A Distorted Reality.

I found this on my travels across my favourite centre-biased, mixed economy-whoring political blog (pushing their adherence to the status quo, as always), and, after getting over my inherent bias towards thinking that the depiction of socialism as a gun-toting governmental entity stealing from the populace was just oh so wrong, came to the reasoned conclusion that the image is actually a completely reasonable, completely fair representation of the two systems. Now, coming from someone who bills himself as a libertarian socialist, this may seem like an odd statement; but it can be justified in favour of my beliefs.

First of all, the utility that comes of each of the ‘thefts’ must be evaluated: it is practically undeniable that, in spite of the opportunity for the creation of jobs etc, the capitalist repossession of assets or merely using his assets to keep the worker (God, this is going to sound awfully archaic and a throwback to Marx’s bourgeois vs. proletarian class struggle rhetoric) in his defined place only, in all eventuality, benefits the capitalist as an individual. The taking of money from the worker by the state/administrative bodies, on the other hand, serves to, theoretically, benefit the collective as a whole: a far more attractive proposition to the non-egocentric.

The concept of individual property can also be attacked here: the socialist system can be justified and the capitalist vilified (or at least shown to be contradictory). If the state, as it does in capitalist systems, has the right to tax income and purchases, why should it not have the right to take possession of any assets it pleases? Taxation is just as much a theft as the supposed immorality of the reappropriation of resources as seen in socialism. Any arguments of the rights to the whole sanctity of private property rights being necessary in a free-market, capitalist state are clearly negated wholly by the endemic taxation such a system requires – no property can the owned if the state can take part of anything as its own, for its own purpose. Socialism is clearly more moral in being more direct about it; not hiding behind some fallacious doctrine of ‘individual freedoms’, which not to say that people in a socialist state could not be free: it’s just that that seems to be the consensus around those who can only see socialism as what we were fighting against 1945-1990.

Other freedoms are also supposedly ‘infringed upon’ in socialist societies: the most commonly mentioned one being the freedom of action. A capitalist may claim that welfare, business regulations, tariffs and minimum wage laws are immoral as they prevent lives from being lived as some may desire in a vain attempt to discredit a collectivism-based government. A logical mind would see that welfare, business regulations and minimum wage laws are inherently moral through their protection of the unemployed and the unskilled and skilled workers alike; and tariffs moral through the protection of home-based industry and thus the ensuring of jobs for the workers of the nation – negating, in fortunate circumstances, the need for the distribution of welfare: the imposition of tariffs in a supposedly purist capitalist society may even serve to benefit them, as well as proving the lack of a need for an all-inclusive welfare system.

In conclusion, socialism’s alleged oppression is more morally justified than any allegations of oppression on the side of capitalism for the core reasons that:

1. The utility of the masses is ensured above the utility of the individual capitalist.
2. Capitalism’s idea of ‘property freedom’ is contradictory if taxation is involved, so the oppression of the worker is unjustified by its own principle’s shortcomings.
3. Whilst socialism may infringe upon some freedom (such as the freedom of an employer not to pay a living wage), the trade-off of the freedom for its benefits is very advantageous to most.