A Letter to Socialists, By Gustave de Molinari (Part 1)

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEzPbciUdzA

The essay: http://mises.org/daily/2089

This essay was published in Journal des Économistes vol. 20, no. 82. — June 15th, 1848 (pp. 328-332).

While this article was originally published anonymously, Molinari later acknowledged his authorship in his 1899 book Society of the Future, where he noted:

"This appeal, which incidentally bears the imprint of the confident naïveté of youth, was, as events have shown, entirely premature. It went unheard; but one may be permitted to hope that it will yet be heard one day, and that socialism, by contributing to the economists its contingent of forces, will aid them in surmounting the resistance of those selfish and blind interests that set themselves athwart the necessary transformation of a political and economic organization which has ceased to be adapted to societies' present conditions of existence."

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[fringeelements]

I disagree. I don't think "socialists" value abundance or justice. They value equality. If they valued abundance, they would actually look at the world and see what produces abundance. Instead they just pile of confirmation bias, go simple and broad when it helps them "look at europe's healthcare system, therefore free market bad", or demand specifics when something superficially contradicts their beliefs. Equality is the end goal and only goal. "Justice" is just a cover.

[StatelessLiberty]

@fringeelements Perhaps you're right, if you take your typical socialist to be like Vogter, TheAmazingAtheist or C0ct0pus. Even Molinari who wrote this essay later acknowledged that he was being naive (see quote in description).

[SecularNumanist]

Holy crap, Dr Campbell featured this video!

[StatelessLiberty]

@SecularNumanist You're right!! thank you for pointing it out!

[rabidus666]

He makes some pretty big assumptions about socialists. We don't reject liberty. What we reject is the ability to exploit the labor of others to profit unequally. We don't see liberty in laissez-faire capitalism; we see the formation of a power vacuum and the trading of one set of exploitative, coercive masters for another. Until the means of product are truly collectivized and every man granted equal opportunity to pursue his humanity to its fullest extent, there can never be true liberty.

[edwinorc]

Thank you for this.