Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Politics and Ethics--Socialism, Libertarianism, and Capitalism Message-ID: <269@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 20:24:46 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.269 Posted: Mon Dec 9 20:24:46 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 11-Dec-85 22:26:34 EST References: <1547@hound.UUCP> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 67 In article <1547@hound.UUCP> rwsh@hound.UUCP (R.STUBBLEFIELD) writes: > >Capitalism is a political system where the social environment supports >individual ownership of the instruments of production. More broadly, >capitalism is the system that protects the rights of individuals. Why do individuals have the right to own the means of production? I am looking for a coherent philosophical argument here, one that doesn't beg -- oh, forget it. >The >ethical base of capitalism is (in a loaded term) selfishness. The unit of >value in a capitalist society is the individual. A capitalist government >uses its monopoly on legal coercion to prohibit the initiation of force. >It uses force only in retaliation against criminals, allowing its citizens >to pursue their own rational self-interest free from the arbitrary use of >force by others in society. Thus a capitalist society is a free society. I have written at some length on why a capitalist society is not a "free society": the existence of private property entails rather severe constraints on freedom. Bob has refuted my point in the most effective way: by ignoring it. I have also asked why it is not an "initiation of force" to use coercion to prevent someone from trespassing, stealing, or picking pockets. None of these criminal activities need involve coercion. This point has also been completely ignored. >Equivocations by some notwithstanding, the unit of value of socialism is >a group--just as it is for all other forms of collectivism. The ethical >base of socialism is the opposite of selfishness--i.e., self-sacrifice. >There is a point in any collective political system where the individual >is sacrificed for some collective good.... In this paragraph Bob piles assertion on assertion without any attempt to support his statements or analyze their meaning. Why is "the unit of value of socialism a group," and what does that mean? What authoritative writings of socialists declare that individuals are to be sacrificed "to the common good," and why are these writings to be preferred to the many others that insist otherwise? Never mind; we're not supposed to ask. In fact, it was the basis of Marx's objections (and mine) to capitalism that it sacrifices individuals to the common good. >If it is freedom you want... How about explaining what *you* mean by "freedom," instead of using it as a mere football cheer or a stick with which to beat your opponents? Carefully analyzing the meanings of concepts is one difference between philosophy and merely braying one's opinions. I enjoy discussions with people who have different views. That is how one learns. But such discussions cannot get anywhere if one side makes no attempt to understand what the other side is saying and meet their arguments in a way that could be persuasive. Bob has provided a compendium of Randian slogans without attempting to engage in anything that I can recognize as philosophical debate. Over in net.philosophy, one may read some fairly sophisticated discussions of topics in the philosophy of mind and epistemology. Why is it that people suffer massive neural dysfunction as soon as the subject of politics comes up? I have participated in the discussions in this newsgroup in the hope of enlightenment, but I am frustrated by the grade-school level of many of the articles. I will be happy to continue discussions by e-mail. So long for a while. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes