Kajahtava said:
No, that's oligarchy, socialism, or communism as the words suggest is chiefly trying to control it for the people.
Communism, to commune, community? It basically means 'sticking together'.
"Sticking together" and "for the people" are just legitimating ideologies. In reality "the people" or "the collective good" are never really about distributing all privileges and work equally among everyone. It's just about buying off the lower classes in order to guarantee the social position of those with higher status. The logic is, "the government treats you so well, why should you complain about doing your job."
There is a distinct difference between socialism and a market that is not free. If I suddenly ban the selling of certain drugs that has nothing to do with socialism or not. And indeed, many advocates of capitalism call for banning of drugs and prostitution for instance, while many socialists simply advocate treating it as a business like any other.
Drugs and prostitution are businesses like any other, except the product is highly addictive and the consumers lose control over their ability to resist consuming. This means basically guaranteed sales for the producer/dealer/pimp. It also means guaranteed tax revenues for the government that taxes it. I'm familiar with the Dutch rhetoric legitimating the toleration of drugs and prostitution, but I'm afraid it's just the result of some people being addicted to the products and others being addicted to the level of business and tax revenues that the industries generate.
Did you ever read Das Kapital?
Just asking, because you're re-defining the term socialism here.
Yes, it's short. Marx saw socialism as the worst enemy of communism. I am basically repeating his critique here. He saw it as the bourgeoisie's attempt to buy off the working class to avoid communist revolution. I'm not for revolution, personally, but I think a free republic is very close to Marx's ideal communism, except the means of production are owned individually by the workers instead of collectively. The main benefit of Marx's communism anyway, imo, in the synthesis of proletariat and bourgeoisie, which basically translates to everyone having a universal consciousness in which they both perform productive labor and take responsibility for the means of production. Capitalism, according to Marx, is what alienates each class from the consciousness of the other.
Counter-example: Netherlands, the country that I live in. It re-distributes a lot more than that, it also subsidizes art from taxes for instance, often pretty high culture art that has no appeal to at the poorest layers of society.
Again, I'm familiar. That government is basically subsidizing class-culture pluralism. It's called "pillarization," I think. There is little if any class mobility. Workers work, cleaners clean, artists paint, and intellectuals communicate. Each is guaranteed in their position and income and is forbidden from branching out into other sectors. Individuals are imprisoned within a formalized division of labor, supposedly instituted by unions in their own interest and protection.
I have no idea what this means, sorry.
It means that true redistributive equality would also include redistributing forms of labor and places to live every so often. In other words, a college professor would switch to sweeping the street after a couple years, then to working in a supermarket, etc. Also, someone living in a nice expensive apartment in Amsterdam would move to Groningen or some small town, and vice-versa. The fact that these kinds of trades do not take place indicates to me that while income and consumption-opportunities are somewhat leveled by Dutch government, class distinctions based on profession and where people live is not addressed for redistribution/sharing/equalization.
You almost make it sound as if the richer layers of society willingly give it up to the poorer.
Of course not, they're forced to do so by the law.
It seems that way, doesn't it. The truth is that by funding the poor through government, the rich make the poor dependent on a lifestyle they provide them. The government and unions are just used to propagate the belief that the poor are exercising power by taking money from the rich. In reality the ideology, which is explicit for the most part, is to share the spoils of capitalism to make everyone happy with it.
Of course it would be wonderful if everyone could live at the standards provided by the Dutch government, but obviously it isn't or else there wouldn't be such strong resistance to migration. Dutch social benefits fuel the desire of citizens to "protect their paradise from outsiders." Again, this is an effect of being on a payroll. I have been trying to figure out what interest there is in making people so protective of their nanny-state, and I think it has to do with creating solidarity and national pride, and also maintaining high population density, since that stimulates high property prices for relatively small living areas.
Ideally the Dutch way of life could be extended to a global universal, but I wonder if it would be either feasible or sustainable if there was no exploitative/exploitated capitalist markets outside the socialist paradises to use as investment markets to generate the surplus wealth that gets redistributed to the beneficiaries of the system.