'It's not real socialism' / 'It's not a real free market'

Just a bit on semantics, their importance, and their limitations.

Find me outside of Youtube:

[DrumWild]

Only one company is allowed to make the game "Monopoly."

[jancz]

didn't know that about Tolkien, now I love him even more :O

[jamesritter]

That's not a true Scotsman, a true Scotsman (insert goal post here then move when convenient)

[barrygormley]

If you take the term "free-market" to mean a state in which there are no government imposed regulations on the production and trade of goods and services (except for those that safeguard the autonomy of the individual: such as laws against human trafficking), then I am not aware of any time in history where that has happened. However, if you take the term "socialism" to mean a state in which the means of production are publicly owned, then I am aware of several instances where that has been the case. This is why I think it's valid to regard socialism as a failed experiment whereas I think it would be pure sophistry to make the same claim about the free-market.

[marcoghiotti]

The best political system I can think of is called "common sense" and should be regulated by our mind, experience and wisdom. This is the reason why Robert E Howard verbally fought for the longest time against HP Lovecraft, as Howard strongly and vehemently defended barbarism against Lovecraft's civilisation. Barbarism, in his opinion, was the only society able to guarantee personal freedom and common sense. Not necessarily my view, however the human species is too aggressive if left on its own not to be guarded by some form of governing autocracy. The free market aspect would be valid if every body had the highest level of wisdom and self-respect. A mixture of these types is a fair balanced mechanism (Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands for example), until the next level of human evolution will take place.

[gallendugall]

In the end any economic system which doesn't address the human tendency to corrupt systems to personal advantage is doomed to failure, and that's the blind spot in both capitalism and socialism - both assume good intentions are enough.

[PanteraPersa]

Love this.
7:15 would this be an example of 'Indirect Exposition' regarding the *Absurdity*, that is Citizens United?

[msansone]

I really enjoyed that video. Thanks for making it.

[ExoCognitae]

every piece of art i publish i worry about if its without copywright.

[clemsonalum]

Off topic but did you start on Kronos 3 year? I’ve got a L12 orc hunter hoping for better server stability this week.

[wearewyldstallynz]

So much good in this video.

Tolkien was hinting. Douglas Adams (and Plato) came right out and said: "To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Sometimes I wonder what Plato and the other Greek writers and playwrights would think of our culture and their IP. Were their multiple conflicting myths were true beliefs or merely reboots of an IP franchise? Will future historians look back and think Star Wars and Star Trek were sects of a greater religion of Science Fiction.

One could argue that the US is intended to be somewhat socialist based on the Constitution, which called for the raising of an Army, Navy and Postal Offices and roads, as well as coin and weights and measures since the means of production are owned by the state. Though, to be fair, those could be wholly outsourced to private companies.

A lot of people will take extreme positions when it comes to the intersection of politics and economics. I think there's a middle ground where the rubber meets the road. A good model is Robert Kagan's "License to Operate." It folds public awareness, which has been lacking in the past, into the new "Social License" along with the well developed "Regulatory License and "Economic License" ideas. Check it out if you're not familiar with it.

Great channel, David. I've learned a lot about writing fiction. I've also been thinking about starting my own channel, but not sure I want to get eaten alive. :D

[angrytigger]

We need corporations to hold patents/copyrights in order to invest in research for new technology.

[Kuudere-Kun]

Tolkien idealized old school Feudalism. There are aspects of that which are Anarchistic by today's standards. But he also hated Democracy and supported Monarchy.

[ExoCognitae]

i do enjoy your videos. thats cool dave.

[Rantsnrambles]

I was watching LOTR on netlix this morning. There's a buch of stuff that doesn't make sense i was wondering if a book reader knows. A) why weren't there people stationed at mt doom just in case sauron came back? "light the beacon!!" B) gandolf seemed shocked at his return, but baromire made it sound like they've been fighting them for years C) the orcs they just go to him? something like "darkness is drawn to him" why don;t they find the orc nesting grounds? D)saroman seems like he could have defeated sauron alone...the urakai follow him right?

I hadn't seen the first one in like 8 years, i like frodo a lot more as an adult and everytime i see these movies im just blown away by the visuals and sound track. All 3 movieswere done at 95million in the early 2000s...why do they look better than justice league?

[JorgeSilva-dgnx]

The worst part of being human is the innate desire to make everything a coin with two sides. Why is it that two things that are not even opposite need to be mutually exclusive? There are sectors of society that do better under socialist agenda and other under free market. This concepts are like tools, you pick one that is better for the task at hand and don´t eat soup with a hammer.

[ExoCognitae]

i worry about copywrights alot as an artist.

[povelvieregg]

David you should read up about market socialism and democratic socialism. Neither have centrally planned command economies. In democratic socialism I guess there could be some, but market socialism involved using a "free" market just like in capitalism. The difference is that the means of production are not owned by capitalists but by the workers themselves. That was never the case in the Soviet Union, where the state owned the factories not the workers.

Market socialism already exists in limited form so it is not like some abstract theoretical pipe dream. It is just not as noticeable as Soviet style socialism because it can happily exist along side regular capitalism. However lots of capitalist countries have a number of cooperatives. One of the largest ones in Spain employs 70 000 people. Socialism in Israel was built along these lines. The Kibbutz and similar essentially worked as market socialism. People owned the the Kibbutz communally and shared everything inside the Kibbutz but externally they bought and sold product at MARKET prices. There was no government planning what should be produced or what the prices should be. The market decided.

You mentioned Nordic countries. Yes we are quite capitalist, but I think when people keep repeating this they kind of miss out that our societies have quite a lot of socialist elements which don't exist in e.g. the US. It is not JUST that the welfare state is more generous. A key socialist idea is worker control of the means of production. We have given a lot of power to unions and have about 80% unionization rate. Unions by law have worker representatives on the company boards. That means workers actually DO have influence over the means of production in Nordic countries.

Various other socialist ideas exist all over. In Norway most of the agricultural sector is organized in market socialist fashion through cooperatives. One of the largest supermarket chains is a cooperative. A socialist housing idea: co-housing and derivatives is very common in Nordic countries. I live in a variant of that now with my kids and grew up in one as a child myself. Dugnad is a central idea here. Instead of paying professionals to do work on public areas, we have this community organized efforts in the neighborhood where everybody join to do the work. This happens EVEN in the richest areas of Oslo, Norway. So there are many socialist values which are strongly embedded in the culture. However if you asked a Norwegian, most would not be aware of it. We don't think about it as socialist anymore, because it has been around so long and we are so used to it. You don't even think about it as a system or a thing. I only started realizing this when living in the US an noticing that all these structures and organizations I was used to from home simply did not exist there.

[RealCaptainAwesome]

I agree with pretty much everything you said and yes definitions are key to any discussion. The only fault I find in you reasoning is the corporation claim because a group of individuals working toward a common goal with individual motivations is what any corporate body does from the small local church to Microsoft. The individuals work for that collective goal while they themselves are not that collective the fruit that they create is a direct result of that corporation. I can point you to a corporation therefore, because my phone is a fruit of Samsung.

[maxheadshot]

Every democratic society is deciding autonomously about the right balance between the ideas of socialism or solidarity and capitalism or free market, it's a pretty cultural question. Free market does not solve all problems and it does not protect values without direct economic relevance. Who cares about environment if not government ? Who cares about national defense if not government ?
Both systems are corrupt as hell if they get uncontrolled dominance because both are run by practically the same humans.
Btw. Scandinavia has the most wealthy people in the world, seemingly they do something right or what is appropriate for them, and interestingly enough they have one of the lowest corruption levels in the whole world. I think it's a question of culture and mentality and it has something to do with geography, all over the northern hemisphere is a north-south-gradient of mentality, the cohesion of societies is decreasing when going from north to south, on the other side the individual wants seem to increase.
Apropos, the power lines in US are quite a joke, government should improve the infrastructure, free market is seemingly not doing it.