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Wanting to profit off the labor of others, to steal their labor is slavery.
Where is there forced labor in America? The only slavery that takes place in America is through confiscatory taxation schemes which fund the warfare/welfare state and Morgan Reserve counterfeiting. Freely choosing to work for someone else instead of offering services, products, or ideas directly to the market is hardly slavery. Employees are simply selling their labor directly to employers instead of the entire market. If they are being "stolen" from, they have chosen to be "robbed".
Anyone can prove if they are being "underpaid" or not by offering their services on the open market. If you can make more on the open market you were "underpaid" and would be better off on your own. If you can't then you should be thankful that someone else is "robbing" you.
Agreed!
Love the location in your description btw... it is so true these days.
I agree. That is my point - when I'm working for my employer, he profits, I profit - and that's capitalism but when the government comes along and robs us of our profits, forces us in other words to work for nothing for the profit of others who did no work, that is slavery.
I should reap the rewards of my labor, the labor of my own body and mind. Socialism robs me of my labor and forces me to work for the benefit of others. It robs me of my own body and my own mind in essence.
And everyone has the choice to quit, to work elsewhere or open a store away from the mall. Freedom is not socialism. Socialism requires government force.
A mall might be communal but it's communal capitalism except for the wages and profits that are confiscated in the form of taxes of course. The workers are earning money, the businesses are earning money. Some workers aren't laying around watching the televisions or playing the video games while the others must give up their paychecks for them - that would be Socialism..
A government forces someone to give up their hard earned wages to redistribute to those who made no effort.
And with Corporatism, with the entire country a parking lot, it seems each "choice" is identical to all the others.
And with Corporatism, with the entire country a parking lot, it seems each "choice" is identical to all the others.
Yep, big boxes everywhere. But they are closing at a alarming rate. Maybe if things get too bad, the government will buy them to turn them into homeless shelters.
There are many Americans workers today that are exploited by Corporations- and still more are at the mercy of Insurance companies for sickness and health or life and death
Even Teddy Roosevelt from 100 a years ago would be appalled. For those who believe that those less 'gifted' to compete in a free enterprise system should be left alone to just 'disappear' this echos horribly with fascism in Europe. Socialists in the former USSR- still looked out after the weak. The 'weak' or those not measuring up to the standards of the 'Master race' in Fascist Germany- Jews homosexuals etc where duly exterminated.
Capitalism does not equal Social Darwinism.
Although some capitalists are Social Darwinists.
Oh, and before you get all high and mighty, I'd like to point out that Communist countries tended to put the disabled in homes on the outskirts of town so people wouldn't have to look at them and "Progressives" like Teddy Roosevelt were some of the first supporters of Eugenics programs in the US.
Then America has been pregnant since before it was even a country.
Any society of people is a social endeavor. Are we as socialist as the Netherlands or even Canada, no, but it is also impossible to live every man for himself.
Every time we call a cop, the ambulance, drive on a highway, form a military, buy or sell products are all forms of socialized behavior.
Now what I expect the response to this to be is that the above examples are not really socialism in action but products of _______ (insert own rationalization)
The issue here is more about absolutism as you pointed out, "You can't be a little bit preggers". It is as though there is some line in the sand that is socialism on one side and whatever on the other. It doesn't exist, there is no line in the sand, we are socialist and have been since the first colony was started in the Americas.
Come on now, all you guys who use services to compare to real socialism are being extremely shallow. The type of socialism we're under threat of becoming is much, much worse. It's absolute and complete wealth redistribution. Not only from the rich like alot of you naively believe. It will be coming from everyone who is not among the elite, which most of the rich will be. Now there is talk of a one world communist government treaty being signed in Dec. being sold to the world as climate change policy. All of you who are arguing about the miniscule irrelevant forms of social services, need to wake the hell up. The sad part is alot of you are young and will never have a chance to raise a generation in the real America. That's a shame.
I think there are about four big programs out there that do true wealth redisrtribution at the Federal level:
1. Medicare
2. Medicade
3. TANF
4. Food Stamps.
...those are the major entitlement programs. These would come closest to the wealth redistribution definition of socialism. There are other smaller programs that do narrower redistribution. One of these is the Pell Grants program (grants to cover college tuition) and things like Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which redistributes wealth to local governments to do various things.
Personally I think Socialism is a misused term. What is really meant by Socialism in the US context is sometimes called Statism, which means the State (be it Federal, state, or local) does things that used to be done by the private or nonprofit sector, or intervenes in these sectors via regulation.
This is probably what Bastiat is talking about in the quote in the thread header.
I think there are about four big programs out there that do true wealth redisrtribution at the Federal level:
1. Medicare
2. Medicade
3. TANF
4. Food Stamps.
...those are the major entitlement programs. These would come closest to the wealth redistribution definition of socialism. There are other smaller programs that do narrower redistribution. One of these is the Pell Grants program (grants to cover college tuition) and things like Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which redistributes wealth to local governments to do various things.
Personally I think Socialism is a misused term. What is really meant by Socialism in the US context is sometimes called Statism, which means the State (be it Federal, state, or local) does things that used to be done by the private or nonprofit sector, or intervenes in these sectors via regulation.
This is probably what Bastiat is talking about in the quote in the thread header.
No, he was talking of socialism. His definition first of plunder:
Quote:
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Now, since legal plunder has been identified, let us look at socialism, which is legal plunder:
Quote:
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism.
And how does he feel about these type of laws?
Quote:
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law—which may be an isolated case—is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
Sorry, I forgot to include the link to Bastiat's quotes, taken out of "The Law"
Please read this people. It doesn't take too long. He wrote this knowing he was going to die of TB, and it was almost prophetic in where the USA is today, and how it got there.
Sorry, I forgot to include the link to Bastiat's quotes, taken out of "The Law"
Please read this people. It doesn't take too long. He wrote this knowing he was going to die of TB, and it was almost prophetic in where the USA is today, and how it got there.
Great read. Too bad the megalomaniacs among us could never accept the rational and moral line of thought in The Law.
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