful monopolies able to control large sectors of activity and so to fix prices over long periods.
zsylvana 1 year ago 3
4) You can have planning based on routine, custom, tradition, magic, religion, ignorance – planning rules by rain-makers,shamans, fakirs and illiterates of all kinds. Worst of all, you can have planning directed by generals; for every army is based on an a priori allocation of resources. You can have planning organized in a semi-rational way by technocrats or, at the highest level of scientific intelligence, by workers and disinterested specialists.
zsylvana 1 year ago
@zsylvana That is a great comment.. :)
SpunkOnSchoolUniform 1 year ago 2
3)Both basic kinds of labour allocation have existed on the widest possible scale throughout history. Both are therefore quite ‘feasible’. Both have also been applied in the most variegated fashions, and with most diverse results. You can have ‘despotic’ planning and ‘democratic’ planning .You can have ‘rational’ planning and ‘irrational’ planning. .
zsylvana 1 year ago
2)These are the two basic ways of allocating resources, and they are fundamentally different from each other – even if they can on occasion be combined in precarious and hybrid transitional forms, which will not be automatically self-reproducing. Essentially they have a different internal logic.They generate distinct laws of motion. They diffuse divergent motivations among producers and organizers of production, and find expression in discrepant social values.
zsylvana 1 year ago
1)The term ‘planning’. The concept itself needs to be more precisely defined. Planning is not equivalent to ‘perfect’ allocation of resources, nor ‘scientific’ allocation, nor even ‘more humane’ allocation. It simply means ‘direct’ allocation, ex ante. As such, it is the opposite of market allocation, which is ex post.
zsylvana 1 year ago
If we scrapped political parties overnight new ones would eventually form anyway and they would be exactly the same just new names for them. Humans form groups providing that tyrants aren't around to stop them. You might as well ask that we stop being human. If you're an environmental wacko that would explain your question.
Radioflyer911 1 year ago
At least one of Purple's comments is wrong. Exactly which talking heads or news anchors at Fox touts keynesian economics? If the Keynesian ideology gets discredited anywhere in the media it happens on FOX NEWS. Unfortunately thats probably one of only a few places this happens.
Radioflyer911 1 year ago
and here I thought the Road to Serfdom was a well-thought out treatise on economic policy, not a sensationalist equation of capitalism and representative governance.
thanks for clearing that up.
MMBKG0 1 year ago
The sad part of this cartoon is that it was once published by General Motors.
MadPutz 1 year ago
I have this great book, and EVERYTHING the writer predicted, 66 years ago is now coming to pass.
jmen4ever 1 year ago
The republicans commenting on the wonders of capitalism on this page are just being ironic as hell.
What could be closer to serfdom in the 21st century than millions of citizens who can't even afford to go to the doctor? Or to live in a system where the rich have the greatest HC system and financial security, and the Middle Class lose money every year?
Republicans are the worst people. Neighbor haters. Money lovers. Jesus wept.
Republicans obstruct social justice. Lincoln rolls in his grave.
kaneweb 1 year ago
Tell everyone you know! Americans all across the country have got to stand together and VOTE THE INCUMBENTS OUT, Democrat or Republican they all have to be taught a valuable lesson they seem to have forgotten. THEY WORK FOR US! It seems they have this upper class elitist attitude towards the rest of Americans, I really think they believe we are here to serve them. Do they deserve such a luxurious and extravagantly better way of life then the rest of working Americans or should it be the same?
fullautodad 1 year ago
@fullautodad - I agree. I never vote for incumbents, regardless of party.
But I also hate republicans on principle, so I have to vote libertarian, or green, or whatever party is lucky enough to fight through the lawsuits and harassment by the two parties to get on the ballot.
It's tough voting straight anti-incumbent, but it can be done. Just so you don't end up voting Republican and taking it up the ass from the super rich.
kaneweb 1 year ago
Wow,is that super rich mentality about republicans still out there. like there's no rich damocrats!! evidentally you and your grand children will like taking it up the ass from damocrats. you wouldn't know the principles of a republican if they bit you in the face. we're a two party nation. YOUR VOTE IS BEING WASTED ON THE SPOILER. do you even know what a spoiler is? BTW the reps support the free enterprise system. that's a fact. the dams support socialism. that's a fact. ur naive politically
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 - I support highly regulated capitalism. Reps support zero regulation as they raid the public treasury. Reagan bankrupted the banks, Bush just bankrupted them again. so what's your point? I support the party that will keep capitalists as honest as possible, which, btw, is not very honest. I support FDR style governance. And finally, if anyone "spoiled" the reps money party of the last 8 years, GOOD. And good riddance to the dumb asses who just destroyed the economy, again. Stupid.
kaneweb 1 year ago
in fact,reagan brought bank deregulation into existence such that you can now go into a bank or a credit union or savings and loan institution and BUY insurance and variable contracts (stocks and bonds) whereas before reagan such was a foreign thought. ask your parents, they'll remember what it is was like to walk into a only get get banking contracts. Reagan deregulated the banking industry and brought forth prosperity via free enterprise. study your history and don't be naive
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 - Savings and Loan meltdown. Period.
Reagan brought forth prosperity?
He bankrupted the nation, fed his base, the super rich on taxpayer money, and waged illegal covert wars that cost billions of dollars.
As for your next post about republicans "trusting", that's just so silly I won't even bother.
Republicans are the most cynical people in America. They run on distrust, of govt, of gays, of "socialists", of "liberals" - DISTRUST is their trademark.
kaneweb 1 year ago
omg are you politically naive. you seriously need to take a history class. the financial melt down under reagan started under carter and the dems lost that election because of government waste and attempted government control as is now being shoved down our throats. reps stand for freedom of enterprise. too bad it was taken advantage of. my God as far as cynical people go --- have you read your own comments. TALK ABOUT CYNICAL AND MISINFORMED,,, YOU TAKE THE CAKE.
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 All the things you mentioned were openly available on the free market, you just could not get all of them from ordinary banks. THe total deregulation and blurring of borders cause wild speculation and conflicts of interest that had been avoided before. Please learn the real history and not just the slogans about "free enterprise." We are all for that, but it usually means in reality welfare for corporations. You are being a little naive about this reality yourself, you know.
tryggda 1 year ago
BTW it was bush, who after 911 when our nation was in strife demanded tax insentives over the rich that brought a bit of prosperity until the the freedom that the republicans gave the financial institutions was taken advantage of. does that make it a republican mistake to TRUST. or should we just sit by and allow the government control our lives? obama is a socialist and everyone seems to be stupid about it. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 - W. Bush: People call you the Super Rich. I call you my base. heh heh.
Yep. And you are surprised that people associate Reps with the Super Rich?
You are blind by choice.
kaneweb 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 OK, you say. Democrats are socialists and Republicans in power are middle class ordinary Joes.
Now who is naive? Yes, some Dems are rich, but they are hardly socialists, nor are most Dems. Please study history to see what those terms actually mean. The sloganeering reductive nonsense you're repeating doesnt stand up to close scrutiny. In fact, people on the left think Obama is too cozy with Wall St Capitalism is going to have a long healthy life here in the USA-but do it right!
tryggda 1 year ago
@kaneweb Wholesale ant-incumbent is slicing off your nose to spite your face. Please be INFORMED and vote for the right person. I hope it is a Democrat, but if you are making an informed decision, not just voting like a robot anti-incumbent, then I could respect that vote. Read the cartoon about manipulation and forced automatic behavior---that is one thing that did really happen in history when people voted rash emotions instead of doing the HARD WORK of THINKING!
tryggda 1 year ago
@tryggda hahahahah!!!! you evidently love to be TAXED! the kgb, opps the irs loves people like you! martin
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
your words should be a BATTLE CRY for all Americans who despise this government for it's destruction to our free enterprise system. IMPEACH OBAMA! start at the top and use the trickle down theory instead of allowing them to force us to accept their trickle up theory via taxation.
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 You are shouting, not thinking. Look at hat old cartoon above again about how demagogues work. (Surprise!)
tryggda 1 year ago
More like because we've lost confidence in ourselves and the goodness of our fellow citizens.
mmille10 1 year ago
public option and single payer are part of the communism plan here.
Rico8458 1 year ago
the negro african kenyan ex moslem Hussein obama is now the strong man here.
Rico8458 1 year ago
The US has finished #9 and is currently in the process of attempting to reject #10 :P
ipwnallnubscuzirock 1 year ago
how the hell did a a great country like the united states ever manage to elect a moron like George w bush into office. i believeplanning is good. unfettered banking practices has got the world into a bankrupt state. they created yhe inflation . that is the bush administration in tandem with the lenders. and te printing of too many dollor bills by the federal reserve has devalued the the currency which is now in freefall. better get a plan boys and a good one!
larrydelamb 1 year ago
@larrydelamb You believe planning is good and you're not a fan of George W. Bush? I'm confused...
socialdtk 1 year ago
@larrydelamb - I agree wholeheartedly.
kaneweb 1 year ago
This is a brilliant video. It should be seen by all.
The music is kick ass.
RealityControl4 1 year ago
This is a great video! Genius! Good job.. I wish I did it!
dons123111 1 year ago
Fox News is decidedly non Keynesian, that is anti: government control, monetary policy, and central bank. As far as I know, all Fox hosts support Supply Side Economics, and free markets, and side far more with our national founders and the likes of Arthur Laffer.
chipsher42 2 years ago
Fox supports heightened military spending and are therefore military Keynesians.
KommisarKowl 1 year ago
Supply side economics and a global military empire is totally contradictory, particularly with a debt based money supply controlled by a private banking cartel.
MrWakethesheeple 1 year ago
The US Federal Government is taking more and more power that the Constitution NEVER granted it. The US Federal Government is a Fascist System and wants to control your LIFE. Soon they will be counting your bowel movements and tax you on it.
ThoughtTraveler 2 years ago 4
They already do its called sewage tax
kylecorreia 2 years ago 2
if you DIDN'T pay for your sewage system, then THAT would be communism, there are some things that simply can't be handled effectively by private enterprise, at least not directly, sewage is one of them.
bradmanthethird 1 year ago
And your point is what?
kylecorreia 1 year ago
@ThoughtTraveler Please list the 5 (or 3) biggest things the government has taken from you in the last 10 years. Hard to think of real examples, isn't it?
Just don't call them next time disaster, chaos, or tragedy or war occurs. They might want to take YOU to defend what you apparently don't understand very well.
But please--really--list those big terrible things the government has taken from you personally/culturally. Can't do it? Politicians count on easy slogans so you won't have to think!
tryggda 1 year ago
@tryggda i need only name one... i've worked 30 years to build a business and obama in one years takes it away from me. you're probably an employee somewhere and will never realize what the words free enterprise system mean. HEIL obama. nazis', socialist, facists, communists---- all love big government. you're very sarcastic--- too bad your words don't ring a word of truth. keep jumpin' on that bandwagon. you're in for the ride of your life... HEIL obama!!! look at what's happening in europe!
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@ThoughtTraveler i totally agree. we need to get back to a two party nation and let the government return to a two party nation. this one party (damocrat) is a dictatorship. let's get the politicians to reps and dems to continue to fight!!!,, instead of this dictatorship that obama is creating. VOTE A STRAIGHT REPUBLICAN TICKET-- spread the message and let's get back to THE FIGHT for equality. immigrants included-- THE WAY WE SAY BY LAW.
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@1yourtrust2 How about no political parties at all. Just voting for people based on what they believe. (read Washington's farewell address)
sechenry6 1 year ago
@ThoughtTraveler they actually was talk bout a toilet flushing tax lol
fisharecoming 1 year ago
And this is no wander, because the capitalism, racism, Nazism and even sexism has common base. It is the exaggerating the differences between the people, drawing lines between them and labelling superior an inferior. The superior has then no any moral obligation to the inferior. The superior may lie to, exploit and even kill the inferior. That is what Hitler did! And you talk about state control. I told you. A system that relies on the negative side of the human being can create only evil.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Racism, sexism, Naziism, and all the other things you mention do have a common base - its called collectivism. Capitalism, on the other hand, is about individualism and equal rights for all, regardless of what "group" the government tries to put you in.
Good luck with your fallacious arguments. Its because of people like you that the U.S. has gone down this road to totalitarianism, and I only hope for your sake that you don't suffer the consequences.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
You don't understand the good side of human nature -the infinite worth of every being, and his inherent right to live free and enjoy his own free will, free from the violence and "planning" of the state. You can't see that there is no "society" that will plan our lives for us, but only little dictators who will be telling us what to do. You have never known freedom - the reality or the concept, and so its not your fault that you want live as a servant of the state...
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago 7
But those free men who are still left will never submit to your "planning," not matter what you call it.
Socialism is slavery. And like Harriet Tubman said: "I freed a thousand slaves - I could have freed a thousand more, if only they have know they were slaves."
Wake up, man, freedom is calling.
RON PAUL 2012!
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago 5
@purplepamphleteer and know this....our freedom is quickly being tackin away by this man in office, i dare not even call him a president. he is a socialist akin to a communist. do you understand? eagerly await your response. martin
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@purplepamphleteer Woo are you yelling at? This book is over 65 years old? Who is this enemy you claim wants to tell you where to work or where to live. NO ONE in American history among the major parties has EVER proposed such things. Community, caring, sharing, respect, shared values, distributed responsibility for rich and poor alike---that is not the same thing as this antique.. You are railing against a shred of an antique scarecrow. TIme to catch up with the times. Freedom is shared.
tryggda 1 year ago
@purplepamphleteer
Socialism is true freedom--the freedom from capitalist exploitation!
RaananVolesPianist 5 months ago
@RaananVolesPianist
dumbest thing i ever heard...ur probably referring to fascism disguised as capitalism which IS exploitative...but fascism is not capitalism, its actually more similar to socialism....i have a feeling u have not read the road to serfdom...so u probably have no idea
koala8 5 months ago
@purplepamphleteer have your researched Hobbs?
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@purplepamphleteer READ THOMAS HOBBES...
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
um no. capitalism is not about equality for all, its about people having the economic freedoms they wish for and to improve in society however they want. This leads to oppression from the more powerful/rich to the lower people. Racism and sexism have NOTHING to do with collectivism
SwimmerInBlue 2 years ago
Capitalism is about the rightly understood interest of all - it is about equality before the Law, and not about equality of wealth or material goods. You do not understand the social order based upon private property and the division of labor. The absence of the Rule of Law, or the presence of government-endowed privileges leads to oppression by those with more power.
Racism and sexism are just sub-types of collectivism.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago 13
@SeanRyanForCongress WOW! YOU'RE SMART. remember --PATRIOTISM BEFORE PARTY!
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@SeanRyanForCongress The rule of law, as was well-known in the US laws of 19th c. was based on the legal rights of people & community ALWAYS taking npriority over personal property on its own. Salus populi suprema est--the health and welfare of the people is the supreme law. THIS is basis of American Way. Not the late-arriving myth of protecting the corporation at all times. Read Novak's The People's Welfare, which gives this legal and cultural history. I'm pro-capitalist, too, but not like you
tryggda 1 year ago
@SeanRyanForCongress i like you!! we think alike. HEIL obama. he loves big government--- just like the nazis', marxists, socialists and communists tout as best. any fee man knows that less government is best. too bad that most damocrats are poor and uneducated but that's a fact and now we live in a damocratic dictatorship. VOTE a straight republican ticket and let 'em return to goin' at each others throats.better than havin' big government shoved down our throats!!! HEIL obama--
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
@SeanRyanForCongress YOU'RE TOO HUNG UP AN JOHN LOCKE.
1yourtrust2 1 year ago
You, the western people, you do not know how backward you are! You are technically developed, but socially and ethically backward. Just like nazi Germany. The history repeats itself. Finally, you will reside to racism, Nazism, and religious intolerance. As a mater of fact you already do, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Agree with you there. The U.S. police state and empire are out of control. Why? Because we've adopted socialism, gradually and over the course of 60 years. Let's hope that enough Americans realize what's going on, before its too late.
Ever heard of Ron Paul?
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
The soviet socialism was not perfect, but one has to be rather stupid to expect that after 500 years of chaotic capitalism suddenly an ideal social system will appear. Socialism was the first attempt of the mankind to take its fate in its own hands. USSR was completely new society build intentionally and without prior knowledge. And the fact that USSR survived over 70 years in an extremely hostile environment and won the most ever brutal war is already enough success.
Golonpo 2 years ago
LOL! Yeah, soviet socialism wasn't perfect - they couldn't even figure out how many shoes to produce, let alone how to raise the standard of living of the masses. If the soviet system was so good, why did as many people as possible leave the USSR and come to the U.S.? Why did they have to imprison their own people to keep them from emigrating? Why did they have to control all media? Man, you are living in a fantasy world. LOL!
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
i actually heard that the production was so sporadic that one day the plants would produce 10 000 left shoes, and everyone would get a left shoe that day, and maybe wait for 10 months to get the right one =p
bradmanthethird 1 year ago
I repeat: the western economics is not science! It is a lie! Its basic concepts are proven not by scientific methods, but by falsified economic history. It restricts the freedom of the people by stating that something is natural law while actually it is matter of peoples free will.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Already refuted - please cite some evidence or at least a logical argument. Socialism restricts people's free will, so please don't appeal to that.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
Due to such lies the western people, and especially the Americans, are completely ignorant about socialism and communism. The Zeitgeist movement for example unintentionally offers communism.
And yes, this lies were stronger than the bombs and the rockets. They are now popular misbelieve also in the eastern countries. The fall of the Soviet Union is the lost future of the mankind. O, poor planet!
Golonpo 2 years ago
I agree. The Zeitgeist movie turned out to be a piece of Marxist trash. The first movie was acceptable, because it at least began the process of teaching people about government-controlled fiat money.
YOU are "completely ignorant about socialism and communism." You should read a book some time, instead of trolling the internet making dubious claims.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
I studied both capitalism, and socialism in the school of a socialist country. Yes, we studied that in the school. And I have red enough books, I guess much more than you. I also lived under both socialism and capitalism, so that I can compare, which can not be said for you. On this ground I can clearly say, that all statements of the communists about the capitalism and imperialism are true. Western economics is a lie! It is the ideological weapon of mean and low people.
Golonpo 2 years ago
I have NOT lived under "capitalism" - and neither have you. I have lived in the U.S. which does not have a capitalist economy. Unfortunately for dogmatists like you, the word "capitalist" does not mean "whatever economics is being practiced in the U.S. at the present time." The U.S. has a semi-socialist/ semi-corporatist system, in which the government plans by adding more and more regulations, and thus restricting free enterprise...
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
The third lie is this one. That the planed economy could not work while it actually worked. Note that even this movie admits that the planning was used during wartime. Why? The war is critical situation requiring mobilisation of full efforts, but then suddenly the society turns to ineffective planning?!? Why? Of course, the bad plan could hardly be successful, but this is no reason to discard competent planning which has proven much more effective and rational.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Please. In a "planned economy" - aka socialism - there is no way to determine people's subjective valuations of goods and services, and therefore no way to put a price on anything. Without prices, you can't do economic calculation. The Soviets based their calculations on the prices generated by markets in capitalist countries. Planning is inefficient - it results in capital consumption - stealing the wealth of future generations...
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
If a nation suddenly needs to focus all its efforts on repelling a foreign enemy, then in certain cases it might be OK to work inefficiently for a while, since if the war is lost then there won't BE ANY FUTURE capital at all. Planning can only be "successful" in the short term - no one denies the fact that if the government confiscates wealth from some (producers) and gives to others (the military), that certain activities can flourish for a little while. But it is destructive in the long run.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
I still can not get the point here. In a war a high efficiency is needed in order to win. Why should the country turn to inefficient planning in any way? The war increases the need for bombs - let the market fulfil the demand? You do not understand basic things in a war economy. A lot of capital is created during a war by the people who produce the weapons played by the state with taxpayers money.
Golonpo 2 years ago
It is not a high efficiency that is needed - it is the immediate direction of production toward war materials, and not toward consumer goods. This is why various states have socialized production during wars - because they wanted to control production, not because they wanted to make it more efficient.
War does not create capital. War destroys capital. If war created capital, then the United States wouldn't be trillions in debt right now - we'd be rich!
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Completely wrong. There is way to determine the prices on the basis of the used labour. That is what USSR did. I told you. You are completely ignorant about socialism. Believe me. I lived under socialism. Most of the things you write are simple lies. I told you.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Wow - the "labor theory of value." Like Marx's, your knowledge of economics is hundreds of years out of date.
You can keep saying that real economics is a lie, but saying so won't make it so. If the value of a good is determined by how much labor is put into it, then why is a diamond that I find on the ground so valuable? I didn't put any labor into it, right?
Why don't you make even the most rudimentary arguments in favor of your archaic theories, so that I can refute them, please?
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Why do people leave communist countries and run in droves to the U.S.A.?
yugmnivek 2 years ago
because u r allowed to make as much money as you want pretty much anyways you want and there is alot of money to be made in america that is the only reason ..people coem to america for the money plain and simpel no other reason i was born and raised here and think the culture is fucking horrible
kylecorreia 1 year ago
We still have many liberties but as the economy gets worse and the central bank looting intensifies, the USA will look more and more like a South American puppet state.
MrWakethesheeple 1 year ago 2
Name one right that has not been trampled on.
TheRealMikeSmith 1 year ago
Freedom of speech. I know there are exceptions, but we can still oppose the private Federal Reserve and the military-industrial complex without fear of imprisonment or arrest. Soon these 'rights' may be taken arbitrarily.
MrWakethesheeple 1 year ago 2
You are so right MrWakethesheeple. We need to use our freedom of speech like it's going out of style.
Or it will.
RealityControl4 1 year ago
The second lie is the crimes of the Soviet Union. To prove it the Soviet Union history is falsified. The victims of Stalin are exasperated over 60 times, completely omitting the fact that in a near war time SU has only from 1.5 to 2 times more prisoners than USA today. The mass repressions are actually a myth. The fact is that the USA applied more than 10 times more violence in the world (from Chile to Nicaragua) to keep the market economy there than USSR to keep socialism.
Golonpo 2 years ago
I won't bother to respond to your defense of violence and empire. The U.S. is equally guilty of it, though, so you're half right.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
And when the developing economies, that accepted the free-market, failed, it was ascribed to peoples inferiority rather than to the wrong neoliberal theory derived from falsified history. Amazing! Now we need Hitler to deal with the inferior people. But contrary, the propaganda (Hayek being part of it) tries to put equal sign between Nazism and socialism. Orwellian world, isnt it?
Golonpo 2 years ago
The people in the world are brainwashed by a number of lies. The first one is the success of the liberalism. For this, the history of the developed countries is being falsified as if they are developed due to adopting the free marked while actually during their development they used heavy protectionism. All developed countries did that! From UK, and USA to South Korea. And opposite, all developing countries, from Bolivia to Russia, where the free marked was applied bitterly failed.
Golonpo 2 years ago
I agree. Most people act as if they are brainwashed. I think that they are simply ignorant.
All developed countries have hindered capitalism with government interventions, so you are right there. This has led to their economic decline.
Are you kidding? A free market in Russia? Please - they have state capitalism, just like the U.S. and China. You clearly don't understand that when government is huge and takes tons of money away from its people, that capital is destroyed...
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
...and that capitalism ceases to function correctly. Why don't you focus your efforts on socializing Germany - oh wait, you already tried that under Bismarck, and later Hitler. All you need to know about Capitalism vs. "Protectionism" (or whatever other name you apply to socialism to try and justify the planning of little men in rooms who understand nothing about how an economy works) is West Germany vs. East Germany. People were voting with their feet, which was why they made a wall.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Yes most people are brainwashed you among them. Find at least one book of the two I suggested to learn why the poor countries stay poor. Yes, it is just the opposite. Poor countries are poor because they adopt free market and shrink the government. Since you do not know what protectionism is then you do not know what free market is.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Poverty exists because of the lack of capital in certain areas of society, which decreases the marginal productivity of labor, which keeps wages from rising. Read an economics text book, please - even a socialist one will admit this simple fact. The bigger the government, the poorer the people - this is simple fact and you can see it everywhere. In which countries are the poorest the best off? Why, in the capitalist countries. Seriously, man - if you're not from Germany, are you from Mars?
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Wrong! Poverty exists because the capitalism is ever contracting system. It always try to pay less for the labour and to sell at high prise. Since it pays less the people who can buy become less, then there is less demand, then less production is necessary and then more jobless people appear. The excess labour force decreases the price of the labour i.e. the salaries become even lower, and so on until the next crisis. Then the state has to interfere to clean the mess.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Wrong again. Capitalism increases the amount of capital in an economy, which leads to higher productivity of labor, which leads to higher real wages, which leads to more consumption and production for the masses, and so on.
Please read something other than Marx - the guy was proved wrong about almost everything he wrote, 100 years ago.
Historically, you are just wrong. Under capitalism, wages
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
The government does not destroy the or capital in any way. It can invest also invest successfully, and there are many examples of that (China). But the competition from the developed countries destroys every business in the poor countries. That is why they stay poor. How will you get rich if you compete for foreign investments by taking as mush work as possible for as low payment as possible? This is pretty stupid isnt it. I told you, economic liberalism is a lie!
Golonpo 2 years ago
Yes, the government can steal capital from its citizens by printing money. It is also called "forced saving." The Chinese have done OK, but I don't think you can say that investing in billions of dollars of soon-to-be-worthless U.S. Treasuries was a very smart idea.
The government destroys capital by spending it on wasteful things. Private business cannot spend wastefully, because then they would go out of business. Governments don't go out of business - they just raise taxes, or borrow.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Cant you recognise the propaganda? Here it is!
The example that a plumber would be sent to work as a carpenter is a pretty stupid one, as if all planers should be as stupid as this movie suggests. And note that under capitalism, a carpenter that has no job (too many carpenters on the marked) will face the humane faith of starving or go to work as carpenter (too few carpenters on the market). You Americans have no bare idea how deep you are being manipulated!
Golonpo 2 years ago
To say that the U.S. has more than a single party is silly. Two parties, both of whom agree on the same warfare/welfare state is a pretty effective form of totalitarianism. Socialism appeared hundreds of years ago, not 30 - the intellectual midgets who advocated it only were able to force it on people starting with the Bolsheviks: and they did a bang-up job, right?
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Yup, the market is a much better allocator of labor than any planner, no matter how smart or stupid. If there is no demand for new houses, then carpenters will have to do something else more productive, or risk not being able to feed himself. Nothing wrong with that.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
You have no idea how ignorant of basic economics you are. You should read a little Mises instead of Marx. You should question your dogmatic faith in planners, especially as a German - remember when you guys tried to plan your own economy, along with the rest of Europe's? How did that one work out?
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
I think you are pretty dogmatic in defending the free market, and you should read something outside the popular capitalist propaganda. I told you that the economic liberalism is a dogma that was proven with falsified history. I did not made this up. Find the book Bad Samaritans: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism written by a Cambridge professor of economics, or How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor by Norwegian economist.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Protectionism is just one form of government interference in the system of free enterprise - it is not capitalism. It destroys capitalism. You are like Michael Moore - you're confusing capitalism with corporatism: aka state socialism, aka state capitalism - they are all the same thing.
Private property and the Rule of Law - that is capitalism. Public property (or simply control through regulation) and the Rule of Men - that is central planning, aka socialism.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
Find, and read at least one of the books I suggest. The economic liberalism is backed by falsified economic history. The thought is just the opposite. The economic success in a capitalist environment needs protectionism!
Golonpo 2 years ago
On an ethical ground socialism grants that no one will ever be thrown overboard. It relies to the honest and thoughtful people that will find the pleasure in the socially useful work. Capitalism contrary, relies to greed, egoism and selfishness. What system is the one that relies on the negative side of the man? How you expect something positive from it?
Golonpo 2 years ago
Ah - now your Marxist drivel is coming to the surface. People don't take pleasure in work. If they did, then they wouldn't demand to be paid for it. I take pleasure in debunking sophists like yourself, which is why I'm doing it for free. It is leisure, not work.
Guess what? People are greedy! They always have been, are today, and always will be. We all want to eat, after all, so we are greedy and want food. We work to stay alive, and for no other reason. Is that greed?
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
Capitalist division of labor allows all men to work to feed themselves by doing what they are best suited to do, and to "collectively" but freely contribute to the common good. Unless to produce something for someone else, you don't get paid. You can't sell you wares to yourself.
Keep trying to convince yourself that you can change human nature by fantasizing. I'll see you when you come back from fairyland.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
the irony in this statement is that sophists (the original sophists) were unbelievably capitalistic to the point where they thought it was o.k. to blatantly cheat people out of money under false pretenses. of course that is not the type of capitalism you and me want =p, just bringing it up that the sophists were anything but socialist.
bradmanthethird 1 year ago
defintion of a sophist is fallable reasoner. You would not stay in business for long if you cheated your customers out of money. Socialism cheats it's citizens out of money, under false pretenses of security and it went out of business too. The natural laws will not support socialism, theft or any lie that is perpetuated on the individual. Socialism was born from the Romantic Philosophies of Kant, and formally named romanticism when Marx was writing his material. The Romantics criticized pure
dons123111 1 year ago
Reasoning, which Kant was the founder of. So yes, those of us who beleive in and who practice the Enlightenment beleive is the pinnacle of Philosophy, there is nothing past it. Empiricism vs Mataphysical is another way of describing the two forms. The empiricists does not beleive in arbitrary govt laws, the metaphysical beleives in some purpose. Socialism is moral, liberty is freedom. You trade your liberty for socialist security. Socialists are absolute fallabe reasoners. You can hear it.
dons123111 1 year ago
Yes, you are right here. The two parties in USA are no choice and do not actually implement democracy. I was thought that in a socialist school some 30 years ago. :)
I never wrote that socialism appear 30 years ago. I wrote that USSR appeared about 30 years before the beginning of the Cold War.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Ooo. Pure propaganda! This short movie as well as probably Hayek and for sure his most prominent follower Milton Friedman avoid mentioning that the planed economy actually delivered in the Soviet Union and the western block though with over 300 years experience was forced to compete on pars with a country and a system that appeared less 30 years ago (at the time when this book was written).
To fit the theory the myth of totalitarizm was created on only mere ground that single party is ruling.
Golonpo 2 years ago
First of all, Friedman is not a follower of Hayek, although they both endorse capitalism (free enterprise) to varying degrees. Friedman is a Keynesian in that he thinks interest rates and the money supply should be "managed" by a central bank - which is plank #5 of the Communist manifesto, i.e. hardly a free market idea.
The Soviet economy was a disaster, even as America's corporatist/socialist economy is today. We'll see how bad it is when the Chinese stop subsidizing our socialism.
SeanRyanForCongress 2 years ago
Ignorance! The Soviet economy was not disaster. It was just not focused on producing luxury goods for few and poverty for others, and USSR did not use cheap labour of the people in the third world countries. Soviets were people with dignity.
USA is not socialist! A corporate/socialist thing does not exist! Corporatism and socialism are opposite to each other. You are exact confirmation of my words that Americans are completely ignorant about socialism.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Sorry - socialists like you are the people who are invariably the most ignorant about socialism. The corporatism practiced by the Italian Fascists and the socialism imposed by the Soviets are just two styles of the same system - the economy planned by the government.
Give it a rest, or at least read "Socialism" by Mises before you comment again.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
Socialism is something rather different from corporatism. The main point of socialism it the ownership of the means of production. The second main point is braking the accumulation of private profit that goes in the hands few. If the state company gets profit it does not go to the moon, and can not be distributed among few by any way because the socialism does not allow unreasonably large income differences.
Golonpo 2 years ago
They are two different varieties of central planning. Government ownership of the means of production is not the defining feature of socialism. Government CONTROL of the means of production is. It doesn't matter whether property is called private, if the government tells you what you can and cannot do with it. Ownership is meaningless without control.
It's really sad that you are so brainwashed that you can't even conceive of being free! I'm not free here, but at least I know it...
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
...you are a sad denizen of Plato's cave.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago
Hayek and Friedman are the most prominent economic liberals. Hayek was first, Friedman after him. I do not care even if they knew each other. Friedman is not Keynesian in any way. Again you put equality between opposite things.
Golonpo 2 years ago
Mises is the most prominent classical liberal (the word liberal in the U.S. means socialist, which is why I have to say "classical," to be clear about meaning). Friedman is Keynesian in that he supports having a central bank. Do you deny that Friedman was in favor of a central bank? If you do, you're wrong. Do you deny that Keynes was the biggest proponent of central banking? If you do, you're wrong again.
purplepamphleteer 2 years ago