Applied Critical Thinking | Sheldon Thinks

Socialism Impractical

Russ Hay (‘Socialism in focus’, p.6, WangChron, 16/11/10) would have us resurrect socialism…to stave off capitalist exploitation. Capitalism did not create child poverty in the Industrial Revolution; it quickly absorbed the suffering long since engendered by socialism’s oppressive twin – feudalism, which also sanctions the initiation of force to achieve compliance with social/state values. Socialism will only be killed off if its ethical roots (shared with feudalism and fascism) are repudiated. Socialism is bad because its ethical base – altruism – is bad. Socialism is not practical because it’s not a good ideal.

The fact that there was poverty during the early stages of the industrial revolution is not because of individualism, but in spite of it. After all, poverty would have increased. It was the distortions caused by the coercive state/religious values which caused the problem. That is as true today, as the ‘quasi-private’ Fed debases the major currencies to prop up another distorted system.

The ascension of socialism was indeed a reaction to capitalism, however a flawed one. Unfortunately capitalists were never great defenders of their virtues. It was caused by a failure to recognise that the ills of the Dark Ages, which created a bent up demand for technology and a corresponding oversupply of labour. This distortion is justification for avoiding state intervention. After the fact, you might well argue a need to deal with imbalance, but not for making a virtue out of coercion or the values underpinning socialism, like altruism, which caused the problem. The reason why unconditional or intrinsic values as a standard of value fail is because they are not earned. i.e. They are not supported by logic, but rather guilt, fear and apathy. That was the Dark Ages in spades….but don’t expect a socialist to grasp the deeper ramifications….as they lack the conceptual skills to understand economics or psychology. It is becomes a question of smear and innuendo. Marx long since discredited.

We must also recognise that capitalism is an ideal which was never fully realised. Only a minority grasped its economic value and profited from it. The mixed premises of today’s capitalists are a legacy of the mixed economy – mix of socialism and capitalism which manifests in moral scepticism and invariably apathy. That is why capitalists, liberals and socialists today hate ideas, and are condemned to be ‘practical people’, i.e. materialists. Ideology has become a dirty word. Capitalism achieved more in the Industrial Revolution than any other value system – despite a legacy of socialist and Christian ethics. The true, unfettered ‘egoist’ is a producer of wealth, the socialist is a perpetrator, who appeals to Christian virtues to expropriate the unearned….having despoiled or distorted the economy.

Ideas for Clarity

Robottom (“Dishonest thinking”, 1st Dec) presumes too much and understands too little. My constrained 250-word rebuttals are fundamentally against all tyrannies, and that is reflected in a respect for facts, objectivity and science. Rights, not as impositions, but as an objective derivation from human nature. Democracy precludes objectivity by making laws a popularity contest (i.e. The tyranny of the majority) with arbitrary statutory law and pseudo-science offering a pretence of minority protection. Underpinning socialism, mercantilism, feudalism is tribal collectivist tyrannies. The US is a tyranny of moral scepticism, with religion leading to the moral scepticism of pragmatism, and other unhealthy European influences. You cannot think simply in dichotomies (capitalism-socialism) because people are ‘mixed’. Your mind has to be agile enough to consider a broad context of knowledge. The ‘New Deal’ spelled the debasement of money in response to the abuse of capitalism by govt; not its finest intervention. ‘Rational’ capitalism does not oppose higher wages; it simply opposes govt coercion, arbitration or minimum wages because they cause unemployment and other misallocations.

If you were abused as an employee, you should have seen the police, or gone to court. If you had no legitimate protection, blame the imposition of arbitrary statutory laws which create loopholes for illegitimate employers.

Altruism is not love. Anyone who thinks love is servitude has low self-esteem or ambiguous values. Abusive religious fundamentalists are an example. I don’t defend the lopsided distribution of wealth. Life sucks in a mixed economy; but I never vet others stash.

Justice for Maori

I empathise with Maoris over their ‘British’ treatment. They will never find justice if (i) they expect parliamentarians to help; (ii) they fail to align their moral interests with Europeans. British ‘subjects’ were ‘subjugated’ to the dubious collectivist notion of ‘common good’ long before Maoris. The best hopes lie with recognition of their ‘individual rights’. The problem – this proposition contradicts their ‘collectivist’ values, the product of centuries of tribal and British victimisation. Reading ‘Negative Spin’ (Wang Chronicle, 30^th Nov 2010), the treaty does them a great favour – by recognising them as a civilised people able to engage in contracts. Sadly Maoris are seldom champions of individualism.

Our political rights ought to derive from our nature as humans, and not as a legacy of a by-gone regime. Both political and ‘ECONOMIC’ individual rights are required. What good are political rights when govern can extort wealth through control of your bank accounts?

Maoris are accepting the same false hope as Europeans – that political middlemen will protect their interests. They are living on false hopes. Some Maoris will attempt to appeal to ‘Maori pride’, which is a vain pursuit. This is an intellectual battle and appeals to violence will only marginalise them. Common law or political campaigning for judicial activism are the best chance Maoris have to achieve a ‘shared’ justice. The notion that ‘Maoris have become beggars in their own land’ strikes me as unfair given their lack of preparedness for this ‘intellectual’ battle which has humbled even the best European minds.

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