RE: In the Line of Duty
May 16, 2015 at 9:19 pm
(This post was last modified: May 16, 2015 at 9:38 pm by nihilistcat.)
Right, I obviously meant that policing and the system which supports it, protects the elite in this country (as should be implicitly obvious, since I cannot possibly know the individual motives of all the people who choose to become cops, although I'm quite sure that for the most part, it's not to protect the elite).
The maxim 99% is illustrative. One wealthy person against a crowd of 99 people .... there's only one thing preventing the crowd from ripping his face off (if they so please) ... the state and its henchmen, police forces.
In other words, capitalism requires coercion and violence to sustain itself (it couldn't survive without violence). Granted, some forms of socialism require the same, and central planning is terribly inefficient, but this is a common straw man (there are endless variations on the theme of socialism, some of which are adamant about voluntary participation and non-coercion, and there's many possible hybrid theories as well which attempt to take advantage of the best parts of socialism and capitalism, and toss out the shitty aspects of both economic approaches). Anyways .... I digress
The maxim 99% is illustrative. One wealthy person against a crowd of 99 people .... there's only one thing preventing the crowd from ripping his face off (if they so please) ... the state and its henchmen, police forces.
In other words, capitalism requires coercion and violence to sustain itself (it couldn't survive without violence). Granted, some forms of socialism require the same, and central planning is terribly inefficient, but this is a common straw man (there are endless variations on the theme of socialism, some of which are adamant about voluntary participation and non-coercion, and there's many possible hybrid theories as well which attempt to take advantage of the best parts of socialism and capitalism, and toss out the shitty aspects of both economic approaches). Anyways .... I digress
