@JECE No, I don’t call myself a Socialist. I’m a cuddly capitalist who believes in a market (i.e. not planned) economy, with a social safety net underneath it and a basic income for everyone.

What I object to is people calling for a planned economy as if the only change that entails is taking profits from private owners and distributing it to employees. It's not as simple as that. Expropriating private ownership and converting to a planned economy in a way that preserves the liberties most “Western-ish” societies are accustomed to, is something there just is not a blueprint for. The planned economy is not compatible with popular vote or broad freedom-of-speech.

In a planned economy, you are part of the plan, not one of the planners; your ability to do, say, and vote as you please are reduced accordingly. I don’t think mendax et al have thought things through as completely as Putin33.

"How can Socialism and a planned economy be achieved without a dictatorship of the proletariat?"
wtf is this lad on, such ignorance, the simple truth is that it is so much harder to achieve anything with ignorant idiots.
I wonder sometimes if you guys have random word generators that spew out uncoordinated phrases for forum amusement.
I think a discussion on collectivism would be wasted here.....

I wasn't trying to define what the definition of an anarchist is - I'm simply saying that anyone that believe in anarchy is <as stated above>. I would say that by definition a anarchist is a sociopath, since they seek to tear down the systems which theoretically bind our society together into a functional whole.

But if you are looking for a definition - traditionally, an anarchist has been understood to be a person that is against any form of organized government or authority. Not necessarily an advocate of being a go-it-alone kind of person, but rejecting authority of any form.

As for why they are mentally unstable people that are disconnected from reality -- this is because if the goals of anarchy were achieved, it would cause massive harm to humanity as a whole. I find it ironic that anarchists where clothing and eat food and live in houses, etc that can only exist because of the structures of society that they reject. and they live in a fantasy land (ie disconnected from reality) if they think that any of these things would have come about in the absence of government to bring order to society.

Yes - this from small/limited government advocate krellin. There is a huge difference between limited government and absence of.

((A LOT of food, makes me fat and unhealthy. A small, nutritionally balanced amount of food makes me lean and healthy. An absence of food makes me dead.))

I have invented the Krell-checker, it takes normal words and phrases and converts them to a jumbled mass of entertaining and amusing ridiculous sentences
e.g. "Anarchist -- mentally unstable sociopaths with a true disconnect from reality."
I am working on the mobile app, soon we'll all be able to use the 'Krell-checker'

Nigee responds to a cogent post with nothing but insults. Will he be warned for negativity? Doubt it.

Do anarchists even want plans? It sounds like all they want is Yugoslav style self-managed enterprises. But even that required a one-party state.

Nigee wrote:

"I have always had trouble trying to explain Socialism to Capitalists in non-economic non-monetary terms as it is hard for them to see past the twin Gods of money and power but for me 'organised compassion' is beautiful.
Can an economic system really be built around more than maximising of profits and exploitation?"

This is just a complete fallacy. Aside from all economic considerations (in which Socialism has shown itself to be one of the most calamitous and decisive failures in human history), at the heart of the divide between Socialism and a Liberal Market System is human freedom. A free society is virtually indissolubly interwoven with a Market System. Markets proclaim the individual supreme and recognize the market exchange as a human freedom. By design, the Market system recognizes the immense diversity of human beings and provides people the opportunity to pursue one's dream in life. We can never forget how precious that is. For most of human history people have not had that type of human freedom available to them. Hence, we must recognize it as something rare, fragile and precious. In that, the Market is a fundamentally compassionate.

On the contrary, you must understand, aside from all economic considerations, the destruction of private ownership in favor of Public ownership of the Means of Production, Cooperatives and Central planning as devastating infringements upon Human Freedom.

That people, honestly still advocate Socialism as a system that benefits humanity, especially at the expense of Capitalism, (although I do not think that the two co-exist well at all) is absolutely staggering.

What is staggering is that you think capitalism does anything for 'human freedom'. Freedom for slave owners, you must mean.

How does capitalism emancipate the individual? The individual is nothing but a cog to be disposed of. Basic rights don't matter. Marx underestimated the cruelty of the bosses. In his day the bosses were increasing wages steadily. In our day they are dismantling people's benefits and paying people below subsistence.

Sorry, krellin, but I think you're burning down straw-anarchists, and I also don't see how what you described about anarchists makes them sociopaths, either.

For one, there are two groups of anarchists, broadly speaking -- left-anarchists (the traditional understanding of anarchism) and right-anarchists (relatively new; they're the anarcho-capitalists mentioned earlier). Only left-anarchists oppose authority/hierarchy on principle; right-anarchists don't. Right-anarchists specifically oppose the existence of states, understood broadly to be involuntary hierarchical organizations that rely on the use of force to maintain themselves. I formerly identified as a right-anarchist and know some right-anarchists, and not a one seeks the dissolution of organized society. So while "disconnected from reality" might be a reasonable (if unduly harsh) descriptor of them, "sociopath" isn't.

And even within the left-anarchists, they still don't seek to dissolve organized society. I'm not nearly as acquainted with left-anarchists as I am right-anarchists, but most left-anarchists, as far as I understand, seek independence from the current political and economic system rather than to tear it down. You're far more likely to find left-anarchists trying to create their own self-contained places to live rather than resorting to violent overthrow of the system.

Certainly there are some left-anarchists (and right-anarchists, though it seems like this happens more with left-anarchists) who do support and seek to act out violent overthrow of the current political and economic system -- and depending on their means and motives they could well be considered sociopaths. I don't think anyone would argue that anarchists are by definition not sociopaths. But it's abjectly false to say that anarchists are necessarily sociopaths for opposing the current political and economic system.

In fact, your claim almost seems to amount to "If you do something to disrupt the fabric of the current societal system, you're a sociopath" -- which strikes me more as a smear of people who oppose that system than a serious description. After all, sociopaths don't simply oppose authority. They also have a notorious disregard for the rights of others, resort to violent means to obtain their ends, and display a lack of social and moral conscience. And again, while there are certainly some anarchists that fall under this descriptor, you'd be hard-pressed to describe all or even most anarchists this way.

"You're far more likely to find left-anarchists trying to create their own self-contained places to live rather than resorting to violent overthrow of the system.
"

Indeed. Which is why the bourgeoisie has nothing to fear from them, I must add.

Firstly, to quote another man, "Never should it be said that Capitalism is a sufficient condition for human freedom in and of itself, rather that is a necessary condition."

Secondly, if your preposterous assertion were true then is it not odd that people have immigrated to Capitalist countries from nations with our economic and social systems in what amounts to one of the great migrations in human history. People did not flock to American shores to be oppressed and disposed of. Rather, they came to the United States from the Monarchies of Europe to achieve a life for themselves and their families that was not otherwise attainable.

"Nigee responds to a cogent post with nothing but insults. Will he be warned for negativity? Doubt it."

Tell tale tit, tongue will split, and all the little doggies will have a little bit

People also migrated to America by gunpoint and were put in chains. That's part of the great heritage of capitalism. Everywhere capitalism expanded, it expanded by gunpoint and through brutal colonization. There would be no global market economy without it.

Now wait a minute, your name is 'civwarbuff', so certainly you cannot deny the essential importance of slavery for the political economy of world capitalism like so many of your brethren.

You are not understanding the point at all. The point is that markets effectively gauge human sentiment. Are you implying that Capitalism is a necessary condition of slavery? If so, you make that argument in the face of overwhelming evidence against you.

My brethren?

You're not making any points. You're making poetry. I'm not interested in your odes and poems. The fact is without slavery and genocide, capitalism wouldn't have been possible. Your whole edifice of "human freedom" (what a joke, tell that to the millions working in sweat shops to provide cheap shit to the first world) is built on enslavement.

Yes, your fellow capitalism apologists.

Who Like to randomly Capitalize words for No Reason.

CAPITALISM----Yeah---i make no apologies---i love it

Of course you do. You don't work for a living.

fuck you putty, ive worked quite hard for mine

you read the fucking dictionary, drop dead dip shithead

Doing what, shouting doo doo face and poo poo head?

You are not making any points actually.

On an economic level, which my comment to NigeeBaby had fairly little to do with, Capitalism has exponentially raised the standard of living of the people of the world. This is not at all controversial.

Putin, so when your wife puts the strap-on on, do you take it missionary, or maybe a little more exotic style? admit it, you know you want to come out...this is a safe place, were all friends here.....come on