The Onion: Socialism Vs. Capitalism: How About Democratic Socialism vs. Objectivism

href=”http://thedailyreview1975.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-onion-socialism-vs-capitalism-how.html”>The Onion: Socialism Vs. Capitalism: How About Democratic Socialism vs. Objectivism

Just to be serious for a minute or so and risk losing viewers who are expecting nothing but laughs from me and for me to be an asshole. Socialism vs capitalism, is not a real debate. Socialism, is a broad collectivist political philosophy. Capitalism, is an individualist economic system that every developed country in the world has a version of including social democracies. Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, go down the line. The amount of major countries in the world that don’t have a capitalist system, you can now count on one hand and perhaps not need a second finger. Just chop off the other four, or save yourself from some extreme pain and point out North Korea and perhaps Syria. While you hold your other fingers down. This should really be capitalism vs Marxism, or capitalism, vs Communism.

So let’s try it this way and compare democratic socialism and use perhaps Bernie Sanders as the elected leader and not Marxist dictator. Versus what I at least call Randism, that I personally named after Ayn Rand and name Ayn their leader. You should’ve seen the ceremony, because it was beautiful. No one forced Ayn to show up, because she’s an objectivist and showed up voluntarily.

You have Democratic Socialists who say that the state or society as a whole is the most important thing. And because of that you can’t let people to be free and as individualist as they want. Because some people are just better and more productive than others, which will make the poor and ignorant look even worst and hurt their self-esteem. They say what we should do is have a big central state and not even have states and localities with much power over their own affairs either. Because if they’re free to do well than others will be free to struggle. And one part of country will be doing very well, because they know how to educate, how to build, how to regulate, how to tax and everything else. While other parts of the country will have central planners who don’t do much else than planning screw ups. And their people will suffer as a result. So you need a big central state to run things from government central to take care of the nation.

And then you have Randian’s or Libertarians, or Objectivists. Who say, “what’s mine is all mine! And anything that government take is a form of theft! And any type of regulation is a form of imprisonment.” So in a Randian system, government doesn’t tax or regulate. Just arrests criminals and imprisons them. (I guess after a fair trial) And protects the country when it’s under attack. How they even pay for that? Your guess is as good as mine. They would say tariffs, but Randian’s also believe in free trade and part of free trade is low tariffs. In a Randian system, instead of government trying to do practically everything for everybody, short of running business’s, government does practically nothing for no one. Except when a someone becomes a victim of a predator.

So you have Democratic Socialists who say that the collective is more important than the individual. They say you can’t have people living for themselves and showing everybody how much smarter, more productive and cooler they are than Joe and Jane Average, as well as Tom and Mary Below Average, and John and Susan Moron. They say what instead society should do in a Democratic Socialist’s mind is say that at the very least Bob and Anne Rich, should take care of the Average’s, the Below Average’s and the Moron’s, because they can afford to. That if you encourage people to become independent of the state as far as trying to succeed financially, then that is exactly what will happen. So you need big government to step in and prevent that from happening so everyone is taken care of.

With the Randian’s saying, “of course we want to be free on their own! And is someone falls down, people especially Bob and Anne Rich and other Rich’s, will step in and take care of the people who fall on hard times.’ Democratic socialism, is not the ultimate of collectivist economic systems. But only Marxism beats it when it comes to collectivism. Randism, is not the most individualist of economic systems, but anarchism beats it. But Democratic socialism and Randism, are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Democratic socialism, has at least one thing on Randism, it has been tried and still in use in the world with success. Randism, well there might be more Randians than Marxists right now, but a squirrel is bigger than a mouse, so what. I’m not a fan of either, but they’re both fascinating to follow.

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Liberty Pen: The Mike Wallace Show- Ayn Rand: ‘Liberty vs. Statism’

Source:Liberty Pen– Objectivist author Ayn Rand, on The Mike Wallace Interview, in 1959.

Source:FRS FreeState

“Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand regarding socialism and individual liberty.” From Liberty Pen.”

From Liberty Pen

If you’re a Liberal such in my case, or a Libertarian/Objectivist in Ayn Rand’s case, you believe in individual liberty. That the people have the right to essentially govern themselves. Now, my approach to liberty compared with Ayn Rand’s, is much different, but our objectives are the same.

Ayn Rand, is exactly what a Classical Libertarian is: keep government completely out of the economy. No taxation, regulation, or a safety net coming from the government. I however, believe that government has a role in not regulating how people live their own lives, but how they interact with each other. To protect innocent people from those who would hurt them, but not try to protect people from themselves.

If you’re a Socialist, you essentially believe that the country is in it together and that no one should have a lot more than others. Even if they created that material wealth on their own. And that government should heavily tax those who make a lot. For one, to give to those who don’t have much.

And that government essentially knows best in what the people need to live and should be the one providing those service for the people. That government’s role is essentially to spread the wealth throughout society through high taxes. But not just high taxes on high earners, but everyone in general.

If you’re an authoritarian, or statist, let’s take Communists for example, you essentially believe that government’s role is to protect people from themselves, but also to protect people from the government. And that power comes and rests with the government. That if people have liberty, they won’t know what to do with it, which will cause instability. This is essentially the argument that the Chinese Communist Party and the Iranian Theocratic Islamists have made since they’ve been in power.

Despite all the stereotypes that Liberals have now about being about the welfare state and centralized power, especially coming from the right-wing and being bought in by the mainstream media, that’s really not what liberalism is about.

Liberalism, is not about the welfare state, centralized power and government control. Those things relate to socialism and statism. Liberalism, is about individual liberty and equality of opportunity for the individual. Liberalism, has more in common with libertarianism like in Ayn Rand’s case, but different from libertarianism and socialism.

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