-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Donaghe <tdonaghe@yahoo.com>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 10 December 1998 15:23
Subject: Socialism <> Extropianism (Was Re: The Education Function)
>>Any defense of socialism I would mount would have to take into
>accountthreebasic assumptions:
>
>>(1) Human nature is such that all people try to benifit themselves
>(andto alesser extent their >friends/relatives) as much as possible.
>Thank goodness! This is almost a good enough reason by itself to
>preclude socialism.
>
>>(2) 'Property' does not actually exist and is merely a way of saying
>'Idenyyou access to this'.
>
>This is blatant nonsense. It's like saying love does not exist. Your
>entire argument suffers because of this.
What is property? What do you mean when you say that you 'own' something? Most people mean by property 'the abilitiy to deny others access to'. So owning land means that you have the ability to stop others walking on it. Owning a computer means you have the ability to stop otehrs using it.
If you have another definition of 'property' I'd be interested to see it.
>>(3) Sufficient social/monetary inequality leads to social disruption.
>
> Social/monetary inequality is most often caused by government.
I disagree.
When
>governments fool with prices (setting wages, regulating markets,
>socializing medicine, providing “free” education) they disrupt the
>natural effect of capitalism which is to set a fair price for every
>good and service.
I disagree with what the natural effect of capitalism is.
>>(3) tends to cause problems in capitalist societies on an
>internalbasis (inthe UK, under more capitalist >policies the
>percentage differencebetween therich and the poor went up by about 7%
>over the 10 years the >conservativeparty was in power. This caused
>large amounts of social unrest, demonstrations and the >biggest
>landslide in living history for theiropposition party).
>
> This is obviously because of the socialist government of the UK.
Reread what I said. When the government became _less_ socialist, the disparity went _up_.
Samael