Re: Sanjeev's allergy to the word 'socialism'

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

This was nice! I had a good laugh over it. Am I allergic? Yes. Sure. 

I am allergic to corruption. I am allergic to incompetents running my
country. I am allergic to people accepting a second best for India when
we should have been the best, the way we were 250 years ago and ever
before. Above all I am allergic to any attempt to impose a fake system
on us. Everyone seems to think that socialism is what is NOT practiced. 

It is like God.

	Socialism is 	NOT this 
			NOT that.
	
	Is socialism ineffable ether?

I have read a lot of confusion on this topic, but none more than this:

"In its original connotation, socialism represented a set of values, a
moral doctrine. The "doctrine asserts the primacy and mutual dependence
of the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity." (See Bernard Crick,
Socialism, Open University Press, 1987.)"

Socialism is INCAPABLE of providing either liberty (e.g., Stalin's
massacres, Pol Pot's massacres, Naxalite massacres, ULFA massacres), or
equality (loot of public property in USSR, India, and other places, and
misuse of public property for personal gain), or fraternity (Nazi
germany was a socialist nation: read "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek for
a full exposition).

If we don't even agree on what we are talking about then obviously we
will find these discussions meaningless. Therefore, to resolve this, we
had finalized some standard definitions from sources such as the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and put up on IPI's web site a long time ago.

Check out http://www.indiapolicy.org/debate/Notes/defs.html

"Socialism is a system of social organization in which private property
and the distribution of income are subject to social control, rather
than to determination by individuals pursuing their own interests or by
the market forces of capitalism."

          Source: Britannica Online: 
          http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/554/32.html

Please note that one little academic specialization that I claim to have
is comparative economic systems. Socialism has NEVER been defined the
way Mr. Crick has defined it. His is a completely audacious definition,
claiming to sociliasm the moral properties of capitalism. Please read
Ayn Rand's Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal to realize the moral moorings
of capitalism. Many other references can be given. 

Capitalism is HONEST. To begin with. Empirical facts (i.e., scientific
facts) prove this. Check Transparency International's annual reports.

Capitalism maximizes human liberty. Show me massacres (apart from the
brutal treatment of slaves) in capitalist societies. 

Capitalism maximizes fraternity. The major cause of wars in the world in
the 20th century has been the great urge of communists and socialists to
impose their stupid ideas on others. They are not satisfied by
massacring their own people. They want to kill others too. They do not
believe in discussion and debate. This thing that I am doing here is
capitalist. If I were a communist I would adopt secretive methods, form
a gun-toting group, and threaten your life if you spoke against me. That
is what the "Scientific Socilists" called ULFA, in Assam, do. That is
what Mao did. That is what Stalin and Pol Pot did. That is what
Naxalites do. Discussion and respect for other human beings is
COMPLETELY foreign to socialism since they believe that they can IMPOSE
a minimum wage and also the prices of commodities [and other things].

I rest my case, and also my painful fingers. These attempts to change
the meaning of words into OPPOSITE meanings cannot go unchallenged.

Sanjeev




 



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