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Helping those in poverty while rejecting socialism/equalism
#11

Helping those in poverty while rejecting socialism/equalism

Quote: (09-25-2015 02:49 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

Quote: (09-24-2015 11:55 PM)chagataev Wrote:  

Absolute material equality is not a necessary goal of socialism. Plenty of mainstream facets of the civilized world like social security, universal education, labor laws, 40-hour work weeks, aid to the disabled among other things were brought about in part through socialist agitation, and all were decried by the reactionaries of their day as the greatest of socialist evils.

They are evil. They were evil then and they're evil now. And 40 hour work weeks are a result of the capital accumulation following the industrial revolution and the age of capitalism, not a result of legislation. Legislators can only get away with things like 40 hour work weeks and abolition of child labour once those things are happening by default anyway. Imposing them before the capital exists to support them is to impose starvation on people.

That the material conditions exist to support something is no guarantee that it will happen. The living standards of the average person have often lagged behind large economic booms until the fruits of the increased production have been distributed (the industrial revolution, the gilded age, the ming dynasty expansion, the 16th century english expansion, to mention some of the larger economic expansions in human history which followed the pattern of living standards *decreasing* for the average person for a number of years until the produce was distributed better). At one point the material conditions existed that would support a 40 hour work week, but people still worked 80 hours. Then, through a combination of legislation and union activism, both backed by socialist agitation, capital was forced to concede a 40 hour work week. 80 hours work weeks could have continued on for some time while the conditions for a 40 hour work week existed, with the benefits flowing to capital. Your point is no point at all.

And if the whole gamut from child labor laws to universal education is evil, how much more is evil -- publicly administered courts and police forces? Libertarians are like left-liberals who bang on about Islamic immigration -- wait until they get what they wish for.


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That's some serious true believer talk. Socialism has always been about "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". So sure, you can have plenty of ability and talent, but you'll be punished for it by parasitism, and by extension, the more of a useless urchin you are the more you're allowed to parasitize others. You won't receive the personal benefits of intelligence and ability and industry like you would under capitalism.

None of this says that absolute economic equality is a necessary goal of socialism. The in the USSR there never existed absolute economic equality. Plenty of more intelligent people went on to become engineers or whatever else and made more money than the average worker. This is not to defend the USSR too strongly. But "absolute material uniformity" is NOT an axiom of socialism in some way (there, of course, are no set axioms of any ideology).

And socialism can promote economic mobility for the talented, and has done so. I don't know how anyone can deny that universal education and expanded access to high education promoted social mobility. Especially in the middle on the 20th century when school systems attempted to select more strongly for intelligence, plenty of working class people who would never complete much education without the socialist reforms to school access completed secondary and tertiary education.

And of course, there is plenty of parasitism under capitalism. The majority of the finance industry for example. Rent-seekers, inheritors, beneficiaries of nepotism. Such things can exist in any society regardless of economic system, but socialist policies can and do smooth them over, to varying degrees of success depending on implementation.
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