Do you think ideas don’t matter, that what people believe about themselves and their world has no real consequence? If so, the following will not bug you in the slightest.
FULL ARTICLE by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
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Source link: http://blog.mises.org/11018/the-triumph-of-socialism/
The Triumph of Socialism
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Wealth,
Ehh.. a rooster is a chicken. FYI for any city boys: a rooster is a male chicken and a hen is a female chicken. Hope this helps ;>)
Mark,
Well it takes both a male and a female, a rooster and a hen to make an egg.
So it was the chicken before the egg, an egg can’t raise itself.
Case in point.
Mike,
Freud was an old penile, LOL ! (pun intended)
Wealth: “On the other hand, it’s been 2009 years that science has been disproving christian myths one after the other.â€
Please show me one.
Mike: “This was not in any way an easy or shallow process as you seem to imply with your sweeping dismissal of atheism as some sort of anti-intellectual pseudo-religious dogma.â€
That’s not what I meant to imply about atheism. When I considered atheism in college, I wanted to read the best atheists around, men like Nietzche, Sartre, Camus. After reading them, I find atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens trite. Evidence and logical support for atheism does exist and I’m aware of it. But evidence and logical support for theism also exists. The great atheist writers struggled with it. Dawkins and Hitchens just snear at it in a childish way. While recognizing the evidence and logical support that exists for atheism, I happen to think the evidence and logical support for theism is quite a bit better.
When you can see a system that upholds the right of those who are capable of manipulating the market to siphon wealth or saving from honest working people, and to say that capitalism protect the right of everyone, you know where your honesty lie.
I’m a Christian (fundamentalist sort of person) and see no conflict between my faith and my libertarian views. Indeed i struggle to understand how i could be otherwise. Yes, the Bible sets out a list of cans and can nots but it is made plain that it is between the indivdual man, his conscience and God whether or not he obeys them. And Christianty isn’t about works anyway least any man should boast.
And Christ’s words: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” Doesn’t that sum up the basic libertarian approach to respecting each other’s freedom?
tomas,
Please provide me your working definition of “capitalism”, because it seems to be way off. You appear to be defining it as “the crap that goes on in America.” Here at Mises.org, we do not consider the American system capitalist.
Earlier I asked Abhilash to attempt to be more clever with his insults. For those who think insults are important here’s a really clever one:
“Try getting a window pane installed in your belly. This way, as your head slides further and further up your a**, you can look out and see what’s going on in the rest of the world. Otherwise, you can just continue spinning around, trying to figure out whether to scratch your watch or wind your butt.”
I welcome all insults that are this clever! If not substance, they at least contribute entertainment.
tomas, if you’re referring to the current system in the US, you aren’t referring to capitalism, but to a mixed system that is about 2/3 socialist. To see a capitalist system in action you would have to go back to the US before the founding of the Fed in 1913.
Wealth
“Well it takes both a male and a female, a rooster and a hen to make an egg.”
As usual you don’t know what you are talking about. Hens lay eggs even if they have never been anywhere near a rooster.
fundamentalist:
I want to come up with a witty retort involving the Broken Window fallacy, but alas, nothing good is bubbling up.
I applaud the Mises Institute and all those who staunchly defend a free market and capitalism. As Mr. Rockwell points out, ideas do matter, and are the foundation of even ill-intended outcomes when rooted in ignorance. It seems that education offers us the most powerful weapon in fighting against the formidable ignorance prevalent in our time. Freedom, liberty and free market capitalism are causes worth fighting for. Though our cause is not the fashion of the day, it is nonetheless politically and morally correct. May freedom reign within our hearts and minds and may we work diligently to capture the hearts and minds of all men of goodwill.
@Mark Morton Glasgow,
Here, here. Well spoken.
fundamentalist
I usually don’t introduce the topic of religion on this blog.
I know from experience that this is not at all true. You try to maneuver any discussion on almost any article that even tangentially touches on religion into a religion vs atheism debate. I suspect it stems from your own sense of insecurity. But suspicion is not proof so I won’t pretend it is.
Fortunately for you, there is no easy way in this blog to list out just comments from one person. So it is less easier to detect. That and the fact that you keep bringing up stale arguments that have been addressed as if they never have.
Ideological Change Is Unnoticed By Socialists.
When does an ideological change take place and what percentage of the populace is needed to ‘get the ball rolling?’
Ideological change happens when there is a firm conviction that is basically overwhelming. In our case it is overwhelming because of the foundation of truth that is in classical liberalism. Ideological change happens when there is a light breaking like the dawn of a new day and there is an irresistable torrent of excitement in anticipation of its arrival. This is what we are feeling as lovers of liberty and justice.
It is true that in chemistry the smallest amount of a catalyst may trigger a reaction but we are humans not atoms. In our domain of subjectivism, deep in our subjectivist nature lies the answer to the question about what percentage of the populace is needed to ‘get the ball rolling.’ One thing is for sure – Ron Paul is generating an increase in percentages and so is the Mises Institute, and Peter Schiff, and Tom Woods, and the list is growing.
Ideological change is like a thunderstorm. It forms as a result of the prevailing conditions, it builds and has numerous layers, it is announced by thunder, and it carries a great charge of lightning, wind, rain and hail. It clears the air and afterwards everyone reaps the benefits and fixes those things that are worthwhile.
Fruitless debate over religion. How boring.
“Truth.” I hear that word a lot around here.
I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any such thing.
If by “truth” you mean external reality independent of the experience and knowledge of any individual, yes, there is.
Bruce: “When does an ideological change take place and what percentage of the populace is needed to ‘get the ball rolling?’”
Interesting post. Personally, I think the greatest obstacle to freedom is the popular perception of the nature of mankind. Today, most people see humans as being born good and turning to evil only after poor potty training or abuse. Adam Smith had a very different view of man’s nature. His concept of freedom was anchored in the traditional Christian view of man, even though Smith didn’t appear to be very religious. The traditional Christrian view of man’s nature is that it is a mixture of good and evil with a tendency toward evil. Parenting, church, and school can influence people toward the good, but cannot change human nature. Only God can do that. This Christian view of mankind dominated the thinking of even irreligious people during Smith’s time. If anyone had suggested that the state could change mankind’s nature they would have been mercilessly ridiculed.
Smith’s “Moral Sentiments” was an effort to figure out how to create a moral society, given the nature of man. “Wealth of Nations” was his application of those principles to economics. Knowing that nothing human could change man’s nature, Smith proposed the free market as the best means of limiting the damage that evil people can cause. Competition will run the greedy businessman out of business unless he can get the state on his side to protect him from competition.
The view of human nature changed with Saint-Simon’s invention of socialism (see Hayek’s “Counter-Revolution in Science”). Socialists, most of whom were atheists, promoted the modern view of human nature, that mankind is born good and turns to evil only because of abuse or bad potty training methodology. For socialists, the greatest abuser and oppressor of all time is private property. If we could get rid of property and have the state create society from freshly scraped ground on the basis of science, then we can change human nature back to the purity with which every human is born.
Socialism was never just an economic system as some think. It was always about changing the economic system which would then change the nature of mankind and rid it of all evil tendencies. If you really believed what Saint-Simon believed, wouldn’t you be willing to break a few eggs to achieve the perfect society that he claimed we could have, and which socialism still holds out to all mankind? Socialism is supposed to rid the planet of evil of all kinds! All that Smith and all succeeding capitalists can offer is a world in which the damage that evil can cause is limited. The reality of capitalism at its best cannot compare with the utopian dream of socialism.
Today, capitalism still depends on Smith’s view of human nature, even though capitalists and libertarians don’t recognize it. If we will win the battle, we have to force socialists to face the reality that society cannot fix human nature. Whether you’re religious or atheist, human nature is what it is and we can’t change it.
One thing that bothers me in these discussions is people’s view of “socialism.” Have any of you actually met, taken a course from, or otherwise heard the arguments for socialism from a real socialist? It doesn’t seem so.
Socialism is Christian. Socialism is Islamic. Socialism is scientific and humanistic. Socialism is democratic. And most of all, Socialism is egalitarian.
These are all good things. What does “capitalism” have to recommend it besides banksters, pull-peddlars, a Parliament of Whores, a nation of drug addicts, and the Military-industrial-prison complex? Capitalism is here! We don’t need to hear anything more in favor of it.
Dump Capitalism. Defend Freedom. They are polar opposites, I’m afraid.
one hundred million victims say you’re wrong, paul stephens.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3398379/Black-Book-of-Communism
socialism is not charity. the decalogue condemns theft. using force or threats to seize others’ property is theft.
egalitarian is inhuman, and so utopic. fidel castro is in the forbes rich list.
socialism and freedom are oil and water. so is corporativism, which is increasingly the paradigm of america and the western world.
Paul Stephens,
Just Google on “The Communist Manifesto” and read it. Somewhere in that document, it says
” the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. ”
Now, do we have a definition of what we are talking of? It helps to pause to think before shooting ones mouth off.
This is where I found it
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Paul,
Socialism may come wrapped in many colorful packages, e.g. “Christian”, “Islamic”, “scientific”, “humanistic”, “democratic”. An analytical framework has to see beyond these labels- cut through the moralistic promises of plenty- and take measure of just how far individual ownership has been or will be displaced by government control in all these schemes. Socialism, too, as a word, unfortunately, conveys no solid meaning without context. What you may be describing as Socialism might be described by Mises as “interventionism”, the destructive instability created by government marked by incomplete vitiation of individual property right.
Given this propertarian baseline to work from it becomes apparent that your blaming “capitalism”, private ownership of the means of production, for current woes, looks quite confused and misleading.
Dear atheists in what you trust?
Fundamentalist:
What we can change is our interpretation or the interpretation that we have adopted. To do that we have to step back and ask the question: Is it an ego-driven interpretation?
Whether we are able to assess this question correctly or not determines where we go from there.
Our quest, I assume, is to free ourselves from ego-driven interpretation and to rid humanity of the blight of ego-driven interventionism.
Paul’s comment illustrates the point made in Lew’s article that most people don’t really have a good conception these terms (capitalism, socialism, etc.). Many seem to have only the emotive response that they’ve been brought up to associate with them.
This leads me to wonder whether it’d be most pragmatic to simply quit the use of the most emotionally charged terms. You’d never be able to convince Michael Moore that capitalism is anything but exploitative, for instance.
If we boil them down to their essences, then — in the Austrian-Libertarian tradition at least — capitalism means freedom, and government means violence. Most people don’t see things this way though.
Freedom and violence are concepts that exist in cultures and languages the world over, and, in general, elicit the same emotional responses. That is, “freedom == good,” and “violence == wrong.”
I don’t know if the most despotic and manipulative government in the world can make “freedom == slavery” or “war == peace” in the hearts of the masses. But, alas, there are many historical instances of these concepts being overturned, at least where they fall outside the locus of an individual’s immediate experience. That is, where the violence or losses of freedom happen “far away” and to strangers.
My main point is that in the preface of any discussions on these matters we must ensure that the audience understands what we mean by “capitalism” and “government.” Only then can we show that, in every case, government means violence, resulting in hardship (economic and otherwise), and that freedom (capitalism) results in good.
Guys! Whether you like it or not… “Capitalism” is a black and tainted word today, just like “liberal” and “conservative”. Words matter. Why you insist on using a term associated with a slowly decaying system is beyond me. You sound like the communists who say we have never had true communism. Stop using old tainted words and start with something fresh… Voluntaryism… Dynmaic govt… Free and open markets as opposed to central planning!
Libertarianism is wankerism. You sit around and pat yourselves on the back and marvel at how smart you all are instead of doing something productive to effect change.
I absolutely despise Lew Rockwell. If his purported views were understood by the rest of the population, the scumbags in DC and on Wall Steet would be tarred and feathered and we might have a truly free market economy. But instead of trying to persuade those with the most likely chance of being enlightened (the conservative majority of Americans), he constantly ridicules them. The average person looking for insight into the economy who stumbles onto one of his articles is not going to be impressed by some guy calling him a moron, a baby killer, idiot, fool, etc. He is going to assume Libertarians are the idiots and move on. Lew does a great job of driving people away from the truth – he’s probably a closet communist. Consider the line: ” jailing political dissidents, crushing the left wing on campus”
What political dissidents are in jail? Try Scooter Libby, jailed by the LEFT.
How has the left wing been crushed on campus? That is just a moronically stupid thing to say.
Libertarians might compose a few percent of the population (their candidate got less than half of one percent in the 2008 presidential election. Why not try to educate those most likely see the world your way – the conservative majority – instead of doing your best to alienate them.
Smugly sitting in the corner and telling each other how stupid the rest of the world is may make you all feel smart and superior but it doesn’t do sh!t to change the world.
Personally, I’m deleting my Mises link and moving on too.
to “sick of libs”:
http://mises.org/daily/2892
Reading through the comments to this article, I couldn’t help but start thinking of the following quote of Winston Churchill: “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.”
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