Law school, my hiking trip, and other recent matters

[toddfather07]

many things are racing through my mind tonight, or rather should I say this morning. I find myself unable to sleep once again, and I am attempting to find out why. Here's what's going on

Comments

Re: Much love for D.T. Loki Dunk

[thing_of_things]

But... Socialism as I understand it implies that there is a mechanism other than the free market by which wealth is distributed. If such a mechanism exists, this can be called a government. If such a mechanism does not exist than we have anarchy.
Following this logic I shall now descend into a fantastic morass of oversimplification: The trouble with governments getting big is they tend to like to keep their ability to redistribute wealth (and siphon some off for themselves). As the government gets bigger and more powerful the redistribution system tends to favor its own people more and everyone else less... and even if everyone is working for the government not everyone will be working in wealth redistribution or making administrative decisions. Historically, when this has happened, eventually, either revolutions have occurred with levels of violence directly proportional to the amount of wealth and power the respective governments managed to accrue (France under Louis XVI, the British Empire), the governments were invaded and destroyed by more efficient outside powers (Nazi Germany, the Byzantine Empire, etc), or they simply collapsed under their own weight into the sort of anarchy I doubt you would advocate (the Western Roman Empire). I can't think of an example of a government getting so large it simply sublimates away without a major social upheaval, and no such revolution has ever led to a system that at once lacks a government and retains a socialized economy, because as stated above this is by definition impossible.
There are a few items in history that resemble exceptions, and they generally involve very small agricultural communities (Quakers, Kibbutzim, etc.). These communities work simply because they are so small that everyone is essentially part of the government administration (and has a significant say) and they are homogeneous enough (economically, socially, religiously, ethnically, etc, etc, etc.) that factions are unlikely to form. This is, by the way, why European socialism has worked better historically than American socialism. A large, diverse society cannot exist without competing factions.
...
Capitalism!