Are Socialists Really Collectivistic?

[hmkpoker]

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The point of modern liberalism is not to keep people alive regardless of their contribution to society, it is to make as many people as possible productive.

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*stare*

I have no idea how I am supposed to respond to this one.

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That's because it runs against your fundamental view of maximizing social utility.

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No, it's because it is demonstrably false by science and common sense. If you genuinely believe that paying someone not to work will make them work more, I can't have a serious discussion with you.

Take a course on human behavior and/or human learning. You will be amazed by how Pavlovian it is. 100% of my Birkenstock-wearing, liberal hippie big state university psychology professors agreed to the paradigm that individuals, alone, act for self-motivated reasons, and that basic learning is shaped by self-internalized consequences.

[Zygote]

....by reallocating the resources that benefit society now to help some who are suffering now will be neutralized by the further limitations faced by future sufferers which are more so inevitable under such a reallocation scheme.

[mosdef]

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No, it's because it is demonstrably false by science and common sense. If you genuinely believe that paying someone not to work will make them work more, I can't have a serious discussion with you.

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If the depth of your understanding of liberal democratic theory and agenda is "They want to provide universal unemployment insurance at all costs." then you will obviously arise at erroneous conclusions. What are you really trying to get at here? You've distilled the entire theory of liberalism (modern liberalism, not laissez-faire old school liberalism) into a single provocative one-liner. This is supposed to make us all rethink liberalism?

I understand the thrust of your core argument: Securing people so that they are assured minimal levels of income will create a moral hazard where some people will choose not to produce as much as they otherwise would since they are satisfied with the minimal income. Of course this is so.

Now, you JUMP from there to "this is bad for society as a whole because it reduces contributions to society". This is not true due to "common sense" unless you think that social programs add no value and only incur the moral hazard cost above. You have provided no argument to back up this assertion other than this gem:

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Take a course on human behavior and/or human learning. You will be amazed by how Pavlovian it is.

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Oh yes! The invincible "If you don't agree with me it's because you're too dumb to understand why what I'm saying is true!" approach. An oldie but a goodie.

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100% of my Birkenstock-wearing, liberal hippie big state university psychology professors agreed to the paradigm that individuals, alone, act for self-motivated reasons, and that basic learning is shaped by self-internalized consequences.

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So, obviously if you give some poor people some money they will immediately "waste" it on self-motivated consumption. Or would they consider the potential benefits of using that wealth to increase their future productivity and enhance their socio-economic status? Is self-motivation limited to luxury consumption in your world view? If people act in their own self interest, is it necessarily to the detriment of society as a whole?

[hmkpoker]

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Now, you JUMP from there to "this is bad for society as a whole because it reduces contributions to society". This is not true due to "common sense" unless you think that social programs add no value and only incur the moral hazard cost above.

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Please read one of the many posts that I, borodog, nielsio, pvn et al have posted on the subject of what subjective value is. I'm not going to re-write <u>Man, Economy and the State</u> every time I want to say something about economics.

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Oh yes! The invincible "If you don't agree with me it's because you're too dumb to understand why what I'm saying is true!" approach. An oldie but a goodie.

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I'm notifying Iron about this. This is a personal attack, and it's not even the right one.

[mosdef]

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Now, you JUMP from there to "this is bad for society as a whole because it reduces contributions to society". This is not true due to "common sense" unless you think that social programs add no value and only incur the moral hazard cost above.

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Please read one of the many posts that I, borodog, nielsio, pvn et al have posted on the subject of what subjective value is. I'm not going to re-write <u>Man, Economy and the State</u> every time I want to say something about economics.

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You go much, much farther than those three in terms of claiming utilitarian advantages of anarcho-capitalism. pvn and Nielsio, in particular, spend much more time discussing the moral injustice of involuntary transactions, with no regard to the "social utility" component of free market politics. Your post here relies heavily on social Darwinism concepts that are certainly not supported by all ACists on this board.

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Oh yes! The invincible "If you don't agree with me it's because you're too dumb to understand why what I'm saying is true!" approach. An oldie but a goodie.

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I'm notifying Iron about this. This is a personal attack, and it's not even the right one.

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I don't think so. I think dismissing counterarguments as uninformed is more of a personal attack. If you want to make a provocative anti-liberal post and bask in the applause of your fellow AC posters, you should (IMO) be prepared to respond to criticism from the other side. You can just ignore me if you prefer, that's your prerogative.

[Zygote]

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Most socialists that I have spoken with do not actually act with society, as a whole, in mind. Rather, they see the forest for the trees. Most social goals are done with individuals, namely the disadvantaged, in mind. The ends are geared toward helping specific individuals, not the entire social economy.

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what about goals towards the environment?

edit: and what about goals like social diversity etc.?

[VarlosZ]

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Most socialists that I have spoken with do not actually act with society, as a whole, in mind. Rather, they see the forest for the trees. Most social goals are done with individuals, namely the disadvantaged, in mind. The ends are geared toward helping specific individuals, not the entire social economy.

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For most, I'm sure, whether it's explicitly stated or not, the idea is that we're all better off if none of us have to suffer (or fear) the more extreme forms of poverty. Somewhat differently, one could make a utilitarian argument that hinges on diminishing returns: transferring $1000 from a wealthy family to an impoverished one helps the recipients more than it harms the givers.

Either way, it's a matter of helping the entire "social economy," not just certain individuals.

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Almost every cell in a healthy body is a boon to the rest of the cells (and naturally for the rest of the body). We would view a living cell as a generally good thing. However, when a cell becomes dysfunctional and cannot serve its purpose, the behavior taken toward it is extremely un-socialistic. The cell is left to die, devoured by phagocytes, removed from the system, and terminated so that it does not pose a threat to the body.

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Damaged or unproductive cells do not possess sentience or moral standing. The "society as organism" metaphor can be kinda fun, but it fails in this and a thousand other ways.

[vhawk01]

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I suppose I can't argue with HMK's first point, that liberal seek to help people one at a time rather than all at once. However, it is a mistake to think we are focused solely on the poor. Liberals favor government involvement in areas like health care, education and mass transit that benefit everyone. We believe that government is a force for good in the world and can improve the lives of everyone.

To torture HMK's anatomy analogy, the body devotes significant resources to repairing damaged cells: whether its providing amino acids to repair damaged nucleotides or white blood cells to protect them from bacteria, significant resources are devoted to keeping cells healthy. The body does not kill cells just because they are imperfect or damaged.

The point of modern liberalism is not to keep people alive regardless of their contribution to society, it is to make as many people as possible productive. Someone who is not healthy will not be productive. Someone who cannot get to a job will not be productive. Someone who doesn't have the skills that employers need will not be productive. This is what liberalism provides: the tools that people can not or do not provide themselves to lead productive lives.

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Just to pick a nit, this is pretty much all wrong, at least as a general principle. The standard response to even mildly damaged cells is to induce apoptosis, clear the dead cell and debris, and make a new cell. Our bodies really do NOT spend considerable effort repairing broken cells. Far more economical to just make more and eliminate the trouble-makers.

Not sure what that does to your analogy, but it doesn't seem like anything good.

[ConstantineX]

Most socialists I've met espouse the whole "Gaia" argument, that argues capitalism forms institutions and man-made innovations into an "unnatural" category that debases some aspect of the ideal individuals' humanity, as opposed to the more "natural" order of things (which only they know, of course). This view probably has arose because "inequality" itself can't be the single justification anymore, as global warming (which I believe is happening BTW) rather than collectivism is politically in vogue.