Are we reverting to Socialism again?

[Hazlitt]

.....we can debate why the banks were NOT permitted to go under as free market capitalism dictates.

Wow, well there you go, says it all really. "They weren't allowed to go under as per free market capitalism dictates.... therefore it wasn't a free market capitalist system ? Do you get it yet? Is it starting to sink in? Keep trying. A, B, C's next week.

The system that created the bubble and then insulated the gamblers from going bust was created by neo-conservatives, not socialists. You fail to be grasp that simple fact. Socialists didn't make this mess, and nor did socialism.

Ok so neo-conservatists created a bad governmental socialised money system. Doesn't change the fact that it wasn't as you put it "free market capitalist" system. You fail to grasp that simple fact.

Once you get your head around the fact that our money is socialised this may get a little easier for you.

Inflation remains under control and free movement of money is as it always was.

Inflation is "under control" for now.... And we may have free movement of money, but due to governmental legal tender laws we don't have free market money.

The recession was caused by the fact that so many listed companies found they had liabilities due to repackaged sub-prime loans.

My god, have you not got it yet ?? And who extended the credit out for these sub-prime loans?? Hahaha, you still haven't joined the dots have you? And why do you think so many bad loans were extended? Due to the printing of more money by the Federal Reserve, and the fractional reserve banking laws. Yes these sub-prime loans were "repackaged" and sold on, but there would NEVER have been the cluster of bad loans if not for the central banks. And under a capitalist system the few people who did engage in bad practices etc and made bad loans would have went out of business.

That hit their bottom lines and cash flows....etc etc etc etc...Which is a downward spiral.

No point in dealing with the rest of that paragraph, as all this evolves as a result of the extension of credit and inflation of the money supply.

You're attempting to cast the actions of overt capitalists as socialist. This remains risible, no less risible than previous attempts by neo-cons like yourself to cast the actions of communist despots as socialist.

Hahaha, you loonie-lefties are hilarious. I'm a "neo-con" now am I hahaha.
And I suppose it was the Union of Soviet Communist Republics was it? Hahaha.

Barack Obama is most certainly NOT a socialist

Barack Obama most certainly IS a socialist. You haven't the foggiest clue of what you are talking about. Socialised medicine, social housing, you're not for real are you? Won't get into this conversation with you cause you're clearly wrong. Why don't you look the mans policies up rather than just make this stuff up as you go along.

and bailing out the banks is the biggest privatisation ever of public assets. That's certainly not socialist either.

HAHAHAHAHA

You're not for real. The biggest privatisation ever of public assets ????!!! Hahahahaha, that's gas, I may make that my new signature.

Please do us ALL a favour and explain your comment here !! Just so we can all have a great big laugh at your foolishness.

It's not socialist to transfer vast sums to private hands for nothing. That's theft, plain and simple. And it's theft conducted by right-wing governments on behalf of the very capitalist indeed bankers.

Again, you'll have to give us all examples of how and where this has happened!!!

I don't think patching up the current system will act as a cure or a preventative.
That's the capitalist response.
I've prescribed socialism. Do try to keep up.

Try keep up ?! Hahahaha, sorry "mate", you're away with the fairies, try come back down to the real world like the rest of us.... hahaha. I may even thank your post just for giving me such a laugh.
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[JCSkinner]

And all of these were formed through government legislation, not through the market.

Not true.

Local Exchange Trading Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[JCSkinner]

Wibble wibble wibble

Oh dear. I think it's time for your medication.

[onlyasking]

Its funny, but a great many resident Eastern Europeans in this country I have talked to think we are a socialist state. Much more so than any other they care to mention.

I wouldn't wish for you to think I'm waging a vendetta against you, but I've stumbled upon this thread and your post is a recent one which took my attention, with its references to Ireland’s place at the pinnacle of socialist states. I could have replied to any number of lunatic assertions I've seen here, the main gist of which would seem to be that this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in if only de-regulated free market fundamentalism had been given free rein!!!!!!!!

To all the Friedman-worshippers, please remove your heads from your backsides and look around. Friedman's disciples have led the world to an economic catastrophe. It’s on the news, and it’s in the print media. Check the internet. I’m not making it up. Wake up, and smell the coffee. That Starbucks might even still be in business. Thatcher and Reagan's children fiscally raped their societies, massively inflating the gap between rich and poor, replacing their societies with economies. Even the provision of health care became a profit-based endeavour for those on the right, a reflection of the twisted mindsets of free-market fundamentalists.

I've spoken to a few eastern Europeans myself, but "a great many"? How many is that? Perhaps you employ a few hundred, or you have a fetish for eastern Europeans, but I get the feeling you're exaggerating a little to bolster your own analysis. I've met a few from former Iron Curtain countries who've been astonished at the amount of money they have to stump up just to visit a GP or a dentist. I've not met a single one who has voiced the opinion that this state is remotely similar to those they grew up in.

It seems strange, but the provision of state pension, child benefit, health care and other support services, social housing, free education (Including special needs) and a raft of other services we take for granted, are socialism in action.

I’m wondering if that’s supposed to be a critique of “socialism in action”. Or do you feel that states should actually abandon the elderly poor, refuse to provide health care for those who can’t afford it, leave the poor homeless, make education a privilege for the well-off, and lock up those children with special needs in orphanages. If it’s the latter, you’d appear to be in some good company here amongst those who’re deeply embittered by the collapse of the international financial system which they thought had trounced big bad socialism forever. Guys, I feel your loss. It’s not nice to be proven so very wrong, and to have perhaps lost your shirt in the process.

All that is missing to make it a socialist state that badge wearing socialists would recognise is tighter media control, censorship and single party government.

Typical of the uber-capitalist thinker, you see legions of mindless socialist robots, uniformed and “badge-wearing”, just itching to get their red jackboots into people like you. As for tighter media control, can you tell me of a single national newspaper in this state which editorialises from a vaguely left-wing stance? I’d argue that the rich have got the media all sown up, and that partially explains why the same media acted as cheerleaders for the tax-breaks and preferential treatment of the rich which has led the people of this state to the very brink of fiscal annihilation. As for “single party government”, isn’t that quite the norm in many democratic states? The UK, the USA just to name a couple.

It is arguable that we are in fact a socialist country, very close to the principle this country was founded on,

I’d like you to expand just a little on those “principles”.

we are just not a communist state (the term socialism being often highjacked to mask the promotion of the latter).

Make sure you check under your bed tonight. Eamonn Gilmore might be lurking. Or even Joe Higgins. AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHH!

I would be careful of ascribing belief in socialism or leaving its definition to those who claim to champion it.

I’ll choose not to leave its definition to anyone who thinks this rotten state, with its myriad structures for the betterment of the well-off, remotely meets the definition of socialism. Even Bertie, one of the last “true socialists” wouldn’t chance that.

The reality is, as we have seen very often on this site, they usually are promoting far more extremem and authoritarian political agendas and are trying to import and impose tried and failed foreign definitions of socialism.

Socialism wasn’t defined in Ireland, you can rest assured. As for “tried and failed” systems, have a look around at your wonderful capitalist utopia. Neat, eh?

[20000miles]

And yet, if a LETS trader was offered €s for payment of debt he would have to accept it.

I don't think this is discussion is going anywhere. As a final point, I'd like to say that the hallmark of capitalism is the prominance of voluntary exchange, private property rights and a market system.

Right now the government has no interest in defending my private property rights and allowing people to choose what money to use (as is evident through legal tender laws and capital gains taxes on precious metals). The state will not defend my contract if payment was stipulated in gold or silver.

The key hallmark of private monies is volutary exchange and competition, the hallmark of State money is violent monopoly

[Hazlitt]

Oh dear. I think it's time for your medication.

Hahaha, is that the best response you could muster?

At least try explain your priceless comment: "bailing out the banks is the biggest privatisation ever of public assets."

haha classic!

Oh, and do try keep up in future.
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[Hazlitt]

To all the Friedman-worshippers, please remove your heads from your backsides and look around. Friedman's disciples have led the world to an economic catastrophe. It’s on the news, and it’s in the print media. Check the internet. I’m not making it up. Wake up, and smell the coffee.

Hi onlyasking,

I'll stop you right there. Friedman was a monetarist. He believed the government could control inflation, interest rates etc.

What the likes of myself and 20000miles have been preaching, is free market exchange á-la von Mises and Hayek.

There is a monumental difference.
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[Retrolives]

They may have. Modern political scientists do not consider the terms interchangeable, however.

Then they are corrupting language. War is Peace? Is that the motto? So you are changing the definitions of words used to describe the theory of Marx and Engels by Marx and Engels. These un-named "modern political scientists" decided to invent a new nomenclature to confuse everyone, but they have not addressed how socialism is anything but communism in its end conclusion.

A bit like the Democratic Republic of North Korea, that one. Not very democratic, really. Or the People's Republic of China, which denies the people any say in how it's run. Or, for fun, the United Kingdom with its many parliaments. States call themselves all sorts of silly things. It doesn't make it so.

Democracy - The God That Failed
Democracy: The God That Failed
Democracy: The God That Failed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Democracy leads to socialism. Government grows into every facet of people's lives until they dwell in a socialist totalitarian state because all State-intervention demands further intervention until an entire economy has been over-run by government.

Simply not true. There is a large gulf between socialism and communism.
Socialism vs. Communism
Even the neo-cons know that:
Capitalism vs Socialism vs Communism

The neo-cons were not free-market at all. They are for big government. In fact, neo-conservatism traces its roots back to Trotskyism with Leo Strauss:
Trotsky, Strauss, and the Neocons, by Justin Raimondo

This kid you linked to at "conservative resources" has invented his own definitions which are totally false and he is anything but a free-marketeer.
This definition he uses is:
"Capitalism is an informal economic system in which property is largely privately owned, and in which profit provides incentive for capital investment and the employment of labor."

Informal economic system? According to who?
Largely privately owned? What isn't privately owned under capitalism?

"Socialism is a formal economic system in which society exerts considerable control over the nation's wealth and property in the pursuit of social justice."

Why is this now a "formal economic system" and the other not?

1. He says "society exerts considerable control"? I love how he uses the word "society" as if it was in some way inclusive. It hides the bare nakedness of the tyranny that is involved in ordering people to do things against their will.

2. It also ignores the method of how exactly "society" decides to exert control? How is the "golden circle" who dictate policy chosen from the masses? By violence and brute force perhaps?

3. "in the pursuit of social justice." This is the cherry on the cake. What exactly is social justice and how does it differ from normal justice. What is unjust about equality under the law? How about treat every one equally? What so unjust about that? But what this twisting of words hides is the fact that what it advocates is theft and violence of government against its citizens.

This guy has completely missed the point.

Capitalism is specifically private ownership of the means of production.
Socialism is specifically 'collective' ownership of the means of production.

This is what truly makes the difference between socialism and capitalism if no other thing.

'Collective' ownership implicitly means totalitarian because of the famous 'Socialist Calculation Problem' that none of the socialist thinkers have ever been able to resolve. The burden of proof of how a socialist economy is supposed to rationally allocate resources still rests with them and it looks like they will never solve it because it is an impossibility without market prices.

Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth by Ludwig von Mises

State capitalist does apply fairly well to the Soviet Union. I prefer the simple Greek term despotic oligarchy, however.

As above, under a system of collective ownership of the means of production there must by default be a totalitarian dictator to direct resources. This is done in a much less efficient manner that the market economy would and constantly depletes the wealth of an economy until it resorts to individuals acting only for self-sufficiency.

No it doesn't. Now you're being extremely silly indeed.

I wish I was being silly, but this is a very important issue. Try reading this:
Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian - Mises Economics Blog

[onlyasking]

Hi onlyasking,

I'll stop you right there. Friedman was a monetarist. He believed the government could control inflation, interest rates etc.

With all due respect, you'll not stop me anywhere. I'm engaging with this thread, not with one you've dreamed up. In case you hadn't noticed this thread is about a hack's fantasy-land, in which Ireland was once a socialist state, a status to which we might return. Allegedly.

The United States and the UK, under the administrations of Reagan and Thatcher, were the engines that drove the replacement of societal considerations by bottom line economics. Having played out to its fullest extent over the past quarter of a century, this deluded faith in market-based solutions has brought fiscal disorder on an colossal scale to billions of human beings. Even you don't know the extent of the calamity facing the capitalist utopia.

What the likes of myself and Hazlitt have been preaching, is free market exchange á-la von Mises and Hayek.

Yourself and Hazlitt? I thought you were he. Silly me.

There is a monumental difference.
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Can you please expand on the "monumental difference" between Friedman and Hayek, a difference I fail to see given that the latter was a major influence on the former, and both were revered by Thatcher, Reagan and the rest of the zealots for profit-uber-alles, the likes of which have led us to this dangerous abyss, with 25 years of societal disintegration to show for it.

[Hazlitt]

With all due respect, you'll not stop me anywhere. I'm engaging with this thread

ok ok, you're engaged.

...this deluded faith in market-based solutions has brought fiscal disorder on an colossal scale to billions of human beings. Even you don't know the extent of the calamity facing the capitalist utopia.

Hmm, where to start... from the beginning I suppose. If you go back and actually read the last few posts, you will see that myself and 20000miles (we'll get back to that in just a second ) and a few others were talking about government involvement in the monetary "sphere" of the economy, namely money production.

If you can show us how, with examples, it was free markets and not central bank monetary policies and fractional reserve laws that started this "fiscal disorder" then please do.

As for the "capitalist utopia" you refer to, I don't think anyone here claimed there was such a thing...

Yourself and Hazlitt? I thought you were he. Silly me.

Honest error! 20000miles I meant. Silly me.

Can you please expand on the "monumental difference" between Friedman and Hayek

Friedman advocated a fiat or paper money standard guided by a monetary authority. Hayek on the other hand thought that the government should not be involved in the production of money. Can't get much more opposed than that.
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