Defending socialism

[PurpleLove]

I'm a member on a few other online forums.

On one website there are quite a bit of conservatives.

One of the most common reactions I get when I reveal my political stance (democratic socialist) is "Socialism is theft!"

I'm pretty much ill equipped to fend off these attacks aside from, "It's the business class that is doing all the theft!"

Any suggestions for future replies/retorts are very much appreciated.

[Broletariat]

Reclaiming stolen property is not theft, which is essentially what Socialism seeks to do. Other than that point I'm not sure where they could pull the idea of Socialism = theft.

[PurpleLove]

I can't link to the site because my post count isn't high enough but here is the text of this one a-hole poster's post:
"The facts:
[] Private property = that which an individual absolutely owns.
[] Socialism (and communism) abolish private property.

When "everyone" owns something, does anyone have a "right" to it?
Or is it a "privilege" controlled by the State?

Doesn't "everyone" own a public park, by your definition?
Who makes the rules defining when anyone can use it?
THE POWER over the collective state.
Not you.
If you violate "their rules", you suffer.

So let's be clear - collective ownership doesn't mean YOU own it, and have a RIGHT to it. It means you need permission of everybody else - or the power that controls it.

Get down on your knees, and start crawling, and begging for your privileges.

If "everyone" has a right to compel anyone to labor for their benefit, so that they may have the benefit of other people's labor, isn't that SLAVERY?

If you do not think compulsory "charity" under threat, duress, or coercion of socialist government is not slavery, what else is it?

Paradise?

Communism, socialism and collectivism are scary. Anyone who is not frightened by the useful idiots who support it, is either a victim of propaganda, or a co-conspirator in the attack upon the property of others.

I have yet to find one Socialist activist who want to volunteer HIS life and labor for the benefit of mankind. In general, socialists want to volunteer "other people's labor and property" for themselves.

Socialists are thieves and slavers, because they espouse taking YOUR labor, and YOUR property from you, "for your own good"... and taking a hefty cut of the booty, for their "enlightened administration"."

[Broletariat]

I can't link to the site because my post count isn't high enough but here is the text of this one a-hole poster's post:
"The facts:
[] Private property = that which an individual absolutely owns.
[] Socialism (and communism) abolish private property.

When "everyone" owns something, does anyone have a "right" to it?
Or is it a "privilege" controlled by the State?

Doesn't "everyone" own a public park, by your definition?
Who makes the rules defining when anyone can use it?
THE POWER over the collective state.
Not you.
If you violate "their rules", you suffer.

So let's be clear - collective ownership doesn't mean YOU own it, and have a RIGHT to it. It means you need permission of everybody else - or the power that controls it.

Get down on your knees, and start crawling, and begging for your privileges.

If "everyone" has a right to compel anyone to labor for their benefit, so that they may have the benefit of other people's labor, isn't that SLAVERY?

If you do not think compulsory "charity" under threat, duress, or coercion of socialist government is not slavery, what else is it?

Paradise?

Communism, socialism and collectivism are scary. Anyone who is not frightened by the useful idiots who support it, is either a victim of propaganda, or a co-conspirator in the attack upon the property of others.

I have yet to find one Socialist activist who want to volunteer HIS life and labor for the benefit of mankind. In general, socialists want to volunteer "other people's labor and property" for themselves.

Socialists are thieves and slavers, because they espouse taking YOUR labor, and YOUR property from you, "for your own good"... and taking a hefty cut of the booty, for their "enlightened administration"."


All his fallacies derive from the fact that he doesn't understand the difference between Private and Personal Property, explain that and you should be good.

[lulks]

if someone steals something from you and you take it back, that's not stealing. the capitalist class makes all of its profit by stealing from the working class, so redistribution from capitalists to workers is not theft.

[mikelepore]

If "everyone" has a right to compel anyone to labor for their benefit, so that they may have the benefit of other people's labor, isn't that SLAVERY?

Yes, it would be. Also, I have never heard of anyone who has recommended such a thing. Why argue against an idea that no one has ever recommended?

[mikelepore]

So let's be clear - collective ownership doesn't mean YOU own it, and have a RIGHT to it. It means you need permission of everybody else - or the power that controls it.

Get down on your knees, and start crawling, and begging for your privileges.

Simple arithmetic can prove that wrong. If an industry is run for a profit, when you buy the product you have to pay the cost of production PLUS the owners' profit. If the same industry were operated as a nonprofit association, when you buy the product you would only have to pay the cost of production. The writer is claiming that receiving the good news that prices of the products that you buy are going to be substantially less in the future is to be described as "begging and crawling." Oh, such horrible degradation, to be put in a situation where you will get charged lower prices.

[CartCollector]

If "everyone" has a right to compel anyone to labor for their benefit, so that they may have the benefit of other people's labor, isn't that SLAVERY?No, slavery is when someone forces someone else to labor for their benefit. Now let's see... elite few who don't work, but coerce others to act the way they want so they can profit from their labor... hmm... what does that sound like? That's right, capitalism! If you're anti-slavery, you've chosen the wrong economic ideology to back.



If you do not think compulsory "charity" under threat, duress, or coercion of socialist government is not slavery, what else is it?Socialists don't strive to create charity, they seek to destroy it. Let's read a quote from Daniel DeLeon, a prominent American Marxist from the late 19th/early 20th century:

"There was a time here when it would have been an insult to a man to offer him his Christmas dinner. He was capable of providing all that he needed. He is no longer. He must depend on what charity doles out to him. He is made a suppliant for Christmas cheer. He is no longer capable of providing for himself, and must depend on what is given him... A merry Christmas should be a Christmas that finds all men capable of producing their own merriment, instead of having it ladled out to them, to a chorus of self-praise and gratulation on the part of the givers."

So much for "forced charity." And anyways, the government has been forcing the working class to donate its life and labor to capitalists. That's another kind of "charity" that socialists agree can be done away with.