The Soul of Man Under Socialism
 

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/his...ilde_soul.html


Once again, I fall even more in love with Oscar Wilde. He agrees with me fully on almost every single point he raises in his essay. It sums up how I feel better than I can on all but the most modern of issues.


Your thoughts?

Since he's been dead over 100 years, I'd say he doesn't agree with you, but you with him.

Yes in the 1800s people were wishing for a workable socalist utopia.... they still are, because in practice it doesn't work. It flys in the face of basic human hardwiring that has enabled man to survive and flourish. It was and will remain a pipe dream. :grouphug:

The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely any one at all escapes.

Is it Backwards Day again?

Yeah, his whole argument seems to be that it is a chore to have to choose to help the less-fortunate, and we would all in fact be happier if this were mandated and done for us because then we wouldn't have to think about it.

I thought Socialists/Communists were supposed to be atheists, soul?
Must be backward day.
If one man works harder, invents more than another, his work is his, to do with as he/she pleases. State theft is still theft & still immoral.

Yet, capitalism will create an imbalance in class and it isn't fair to the people born into poverty.

Trying to be fair all of the time isn't fair. Some people do better than other, some families have more than others, just the facts.
If you are born to a family that has superior genetics in one area, should you be handicapped, lobotomy, have your Achilles clipped perhaps?
Fair, stupid concept.

Socialism and communism always sound so nice, but they never take into account that people (IMO) are by nature greedy. Capitalism has its bad side, but I'll take it over anything else any day.

But what if the person with the better genes is held back to begin with? Everyone should have the same starting point and let the strong pull away from the weak and then the next generation the same process continues.

I have wondered this many times. Are humans naturally greedy or greedy because we have been raised in a capitalistic society, which is greedy by nature?

I would like to know if we could train humans to effectively live in a far left society (anarchism to communism).

Are you saying you would agree to holding those with natural talents back?:eek:

You are born with the same opportunities to do well or screw-up, there are advantages and disadvantages to wealth and being poor. I know wealthy kids that grew-up with no ambition and poor kids that have excelled due to the road-blocks they had to overcome.
You play the hand you are dealt as well as you can.

My communist/socialist scenario:
Woods, cabin A, cabin B.
A busts ass all summer/spring long chopping wood, growing and putting up veggies, hunting and storing meat, repairing and maintaining cabin so it is tight and dry, barn is large and in good shape for animals, plenty of hay harvested for the long winter, working hard all season long, taking care of well so there is plenty of fresh water.
Cabin B
Lazy, just enough to get by all summer and spring, traded cow for wood and drink, not really harvesting or growing much at all, not really doing many repairs much less any maintenance.

Winter hits and it is a doozy, cabin A has just enough to get by safely with enough to be able to have enough to continue to survive after the winter into the following seasons.
It is clear that cabin B will die after the second month of snow.

No sane person would think that it is ok to "distribute" cabin A's hard work to cabin B so they both die... he/she should die as their obvious suicide intended.
It does not matter if cabin A was, perhaps, a bit smarter, stronger or naturally more talented in farming arts, some of us just have to try harder.
It could have just as easily been the other way around with B being the more talented and A working four times as hard to do ten times as much.
I grew-up on a ranch/farm and I know this scenario, if you don’t do, you don’t get.
This does not apply to the disabled and mentally ill, but being lazy is not a mental illness or disability, those who work harder and apply themselves should get paid more, those who save and invest more wisely should reap the benefits of those wise habits, it is right and, ironically, fair, even though that is not relevant… what is, is that it is just.

I am dyslexic in math, it is very, very hard for me, but I have a near photographic memory and extremely fast at making spatial and abstract connections.
I had to work three times harder in math than average students, but loved the higher math classes and physics.
In lit, art, writing, and those kinds of classes I, literally, never studied. Cannot tell you how many times I have had the words "it is not fair" said to me in regards to my grades/test scores... bullshit.
I graduated on the national presidents list, Gold Key… now, my math was torture. Most like me actually went to the school and were tested so they could get their math requirements waived. I just worked harder, studied three times as much as most, so my degree was real, earned and not given with a caveat. I would not have been able to accept that.

Is it fair when the lion eats the gazelle or if the lion cubs go hungry, when one pride does better than another?
It is a stupid word.
Natural selection is the way of the world; the human race is no different.

I believe that humans are naturally greedy - nature supports this.

But I don't believe that contributing to society, to community is theft. I don't believe in extreme forms of socialism, where people are not left with any benefits from their own work. But I also do not believe that leaving those incapable (for whatever reason) to support themselves in conditions of squalour (in developed countries) or to die (in undeveloped countries) is theft.

I have no religion and I'm quite hard when it comes to the sanctity of human life, but I believe people should be given a living chance. I believe in charity, but I also believe people should sometimes be obliged to give for the greater good. I think many posters here will disagree fundemantally.

In a trite analogy - I haven't paid UT a penny since coming here. But I have £20 ($40) which comes out of my bank account every payday to Save the Children and Help the Aged. I also give spare change to any charity around when I have it (have mentioned before, was brought up on the Gospel of St Matthew).

I'm not suggesting UT is a charitable cause, but he wasn't in my face. I've benefited from his community without contributing. I will in future. That's not theft. I appreciate it's not set up in a socialist way (enter your salary, we will bill your card the appropriate amount). But neither is it capitalist - which is a world which wants to exclude people like me who are basically honest, but pure dreadful with money.

No, forced contribution is theft. Charity is not.
Science, and just looking around, shows that we are not naturally greedy. If that were so, all would just be chaos. We take care of each other far more than the opposite.
I wish to pay UT and plan to soon. This is not a charity by any stretch of the imagination, we USE this site, we GAIN from it. That it is voluntary in no way suggests that it is charitable.

But that's bullshit. Sure, it happens sometimes, but I think a better scenario would be:

Cabin A and fifty of cabin A's paid buddies grow all their food very quickly and efficiently. So it goes, A has the cash to pay the buddies, fine. But with his cash A also grabbed all the decent land around cabin B and is paying B enough to survive on over the summer to grow food for A. Consequently, B doesnt have any land to grow food on, nor the time to grow his own food because he's growing food for A for pitiful wages. Winter rolls around and A has a massive store of food, wheras B is already freezing to death and starving to boot.

Now, A has two options. A can be charitable, nice, and reasonable and give B some food, or can just blame B for the lack of food.


What anarchosocialism proposes is not that A has to give B anything, but that society should be restructured so that A would willingly give B the food because thats just how it should be.
No sane person would think that it is ok for B to starve because A had more money to begin with.

LOL, so you just changed the parameters of the scenario (one where both are equal) to fit your ideal situation instead of dealing with it? Hilarious!
Worker A and B are on the job, A works harder, smarter and faster, he gets the raise and eventually the promotion & management position... that is as it should be.
Perhaps you can't screw that one up.
I understand you want to deny that some people work harder than others, but it is a fact.

Because that's not the REAL situation that the entire concept deals with.

Two people starting equal are two people starting equal. That is not and will not ever be a problem in society. The problem comes that they DON'T start equally.



Did you even read the essay?

It is also a fact that some people come by their wealth or good fortune by working less hard than others. Just because you work your arse off doesn't mean you have the same opportunities or outcomes.

People tend to take care of themselves and the people close to them first. If grabbing more than your fair share (greed) allows you to take care of things more comfortably, it's natural to do so.

Humans survive by nature, and amassing plenty tends to ensure survival (and cause heart-disease, et al).

Some of the most successful people start at or near the bottom. Being disadvantaged either makes you give up or puts a fire in your belly.

I think the artificial equality of communism/anarchism/whatever breeds contempt and laziness.

Re: the A and B scenario...you don't kill off a group you depend on (or exploit), you give them just enough to keep the benefit (until a more beneficial choice comes along)

rkzenrage......what?

I think everyone should start out at the same point no matter where your parents stand. Kids in the inner city should have an equal chance as the kids in the suburbs. There are many problems with this, especially social pressures and we should be working on fixing these right now.

I am not a communist or a hardcore socialist but I do believe that no one should die in our country as long as they give an effort to contribute to society. This means that instead of just handing out welfare, we make them do community service. There are many solutions to our problem but people are just avoiding the issue because it will involve a lot of work.

I believe that it is a first world nation’s duty to make sure everyone within its borders is alive and have at least a decent chance to succeeding. Even though welfare and theft is a very good argument, people will have to sacrifice to live in the country like this.

The world is not, nor ever will be, fair. With that in mind I tend to like the Scandinavian model of socialism. You can still use your natural talents to accrue wealth but _some_ of that wealth is distributed. To me it's no different than paying for public roads: it benefits the entire society.

Exactly, some people work smart... good for them, they deserve what they get, perhaps doubly so.

So, if I invent something and people buy it or I just work very hard and I make a lot of money you feel that my children should not benefit from it?
I think that is nuts, natural selection works for a reason.:eek:

If we were naturally greedy there would not be so damn many of us LOOK people. We are the most benevolent animal there is.
However, handicapping the most successful of us harms the species, it is stupid to do so. They should be encouraged.
We are lucky Gates did not just pack his toys and go home when we spit in his face recently, many of us would have, he would have been justified in doing so. I would not have blamed him, I would have sold recent products to the US and nations that did not sue him and products five years behind them to all other nations as a result. That would have been fair.

rkz...my point wasn't necessarily the same as yours. You can be the best, hardest working ditch digger in the world, but chances are you'll be in that ditch for the rest of your life. It doesn't mean you work any less hard. Just that your chances in life are limited.

I have been a ditch digger, a crap scooper, a bouncer, and other shitty jobs, dyslexic, with arthritis (and the others that I did not know about at the time)... chose to bust my ass and get a college degree by working my way through while the others stayed, chose.
Anyone can.

I don't agree with the word 'chose'. Not everyone gets the same choices because society doesn't support everyone equally.

Differen't people have different motivations. I doubt anyone else's would be the same as yours. Just as mine are not the same anyone elses, or anyone elses' the same as mine.

I don't buy into your argument, which is one demonstration as to why there will always be proponents for both sides, which is good because it means (hopefully) that democratic societies don't become wholly engulfed by one side or the other.

So, you patronize when someone disagrees with you and you don't believe in free-will?
No point in discussing this with an automaton.

As you can see, I edited my response to your previous post immediately, but the outcome is the same. You 'choose' to look only at yourself and not society at large to prove your point. This leads to a very one sided hypothesis when discussing an issue which concerns people who aren't you.

I was given no "up" or help. I worked for four years between my AA and BFA and worked all the way through both.
Society? The richest man in the US did not go to College and helped create his own market, the other did not finish high-school and was not rich to begin with. As a whole, our nation was built by self-starters and achievers who started from the middle or lower... I am not looking at myself only. Your ability to see into my head is astonishing.

the people you are noting are the exception, not the norm, therefore, they only account for a very small percentage of society at large and therefore do not provide relevant statistical data.

Consider the number of people born at or below the poverty line, and then consider the number of people who have become independantly wealthy from those origins. If this is an 'average' outcome, then I will accept your argument. If it's not, then your argument has no foundation.

So, you feel that if you are born poor you cannot better yourself? Free-will does not enter into it?
I'm just an anomaly?

My argument is as I first stated. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, your circumstances will stay the same, through no fault of your own.

I do accept that there are those in society who benefit from the hard work of others, and I also accept that sometimes it's possible to improve your situation in life. To rise above your poor beginings perhaps.

The thing I don't accept is that it's possible for everyone to do so. For one thing, if everyone did, the economy would crash quicker than you could blink.

Also, note that if there were no people requiring state assistance in any way, then there'd be a lot of people out of work. Your premise also surmises that everyone is honest and becomes wealthy via legitimate or moral means, a fact which you must surely acknowledge is not the case in many cases.

Those self-made people are very rare and sometimes things go wrong. Just because someone doesn’t have extreme creativity, extreme hard work ethic, and damn good luck doesn’t mean they should be stuck in poverty for the rest of their life.

I don't think that a child of a rich family shouldn't enjoy luxuries, just that the child shouldn't have an advantage in getting a good job than a kid raised in a poor family. They both should have to prove that they are better than the other.

Rkzenrage, I don't know if you are understanding or what. I think the person who works the hardest and proves that they are the best should get the best jobs, not just the best from rich families.

By the way, we have no free will or very limited free will.

I just wrote three pages and it did not post *shoves nail into eye*... perhaps later.

The nail probably wont help. ;) Sorry, there isn't a squint smilie

True, sometimes you stay, some times a ditch digger is a ditch digger due to no fault of his/her own. He/she may not be motivated enough.
When I left I had to go to class dead tired instead of deciding, making the choice, to sit on the couch or go to bed those nights after digging. He/she may not have the natural talents to do well in school, just a fact, no fault of theirs or the schools… they may have to work harder an many get discouraged, but quitting will be their choice. He/she may like their life, OMG!!!!

No, it is not possible for everyone to do everything, but it is possible for everyone to find their place. Again, excluding the truly disabled/mentally handicapped, lack of motivation is neither. You know what makes my point wonderfully, guys and gals that are “special’ often have to FIGHT for the right to work and have their own place (I was a coach for the Special Olympics).
The ones that choose to are always awesome workers and keep their places spotless. Free-will & choice is the difference.
That there would be less state workers sucking-up our taxes if more people did well is not a valid point. That would be a wonderful thing.

I strongly disagree. I have worked and gone to class all over the US and in every office and classroom I can honestly say there has not been, within arm’s length, someone who was from a poor, or poorer, background, working their way up. Many working two jobs, going to school while raising a family! In LA, you get the added degree to the slope they are climbing of their being “Mexican”, most are not but if they look Hispanic they are automatically “Mexican” to 80% of the idiots in the business community. But, do they complain, no? They CHOOSE to suck it up and prefer to fight on equal footing. I have heard that many times. Here in FL, OMG, the neck backgrounds, rife with meth and booze and yet they plug away, working on their dialect every day (I know this because I help). Again, I have never been in a class or office without someone working to improve.
It is not the exception, it is the norm.

How do you take the advantage away from the rich child? I am very curious about this.
Do you propose to make home-schooling, private schools, prep-schools & boarding schools illegal? Frats? Private college? How?
They should not have luxuries? Why not?
As for the job, their diction, grammar, dialect, people they know, places they have been, school’s shirt, frat pin on his lapel, prep tie, mason’s ring & handshake, vocabulary, etc, etc, etc… is going to go away, um… how?
Natural selection… the big lion’s daughter gets the gazelle… how it is supposed to be.

This is a long post and I am not going to give you a history lesson, I am just going to say this. I am right about this.
America was predominantly built by self-made men and women. Many of them freed slaves, under classes like Irish whom were treated like dogs and a great many uneducated individuals, who, through the pure power of free-will, choice and drive changed the world… for us it has been the norm, not the exception.

The way you see it is the way it is from your perspective rkz. Only yours. Oh for sure there are others who think the way you do, but not everyone.

As to America, well I'm applying my argument to Australia. Being a country based on a democratic, two party system, I'd say the same argument applies.

Yes there are opportunities for people to take up and yes I sometimes look at the news and think, "why doesn't that arsehole go get a job instead of complaining about what the government doesn't give him". Over here there are people who live their whole lives on welfare or who get no welfare because they're homeless. The thing is, in Australia, BECAUSE of the social services offered, there's no reason for people to be homeless. That is a fact. And yet people are. Is it easier to have no home? I doubt it. The persecution alone would be enough to make most people stop being homeless. So why do people choose to be homeless? Without writing a thesis, that's something I can't answer.

The thing is, you can't say it's ok to make a personal choice and then condemn someone for making a choice you don't like. You can't condemn someone from a disadvantaged background who doesn't choose to take the same path as you.

As to America being built by self-made men and women. I wonder what the indigenous inhabitants have to say about that?

I think we were talking about different things with this unless I totally missed something from your post. Are you saying that people are all over the US are working to improve their social status? I would agree with this. I don't think people everywhere are going from lower class to multi-millionaires but are jumping from lower lower class to upper lower class. Do you not think that the children of these people deserve to get as good of an education as the people in the upper middle class?

I am against banning private and home schooling. If someone has the money to send their kids to private schools then by all means send them but an inner city public school should be at least close to a suburban public school. Right now the differences are astronomical. As I said before, we can't just throw money into inner city schools and expect it to fix itself; we will have to find all the social problems (you named a good amount), and try to work on fixing those. Many of them we can not solve but our first goal should be to try end the poverty trap.

I am not condemning anyone? How are you reading that into my posts?
Many of the homeless are mentally ill, it is something that is rarely addressed and needs to be.
I was born here and have been discussing it with you.
Apache and Cherokee are a decent size of my make-up, but I don't think that means anything. The local native Americas tend to be FAR richer than everyone else... you like to gamble? You smoke?

I don't see where comparing everyone to millionaires is valid.
Yes, it would be great if everyone could have the same education, and we should work toward that, and I think we are working toward that (at least until Every Child Left Behind) but we will get rid of it soon. Our schools get better every year, the stats you see on television are skewed, just like violence, murder, etc... all those are down and have been going down for years, but the press finds one bad number and does it's best to sell fear because it raises their numbers. If our schools were so bad other nations would not be doing what they can to send their kids here to get an education.
If people want that kind of education for their kids they are going to have to do their best to see to it that their community school gets what it needs by getting involved or moving to a better district. The first thing we did when looking for our home the last time we moved before this one, checked the schools.

Inner city schools.....who is "we". I taught in a poor district. It is not just the school. If your kids are fighting, refusing to do their work and not in class half the time, it is NOT the school nor the teacher's fault, nor is it the school's job to raise the kids.

Society is the vessel in which we deposit our 'natural rights', that is the rights which we are naturally heir to, but which we as individuals have no mechanism to defend. It is a compact, but, as it is virtually impossible for a human to remove themselves entirely from 'society', it is a compact made by our ancestors which we have inherited. If individuals whose rights and liberties are deposited in society are worse off than they would be, were that society not to exist, then 'society' has failed its purpose.

On these terms, Capitalism if tempered can be seen to succeed; Socialism, if tempered can be seen to succeed. Without tempering both produce a situation which allows a number of people to be much, much better off than they would otherwise be, and a number likewise, to be much, much worse off than they would otherwise be.

At the point where societies were being formed, certain inheritances were gained by some and lost to others. There are people who have transcended those gains and losses (through social mobility), but the majority of people in Western society, though they may increase in properity and opportunity from one generation to the next, do not move in relation to the rest of their generation. Look at the major wealthy and politically powerful families in America and also in Europe. Whilst the Europeans are obviously drawn from a 'ruling' class, America's elite is less obvious, but it clearly exists and it gains only a few newcomers in any generation. This is the disinheritance of the majority of citizens, who have deposited their rights into the nation's safekeeping, just as much as have the ruling elite, yet have inherited a distinctly different set of interests and opportunities (real not theoretical). This is why those, who have across generations improved their familys' interests and built an inheritance of power and influence, often at the expense of their workers' best interests, have a duty to the generations who have followed those workers, inheriting from them their lesser stake.

Pierce, just think back to when you were three or four -- and if that doesn't give you a clear picture, think back to when you were under five and had siblings. How did you react -- mentally as well as physically -- when encouraged, or flat told, to share? Was there not a certain -- resistance?

It's not so unexpected that the living organism seeks its own advantage.

The short answer is No.

Longer answers may be found even in fiction writing: LeGuin's The Dispossessed, Zamyatin's We. Cautionary tales all. Over on StrikeTheRoot, a libertarian BBS, there's a quote bandied about whose author at present escapes me though I'll see if Google can net him: "Communism -- interesting idea. Wrong species."

Sure enough, StrikeTheRoot yields the name of Edmund O. Wilson. Other quotes cite either E.O. Wilson or Edward Wilson... Googley moogley lickety split... more careful checking in a little bit...

Sigh... Google's leaving me none the wiser. It doesn't help that there was an Edward O. Wilson, famous in entomology, and with a name similar enough that the two were indeed confused from time to time. To get to the bottom of this minor point means doing more digging, and likely in a different hole.

My son shared/shares naturally, he wanted to from the giddyup. He has always derived great joy from it.

Dana, I don't buy "natural rights", any more than I do "evil". There is not morality bubble out there sending absolutes out to the universe just waiting for us to pick-up on the pure black and white of it all.
These definitions are made by us and each species/culture/era as we go along.
The outrage we feel at young people having sex with older was not felt when "apprenticeships" existed from ancient Greece to Shakespeare's time... it was consensual and expected in those circles.
Morality is in your imagination.
Teaching kids that they will suffer for all eternity if they do not do what the sky man tells them to no matter how impossible due to the duality of the rules of the sky god is not child abuse?
No.
Because it is the norm in our society.
For now.
Some day it may be looked upon very differently.

No Urbane, we have been trained to be greedy by that point. By that age, we are told that we should share while our parents have their car, their house, their money, and their clothes. No one on this Earth has been raised in an environment where possession doesn't exist. Right now, as far as we know, we can not tell if our greedy nature is genetic or socially influenced.

If it is genetic then every far left economic system is doomed to failure.

If it is socially influenced, then a far left eutopia-like society (notice the spelling) might be possible.

Fair enough :P I was just rehashing Paine:)

Dana, can you define which rights you feel we surrender to the government and which rights we retain to steward ourselves? :confused:

Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.:)

Why not start listing what might be considered natural rights?

I'll start off with one.

The right to breath as deeply and as often as one likes.

The right to the fruit of our labor & to pass it to our progeny.

You really don't seem to understand anarcho/libertarian socialism at all, rkzenrage.

Totalitarian socialism is 'you worked, now give it to us and we might give you some back'

Anarchosocialism is 'you worked, now keep what you want/need and if you can find the slightest bit of empathy somewhere in your heart give away what you dont need to those who need it.'

But you realize this is the exact opposite of what Wilde was writing about here, right? He goes on about how awful it is to have to live your life for someone else (i.e., to have empathy and choose to take care of the less fortunate) and would rather it was mandatory so he wouldn't have to think about it.

I do believe in giving to others and sharing a portion of what I have.
That portion must be pre-set in advance, cannot be changed at random and must not be on income, but only what you physically own alone so you cannot be double taxed on the same amount.
Also, the amount taxed must be voted on by the people, not the leaders and I believe in a fixed percentage only.

geez I thought it'd take at least a few more posts to get to tax.

What about the right to live free of oppression?

What oppression? Where does that come in?
Make that one of yours... but you have to define oppression. Is a tax oppression? Is hearing another's free speech oppression? Is having to work for your own food if you are lazy oppression?

It means people have a natural right to live free of oppression. That is slavery or servitude etc. People have the right to be free.

I've been having a think about the tax thing. I guess if we're talking about the natural rights of people, I wouldn't suggest they have a natural right to be taxed. It wouldn't be desirable.

natural rights are intangible in the main part aren't they?

I would not say that.
I feel that there are some inalienable rights, if you believe in freedom.

such as?

stop editing your posts right after you post them. lol

Best time to edit them... when they are soft and fresh.

lol...if you say so. That post sounded kind of gross...in an intangible sort of way.