Considering how deeply this community has internalized the importance of creative thought your analysis is pretty limiting to any new possibility being possible.
It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. It's a doctrine that says you are free to engage with others however you want so long as you respect their autonomy and freedom to make their own decisions.
If someone wants to start a voluntary socialist commune, they have the freedom to do so within a free market. Unfortunately for aspiring socialists, most people don't voluntarily want to adopt socialism (at least beyond a particular point) and socialists must then turn to force and coercion in order to enact their preferred style of society. Ignoring the emergent orders that arise from a free society of creative individuals is the truly limiting mode of thinking. (Note: I just used socialism as an example. You could substitute any style of governance that doesn't respect individual autonomy.)
Of course it is. It's a limiting doctrine that says "you may use the resources allocated to you within the property system, and no others".
This idea that property rights aren't a form of coercion is one of the most tiresome aspects of libertarian rhetoric.
Capitalism is a very effective economic system, and that efficiency often affords people more freedom than the alternatives, but it is still fundamentally a system of coercive constraints, as indeed any economic system must be.
I'll agree that there are many ways in which the status quo contains injustice as it relates to claims of ownership, but that's entirely different than calling the system of private property coercive. I also don't think there is one objective standard for what confers just and unjust title (i.e., I think this is an emergent social convention rather than some clearly definable concept), but that again is an entirely different topic.
If I try to use particular resources, the system will use violence to stop me. If you claim this isn't coercion, then I think it is your conception which is backwards.
>(E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with other peoples' bodies.)
Yes, the prevention of crimes is indeed a form of coercion.
This only sounds strange if you start with the assumption that coercion is inherently bad. If instead you recognise coercion as a necessary consequence of conflicting desires, you can start to discuss what coercion is justified.
Now I think property has shown to be a very effective economic system, and that using coercion to enforce it is therefore entirely justified. But it's still coercion.
Your binary perception of the world doesn't take into account why we have systems at all, be they capitalism or government. The point is to maximize quality for everyone, and you can't get there with a single tool.
The controversy is regarding which cases, if any, governmental coercion is justified. There is a wide degree of disagreement here, but even those who believe coercion is justified still admit that it's coercion.
Social Security is not even in theory aimed at providing a general social safety net, so its not surprising that there are better means if that is your goal.
We have socialism - the erosion of capitalism to provide a reward for those that won't or can't work.
What's your "new possibility"? Without a proposal, your point is moot.
Over the next decades we will lose millions of jobs and need an highly educated workforce for the fewer jobs remaining. But for some people the saying "you cant teach an old dog new tricks" will come true and this part of society needs a way to live in dignity. Talking for example about Truck/Taxi Driver / Assembly Workers / Mailmen you name it.
We as a society have a choice to make and i hope it wont be one you can see in several Dystopien movies.
We have seen communism and it did not work now we are on the full side of the other spectrum of capitalism and it does not work as well (Income inequality). Unconditional basic income could be one solution of many.
http://www.bullshitexposed.com/scandinavian-socialism-debunk...
EDIT: Because I was downvoted:
> "1. Scandinavia isn’t really all that socialist"
Socialism does not have the same meaning in Europe and in the US and apparently, this was forgotten. They are liberal socialist countries, if you prefer.
> "2. Scandinavia isn’t actually as prosperous as liberals like to claim"
Raw GDP is unrelated how people actually live, I don't get this point.
> 3. Scandinavians have lower gross and disposable incomes
There is no mention of purchasing power, you can't buy the same things with the same salary in Dollars, it's comparing apples and oranges.
> 4. But money isn’t everything! What about the poor?
There is no mention anywhere in this part of the poverty rate of the different countries, just a graph of the poverty in the US (which does not argue for his point).
> 5. Norway is backed by big oil
Yes, and what about the other ones ?
> 6. Scandinavians aren’t as happy as Americans
Suicide rates are much much more than just economics themselves, and I don't understand why this is there.
Some of these, like Participatory Economics, have lots of literature/tutorials behind them.
I don't want to buy food from a state controlled organisation because they'd be crap at it. However, I'm not keen on healthcare being provisioned individually and privately or relying entirely on the market for policing or national security.
I concede, though, that nationalised health and defence has major benefits.
"Socialist" would say: "It looks like all-around outcome might be better if this thing is regulated or restricted - so let's do that".
Free market supported would say "let's not mess with people's freedom unless it is clear that not intervening in this particular instance is overwhelmingly harmful".
For what is worth, I think many people favoring state intervention have a hard time making distinction between "I don't like this thing" and "this thing should be forbidden or restricted".
A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan
NB I agree about your point about the default - I would very much go with the assumption that the free market should be left to provide services unless there is a really good reason why the state might be good at it.
That doesn't make it automatically bad of course, socialized healthcare is probably a good example where socialism works.