What, exactly, is socialism? Again this discussion seems necessary.

Again, you pretend that the only solution is to accommodate injustice, not to challenge and overturn it.

 

You could have just said that you do not have the means to explain discrimination. Why is it that the Marxists can explain the phenomenon and you're just pishing in the wind?

 

A tin of pilchards, sure. A lifetime of sharing resources (and thus ACTUALLY reducing poverty) is the equivalent of a tin of fish.

Does that make your armchair feel comfier, saying that? Smooths out those annoying guilt lumps in your cushions a little? I imagine it's quite an afront to have someone your nose in the vanity of lip service. I can see why need to feel as though you're fighting that.

 

Yes, lazy and selfish people often say something like that. I'm sure you realise that you could personally relieve the poverty of many people over your lifetime, yet you choose not to. You're waiting for someone else to fix it, just like so many others.

If everyone waits for someone else to fix the world, nothing will ever change. You are a part of that problem.

 

There is no injustice in sharing property. There is no rent. No exploitation.

Remember, there is no democracy when it's not ground-up. Decide what you want, democracy or totalitarianism.

 

I am working with what IS, not what was .. nor what might be in some unknown future. You should try it.

 

As you continue to spout right wing economics and pretend to be left wing? It just makes me shake my head with contempt. I'm not bought by it, sorry.

 

Extra lumps, in fact!

Every time you blurt out "Oooh errr .. you're like, totally Right Wing!", I know the lumps are troubling you. FTR, I don't give a flying **** what you call me. I live a communism/socialism you can't even bear to think of, much less actually do - ergo being called Right Wing by such an ardent capitalist is actually pleasing (and quite funny)

 

As I said, I don't care about your left wing pretend grunt. I've seen it all before; indeed you do it so badly that you're a celebration of the cliche. This is about your acceptance of right wing economics. You have repeatedly supported, for example, supply side economics. By adopting that economic perspective, you destroy any coherent focus on economic justice. You simply pander to your right wing chums.

 

There IS no justice in anything but capitalist democracy. The minute you try to impose 'equality', you remove all justice. You WILL end up with a nation in which half the population is forced to work to support the other half, and no means at all of preventing more non-workers joining the lazy half. The entire thing collapses, after a brief run of deeply unjust 'slavery'.

When all people are free to choose how they will live, and all have equal access to the incredible opportunities of wealthy First World nations, perfection is reached. Full justice was served once the last institutional barriers to participation were removed.

The problem is that you have a childlike understanding of 'perfection', predicated on the very bizarre idea that all people are exactly the same. You refuse to consider the concept of freedom of choice, and so measure all outcomes as though the humans behind them are robots. Perfection is not 'always winning'. Perfection is the freedom to win, OR fail. Perfection must include failure, or it denies human agency.

 

It's simple, when the takers exceed the producers, the Ponzi scheme called socialism, collapses, like it always does. Jesus, does anyone know why they say those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it?

 

At last you admit that you aren't a lefty! Well done. To get some honesty out of you, finally, is a jolly good thing.

 

All human progress has come from people like me who imagined a better future and did what was necessary to achieve it, none from people like you who plastered band-aids over cancer.

Why would I try your route of guaranteed failure to achieve any progress?

 

But sharing one's own property does nothing to redress the injustice of others' property in people's rights. So it's nothing but a futile gesture. Showboating, really.

Of course there is: via everyone ELSE'S property in people's rights.

False. Democracy does not forbid leadership.

Oh, I want democracy. It is you who seek to preserve the institutions that will end in totalitarianism.

 

No they don't. You just made that up.

No I couldn't. Without a shift to justice and liberty in our institutions, it would be nothing but a futile gesture, and could well make matters worse.

No, you are just makin' $#!+ up again. In fact, you are a classic example of Thoreau's penetrating observation:

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.” -- Henry David Thoreau

You are the one doing nothing but make matters worse. I am the one striking at the root of evil (i.e., greed, unfortunately mistranslated as, "love of money"). And I think you know it.

I'm the one explaining why there is only one way to fix it, and what that way is.

<yawn> Thoreau was talking about people like you, champ, and I will thank you to remember it.

 

Marxists can't explain it; they merely pretend to because they are immutably ignorant of human nature. They couldn't explain how to boil an egg.

 

This is a rather immature response. That Marxists have an explanation for why the market does not eliminate discrimination is a matter of fact. Based on classical economics's focus on bargaining power, it is constructed around a more in-depth understanding of worker interaction. The only debate is the extent that we should be pluralist and rely on alternative perspectives. Institutionalism, for example, refers to how bigotry (and therefore right wing authoritarianism) diffuses from society to the labour market. A non-bigoted employer is then powerless to eliminate discriminatory practice as the profit motive reinforces that discrimination.

What we can say for sure is that the Marxists have a coherent understanding of discrimination that explains empirical outcomes such as white male advantage. In contrast, you have nothing. Given the continued curse of discrimination, perhaps your stance on justice is a tad hypocritical?

 

What is the Marxist explanation?

 

Yes, every time. HUMAN NATURE guarantees it.

These Ponzi fans refuse to accommodate that human nature (insisting every one of us is identical, and all just waiting for that lucky break to commence our lives of tireless productivity and self-sacrifice).

 

What on earth does our capitalist democracy model have to do with my voting habits? You DO realise that 99.9% of Lefties are the most flaming capitalists on planet earth, dontcha?

 

I couldn't believe you typed "there IS no justice in anything but capitalist democracy". Pretend lefties tend not to be so obvious in their right wing grunt

 

The problem is that you DO nothing.

With every extended family or group of friends who engages in collectivism, we take a tangible step forward to a better future - for even the weakest members of society. It MUST come from the ground-up, else we're totalitarians - and that's what ground-up is. The people, saying 'no thanks' to individual pursuit of the luxuries of individualism.

 

The problem is that you DO nothing.

With every extended family or group of friends who engages in collectivism, we take a tangible step forward to a better future - for even the weakest members of society. It MUST come from the ground-up, else we're totalitarians - and that's what ground-up is. The people, saying 'no thanks' to individual pursuit of the luxuries of individualism.

 

That is as silly as the notion that any worker owned enterprise is necessarily a step closer to socialism. It isn't. You also know that as you ignore issues such as the anti-commons. In reality you're no different to the pilchards tin donator to a food bank; full of self importance, lacking knowledge of irrelevance.

 

If all property owners shared their properties with less able loved ones/friends, then all 'others' are covered. If the loved ones/friends of 'others' are not sharing their land, they have freely chosen not to assist. Your argument is entirely with those who refuse to assist, because it's they who are creating impoverished 'others'.