Coercive Capitalism vs. Voluntary Socialism

Nowhere at present. It would take a fundamental change in how our oppressive governments operate. Ideally, they would give communities autonomy to freely pursue this alternate system, like the Amish for example.

 

I'm trying to understand the implications of this statement. Does this mean that if someone came along and offered to pay more taxes they would get my property?

 

My preference is that the taxing authority would have two tax payer options. Tax payer option #1 would be to accept the taxing authorities land value assessment, pay your taxes according to their assessment, and receive secure, exclusive tenure of the land without risk. Tax payer option #2 would be to make your own assessment of land value as the landowner, and paying taxes according to your assessment. Choosing option #2 would be like placing your property up for sale. If your assessment is high enough nobody will want to buy. If your assessment is low then a buyer might present himself. If you choose option #2 and a buyer did come forth, then you would be obligated to sell your property to him.

 

I sure hope that with as many replies as this absurd thread has recieved, I should not be the first to note that in the REAL world, history shows that the Choice that humanity encounters is:

Voluntary Capitalism vs. Coersive Socialism ​

 

Capitalism is not any more voluntary than socialism is. Both are coercive. The problem with capitalism is in how the capitalists want to fund their system. Capitalists want to make workers and consumers pay taxes to fund government infrastructure and services that make landowners more wealthy.

For instance, when government builds a new road, the taxpayers are poorer because they had to pay for the roads construction, but the landowners along the new road suddenly become far more wealthy, this is shown by the sudden surge in the prices they can demand for their land. So this is what capitalism does: it transfers wealth from workers and consumers to landowners. That is why landowners get rich and everyone else gets poorer.

 

Yeah, right.

 

The absudity of this is beyond belief. The only way in which building a road increases land prices is because suddenly more people have access to the land in question which increases the deamnd for said land. Meanwhile everyone with access to the road benefits from more choices for everyhting since more carriers of goods can access the area and ship more local products out of the area to other markets.

 

No, it would just mean the market rent had increased, and you'd have the option of paying it and keeping possession of the land. However, you need to let go of the misconception that "your" land is your property, just as slave owners had to let go of their mistaken view that other people were their property. By holding the land, you are abrogating others' rights to liberty, and you owe them just compensation for that.

 

It is indisputable fact.

OK, so you agree that far fom being absurd, it is objectively correct.

Nope. They don't benefit at all, because they have to pay landowners full market value for that enhanced access.

 

I think I'm beginning to better understand your point of view. In order for one person to have exclusive control over a thing (say, a car) , all other people in society must be prevented from access to that thing. Thus you regard the current user as abrogating the rights of others to use that thing.

I think the idea that anyone could come along and offer to pay more at any time would be quite disruptive and would lead to insecurity. Someone could spend a lot of time and effort to rehab a house, for example, and then some rich guy decides he wants it, offers to pay the community more for it, and then the community takes the use of the house away from the first user and gives it to the rich guy. Under such a system, it sounds like would be impossible for something to simply be not for sale. The community would always be willing to sell a resource to the highest bidder at any time.

 

That is tautological.

Nope. I knew you would get it wrong. A car is not something that others would otherwise be at liberty to use. Land is. Thus, products of labor can rightly be owned, as they are something new that has been created by their first owners, and that right of ownership does not deprive anyone else of any liberty they would otherwise have: the car has to be provided -- i.e., produced -- before anyone can use it. The land is already there, ready to use, without anyone having to provide it.

Not really. The market does that all the time, and people just accept that their place is now worth more, and pay the higher property tax. The over-bidder would need a motive, and unless the location was really worth that much, they'd lose money.

Nope. Wrong. The improvements are still the property of the person who made or paid for them. The community would have to make market compensation for them, just as they do now in cases of eminent domain, and wouldn't do so unless the new bid was enough more than the current landholder is willing to pay to make up the difference.

Everything that is owned IS for sale at some price.

Nope. Wrong. Security of tenure is crucial to land value, so it would be in the community's financial interest to strike an optimum compromise between secure tenure and recovery of the publicly created value of the land from its occupant. Landholders could even pay a modest premium for rent increase insurance that would guarantee a cap on the rent for a limited time or pay him compensation.

 

Well it sounds like a very interesting and well thought out system. You have certainly made me interested, and I regard it as worth further consideration.

 

Thank you for being willing to consider a new idea. That's a rare quality here on PF. If you want to know more, the traditional way to start is by reading Henry George's "Progress and Poverty." It's in the public domain and available online:

http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

 

Why aren't 'voluntary' socialists building communes of workers who directly manufacture goods and live communally?

We see a few hippy style communes which all share in the poverty that their poor planning entails but we have never seen a viable worker owned factory-community.

If socialists put their efforts into building such communes rather than spending endless time trying to grab tax money from other people then they may be able to demonstrate their ideology in action.

Socialism has been around since the early nineteenth century and yet there is not a single productive factory commune run on socialist lines anywhere.

If socialism is more efficient, as socialists claim, then Socialist communes would out produce capitalism.

 

Very good Sir. I concur.

 

News flash, you can go live on a commune in America right now. You can go have your socialist fantasy. Unions can start businesses. But that isn't what the left wants. They want control. So they have to force socialism on everyone. Socialism sucks too bad for any of its adherents to expose themselves to it.

If you were really a socialist, you would go be one. But no one really is. After all that work you will get the crazy idea that you should be compensated more then the guy who joined last.

 

Two pragmatic problems.

1) The enterprises currently belong to someone else so how are they to be purchased by the 'workers'? I ran the numbers on Caterpillar Ind., a publically traded corporation and at the stock trading price when I checked the workers could purchase the corporation but it would cost each worker about $275.000 as I recall. It's "doable" in theory but in reality it probably isn't feasible.

2) The "workers" are not qualified to run the enterprise. There is a huge difference between the knowledge to produce a product or provide a service, that the workers know a lot about, and the running of the enterprise which is a completely different skill set. An enterprise left to the workers to run is fundamentally doomed to failure not because they're not intelligent and hard working but because they don't know how to run the enterprise.

There is one final fact to consider. Lawful voluntary socialism can exist in a capitalistic economy but lawful voluntary capitalism cannot exist in a socialistic economy. The capitalism will exist in a socialistic economy but it will, by necessity, be black market capitalism.

 

Live richly (simply) or die trying.

 

It's imperative you watch the Documentary " Park Avenue " on Netflix

 

Excluding regulatory laws that inhibit free enterprise (e.g. State licensing requirements that impose unnecessary costs) what prevents the individual from not working for existing enterprise and instead starting their own enterprise and working for themselves under capitalism? Arguably a person that decided to start a yard care business predominately mowing lawns can earn many times the income that they would earn working for someone else. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge or skill to mow a lawn... or paint a house.... or sell apples on the corner.

There is no requirement that a person accept wages below what they can earn by being self-employed.

 

A couple of things. First of all, what are you going to do when the people in your socialist system say, I don't want to work... feed me, clothe me, give me shelter, water, heating, ac etc etc... What are you going to do when it's not just a tiny portion of the population but it starts to become a large portion of the population?

Second... capitalism is not a system that is imposed upon people. Capitalism is simply the observation of how a functional system works. Capitalism is not something someone fabricated and said, "everybody should do this". Capitalism was simply individuals observing how free and fair markets function when they're not impacted by outside forces such as government.

This is, of course, in contrast to socialism which is a fabricated system that requires a group to make decisions for others.

 

I haven't read of any proposals by "the left" to impose a socialistic economy on the United States. Yes the left advocates taxing and spending to address many issues such as social welfare issues but their agenda depends upon capitalism and not socialism.

Take Obamacare for example. It relies on privately owned insurance companies to provide insurance and it uses Medicaid to provide funds to pay for services for those that can't afford insurance. Both private insurance and Medicaid utiliize private hospitals and private health care clinics to provide health care services. This is far from being "socialism" where there would be no private insurance or private medical service providers. Obamacare depends upon capitalism to work.

We can even look at a contentious issue like discrimination in employment practices. The Affirmative Action Guidelines don't impose quotas or any requirements other than that private enterprises with government contracts and more than 50 employees create their own internal policies and procedures that would mitigate against discrimination in employment. Affirmative Action depends upon private industry, albeit a very small part of private industry, to address the problems of discrimination in employment.

Taxation and government spending under capitalism is not socialism regardless of what the spending is for.

 

They nationalized the home mortgage industry, they want to nationalize health care and have to a great extent, and now they want to nationalize energy. The food industry is about 30% under government control.

Not far at all. Telling everyone what to do and forcing them into one large collective billing system is socialist. Letting people still work to manage the plans just means it isn't total socialism. It is a spectrum.

They impose racial preferences in bids, college applications, membership of police forces, etc.. That is socializing racial preferences. Surely you must think that the government is actively trying to deal with race. There are more then a few programs and you can be sued for it as well.

Economic control outside of the military and police agencies is. Vouchers are a form of socialism, but less a form of socialism then government run school monopolies etc..

 

This is true which is why our government should limit itself to regulations that protect the People from enterprise as opposed to being involved in trying to influence economic outcomes with crony capitalism.

I do find it interesting that many conservatives that claim to be "free market capitalists" argue for the Capital Gains tax which is exclusively about the government intervening in the economy in an attempt to influence economic outcomes. Every "capitalist" would logically be opposed to the Capital Gains tax loophole because it's a component of crony capitalism.

A "capitalist" would also oppose the tax codes that treat a corporation differently than a sole-proprietorship as both are identical when it comes to free enterprise. It makes no sense that a sole-proprietor pays over 37% in federal taxes on a net income of $100,000 while a corporation would pay less than 22% maximum on the identical net income under today's tax codes.

Of note I'm a lasses-faire capitalist and not a free market capitalist but both should oppose the Capital Gains tax and special tax treatment for corporations that have lower tax obligations than a sole-proprietor is subjected to as both represent crony capitalism.

 

Some religious already live a life of temporal communism on Earth.