Individualism Is Stupid ( Or Why Libertarianism And Objectivism Is Stupid)

[Amarok]

The idea that a public entity should go out of business seems a bad idea rather then simply fixing it. I don't believe in treating critical things as a for profit notion . Nor do i view the idea of everything being a competition.And i think the privatization of most things is a serious problem .

Yeah, but you're not factoring in corruption. Private companies as well as public entities suffer from it unilaterally. The right harps on this point ad nauseum, but (aside from the fact that they only point it out in the public sphere) they have a point. Desire is a driving force in a communistic economy just like capitalism. If we are going to put goods and services into the hands of the people, then we need efficient institutions. Capitalism does promote an atmosphere of competition (provided the government has antitrust measures in place etc.). This is why I think the public sector needs to play a substantial role in a Marxist economy, at least at first. Even Lenin had to admit this, though I don't think he "admitted it" enough.

Maybe, I'm splitting hairs here. We seem to agree on the main points. I consider myself a Marxist, but I don't chain myself to the "authoritarian parodies of socialism" (as Irving Howe called them). But we can still learn from the mistakes of these failed regimes. Centrally-planned economies fail in a number of ways. IMO it would be best for the Marxist economy to focus on basic needs while allowing the private sector to produce luxuries. When I say "luxuries" I don't just mean Lamborghinis and caviar; I mean simple luxuries, like good coffee. I like sumatra espresso, personally. Centrally planned economies have failed again and again to provide these things for citizens. Check out East Germany's track record here. Russia and China are utter failures because they barely kept their populations fed.

Look at it this way: when capitalism began to fail, governments started to implement socialism as a stop-gap measure, and it kept those economies afloat. Similarly, Marxists need to admit that their system fails and add capitalism until the society more-or-less fulfills its purpose. A marxist society, to me, would be ideal because it is built around the development and advancement of its citizens. If we were to somehow achieve full communism as Marx envisioned it, there would be no barriers to someone who wanted to develop himself through education and culture. He wouldn't "work himself to death" before ever having had a chance to advance himself. Capitalism prioritizes mass produced junk over the development of its citizens. (In fact, the mass produced junk is produced at the expense of ordinary citizens). The problem is that Marxism needs to work or it's no good to anybody. Like capitalism added socialism to fix itself, Marxism needs to be willing to revise itself, adding capitalism, libertarianism, and democracy until it has compensated for its shortcomings.

I don't think competition is a very good way of dealing with corruption . As for central planned states . We can indeed learn what they did wrong . But i don't think that leads us in the direction of capitalism or privatization .

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The trouble with the "invisible hand" is that it;s not so much invisible as it just doesn't exist.  Look around you, bad actors aren;t being put out of business by the government -or- the consumer.  Just a few months back, when products were spontaneously catching fire and banks were found to have defrauded their customers...their stock value was going up.

The notion is that it's just an effect of crony capitalism..but it isn't.  An "efficiently" run business can crush it's competition, and the ability to do so is ethics-neutral.  The invisible hand relies on every actor in a chain making the right decision on grounds of ethics.  Not only has that never happened, it never will and it -can't-.  The only situation in which people would have the type of freedom required to make the invisible hand work is if no-one in the chain needed money or the product itself in the first place........and there were tons of other ways to get it.  At which point, there's no point to capitalism.

I agree the invisible hand isn't real . And i do think capitalism leads to cronyism despite regulation and competition.