[MD] Mao & The MoQ

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hey Ham,

Thanks for the quotes explaining capitalism to those who have been 
brainwashed in academe by historian Howard Zinn and other radical 
leftists. It's a breath of fresh air to be exposed to such intellectual giants 
as Hayek and de Tocqueville again.

Warm regards, 
Platt



On 13 Feb 2010 at 18:13, Ham Priday wrote:

> Hi Dave --
> 
> 
> > Platt leans to the right, DMB and many others here lean to the left.
> > RMP tried to straddle the fence but in the end he too leans towards the
> > socialist side of the spectrum. He defends socialism because in theory 
> > it's
> > intellectual, more moral, but lays it aside because by and large as
> > practiced it doesn't work. He defends capitalism because it works, but in
> > the same breath discounts it as less moral because it is not intellectual.
> > He is torn between his love of theory and his understanding that theories
> > are subject to the pragmatic test of how good they work. Nowhere is this
> > more crucial than at the social level.
> 
> I'm not an historian, but I don't see the basis for RMP's argument that 
> Socialism is "more intellectual or moral" than Capitalism.  Certainly these 
> human qualities do not define the practice of the two contrasting political 
> ideologies.  F. A. Hayek points out that Socialism is "authoritarian" in 
> that it makes property and the means of production subservient to 
> government, whereas Capitalism is basically "democratic", respecting the 
> right of individuals to own private property and the rewards of their own 
> productivity.
> 
> "It is rarely remembered now that socialism in its beginnings was frankly 
> authoritarian.  It began quite openly as a reaction against the liberalism 
> of the French Revolution.  The French writers who laid its foundation had no 
> doubt that their ideas could be put into practice only by a strong 
> dictatorial government.  The first of modern planners, Saint-Simon, 
> predicted that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be 
> 'treated as cattle.'
> 
> "Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville 
> that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: 
> 'Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,' he said.  'Democracy 
> attaches all possible value to each man,' he said in 1848, 'while socialism 
> makes each man a mere agent, a mere number'.  Democracy and socialism have 
> nothing in common but one word: equality.  But notice the difference: while 
> democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint 
> and servitude."
> 
> "To allay these suspicions and to harness to its cart the strongest of all 
> political motives - the craving for freedom - socialists began increasingly 
> to make use of the promise of a 'new freedom.'  Socialism was to bring 
> 'economic freedom,' without which political freedom was 'not worth 
> ving.'   --[Hayek: The Great Utopia]
> 
> I ask you, which is more "intellectual" -- a centralized government that 
> holds all the power and controls the people as a collective society, or 
> individuals who freely exercise their power to produce wealth and elect 
> government officials to represent them?
> 
> Speaking for myself, even if it were true that centralized power and state 
> control are necessary for an "optimally effective" economy, I would opt for 
> the preservation of individual liberty and free enterprise.  (Incidentally, 
> Adam Smith was wrong "that the amount of the world's wealth remained 
> constant and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of 
> another state."  People and resources, not the state, are the creators of 
> wealth.)
> 
> As for all this talk about the "morality of Socialism" as opposed to the 
> "greed of Capitalism", I suspect most of the MD participants privately would 
> concur with me.
> 
> Thanks for this exposition, though, David.  It is well done and obviously 
> thought-provoking.
> 
> Best regards,
> Ham