Edit: Sorry, I do more or less agree with you that what you are describing is pretty much the right way to handle drug problems, but I think it's important to point out that poverty and homelessness are symptoms of capitalism, which is the real problem.
1. What you are probably really against is collusion between big government and big business. This is a real problem and is antithetical to true capitalism.
2. In a free market economy, there is plenty of room for charity and there is no one stopping people from organizing and participating in communes.
3. Taking my money through force to redistribute through inefficient state run welfare programs is not going to benefit anyone but the government. The poor will continue to be poor, and the elite will continue to extort those who actually add value.
1. There is a tendency to corruption in any concentration of power, government or corporate. There still remains the problem in capitalism that concentration of capital leads to entrenchment, stagnation, and corruption, and our regulations, faulty as they certainly are, have historically at least attempted to address problems in concentration (Sherman Antitrust Act and the original Glass-Steagall Act). There is no fire-and-forget legislation that can guarantee this, of course, since it is also in the nature of power to route around such fault lines.
2. Many theories based on the free market assume rational actors. The bulk of psychological research shows that this is a faulty assumption for individual humans. I argue that we also have sufficient evidence that this is a faulty assumption for behaviors in aggregate (corporations and governments). We need to take this into account when we talk about the power, the benefits, and the faults of the free market.
With regards to your point 2, I'm interested in data you have regarding the relative effectiveness of charity and the welfare state. My understanding is that the European-style welfare state consistently gets more balanced outcomes and a higher quality of life for more people than reliance on charitable institutions.
Your point 3 is too laden with loaded words to be used effectively in an argument and reads more like right-wing talking points than an attempt at discussion. When discussing this in the future, I recommend sticking to redistribution and outcomes, and leave out the rhetorically charged "taking my money through force" and "extort".
Also, you will be hard-pressed to find anyone who will argue that "inefficient state run welfare programs" are a good thing; really the argument is about relative efficiency between state welfare systems and private charity.
If the topic were 'personal liberty' than they might have more relevance. I guess the attack on capitalism as being 'evil' brought out my personal bias.
Heh, yeah :) It's possible to like computers and enjoy programming without being a capitalist though! Look at the free software movement!
What you are describing is "anarcho"-capitalism, I think. I'm an anarchist. We seem to agree agree on some things. I think most of the same things that stop people from organising and participating in communes in our current society would still exist in an "anarcho"-capitalist society. The rich still control the means of production, and the poor need to work for the rich in order to survive. I can't see that ending well. That's the essence of it.
In particular, for software that (1) has a wide audience and (2) does not provide a significant competitive advantage, it makes sense to share the development burden amongst others that need the same software. A successful open source project is cheaper to maintain because of market forces: more organizations (including your own) are able to develop expertise in the software, driving down the price of such support.
Generally though, F/OSS is used as an example of how people don't behave rationally, in an economic sense.
I am surprised that on HN someone that states something that contributes to the discussion gets modded to -4, I thought we reserved that for trolls.
You can find plenty of things wrong with communism, and I think that for the most part capitalism is to be preferred but that doesn't make him factually wrong.
The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. It's one of the advantages of having that sort of control over your subjects.
The communist countries I visited I lived in for quite a while, and no, they didn't do a good job of it, it simply didn't exist. I would have definitely noticed. And yes, I did visit the poorer regions. Now they have homeless people though. But they're no longer communist.
Everybody had a job, everybody had a house. Maybe the job was changing the traffic lights or something similarly inefficient but you'd have a job, guaranteed.
And I know it isn't the opposite.
Now, there are tent cities along the Danube and in the corners of the railway easements. Say what you like about the wonders of capitalism and the "fact" that communism just swept the problems under the rug, but anybody who actually witnessed both knows that for the people on the very bottom, communism is far, far better. And for the people in the middle, it was about the same, albeit with fewer electronics. Of course, for people at the top, it's the same; they're just allowed to be honest about their Swiss accounts now.
I am not educated enough on the subject to know how correct he is, but it's interesting nonetheless.
It always has been a version of an oligarchy.
The same goes for those 'communist' countries out there today.
The breakup of the USSR is not a victory for anybody, really. The very presence of the USSR in the first place was a detriment to the mindshare of communism, and its breakup ensured nothing beyond the fact that Americans could say they "won" the Cold War, whatever the hell that means.
Something like the original communist ideal can be seen - as it's always been - in the spontaneous organization of maker communities and other types of community. But if real communism is ever going to appear among us hominids, it's not going to come out of a State that grants it to the masses. The masses are just going to have to make the State superfluous. And that is not going to happen any time soon, libertarian science fiction notwithstanding (I like my Vinge as well as anybody).
Besides which, capitalism is not a form of government. So he started from a position of error and then went out on his limb from there.
If people see a controversial position half-heartedly argued, the bad marks should not come as a shock nor am I sure they are unreasonable. In the end though, the points are utterly irrelevant as long as it doesn't dissuade others from taking controversial positions and, crucially, defending them.
However, I don't think question of whether or not capitalism is a form of government has anything to do with the point I was making.
But he also didn't say anything about government. He said it was capitalism.
And to be fair to his argument, he's talking about stateless socialism.
I still have family in mainland China, and we know there is a homelessness problem in China. The government effectively insures that they are out of sight, so they beg where they can out of sight. You can find them in loading docks or behind restaurants. This is not a new problem that has started since economic reforms, it has always been around.
I have talked with my coworker, someone who lived in Soviet Russia until his 20s, and he will confirm that they also had homelessness problem. At that time it was dealt with similarly.
(1)Simple searches give clear depictions and discussions of the homelessness problems in these current and historical examples.
(1)Post edited here to remove an inappropriately rude and confrontation postscript (I accused the parent of lying or being willfully ignorant; which does not cover the gamut of possibilities)
> You are either dramatically incorrect or lying.
Sorry ?
That's not a scientific study, but it definitely should give you pause. Oh and I forgot to add Romania to the list.
I said "in the communist countries that I've visited", to qualify my experience, and to make sure that you understood that I was not speaking for all communist countries at all times.
Perhaps after you've been here longer you'll realize it's not all that homogeneous an audience.
Your point 1 is well taken (meaning: I personally agree).
Point 2 is somewhat simplistic; large-scale organization is superior to voluntary charity, which is why third-world countries have poverty problems and billionaires at the same time, while Sweden doesn't have much of a poverty problem.
Point 3 is so full of loaded terms it's nearly useless except as an indication of your own biases.
Hello, my name is Reginald and I am a Socialist.
Explain why.
Anyway, I'm sorry, but this comment is 3 pages back in my history, so I probably will forget to come back and check. If you'd like to discuss this further, my email is in my profile.
I want to get back to the point about internal consistency though. It's pointless to exchange our theorems (things like "if we change X about drug policy, Y about homelessness will change") when the axioms on which we build such theorems are different. The only truth we can get from a discussion like that is "well, given the capitalist set of assumptions, we can prove that this is true, but it is not true given the anarchist set of assumptions". That's a lemma you can use in the proof of the truth of such a statement, but to prove that it's true you have to show that capitalism's (or whatever) assumptions accurately model the real world. I admit I'm very much guilty of ignoring this in my post above, and I'm sorry for lazily making such a meaningless post. (By the way, the reason "anarcho"-capitalism isn't anarchism is because anarchism and capitalism have assumptions which contradict each other, so to be able to make it internally consistent, they must lose some of the assumptions that anarchists have which contradict capitalism's assumptions.)
So, economically then, what do I propose? A sort of decentralised socialism, I guess. I would broadly subscribe to the ideas outlined here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism#Economic_th...), which probably explains it better than I can. The reason I think these ideas and the ideas and the assumptions that justify them are more applicable to the real world than those of capitalism is basically just because they line up with better with what my intuitions have been. I've always been unhappy with authority and being coerced, and the justifcations offered to me for such coercion have always seemed kind of circular. In is-piracy-bad debates, I've always been on the side of the pirates, but also always felt that there's more to it than this, that there's some sort of logical conclusion that we (pirates) are not taking this to, and now I think anarchism is that logical conclusion. Anarcha-feminism agrees with and expands on ideas and feelings I've had about gender before I knew about it. Anarchism gives legitimacy to my intuitions and offers a framework in which they can be made logically consistent, and also offers an explanation for some social problems that I hadn't ever even thought about that are consistent with my intuitions. Basically, and I know this is pretty much a false dichotomy, but it does kind of get the point across - I've always felt that it's much more satisfying and generally better to be co-operative than competitive, and I think capitalists basically think the opposite and say that it's human nature to be greedy, etc. My experience has shown that I get a great pleasure out of sharing my things and with people and helping them out, but capitalism makes it difficult to share with people because you need money and everything in order to survive in a capitalist system, so by giving stuff away, you're risking your chances of survival, or at least decreasing your freedom. I think capitalist ideas might appeal to people because it gives them justification for being many times richer and therefore freer than other people. I don't think that is justifiable, certainly not when it's something that affects a person from birth (how wealthy a background they come from), and it's incredibly naive to think that everybody who's poor can just go out and start a business and get as rich as anyone, as if it's their fault that they're poor (for not doing this) and that everybody is completely in control of how wealthy they are.
Those are pretty much the ideas that I have. Anarchism is the school of thought that makes them logically consistent, but capitalist ideas are also logically consistent in their own framework, and if we disagree on the axioms then there aren't really any words or logic that can be done to resolve that disagreement. I'm really just trying to make people aware of anarchism, and maybe make them feel that their ideas are legitimate if they have anarchist ideas (because I think a lot of people have anarchist ideas but don't take them to their logical conclusion or realise that it's possible to do so), and maybe make people realise that there's more to anarchism than punk rawk, if there are people who haven't taken it seriously until now because of that kind of perception. That's it. Sorry about the initial post.
For one thing, there are no property rights, people are free to live wherever they want, which usually tends to turn society into Mad Max type "you live wherever you can take and hold by excessive force" scenarios.
For another thing, all goods and services are communal and you are expected to just walk into any community store and take as much as you want or need. Let's take beer for example: Everyone loves to drink beer but nobody wants to go to the trouble to make it. How do you suppose those community store shelves are going to stock themselves? Basic food and supplies would be the same deal. What does a farm gain from putting the food created by his hard work on the shelves? Freeloaders will just take it all and he'll get nothing in return.
I guess I'm trying to see how society wouldn't devolve back into tribal villages under any form of anarchism. I just don't think people will work hard for each other out of altruism. They need a reason to work, and that reason seems to be wages and compensation.
I guess what I'm asking for is some evidence, not philosophical links from a huge, wordy FAQ.
As for evidence, maybe look at existing communities? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities
The Spanish Revolution is probably the most popular one cited.
[1] http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowbo...
Without property, there is no trade. Without trade, there are no prices. Without prices, it is impossible to know how to efficiently allocate resources.
So I have a question: What motivates you to help other people?
If something I do visibly helps somebody, I feel good then because it feels like I have a purpose in life. It feels like I'm contributing to something greater than myself.
I think one of the most fundamental human urges is to feel like you belong to something. Helping people is so far the best way I've found of satisfying that urge. Capitalism seems to be based on the idea that that what people really want is more stuff. I think the reason that seems to be true is because having stuff and acquiring more of it is necessary to survive in a capitalist society. You need to have money to buy food and shelter. That's also why people don't share more of their stuff - sharing their stuff reduces their chances of survival. Even if somebody is rich "enough" to survive, they still need money to participate in nearly every other aspect of society. They can't listen to music, or go out with their friends, or really do anything unless they have money (or stuff that can be converted into money). This is always in the back of people's minds and is the reason people don't share more, I think.
If someone was proposing the idea of Open Source to you, would you ask why anyone would want to contribute to it?
Generally, anarchists acknowledge that there'd have to be a lot of social change before a state of anarchy could actually come about. If the government disappeared today, it'd be total chaos. Kind of like how I'd advocate for a total abolition of the prohibition of drugs; such a transition couldn't happen right away, it'd have to happen over a period of time.
An anarchistic society would have to be significantly different than our own. I think it'd end up being much like the Internet; there'd be a large number of very small communities. A decentralized network.
I'm not sure if this would ever come about or not.
Also, on the internet, people steal shit from each other, hack in and destroy people's systems, commit fraud (phishing), and threaten to kill/harm one another all the time.
Thank you, but I'd rather live in a world where there exists an entity that protects property rights.
I know there is no way that I'll change your mind on this. All I can say is that there is nothing "free" in the world. Attempting to pretend like there is simply allows someone to take advantage of someone else.
EDIT: First off, thank you for the detailed response. Also, you did not answer my direct question as to whether you have lived in societies that have different systems than democracy/capitalism or the ones with a more socialist incline. The (other) trouble with communism is that it seems that many advocates of it think that it just hasn't been done right yet. Well, I propose that it cannot be done right and any place that had a pinch of communism in it will show it, and in an ugly way.
But I'm not a communist, I'm an anarchist. I guess that doesn't significantly change your point, you probably still think it can never be done right or whatever. Basically, I disagree, but like I said above, I think we're disagreeing about the axioms.
You did admit though that capitalism is flawed. Ever since I realised that, all I want to do with my life is to help those (anarchists) who want to destroy it and create a better world. I just can't justify casually living my life in the capitalist system when I could be out there trying to replace it and helping those who suffer because of it. It feels like my life is meaningless otherwise.
By the way, the shortest and most succinct laymen's description of anarchism came from a crimethinc flier i saw, possibly this one [low res PDF] http://thecloud.crimethinc.com/pdfs/fighting_for_our_lives_l...