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From: mwm@ea.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Socialism & libertarianism
Message-ID: <22400069@ea.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Dec-84 14:26:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ea.22400069
Posted: Wed Dec 19 14:26:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 02:38:32 EST
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Nf-From: ea!mwm    Dec 19 13:26:00 1984

/***** ea:net.politics / gargoyle!carnes /  2:28 am  Dec 17, 1984 */

>  don't claim to be an authority but I'll try to answer.

First, " First let's clear away some rubbish.  SOCIALISM DOES NOT, REPEAT NOT, MEAN
> GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION.  Americans seem
> to absorb this concept of socialism with their mother's milk, but please try
> to resist the force of habit for a while at least.  

I did so absorb it. Now, I'm trying to find something to replace it.

> How do you tell if a society is socialist?  It is socialist if the society
> is run by the workers.  Industry will be run by the mass of workers in each
> plant rather than by a few fat cats in the boardroom as at present.

Hmm, looks like you have two tests here. The first one "a society is
socialist if it is run by the workers." If administrators/managers are
workers, then every society is socialist. If they aren't, then worker
actually means producer. So, in a truly socialist society, there are no
managers - every worker takes time out to manage a little. I know of no
society that qualifies; they all have some "leader" or another. So flaming
about "the failure of socialism" is ridiculous. It hasn't existed, so it
can't have failed.

The second test is "industry will be run by the mass of workers ...". In
other words, to "own" part of a production plant, you must work in it. Fair
enough - I think I could tell such a system from the outside. However, it
will still leave a class distinction between those who own part of the
means of production (workers) and those who don't. The lower class now gets
to starve, without the option of trading their labor for food. It *does
not* keep people from starving, as has been claimed several times on the
net.  This test also suffers from the workers/managers dichotomy, so once
again there are no socialist states (yet).

Most of the comments on libertarianism have already been answered. However,
I want to note one:

> I doubt it,
> because libertarianism is a defense not of freedom but of capitalist
> privilege.

This is just flat false. Libertarianism does include the notion of private
property. It has to - you can't be free without being able to control what
you own. Likewise, you can't be free if you don't own anything. However,
there is nothing fundamental in libertarianism to prevent the government
from owning property - including factories, etcetera, and running them as
in a democratic socialism. Unlike statist socialist state, an individual in
a libertarian state *always* has the right to compete with the state. This,
of course, makes him a capitalist.

> Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes