Noumenon:

Your link is entertaining, and gives another explanation of why people may not wash rental cars, but the point is still the same... Even with the short period of time most people have rental cars... it's still (barring off-roading and wanting to prove toastmasters wrong) the owner that's willing to wash it. ;~D

That sentence makes the wrong point. It is "long" that makes people wash cars, not "short". So it's not "even" but "obviously".

If somebody would rent a car for a year (or for good), he'd wash it, I am sure.

The owners is probably willing to wash it because the next renter is not willing to rent a dirty car. I have seen many cars owned that are not washed.

But your link said that most cars aren't rented out long enough to get dirty anyway. ;~D

My link?

Excuse me, 'the' link. My mistake.

Leauki,

All political systems have their grand theory, stating how they would work in a pure environment untainted by culture, religion or past events. Basically, how they would work in a vacuum. This is the big problem with ideology in my mind, as man has never lived in this untainted "pre-historical" or supposedly natural vacuum. In the world of radio, this is similar to the concept of an isotropic antenna. In practice, isotropic antennas don't really exist but they are handy for explaining many of the properties of radio wave propagation and dispersion. But you will never see one floating above your car!

With that said, for me the definition of socialism, or true "pure" socialism is a system whereby there is no private property whatsoever. Absolutely every resource, asset and piece of land is owned collectively, equally administered and shared by everyone. This is not doable, nor would I ever want to try it! On the other side of the coin, the same applies to capitalism. Under ideologically pure capitalism, there is no such thing as "the commons"- every single centimeter of the earth and everything on it is owned by private individuals, with no laws regulating trade or commerce- the mythological object of worship called "the free market", which in my mind is also a farce and will never exist.

Sadly, people on both sides will forever push their brand of ideological purity, quite often with religious zeal. The scary thing about any system that is ideologically pure is it will never compromise with or for anything, and could only ever work so long as humanity is in some kind of tabula rasa, pre-historical blank slate upon which it can be rebuilt anew.

Now just follow me through on this- whenever you have the introduction of any kind of absolute system (communist socialism or attempted true free market capitalism)it never works, and it never will work. And in both cases, we see the EXACT SAME FORMULA BEING APPLIED. When the system doesn't work, the proponents of that system argue that it is because of impurities or distortions in societies fabric that need to be undone. We need to destroy the old model of civilization and rebuild anew! We need a complete blank slate upon which to sculpt our masterpiece! So the prescription is the same. Smash society to bits and rebuild it. Shock the patient with enough electricity in the hopes that their brain will be wiped clean of all memory and we can start from the ground up! This comes in the form of re-education camps. Taking children away from their parents and putting them through ideological indoctrination. Completely privatizing all functions of the state, doing away with trade protections, price controls and wage laws.

Every time this is tried, the proponents of the theory succeed in smashing their nation to bits, but when they try to rebuild it in their perfect vision, it never works the way it's supposed to. They then argue that this has nothing to do with the dammage they've inflicted, but because they didn't quite succeed in completely resetting everything to zero last time. While they got close to their blank slate, there were still a few impurities that mucked things up! So, clearly, the only possible option isn't to admit that their system isn't feasible due to human nature, but to use more force, more changes, more shock to truly reset things to a tabula rasa. That is the great myth: humanity never has and never will exist in this magical state they seek to rebuild things. So they will go on destroying their own society, unwilling to admit the ridiculousness of their ideas until either some outside force comes in to take over, or their own people get fed up and have a revolution!

We did that, in my family.

The government (parents) controlled the property and everybody got the share he needed and contributed as much as he could (i.e. the parents worked and the children only consumed).

There is no purity in the real world.

The less private ownership we have of things, the more socialistic the society is.

I find it interesting to see someone use a family analogy. Most of us do not view the government as something analogous to a mom and dad.

Which is in itself a strange and new thing. It's only a few hundred years ago that paternalistic/maternalistic forms of governance were the norm. There are governments now that offer the same level of paternalism - the most famous in the last century was probably Haiti under the doc or any of a number of nations boasting a 'father of the motherland'.

When you think about it the analogy is pretty apt to the kinds of extended family that used to exist in the West and still exist in less developed areas. There's a family matriarch/patriarch (the executive). There's a coalition of aunts/uncles who do all the planning and legwork and offer advice to the head of the family (senate/reps). And then there's the others, who contribute part of their wages and their spare time for the good of the family as a whole (the taxpayers).

As humans we're inclined to think of things as familial relationships. I would be more concerned about the background and motives of those who don't than about those who do.

Governments try to tap into our family-loyalty circuits to get us to support their non-familylike organizations. If they could really get you thinking you should obey the leader like your father, or sacrifice for others like your brothers, they could get a lot more loyalty from you.

The family is actually subversive to government because it gives people outside loyalties and unofficial sources of support.

I don't think of the government as a family, but the family does make a good example of a human organization that functions well without private ownership. But it depends so much on the evolutionary impulse to support your kin that government can't really operate the same way.

The analogy with a family is quite normal, I'd think. Afterall, we do use the word "economy" ("household") to describe the market situation in the country. The people who first thought about these issues certainly did think that a family is an example for an economy.

I also only use the analogy whenever somebody claims that they have never seen socialism work (or "prove" that it cannot work). They seem to have forgotten where they came from.

It's like the egoists who cannot explain why female animals undergo pregnancy to make new animals. The point is simply ignored.

I am also under the impression that most of us do not view mom and dad as something analogous to mom and dad any more.

A good argument against socialism or communism cannot be made based on false assumptions, ignorance of reality, and denial.

Accept that socialism can and does sometimes work, explain why it doesn't always work, why it is unlikely to, and THEN you'll have a case.

But for most people who grew up in a family where everybody contributed according to ability and received according to needs the premise "socialism cannot work" sounds ridiculous, and any further arguments against socialism based on similar denial or ignorance can safely be rejected.

Examples of downright stupid arguments against socialism (and reasons why people might reject them):

• "Socialism doesn't work." (Socialism does indeed work pretty well in the example most visible to all: the standard family. Capitalism, OTOH is plainly shown NOT to work at all in the same environment. Correct argument here would be not "socialism doesn't work" but "socialism cannot be used in circumstances X, Y, Z because A, B, C etc.".)



• "Socialism is fascism." (In Germany communists and social democrats died at the hand of fascists because they were the ONLY ones to oppose the Nazis. Big business did NOTHING to oppose the Nazis, socialists did EVERYTHING to oppose the Nazis. The correct argument here would be to stop blaming the victims for the evils of their murderers and show at least enough respect for the victims of fascism not to accuse them of being the perpetrators.)



• "Socialism is communism." (Here "communism" is Stalinism and the system of the Soviet Union. Social democrats were, again, the most vocal enemies of communism and suffered the most under it. They were put in camps, executed, and otherwise punished for their opinions. In East Germany all parties existed next to the communist party, except for the Social Democratic party, which was illegal. Same respect for the victim thing applies here. The argument simply cannot be used usefully.)



• "Socialist policy X will lead to immediate disaster." (Often used, but usually denies reality. Many such policies have been in place for decades in countries without disastrous consequences. I was once told that a land value tax would lead to immediate disaster, even though Estonia has one and does very well compared to other former Soviet Union members and compared to the rest of the world. To be fair, that same person pointed to LA as an example of a failure of the land value tax, even though LA doesn't have such a tax and never did.)



• "The Nazis were socialists. National SOCIALISTS. Get it? This proves EVERYTHING." (This "argument" is simply based on ignorance of what "Sozialismus" means in the German language. In short, "socialism" is short for an economic socialism, which is advocated by socialists and communists alike. It has nothing to do with socialism as applied to tribes or nations or anything but the economy, although the Soviet communists did also implement national socialist policies. "Sozialismus" itself is simply the -ism related to the word "Sozius", which means "friend", "comrade", "partner" and is used to describe many systems derived from those concepts in German, including "Nationalsozialismus" where all members of a certain tribe or nation are meant to be "partners".)



• "Socialised health care will drive prices up. Here's the proof: X." (While it might be true, in practice, the theoretical proof doesn't work, because socialised health care creates monopsony power, and monopsony power LOWERS prices, just like monopoly power makes them go up. Hence any "proof" X that tries to show the opposite is easily disproven. IOW there is no objective logical proof that socialised health care by itself drives prices up. It does not. All things being equal socialised health care drives prices down. The real argument here would be to point out that when prices go down, quality might go down as well as good doctors leave the country or decide to work in another field where there is more money."



• "Socialised health care is a recipe for disaster." (Many European countries have socialised health care systems and none have approchaed anything that could be considered a "disaster". Life expectation is as high in Germany as it is in the US.)

You are relying too much on evolution here. Fact is that families with adopted children, who are not kin, merely children, also work.

Maybe our instincts are fooled into thinking that we are supporting our own genes. But then socialists claim that we have free will and can apply that same good will to complete strangers (of the same class or whatever). Ironically that makes socialists libertarians (i.e. believers in the doctrine of free will) whereas many of their opponents, who put human nature above free will _CALL_ themselves "libertarians".

You are relying too much on evolution here. Fact is that families with adopted children, who are not kin, merely children, also work.

Hmm -- a family with adopted children works OK, especially if they get the children young. A family with a stepfather doesn't work as well. I wonder if you got together people none of whom were related and put them in a family structure, if it'd work.

Actually, why does it seem that "from each according to their abilities" always results in the mother doing 2/3 of the housework, even when she also works? It seems to take some oppression to make the system work.

The National Socialists did everything they could to defeat Socialism?

I was wrong in my comment in my blog Leauki, you have a great sense of satire! :~D