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"this does not change the fact that privatization is theft. The former owners of Soviet facilities - the Soviet people - were not adequately compensated for the

by theoj 15y ago

"this does not change the fact that privatization is theft. The former owners of Soviet facilities - the Soviet people - were not adequately compensated for their loss." There's also the original theft that enabled the existence of the Soviet state -- the theft of land and wealth from the former land holding class starting in 1917. The collectives were created from their lands, and they received no compensation -- in fact in many cases they were persecuted and murdered. Some excuse this breach of property rights by saying that the aristocracy was corrupt, evil, etc., just like today's elites are. It's only the communes and collectives who were "good" and whose property rights should be respected. Should everyone be equal economically regardless of merit? The guy who does nothing all day long, and the guy who works hard to build a successful dairy firm -- they all should receive the same salary? It is this type of economic thinking that ruined the USSR - when there's no reward for doing good work, then there's no reason to do good work. Why should I work hard when I can rest and get my guaranteed salary? EDIT: Please attack the arguments not the messenger. I've edited my comment to do the same.

asciilifeform 15y ago
you seem to believe that everyone should be equal economically regardless of merit. Interesting implication. It says a fair bit about you, actually. That, like most people on this site, you place every person whose thoughts you read into one of a small number of mental "boxes." I, for instance, am apparently a "Looter" from Ayn Rand's novels. Not everyone is a character from a morality play. Please try to remember this. Not everyone is an uncritical defender or mindless opponent of this or that fashionable doctrine. the guy who works hard to build a successful dairy firm How about the guy who works others hard to build a successful dairy firm? And his grand-children? What should they receive? This is the real issue regarding the aristocrats of any nation. According to some, the USSR began to perish (through widespread cynicism of its own foundational myths) when it finally built a fresh aristocracy of inherited privilege - the Brezhnevian "nomenclature."
- theoj 15y ago
  "That, like most people on this site, you place every person whose thoughts you read into one of a small number of mental "boxes." I, for instance, am apparently a "Looter" from Ayn Rand's novels." Notice how you placed all the people on HN in a single mental box. In the interest of fairness, can you tell me more about your outlook and why you believe privatization is theft?
  - asciilifeform 15y ago
    My personality and political views won't fit into a HN comment box. And I dearly hope that yours wouldn't either.
    - theoj 15y ago
      Well then, why don't we just stick to your statement that privatization is theft. Bonus points if you can show me how your arguments do not fall in any existing ideology.
      - asciilifeform 15y ago
        Try this example. It is 2015, the US Federal Government is approaching true bankruptcy. The decision is made to denationalize the Yellowstone National Park. It is sold to Exxon Corp. for $300 million. They will prospect for oil there. You, one of 300 million eligible shareholders, are sent a stock certificate worth $1. You sell it for $0.50 to buy a stale loaf of bread from a local gang (your family has nothing else to eat.) Did this story feature a theft? Which traditional political ideology does it support?
        astine 15y ago
        "Did this story feature a theft?" No. If the government had the right to sell the damn park and had done so transparently, then that was not a theft no matter how you spin your scenario. In fact, as a person whose family is ostensibly in such bad straits that they would undersell promising stock in Exxon-Mobile by 50% for food I'm probably not all that interested in whether Yellowstone national park remains open.
jlangenauer 15y ago
And from where did the land-owning class obtain the land appropriated from them in 1917, pray tell?
- theoj 15y ago
  Is there an argument here? Care to expand?
  - sedachv 15y ago
    Land "ownership" is (like debt) an arbitrary system enforced by threat of violence. Hunter gatherers may have been territorial, but nowhere to the extent that agricultural societies are.
- lupatus 15y ago
  From the prior inhabitants through the ancient and acceptable right of force-of-arms... The Russian state first started with a small group of Viking princes in the area of Kiev and expanded to rule an area that used to be home to a wide variety of empires, states, kingdoms, and tribes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_russia#Kievan_Rus.27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_russia#Kievan_Rus.27
  - asciilifeform 15y ago
    through the ancient and acceptable right of force-of-arms... And that's exactly how the Communists, in turn, came to own it.

by theoj 15y ago

asciilifeform 15y ago

you seem to believe that everyone should be equal economically regardless of merit. Interesting implication. It says a fair bit about you, actually. That, like most people on this site, you place every person whose thoughts you read into one of a small number of mental "boxes." I, for instance, am apparently a "Looter" from Ayn Rand's novels. Not everyone is a character from a morality play. Please try to remember this. Not everyone is an uncritical defender or mindless opponent of this or that fashionable doctrine. the guy who works hard to build a successful dairy firm How about the guy who works others hard to build a successful dairy firm? And his grand-children? What should they receive? This is the real issue regarding the aristocrats of any nation. According to some, the USSR began to perish (through widespread cynicism of its own foundational myths) when it finally built a fresh aristocracy of inherited privilege - the Brezhnevian "nomenclature."

theoj 15y ago
"That, like most people on this site, you place every person whose thoughts you read into one of a small number of mental "boxes." I, for instance, am apparently a "Looter" from Ayn Rand's novels." Notice how you placed all the people on HN in a single mental box. In the interest of fairness, can you tell me more about your outlook and why you believe privatization is theft?
- asciilifeform 15y ago
  My personality and political views won't fit into a HN comment box. And I dearly hope that yours wouldn't either.
  - theoj 15y ago
    Well then, why don't we just stick to your statement that privatization is theft. Bonus points if you can show me how your arguments do not fall in any existing ideology.
    - asciilifeform 15y ago
      Try this example. It is 2015, the US Federal Government is approaching true bankruptcy. The decision is made to denationalize the Yellowstone National Park. It is sold to Exxon Corp. for $300 million. They will prospect for oil there. You, one of 300 million eligible shareholders, are sent a stock certificate worth $1. You sell it for $0.50 to buy a stale loaf of bread from a local gang (your family has nothing else to eat.) Did this story feature a theft? Which traditional political ideology does it support?
      - astine 15y ago
        "Did this story feature a theft?" No. If the government had the right to sell the damn park and had done so transparently, then that was not a theft no matter how you spin your scenario. In fact, as a person whose family is ostensibly in such bad straits that they would undersell promising stock in Exxon-Mobile by 50% for food I'm probably not all that interested in whether Yellowstone national park remains open.

jlangenauer 15y ago

And from where did the land-owning class obtain the land appropriated from them in 1917, pray tell?

theoj 15y ago
Is there an argument here? Care to expand?
- sedachv 15y ago
  Land "ownership" is (like debt) an arbitrary system enforced by threat of violence. Hunter gatherers may have been territorial, but nowhere to the extent that agricultural societies are.
lupatus 15y ago
From the prior inhabitants through the ancient and acceptable right of force-of-arms... The Russian state first started with a small group of Viking princes in the area of Kiev and expanded to rule an area that used to be home to a wide variety of empires, states, kingdoms, and tribes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_russia#Kievan_Rus.27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_russia#Kievan_Rus.27
- asciilifeform 15y ago
  through the ancient and acceptable right of force-of-arms... And that's exactly how the Communists, in turn, came to own it.