socialism demystified

(this rant is part of my main rant "politics for dummies")

table of contents

I. core aguments against socialism
II. history of socialism
III. other arguments and examples against socialism
IV. future of socialism
V. bernie sanders is not a socialist

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update 4/11/20: i should make it clear that in true socialism, a single person can still own personal property such as a house, car or cellphone. someone in facebook corrected me and i'm grateful to that person. however, leftists should wisen up and always make it clear at the beginning of any talk related to libertarian socialism that people are still allowed to own personal property. leftists should practice talking to and listening to common low intellects like me in a workplace democracy such as factory line workers and janitors who might not be that detail oriented

I. core aguments against socialism

socialism has it's merits. capitalism has it's merits. it's stupid to have to choose a pure form of one or the other. example in the philippines, the rightful owners of farm lands are the native farmers. the spaniards basically took it from them. thanks to leftists and socialists, the lands are slowly being returned to the farmers. but the problem with socialism is that it also wants to take away properties that don't belong to them. chomsky gave a thumbs up to the 1936 libertarian socialist revolution in catalonia spain where socialists took over the factories. the socialists should build their own factories because many of the properties, factories and buildings were the result of sacrifices and risks made by good entrepreneurs. the astronomical rise in value of city properties is the result of risks made by entrepreneurs and expertise of engineers. so the natives don't really have a claim especially the city is just a very small area relative to the entire country. nothing is physically stopping the natives or masses from building their own city in an unused land. the only reason why they can't is because they don't have the expertise and capital. and if you change the system so the masses can have capital, there will be lack of experts because why would i bother going to engineering school when i can just take what i need from the communal storage and my wealth and status in society will be equal to that of a lazy bum?

google and the internet is downfall of the left's intellectual mystique. i used to think my leftist friends were like knowledge gods. that's because before the internet, you have to spend half a day going to the library and browsing many books to get the information you need. because there was no google, the information in your brain has to be preloaded. a normal person would rather spend that time watching TV. only leftists would actually spend the time and effort going to the library. maybe motivated by their anger towards society as a result of their neurotic tendencies. nowadays, a low intellect like me can just google to quickly get all the relevant information for a certain issue.

leftists think they can fool us by saying soviet union and maoist china was not socialism because workers did not control the means of production. but most of us believe that even if the workers did control the means of production, the lack of incentives and competition would have caused it to fail nevertheless. competition is one of the most important ingredients for society to succeed and prosper. that is why even egalitarian societies such as norway have corporations that compete with one another. without competition, humans will lose their fighting spirit and become lazy. the soviet citizens lost their fighting spirit so they wallowed in alcohol spirit which carried over up to this day.

leftists cower in the safety of obscurity by not telling you that all forms of socialism does not allow you to own properties and voluntarily do contracts with one another. they don't tell you that in true socialism, you don't need to work or go to school and you can still take what you need from a communal storage. no leftist will dispute this. in fact chomsky will even claim that these are good features of socialism but he will only mention it if someone brings it up or questions him on it. any person with common sense will know that the lack of incentives and competition will cause too many people to become lazy and society will collapse and suffer poverty. most people are already aware of this. this is why most people think leftists are lunatics. luckily for leftists, they can't be technically or scientifically proven wrong because there is no science that can prove that humans will become lazy if there is no individualistic incentive to contribute to society. but for us normal people, we won't entrust our kid to a priest just because there is no evidence to prove he is a pedophile.

it baffles me when leftists, who are suppose to be the smartest intellectuals in the world, gather together to ridicule the public's ignorance about socialism. they say that in true socialism, workers control the means of production. technically, they are right. they gloat and think they are awesome because they know about this technicality while others don't. but the leftists are too stupid to realize that the reason why most people are not aware of this technicality is because most of us normal people don't really care or dream about controlling the means of production. we don't care about those friday afternoon co-op meetings. there are 29,000 co-ops in the US and 2 million americans work in co-ops but there are no youtube videos of co-op workers/members spreading the good word on how awesome it is to participate in controlling the means of production. i found one by michael moore but it only had 8k videos. that is very low considering my horrible car repair video has 38k views and i'm just a nobody - replacing the sway bar bushing of a 2007 mazda 5

we care more about freedom, owning a home, and travelling with our family to paradise beach resorts. leftists call us temporary slaves for renting ourselves to corporate tyranny or totalitarians. they are too stupid to be aware that for us normal people, taking away our right to own property is more totalitarian. they are too stupid to be aware that to us normal people, words and labels are less important. what matters to us is real and concrete happiness and prosperity or the release of our dopamine and serotonin. if miss universe is paying me to have sex with her, you can call me a prostitute all you want but i will just laugh at you.

human beings may not be that knowledgeable compared to leftist intellectuals but leftists are too stupid to realize that human beings will ALWAYS become knowledgeable on things they are interested in, regardless of importance or value. just listen to sports talk radio where ordinary americans call in and dazzle us with their immense knowledge on baseball history and statistics. if people are convinced that socialism will fail, why even bother about the other technicalities? if i know that a car won't run, why would i bother if it has ABS or airbags that will prevent infants from dying of malnutrition?

everyone agrees that mutual aide or helping the needy is more important than baseball. everyone agrees that the world will be like heaven if everyone is a socialist. there will be no wars and poverty if everyone is a leftist. but leftists are too stupid to notice and observe the NON SCIENTIFIC reality that most people have too much psychopathic tendencies. of course there are many examples of humans helping the needy but normal people won't entrust their kid to a priest just because that priest has done a lot of charitable work.

socialists argue that socialism can succeed because mutual aide is a factor of human evolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution. actually nobody would argue that humans have the capacity for mutual aide. but it's not a binary yes or no question. the question is how much? if you live and struggle in the real world instead of limit your experiences with good  people such as the academic world and revolutionary/activist organizations, you will quickly realize the answer is "not enough for socialism to succeed". the counter to this theory is social darwinism which claims that survival of the fittest is also a factor of evolution. this is the root of our psychopathic, individualistic or selfish personalities. i was dumbfounded when chomsky told his audience to take the social darwinism theory with a grain of salt as if we have to choose a pure form of one or the other. any person with common sense knows that it's a mixture of both. there is a good and bad in all of us. but chomsky never tells you to take the peter kropotkin's mutual aid theory with a grain of salt because he wants to manufacture our consent.

the good news for leftists or socialists is they can always use propaganda as a scapegoat for their wrong guesses about human nature - https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2019/06/propaganda-scapegoat-of-the-left.html

has true socialism ever worked? humans are complex and very different because we evolved in different environments. in the chiapas mexico, the native zapatistas have been practicing libertarian socialism (libsoc) successfully for many generations. if intellectuals put more effort in studying human nature in regard to economic policies, maybe the mexican government will learn that the fear of zapatista libsoc spreading like wildfire will be as ridiculous as the fear that gay communities will turn everyone gay. maybe the reason why libsoc works for the zapatistas is because centuries of evolution made them adopt perfectly to their environment so they are more content, happy, cooperative, selfless, humane, moral, etc just like the socialist empire of the incas in peru.

maybe the mexican government will allow the zapatistas to flourish like the quakers in pennsylvania and allow marcos to return to the philippines. they will realize that the predominantly materialistic european genes of the rest of the mexicans will never be compatible with libsoc, just like a gay guy would never want to have sex with miss universe. there is no flood of mexicans flocking to the chiapas but many people risked their lives to cross the berlin wall so they can express their psychopathic urges in west germany. they  will realize the brief success of libsoc in 1936 catalonia spain was just a honeymoon aberration. meaning people tend to be in a selfless and cooperative mood after a successful revolution just like couples on their wedding night. even soviet state socialism prospered for 10 years.

besides, the libsocs in 1936 catalonia did not have to build their own factories and infrastructure so we don't know if a libsoc society can handle those tough phases. thieves obviously would enjoy brief prosperity after a heist. imagine how many of those stolen properties were built by entrepreneurs using blood sweat and tears only to be taken away from them. even the tyrannical US pays for the oil it gets from the middle east. the 1936 catalonia revolution deserved to be crushed, unlike the zapatistas and the quakers who did not steal anything and did not commit atrocities. the sad thing about that revolution was they burned the churches and executed the priests. i cringe just thinking about it because my mother goes to church everyday and i'm sure she would rather burn than be forced to leave the church. although maybe it was only the communists who committed the atrocities. wikipedia giveth, wikipedia taketh (or excludeth). i can't imagine george orwell allowing such heinous acts.

it's also idiotic to use 1936 catalonia as an example of a successful libsoc society because they already had instant professionals such as doctors and engineers who probably would not have bothered making the sacrifice of getting an advanced education if the outcome is the same and they can just get what they need in the communal storage.

II. history of socialism

there are always pros and cons to all complex systems. for now, capitalism is clearly better than socialism but of course capitalism has many downsides. socialism is simply a reaction to the bad effects of capitalism. capitalism became more intense with the industrial revolution. before the industrial revolution, a shoemaker would do everything, including sales and marketing. this way of life is more conducive to the release of a human's serotonin and dopamine. unfortunately for the artisans, not everyone was an artisan or craftsperson and humans would always find a way to have an easier life. so machines were invented, factories were built, and the the industrial revolution happened. artisans went out of business because a factory made shoe cost much less.

intellectuals argue whether the industrial revolution made people's lives better in general - https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/economic-nonsense-17-the-industrial-revolution-brought-squalor-and-impoverished-the-poor. some say it has led us into an age without the famines, epidemics, and other disasters that continually plagued pre-industrial societies. they claim that the abysmal living standards of the workers was not because of capitalism, but because of the napoleonic wars that depleted government funds that were suppose to be spent on improving housing and infrastructure.

but for me it's a useless argument. even if it only improved the lives of 10%, the capitalists obsoleting the craftspeople would be just like the homo sapiens wiping out the neanderthals to extinction. if an alien with superman powers come to earth and allows itself to be owned and controlled by native americans, and the native americans decide to take back america by killing all non native americans, then i will just laugh, gather my family and tell them, "we are screwed. let's just wait to die". i'm not going to act like a palestinian or a leftist jumping up and down crying foul or injustice. i'm not going to think the native americans are bad people. i'm just going to think they are lucky people. on a second thought this event would probably be like a wet dream to chomsky and the leftists so they would also be laughing as they await their death.

if i was living in 1800s, i would have thought of an idea that workers should unite and take over the factories. actually dudes such as karl marx and engels thought of this idea and wrote about it. this is how socialism was born. the idea of socialism came from karl marx's writings. he wasn't really an economist. he just retweeted many of the tweets of great ecoomists such as adam smith. he was like trump who retweets the great economists in fox news. marx ranted on what was going on and predicated what will happen in the future (just like what i'm doing in my blog). just like any human being, marx said many things that were correct and many things that turned out to be incorrect.

marx observed that the 16 hours a day 6 days a week of labor would destroy body and soul of any human being. he is correct and i'm sure nobody would dispute that. the left will never point out these working hours during that era because it will show that capitalism is always improving and it will invalidate their anti capitalism rhetoric. marx was observing the industrial revolution in england which was a monarchy unlike america. so it was easy for the monarchy to strip long time rural residents of their right to continue to grow food. their farms confiscated, they had no choice but to work in the factories where they were losing fingers in the machinery or dying in accidental fires. the police would beat them to death if they went on strike, a right they used to have under previous feudal relations. any person with common sense will be believe that if the poor working conditions continued, there would be a violent uprising. karl marx's writings actually made a lot of sense for that era.

but working conditions improved. it's true that capitalisms has the potential to exploit workers but that can be countered by legislation. now people just work 8 hours a day 5 days a week. i understand it's very difficult to know how much legislation or regulations to put in. what the ideologues on the left and right says is you don't have to worry about balancing act because the other side are just evil morons. workers should be able to dictate how much they get paid which is ridiculous.

the $15 minimum wage does not automatically benefit the majority. there are many pros and cons. the left would simply mention the benefits and the ideologues on the right would just mention the disadvantages of a $15 minimum wage. chomsky even wants corporations dismantled. any low intellect with common sense knows that's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. or cutting out one's arm because it feels sore. socialists idiotically argue that not abolishing capitalism because working conditions are improving is like not abolishing slavery because their working conditions were always improving. i explain this further in https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2019/06/propaganda-scapegoat-of-the-left.html.

marx was not smart enough to predict that government legislation or regulations has the capacity to eventually improve working conditions significantly. so marx incorrectly predicted that capitalism will succumb to its own contradictions and be overthrown. he predicted that a socialist revolution can only happen in advanced industrial or capitalist societies but instead, socialist revolutions only happened in poor, agricultural or less developed countries. instead, advanced capitalist countries have less worker discontent. the soviet union and maost china were mostly agricultural, which was bad news for socialists because peasants always dream of owning their own land, which is contradictory to socialist principles. this is why marxist believed that for a socialist revolution to succeed, factory workers have to lead the struggle while they teach the peasants about socialist principles. germany was the last remaining bastion or hope for a true socialist revolution but it was hijacked by hitler and fasicism.

just like chomsky, marx did not think capitalists are bad. it's the institutions or system that forcing capitalists to exploit workers or else their competition will take them out of business. actually marx supported attempts by independently organized workers to pursue their class interests by pressing for reforms within the bourgeois state – for example, for a reduction in the length of the working day – arguing that such victories would promote class consciousness. but class consciousness is not part of human nature. that would be like worker ants from different ant colonies uniting to topple their queens. nevertheless, the marxists used marx's prediction as a basis for workers around the world to unite in a permanent revolution and control the means of production.

here's another reason for the overreaction to capitalism - because of the sheltered lives of marxist intellectuals, they did not realize that unimaginable grinding poverty had always existed and for the first time in england's history it was actually being rapidly alleviated by capitalism and the industrial revolution. if you go inside a gymnasium with clean hardwood floor, and you get a good mop and run it over the floor you can still end up with a pile of dirt. the mop created the dirt just as the factories created the poor. that seems to be the thinking of the social critics of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including marx. the poor flocked to the factories and actually had much better lives but the intellectuals were appalled, thinking the factories created poverty.

chomsky keeps bringing up the farm girls in america who worked in the mills - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_mill_girls. why didn't they just go back to the farms? just watch the movie the martian where he planted potatoes even if there is no fertile soil and water in mars. would the farm girls have been killed if they returned to the farms? why were they instead recruiting their friends and families to work in the mills? if i'm getting poked in the eye with a needle i'm not going to recruit my friends and family to get poked in the eye with a needle. why didn't they form cooperatives? owners of the factories are just human beings. they are not aliens with special powers. chomsky and leftists will try to hide these important information because they are trying to manufacture our consent.

because socialism is a political system, it's very complex. because it's complex, then as usual there can be lots of deviations or forms. because there can be many forms, there would be many internal conflicts between socialists. this is why you have 1st international up to the 4th international - it's like the evolution of socialism as the different forms struggle against each other.

for example, in the 1st international of the mid 1800, it was marx versus bakunin. marx believed there had to be a vanguard state or party who would guide the workers (proletariat) until the workers councils (soviets) can govern on their own and the state will just wither away. bakunin didn't believe there had to be a temporary vanguard state and that the worker's councils should immediately take power. note that they both agreed that worker's councils should govern society or control the means of production, they just disagreed on how it will be achieved. when workers control the means of production, this form of socialism is called libertarian socialism (libsoc) or anarcho-syndicalism. here's a very interesting article that shows the conflicts were just as ugly as trump vs democrats - https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AMX_041_0112--the-marx-bakunin-conflict-in-the-first-i.htm. the conflict caused the 1st international to dissolve. the 2nd international was created, which excluded bakunin and the anarcho-syndicalists or libsocs. note that chomsky is more of a bakuninist or a libsoc than a marxist.

the problem with socialism without a vanguard state is that it won't be strong enough to withstand aggression. actually it has already been tried in 1936 catalonia spain and 1871 paris communes but they were easily dismantled by external forces. the cuban revolution would have easily been crushed by US imperialism if it didn't have a vanguard state. cuba wouldn't have been able to rescue angola from the tyranny of US backed south african apartheid. a true socialist society cannot survive in a sea of vicious capitalist psychopaths.

when a libsoc says 1936 catalonia and 1871 paris communes would have succeeded if left alone, that's as ridiculous as saying we would have won the basketball game if we scored more points. we all agree true socialism is amazing but the imperfections in human nature could make it unstable and unsustainable. yanis is making the same mistake with his diem25 movement as if there is no possibility that union leaders can be corrupt and end up making the same mistakes as the cartels. of course yanis can easily destroy anyone in a debate because no one in their right mind would publicly point out the imperfections of humans without getting crucified in social media. imagine if you say the corrupt greeks will just hijack the unions that would be in charge of the green initiatives.

on the other hand, libsocs believe the vanguard state is a bad idea because humans tend to be addicted to power once they get a taste of it. but note that true socialism will only succeed if everyone is permanently selfless by nature. it sounds like they are contradicting their own guess about human nature. or maybe they just believe it's the system or institution that's causing the individualistic or selfish human nature. maybe they believe that human flaws such greed, laziness and hunger for power will magically wither away once socialism is achieved and tyrannical institutions such as corporations are gone. maybe they believe equality will foster cooperation and mutual aid and people won't be greedy if they are assured they can always take what they need from the communal storage.but to me that's like saying a gay dude will become straight if he marries miss universe.

the dream of all socialists is for all workers of the world (proletariat) to unite against capitalism. but WW1 (1914-1918) was basically capitalists paying the proletariat to kill each other. this lead to the dissolution of the 2nd international. WW1 made it abundantly clear that human nature favors nationalism over class solidarity and humans would always sell their souls to the highest bidder. there was no propaganda or manufacturing of consent yet at that time so i don't know what scapegoat a leftist can come up with to dispute this. actually realizing this human nature is what gave birth to fascism. mussolini realized that he had to inject a nationalistic flavor to class worker solidarity. hitler followed suit but mussolini's laws were not strong enough to suppress society so hitler used the racist (jim crow) and misogynistic laws of america as a blueprint to create nazism. hitler pretended to be a socialist in the beginning to get support from the working class but once he attained power, he decimated the socialists.

karl marx died in 1883 so he was not around to advise the socialists they have lost the human nature guessing game based on what transpired in WW1. if marx was still alive he would have suggested to his comrades to throw in the towel and forget about socialism. the stubborn socialists continued their struggle, which resulted in millions of deaths and suffering.

because human nature does not allow true socialism to be feasible, the only forms of socialism that withstood the test of time were all fake socialism. in the soviet union (leninism, stalinism) and maost china, the state controlled the means of production (state socialism) and they had no intention or plan of one day transferring power to the worker's councils. that means they were the destroyers of socialism. the reason why everyone in the world believed state socialism was socialism is because the 2 greatest propaganda machines in the world called it socialism, but for different reasons or intentions. the US government wanted to call it socialism because socialism was a dirty word in america. soviet government wanted to call it socialism because socialism was a favorable word in russia.

hugo chavez is a true socialist because after he took power he left the capitalists alone. he even forgave the perpetrators of the coup against him. if a coup happens in america the coup participants would definitely be tried and executed. chavez was an angel who provided discounted oil to many poor countries - http://haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume6-34/PetroCaribe.asp. he even provided discounted heating oil to poor communities in the US  - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-oil-aid-to-boston-bronx/. venezuela is more humane than america. that's it i'm moving to venezuela. i don't want to end up like fred hampton for teaching chomsky and the leftists what they need to do do succeed - Black Panthers White Lies | Curtis Austin

even trotsky's version can't be called socialism because according to trotsky, workers should be lead by a single leader instead of worker's councils. lenin did pretend to favor workers control of means of production but it was just to gain popular support, just like clinton or obama attending church services. lenin even founded the cheka (kgb) which is contradictory to the core principles of socialism. a violent socialist revolution is actually an oxymoron. that's like christians saying "eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions god's infinite love".

i read one of lenin's rants and i was amused to realize his rants were just like my rants. he even used the word "stupid" against his marxist opponents - https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/apr/15.htm. lenin also called his opponents leftists just like what i do in my blog - https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/dec/x01.htm. he was considered a right winger among mainstream marxists such as antonie pannekoek and rosa luxemburg. chomsky says the reason why many intellectuals haven't heard of the mainstream marxists is because they lost and lenin won. what? hitler lost the war but we all know about him. besides, i thought intellectuals are suppose to know the hidden details.

after WW1 made it clear that global solidarity of the working class is not possible, lenin should have given up the revolution. instead he created the 3rd international where instead of achieving socialism through global class solidarity (permanent revolution), a vanguard state will need to overthrow the governments of other countries to be lead by the russia. this lead to the creation of the soviet union after nearby countries such as georgia and the baltic states where taken over.

i think lenin was initially a good guy. but just like in a classic star wars plot where a jedi is converted to the dark side via anger when a love one is killed, lenin's brother was killed by the tsar of russia. lenin lead a revolution that overthrew the tsar of russia. in the beginning, power was in the hands of the workers' councils. at this point, if lenin just stuck to true socialist principles and kept the power in the hands of the workers' councils, imperialist armies would have easily taken over russia.

but by this time, darth lenin already belonged to the dark side. either he ignored the obvious defective nature of the proletariat because "he did not have science to back it up" and he thought "history does not tell us anything", or he thought he could fix human nature by creating a vanguard state or party that would lead the stupid masses towards some future they’re too dumb to understand themselves. the party is suppose to participate as an ally in the struggles of working people against all forms of oppression. it is suppose to work tirelessly to educate people about the brutality of policies carried out to benefit a tiny few. but instead lenin created the cheka (kgb) as a tool to oppress the people.

things were going fine until lenin died of a stroke in 1924. a murderous psychopath named stalin took over. jealous of US economic boom. he forced a 5 year plan that lead to the gulags and famine in ukraine that killed 8 million people. note that at this point, stalin and the west were working in tandem to prevent global solidarity of the working class. churchill even praised stalin. their true enemy was trotsky. that is why he got got. the soviet union and the west shared a common fear - the unity of the global working class. although trotsky was not in favor of worker's councils, he did favor the global working class uniting under a single leader (4th international).

another reason why i think socialists are idiots is because true socialists claim lenin ended up controlling the socialist movements in all the countries because of the soviet union's PRESTIGE in establishing socialism. but it was clear lenin was destroying socialism. it's impossible to hide the fact that the worker's councils were being dismantled. HOW CAN YOU GAIN PRESTIGE FROM PEOPLE WHO'S DREAMS AND ASPIRATIONS YOU ARE DESTROYING? even anne coulter withdrew her support for trump for his failure to build the border wall. anne coulter even said she will support bernie sanders if bernie enforces the border. anne coulter may be evil for playing favoritism towards americans but she is smart. socialists are good people but they are idiots.

or maybe i'm just the idiot because there was no facebook and twitter yet at that time so the socialists probably did not know what was going on in russia. but socialists in lenin's time were like basketball fans who never bothered to watch an actual basketball game. they should have hungered for stories and literature of epic debates in workers councils and they should have become suspicious why there was none. at least one of them should have traveled to the soviet union to verify and spread the word on what was really going on. actually i'm just being kind to socialists because the truth is that trotsky was doing exactly that - telling everyone that lenin and stalin were destroying socialism. that's why he was assassinated.

only very few intellectuals like chomsky opposed state socialism from the beginning. even up to the early 1970's, it was very standard and respected to be a dedicated stalinist and maoist among french intellectuals. by the mid '70s when the gulags were discovered, all of a sudden the proud french intellectuals pretended they discovered the gulags and went on a tear on how everyone else supports stalinist and maoist atrocities while they are in front of everyone because they are french. only chomksy was consistently against state socialism since the beginning.

III. other arguments and examples against socialism

aside from the suppression of individual rights and reduced incentives, another popular criticism of socialism is the distortion or absence of price signals. without price signals in capital goods, all other aspects of the market economy are irrationa. here is a video that explains this clearly - What If There Were No Prices? The Railroad Thought Experiment.

true socialism (libsoc) also has a flat hierarchy. this may seem ideal but based on my experience, it would be a disaster because it's against human nature. maybe someday evolution will obsolete our hierarchical instincts but right now my head will explode working with ordinary people in a flat structure. for now a flat hierarchy probably only works with more evolved people such as intellectuals - https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2019/05/apple-falling-far-from-the-tree.html

an argument against capitalism is that a corporation is forced to maximize profit in order to survive therefore it tends to ignore externalities such as the environment. but maoist china and the soviet union had an environmental record just as bad as the US and capitalist nations. just look at the viral photos of china's smog cities even if corporations in china have to answer to the communist party. india had socialistic policies for decades yet i cringe just watching the documentaries in youtube about their polluted rivers. it's the people in the villages that are also polluting the rivers. besides, corporations such as solar companies and tesla are developing products that will be vital to solving the climate change issue.

i saw a video of chomsky giving a speech to libsoc activists in norway. chomsky was dumbfounded when someone asked, "how do we start?". chomsky was almost speechless and became like a nike commercial. he simply said, "just do it" but his body language looked like he might as well have said, "just get off your assess and just do it damn it". that's like a meeting of basketball enthusiasts and they ask michael jordan how should they start. this proves that true socialism is unnatural to human nature. even very smart and competent college students in norway have no clue how to get started. there are swaths of unused lands in norway. they don't need to steal the infrastructure and factories built by capitalists. they can start libsoc communities like the quakers of pennsylvania.

libsoc is more suitable in a more agricultural environment because everyone knows how to plant. but maybe leftists are too smart to be aware that most of the time normal people don't have an ounce of understanding of the technology behind the products of the corporation they are working for. i have BS degree in computer science yet if the company i worked for who made programmable chips was a co-op, the meetings would have been just a painful and boring snoozfest for me.

if someone wants to build a nice beach house, in libsoc he will be forced to let others use it. how will you know if the previous occupier did not install hidden cameras in your daughter's bathroom? what if they leave the place messy or dirty? sometimes you want nice things in the house. does that mean you will have to move all of them in and out? if you don't allow a person to build the beach house, then that would be  totalitarian.

even if competition is unnecessary for society to function, what if competition is like art where a person's soul or character will deteriorate or decay if not allowed to be expressed. maybe a competitor is just another personality like an artist? i know we can still play sports in libsoc but what if most humans crave for real competition with real and tangible rewards to the winners like having servants to cook, do laundry, and clean for you. sports only gives you worthless trophies as a reward. for some people, what is the point of working hard if there is no ultimate price in the end? i know it's difficult for leftists to fathom this because their brains are just wired differently. "what is the point of fighting if you don't have a cock" (game of thrones).

what if i want to have servants but the councils decide my educational achievement or job level is not high enough to deserve the servants? at least in a capitalist society, i can do something about it. maybe start a business and let it grow so i can afford servants one day. also note that i know people who would rather be a servant than do other jobs that are either too laborious or mentally demanding. what if there are people who would rather serve me rather than the work they are assigned to by the council? is anyone even allowed to be a servant in libsoc?

what happens if you are always late to work? what's the punishment? should you care when you can always get what you need in the communal storage?

what if you don't want to cook because you want to do something else that day? can you eat at a restaurant? can you eat everyday in a restaurant? who gets to eat in the restaurant?

my guess is that it's better to have a system that allows anyone to to "follow their heart". a capitalist democracy does that if implemented well. the low standard people can have basic needs as long as they work. but note that in a socialist society, they still need to work anyway. so instead of changing the system, just improve the current capitalist system. of course it will never be perfect and there will always be room for improvement. maybe the improvement is to inject a mild blend of social democracy and have medicare-for-all. it's a stupid argument for socialists to say improving capitalism is like improving a monarchy or improving slave policies. it's stupid because there is no known alternative to capitalism that is proven to work while there is a clear better alternative to slavery and monarchy.

maybe capitalism and the freedoms it gives is more a way of life than a system. maybe socialism is just another way of life and not just an economic system. you can design and change a system but changing a way of life is like changing your sexual preference. is living a nomadic or pastoral herder life living in tents and always on the move better than a settled farming way of life? it would be stupid to argue which life is better. but how do you decide what to do with the limited land? should land be used for farming or grazing animals? or both? this is where the choices come in to play. you can't choose the way of life that makes you happy because it's embedded in your genes. but you can chose to compromise and share the land, you can choose to fight or you can choose to be oppressed for the sake of peace. your choice depends on so may factors. in the case of the nomadic herders and settled farmers of eastern europe in the 11th century, they chose to fight. the war later became religious in nature known as the crusades - The Turks Enter Anatolia (1016-1071. there is no right and wrong or good and evil in this argument. there are just morons who think they are right and the other side is evil.

i'm not sure if true socialism bans religion. maybe it does because the libsoc revolution of 1936 catalonia spain burned the churches and executed the priests. it baffles me why chomsky gives a thumbs up to that revolution. i think religion is stupid but i know many of my love ones depend on religion for happiness. what if freedom of religion is just as important as dignity to not rent oneself to coporate tyranny? i think forcing everyone to live according to what the minority perceives as an ideal life is just as evil as corporate tyranny. that would be like banning cigarettes. 75% of americans are religious. that's astonishing. james madison did not want a democracy because he wanted to protect the intelligent minority from the religious majority (joke).  man does not live by bread alone. man is more complicated than just basic needs. if libsoc ignores freedom of religion and forces it's will on imperfect religious people, then libsoc is a scary totalitarian society.

what if i call to have my heater fixed because my baby is freezing from the cold? what is the technician's incentive to answer the call immediately in a libsoc society?

if humans really crave for equality how come there are not many novels and movies about libertarian socialism? i would love to see or read them because i have so many questions on how libsoc really works.

in true socialism or libsoc, do i have the option to retire early and still have the freedom to play golf everyday? https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2017/04/knowledge-bomb-on-self-esteem.html

here are other arguments that i got from quora:

marx ignored the law of supply and demand when determining the value of something. he assumed the value of a product only depends on the amount of labor put into it. i labored for hundreds of hours writing my blog but it has no value. why? because nobody wants to read it. it's true that near a river, the value of a bucket of water is the amount of labor fetching the bucket of water. if i take the risk drilling for water and hit the jackpot, it would be stupid to share my profits with the laborers. it will also kill the incentive of other people prospecting for water.

according to marx, surplus is the way to calculate wages. if the worker produces more then he has the right to own it. well that is good argument if he produces without help. if you can cultivate your own land, you own the harvest. that is what happened through human history. that worked good for workers too because there is limit on productivity. with industry, that is not the case. a worker can operate machinery to produce more than doing the same thing by hand. that machinery is built by a capitalist using his money and knowledge. thus productivity is increased but pay remained the same. marxism is stuck in work by muscle power that's why it thinks capitalism exploits labor.

the marxist idea of alienation is a confusing restatement of the exploitation argument. if the worker cant enjoy or afford the output of his work, he is alienated from it. but textile industry was the reason people can wear clothes which only royalty can afford before industrialization. so that argument fell flat

here's a good one from dinesh:

my other arguments against socialism are in these rants - https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2019/05/tony-stark-has-a-heart.html, https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2019/01/knowledge-bombs-on-inequality.html

IV. future of socialism

the newer generations are trending towards a favorable view of socialism. this is suppose to be good news for mankind because as i said the world is better off if everyone is a socialist. the bad news is that the personality of the newer generations are opposite that of a socialist. many psychologists call them "generation me" unlike the older generation who are "generation we". they favor socialist policies not because they are selfless and want to help the needy but because they are self centered and want the government to give them free stuff. we will have more and more elected officials who are socialists because it's easy to get elected giving people free stuff. these are just based on my experience and observation.

however the scientific community is divided. some experts say although there is a rising trend of narcissism, there is no evidence of a rising trend in entitlement. as usual human nature is very difficult to study. it's even difficult to study the behavior of insects, how much more humans who are much more complex? i hope i'm wrong because if i'm right, then a perfect storm is brewing - https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2019/06/it-is-ok-to-kill-socialists.html

unlike impatient socialists like lenin and mao, me and marx are perfectly fine with achieving socialism hundreds of years from now. just like space faring humans who would arrive at the a habitable planet after hundreds of generations have come and gone inside the spaceship. actually there is a good movie about this called "the passenger". the only flaw with that movie is that with technology that advanced they should already have achieved communism therefore the dude should have been entitled to the premium breakfast.

which brings me to the difference between me and marx  (other than he is a genius and i'm a moron) - assuming mankind will not be wiped out because of climate change and nuclear conflagration, i believe technology will advance to the point that humans have no choice but to have true socialism, the dismantling of nuclear weapons and the reversal of climate change. marx's differing opinion on the path towards socialism is understandable because there were no computers and 3d printers yet during his time. but if marx is alive today i think we will share the same opinions and chomsky will be his bakunin.

although it won't be workers controlling the means of production. it will be artificial intelligence (AI) controlling the means of production. there would be more humans craving to work than available jobs. there would need to be a lottery on who gets the honor to work 2 hours a day 3 times a week with 6 months vacation. automation and AI will force society to have a universal basic income. in fact it's already starting. andrew yang for president !!! but donald trump is the biggest supporter of socialism because he cut corporate taxes so they can spend more on research and development and accelerate our progress towards true socialism (joke). it may turn out libertarian socialism today is like boolean algebra which was just a useless theory 150 years ago. similarly, today libsoc is just a theory but one day it will be an essential. although contrary to chomsky, i believe there will always be a need for money or currency for the AI computers to gather data and make decisions.

i was glad when i found out yanis agrees with me: 

"Our best hope, Varoufakis suggests, lies with the liberating effects of hi-tech developments such as 3D printing, which will transform the means of production and social relations. Or as he puts it in language that could double as parody: The social inefficiency of capitalism is going to clash at some point with the technological innovations capitalism engenders and it is out of that contradiction that a more efficient way of organizing production and distribution and culture will emerge.”

V. bernie sanders is not a socialist

bernie sanders is a social democrat, which is not socialism. he advocates for a government that is similar to norway, sweden, canada, greece or venezuela. these countries still allow private ownership and corporations to exists and compete with each other.

it baffles me why bernie would call himself a democratic socialist. i'm sure he means social democrat because if you just google the terms, technically democratic socialism is real socialism. technicalities are not really important. just look at trump. he is full of technical errors yet our economy continues to be strong. but the voters are not smart enough to discern that these are just technicalities so bernie sanders and the TYT dudes should stop calling themselves socialists because i think it's hurting their cause.

let me end this article with a joke:

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libertarian socialism can work as long as people who call it as such are excluded from any council. it's amazing how their minds work: "to promote something and educate people about it, the first step is to confuse people. use the word - libertarian. americans will be smart enough to differentiate it from right wing libertarian because 3/4 of americans believe in religious miracles. next, follow it with a very unpopular word - socialism. again americans will be smart enough to distance it from stalin's gulags and genocide."

libertarian socialism will only work if people who call it using straightforward and desirable words such as  stateless-collectivism are elected to the councils that make the complex decisions instead of leftists like chomsky who wants to control us by manipulating language and placing us in intellectual isolation and destroying our capacity to think independently. ron paul even called libertarian socialism an oxymoron.

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(for more of my knowledge bombs, click the "ian's knowledge bombs" banner at the top of this article and choose any article in the table of contents that piques your interest)