03-07-2007, 06:17 PM
I think you're exaggerating.
Socialism has yet to "erode" into communism in a single instance, at least that I am aware of. Radical communist states have always been established through revolutionary means: The USSR, China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Vietnam. Most states that adopt a kind of mixed market-socialist hybrid (what you characterize as "all but abandoned" the free market, which strikes me as remarkable in the society I see around me) have gotten there slowly, through democratic change, and have made little if any move towards communism, at least in any sense that resembles existing or former communist states.
To give the local example, the Communist party (and the Marxist-leninist party, not to confuse the two) in Canada is weak enough to be a joke, not strong enough to drag our society ever leftward. If anything, we have shifted steadily towards a free market orientation since the 70s. What, then, of the thesis that socialism is a transition to communism, or backwards? Strikes me that it's taking either Marx, Hayek, or both a little too seriously.
If you mean the sentence...
... then all is lost, always has been lost, and probably always will be lost. Maybe you might consider moderating this, and other, positions a touch. There could very well be something important to your libertarianism; if so, I'm pretty sure it isn't helpfully served by generalizations that are both ahistorical and excessive.
-Jester
Socialism has yet to "erode" into communism in a single instance, at least that I am aware of. Radical communist states have always been established through revolutionary means: The USSR, China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Vietnam. Most states that adopt a kind of mixed market-socialist hybrid (what you characterize as "all but abandoned" the free market, which strikes me as remarkable in the society I see around me) have gotten there slowly, through democratic change, and have made little if any move towards communism, at least in any sense that resembles existing or former communist states.
To give the local example, the Communist party (and the Marxist-leninist party, not to confuse the two) in Canada is weak enough to be a joke, not strong enough to drag our society ever leftward. If anything, we have shifted steadily towards a free market orientation since the 70s. What, then, of the thesis that socialism is a transition to communism, or backwards? Strikes me that it's taking either Marx, Hayek, or both a little too seriously.
If you mean the sentence...
Quote:When the government starts to step into the private sector and regulate what can and cannot happen on private property, all is lost.
... then all is lost, always has been lost, and probably always will be lost. Maybe you might consider moderating this, and other, positions a touch. There could very well be something important to your libertarianism; if so, I'm pretty sure it isn't helpfully served by generalizations that are both ahistorical and excessive.
-Jester