I have had a previous post on this fair blog about the merits of the “that was not real socialism” argument. Among other things, I said that one should define ideologies by processes not by outcomes, as outcomes are not guaranteed. In my analysis, this is where most of the not real socialism debaters fail. They compare an imperfect “capitalism” to an imaginary utopia and find the former lacking. But they do not define a clear process which will lead to said utopia, not clear policies to prevent the disaster that befell previous attempts at achieving thereof. It is a constant source of puzzlement for me that this ridiculous ideology keeps persisting beyond any reason, logic or history, as such I shall write a bit more on the subject.
I have noticed that, when the any of the numbers of leftist intellectuals blames the 2008 economic crisis on the unregulated marked, it is pointed out to them that there was nothing resembling a free market in the financial sector in 2008. This is used as a gotcha moment to say well there was nothing resembling socialism in the Soviet Union. This is an attempt to discredit any argument made that something proclaimed X is not really X. But this is not a correct line of arguing. Sometimes we have a true Scotsman, sometimes not.
If you have an apple on the table, saying that is not a real orange is correct, but saying that is not a real apple (because it is red and you are thinking of green, although all modern Greens are Reds) is incorrect.
Objectively speaking, there were millions of pages of regulation in finances worldwide, enforced by hundreds of government agencies and many thousands of regulators. That is not, objectively, unregulated. Because unregulated means by definition lack of regulation, not lack of whatever ideal regulation the lefty thinks would have stopped whatever crisis; bad regulation is still regulation and there is no guarantee good regulation is in the power and bility of government.
Objectively speaking, in former communist countries there was no private property on the means of production. This off course led not to a classless utopia, because that is not how humans work, but the ruthless and politically savvy ending up in control. Yes, there was still money involved, but socialism is not defined by no money existing at any point, as our friends at the official socialist party of Great Britain would tell us. This situation, in most socialist theory, is not “not real socialism” but considered a step on the road to utopia, a step that was never overcome. The ultimate utopian endgame of a classless society with no money and absolute equality and abundance is that, an outcome that needs to be proven. No socialist country was anywhere close to that, nor were they moving in that direction. Now, if you can somehow reach socialist Utopia by skipping the “state capitalism” phase, I would love to know the mechanism.
Furthermore, all these not real socialist countries, through history, were seen as real socialist by the western left when they seemed to be working. Only when they stopped working did they become not real socialism. Except for the tankies off course, bless their hearts. They will tell you it was socialism and it was good. Except the Stalinists disagree with the Trots, and pretty soon the Maoists come in when you least expect them. Did you even read Mao? Educate yourselves.
Which brings me to the following point: if you read the writing of some of the Great Socialist leaders before they got power, none of them were parsing gulags and authoritarianism. Once they got it, on the other hand… Right now a new generation of socialist advocate utopian ideals and reject authoritarianism. But what would make one think that would not change if they ever got power, like it did in the past every single time. Every socialist became an authoritarian, but I will not, take my word for it. I would rather not take the chance, given the experience of the past. There is no reason to believe this will be the case. This if we ignore, although we should not, the elements of violence in their rhetoric and their obvious hatred of their opponents. Read enough through any far left idealists internet comments, be it social media forums etc, and you will see this. If feel I hardly see any modern socialist who does not give me cause to believe they would gleefully ship my ass to camp.
Non socialists criticized socialism before it was implemented on a large scale, and kept it up. In the end the criticism proved valid. Furthermore, areas favored by free market thinkers like Hong Kong for example, are not routinely denounced as not real capitalism, as long as they keep being free-ish markets. In the end, the free market people offer clear, objective policy to make it a real free market: eliminate regulation X or agency Y. This is a process solution, not an outcome. It can have measurable outcomes. If the dream of those nasty US libertarians happened and the US government removed the FDA and ceased any and all involvement in healthcare – both in financing and regulatory capacity, then after 25 years libertarians could not say that was not free market, and the outcomes, one way or the other, could be seen.
We can admit “pure ideal” free markets are not a thing in our world, and we can even say “pure ideal” socialism is not either. But things exist on a spectrum and, as far as history shows, moving closer to free markets leads to better results, moving closer to socialism does not. And we are no talking recent only, but for thousands of years. In the end, the mixed economies of today’s EU, let’s say, are further away from pure free markets than the former European Communist Block was from pure socialism. If we think in the way of process not imaginary future utopian outcome. Even in these mixed economies, market-but-not-pure-free-markets economies massively outperform any form socialist-but-not-pure-socialist economies, which is a testament to the power of markets, they can carry all this massive government imposed inefficiency as long as they are not completely suffocated.
Socialist fail to offer clear solution: law X or policy Y that would lead to real socialism. Process, not outcome. Something concrete, like do X and it will measurably lead to this outcome, then do Y and it will measurably lead to the next step. Not better leaders / better humans / fewer wreckers / next time it will work just because. Without this, there is an infinite number of abstract variations on socialism, all doomed to failure. They say a society where everyone works to their best ability and no money exists and no hierarchies, and somehow all needed goods are abundant, but they never explain how this is achieved. How production and consumption coordinate, how scarce resources are prioritized, how individual greed and laziness are overcome. They say well if we eliminate private ownership and money, people will want to work because they work for themselves and for the common good, not some evil boss, and will be magically able to coordinate, because reasons. Although a cursory look at human affairs puts this greatly in doubt.
I don’t want hand waving and nebulous things like “if we all work together” or whatever. Clear mechanisms. The socialist answers are nonsenses. Education, social change etc. These are not clearly defined, not guaranteed to work, take an indefinite amount of time and are not under peoples’ full control, like any social force. If anyone has read a socialist delineating clear, concrete way of how this happens, I would love to read and “educate myself”. Please link bellow.
Well, ya pretty much nailed it, Pie. According to the socialists, there has to be a drastic reshaping of human nature – no, the self-interest and survival instinct that is common to all living things.
Another excuse I’ve heard is that American and European capitalists always collude to ruin things just when it looks like socialism is starting to work. There’s a pervasive belief out there that Venezuela would be a socialist utopia right now if capitalists hadn’t purposely tanked the price of oil to destroy their beautiful system.
Their beautiful system where they were going to collapse anyway because there had not been any proper maintenance done on the oil facilities in decades, and so their capacity was already starting to tank?
Something will *always* come along and ruin it, because socialist systems are fragile. It’s just one of the reasons a descent into authoritarianism is inevitable.
Explain the Kibbutz please. They are dying out because people don’t want to live that way if they weren’t indoctrinated in the 60’s, but as far as I know none of them descend into authoritarianism.
Isn’t a kibbutz just offering unwanted advice?
No, they are communal (usually volunterrist) communities set up along explicitly Marxian socialist lines.
They always had an external enemy to fear which kept people in line?
This^^
Communism only works in a commune sized community of like-minded individuals.
Think Tribe.
A voluntary family-like association where people are free to leave?
I can’t explain it.
Oh, and they are collapsing. It’s a slow, undramatic decay and gradual privatization, so it’s not openly apparent.
Correct, but I don’t know of any that descend into authoritarianism.
I have no firsthand knowledge of how any were run. They could have for all I know, or could be happy, egalitarian farmsteads for all the information I’ve got.
Because they have no enforcement mechanism other than contract.
Cursory research on my lunch break, but it seems that there was quite a lot of authoritarianism behind the scenes with the kibbutzim but that no party gained control, ending in a tripartite stalemate.
Hopefully that link works. It’s supposed to go to a Google books preview of chapter 7 of “Interest Groups and Political Change in Israel”. It goes into detail how three different ideologies of how the kibbutzim should be managed and organized came into being and the political parties they allied with, and their subsequent power struggles. Looks interesting, but I can’t do a deep dive right now.
The Kibbutz aren’t the state. They exist within a state. Which is in itself an argument for free markets and libertarianism. Libertarianism can accommodate collectivist communities. Collectivist communities or governments cannot accommodate individualism.
More and more I think that’s the killer argument. Or at least the argument most likely to expose the totalitarianism of any socialist scheme.
You’re talking about a small voluntary association within a much later state. What would happen if you couldn’t leave the Kibbutz?
I’ve never been in a Kibbutz….but probably the same thing as if you try to leave the Church of Scientology.
Norway survived the price change just fine.
They have real welfarism.
Good stuff Pie.
ideologies by processes not by outcomes, as outcomes are not guaranteed
Not just that, but also if you start judging by “outcomes”, it makes it easier to start saying the gulags are just part of the process, and the outcome hasn’t been reached yet.
it is pointed out to them that there was nothing resembling a free market in the financial sector in 2008
While i think this is not an untrue statement, i have felt that it is a bit of a cop out. I don’t even think it is necessary to claim. The point is that the Federal Reserve and a few government interventions crafted the bubble.
Socialist fail to offer clear solution: law X or policy Y that would lead to real socialism.
To be fair, there are a few socialists out there who would point to concrete policies that they would say made the USSR not socialist. For example see the Sino-Soviet split.
Of course it doesn’t help their argument that the people who did follow their prescriptions ended up in a worse state….
did the the Sino-Soviet split lead to one true socialist country?
There was a moment…
Then it was gone.
Are you talking about ant hills and bee colonies? Cause the only true socialism I have seen in nature occurs in insects where millions die so the queen can live it up large. In the name of keeping the species going, that is…
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child has grown; the dream is gone.
I think that is the issue, Some of those people would say that Mao was real socialism… which doesn’t really help their argument much..
yes there are still maoists and stalinist and fans of pol pot and enver hoxha and so on. those are the tankies not the not-real-socialism crows. for that crowed there was never any real one. Except maybe things that did not last enough to fail like Catalonia
That’s fair.
Pol Pot did socialism the best: he fucking killed 1/3 of his country’s people. That’s socialism gone hardcore.
In only like 4 years!
He was a socialist super star!
And we have Pol Pothead in serious danger of securing the Dem nomination.
Speaking of gulags.
That has already been swept under the rug, shitlord. If we catch you spreading these lies again, we will send you not to the Re-education Center, but to the firing squad.
You get to real socialism after you have killed all the wreckers, splitters and counter revolutionaries. This generally occurs once you reach population = 1.
Best Sales pitch for socialism ever…
I mean as long as i get to be that 1 guy.
Shit, that’s no good either. Then I’d have to do all the work.
I’ll take capitalism, so I can pay someone else to fix the plumbing.
Just move to the next house. You are going to starve, die of food poisoning from spoiled canned goods or freeze to death before you run out of houses.
That’s no good either.
If you are the only guy left, do you really need to worry too much about plumbing?
Yes.
Good plumbing and reliable electricity are two things I don’t want to give up.
Fighting wild beasts at the watering hole does not have any appeal.
STEVE SMITH LIKE THE EXERCISE, THOUGH
Exactly. You can’t have top-down central planing without authoritarianism.
But you don’t even have to go to that level. Every socialist dreams of a “classless” society but the very next thing out of their mouth is generally a belittling comment about someone. Classless, indeed, but not class-free; lumping people into classes of some kind is the very nature of socialists. The free market has come closer to the dismantling of “classes” than any top-down scheme ever has.
central planing.
Very apropos.
Where you Harrison Bergeron all the achievers of society by slicing them into razor thin slices until we’re all the same lowest height?
European apples must fit into a standard size, shape, color, pattern, weight, price, and degree of bruising.
Flavor is unregulated by the EU, and is neglected in matching the other dictats.
/meant as sarc
It’s funny. My wager is that you could ask most libertarians what changes they would implement to achieve a genuinely libertarian society that differs from failed examples. The “not real socialism” socialists, on the other hand, can’t seem to come up with much more than a change in leadership to define their differences.
I can’t imagine a “true libertarian” society implemented without death squads any more than a true socialist one.
how come? or define death squads
Well, it starts with helicopter rides for communists, then the purity tests become harder to meet.
Until only Hihn was the last person left?
Could you imagine being the 2nd to last person left?
“Where is the fucking helicopter?”
Mmmmm
It doesn’t require death squads to say “do as you will”. People will only bitch and moan about the fact that they can’t impose their values on their neighbors. The only need for violence will come when those disgruntled wannabe tyrants inevitably take up arms to force their values on their neighbors. At which point they would be dealt with the same as any criminal would be dealt with.
Disgruntled wannabe tyrants now run the state of Virginia. They often win elections.
But, death squads suggest that you have identified the perpetrator before the crime has occurred. Whereas, a petty tyrant in VA who commits the crime can morally be met with violence once he acts on his totalitarian tendencies.
If you’re arguing that true libertarianism cannot be achieved without some violence, you’re probably right, but death squads are not a response to violence- just violence in response to the threat of violence.
Government systems indubitably fail because they try to address the demand by too many of life’s losers that others be forced to bear the consequences of bad decisions made by people that don’t want to be held accountable for their choices/actions, and then require a totalitarian approach to mitigate the number of “bad shit” that goes on.
Me, I am a big fan of Darwinism and encouraging more of it. Make bad choices, and push up daisies. I am a fierce advocate of going to a system like that because I believe it will clean out stupid people before they reproduce and give us more idiots to worry about.
A “true” libertarian government would have a constitution so tight that it didnt matter who won the election.
I constitution is just a piece of paper.
What matters is whether people follow it.
Eventually, enough like minded “petty tyrants” will get together and force their ideas on everybody else. In that sense, a “true libertarian” society is no more realistic than a “true socialist” society.
The difference is that the closer you get to “true libertarian” (without actually getting there, because human nature won’t allow it), the better things will be. And the closer you get to “true socialism” (without actually getting there, because human nature won’t allow it), the worse things will end up.
Um. I can.
When some statist asshole comes to town preaching redistribution and gains a sizable following – as they always do? Let them take over the government or remake it? Or shoot them? Or exile? Are there other choices?
Death, probably. Death “squads” though seems like a government thing rather than an ad hoc sorta thing.
I pretty much define my politics as the opposite of socialism.
ditto.
“Yes, there was still money involved, but socialism is not defined by no money existing at any point”
Marx, himself, commenting on the failure of the Paris Commune cited the fact that the Communards (as they called themselves) did not seize the French central bank in Paris as the central failure of their revolution.
“If anyone has read a socialist delineating clear, concrete way of how this happens, I would love to read and “educate myself”.”
Anarcho-syndicalists have the most fleshed out idea about process. They contend that workers join “one big union” then a massive general strike occur; the government collapses and the economy function as a series of worker-owned outfits. Their ideology is less utopian and more concrete with simple slogans like “no more bosses”. They don’t get a fair shake, but I’m not sure if they would be classified as “socialists” or “anarchists” (of which there was little distinction back during the days of Bakunin and Marx).
Also, Tyler Cowen has sketched out a great framework for socialism: “state capacity libertarianism”. “You’re free, so long as the state says so”
http://libertyunbound.com/node/2098
Hey I was the first one to link to “state capacity libertarianism” round here , I think.
Controlled Opposition Libertarianism
The Kochs aren’t funding our best. That’s for sure.
Some of them, I’m sure, are good people.
I’m glad you got my reference
David Hogg really practicing gun control. If my arms were that skinning, I’d never wear short-sleeves again.
is that a reliable site cause it don’t look like it
I was just making fun of the little feller in the video he made of himself.
Socialism is the Underpants Gnomes ideology:
1. Enact socialism
2. ?
3. Utopia!
Worse…
1. Seize perfectly functional society
2. ???
3. Socialism!
4. ???
5. Utopia!
The question marks are the selling points – you get to crush people you don’t like: Successful business people, gun-clinging rednecks, the middle-class, whitey… Pick you enemy and have them sent to the gulag.
I really believe this is the case. A lot of people are motivated by envy and a desire to bring those that are doing better than them down and to punish those others for their success. It’s easier than admitting that when you are making stupid choices, doing stupid things, or simply doing nothing of value, those actions results in nothing of value for you than it is to admit that you should have tried harder.
Well the Utopian Socialists were actually very exact on all the details of how a socialist society would work. It was the Marxians and such that didn’t detail how it would work.
The Marxists were the “scientific socialists” (what they called themselves). The “muh…science!” charade has been going on for hundreds of years.
Democrats will never answer the question “How much should we spend on problem X”. Because A, they always want to be able to demand more money for X, and B, it’s not about solving issue X, it’s about growing government. You see that all of the time with K-12 education and dollars per student. Higher dollars per student does not correlate to better outcomes. Even though that’s been proven over and over, they still cite money as the issue. It’s because education is not the goal. In fact, actually educating students so they won’t be dependent on the government is exactly what they don’t want to happen.
Educating is not teaching…..
The closest non-family version I can think of is a monastery. Possibly the Hutterites but that may be a stretch.
Other than that a maybe a bunch of worker co-ops. They vote on the leaders and get a share of the profits less what is used to maintain the facilities. No profit, No pay. But the individual co-ops would compete with other businesses.
That’s the best I got.
I note that the examples of family and monastary still have a central rule-making authority responsible for enforcing order, be it the parents or the abbot.
True, I can’t get past the need for an hierarchy to make socialism work even in my thought experiment.
Splice humans with genetic materials from insects that are instinctively into doing the whole colony thing? There is a movie there…
Another problem with the “Not Real Socialisim” crowd is that it is hard to pin them down on what socialisim even is. When they feel brave and snarky Sweden is socialism, fire trucks are socialism. But when people oppose Nationalizing Health care etc. they retreat to “Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production” not this.
There are more strains of socialism than there are of libertarianism. You won’t pin down a single answer unless you speak with the same person over time. Stick Tundra and your favorite Mises-reading-deontological-libertarian in a conversation and you’d say you can never pin down what a libertarian is either.
I get that, but quite frankly i think the kinds of people who will argue “Not Real Socialisim” are also the kinds that don’t understand or have picked down the “strain” of socialisim they follow.
In other words the people who argue “not real socialisim” are often shallow and not really thinking deeper, or have a deep understanding of their own ideology.
In short they are the average voter.
Fair enough. I’m still operating in the world of 10 or 15 years ago when socialism, like any fringe political movement, was full of autists and nerds and crazy people. These people, for better or worse, at least knew a lot.
In the last 10 years, socialism has become normie and basically a short-hand for “Daddy give me stuff”. So yeah, these days you are probably more right than I am.
Yours is a fair point however. Often the “Mote and Baily” that irritates me, is being perpetrated by different people who haven’t changed their minds. In other words the intellectuals who are writing the stuff are more often consistent. It’s the politicians and the media that flip flop.
Motte and Bailey.
Is that you John?
Don’t call leon out for the Motte in his eye!
I’m just here for the chicks, man.
You were misinformed.
“Stick Tundra and your favorite Mises-reading-deontological-libertarian in a conversation and you’d say you can never pin down what a libertarian is either.”
I’m not so sure about that. There is still a vague philosophical agreement that the government is doing “too much”. Even the strains that disagree on the NAP, for example, still generally both agree that the government shouldn’t be forcing people to do something that they don’t want to do.
I’d say that philosophically there is probably more commonality between different libertarians than there is among socialists. Libertarians seem to disagree more among themselves with practical current issues and which route is more conducive to fulfilling the shared philosophy. Whereas, socialists are more in agreement among each other over practical current issues, but they disagree much more over the end result or how their utopia will inevitably develop.
Trotsky and Stalin both agreed on nationalizing the means of production, but disagreeing on whether “socialism in one country” or “international socialism” was the correct method. Similarly, Maoists thought that communism could be achieved by jumping over capitalism and moving straight toward “state socialism”, while the Soviets thought that capitalism needed to develop before “state socialism” could develop.
In contrast, Matt Welch and Scott Horton would probably agree that the US involves itself in too many conflicts overseas and that this grows state power. But, Welch would think that maintaining NATO is not an unnecessary alliance and not American overreach, whereas Horton would strongly disagree.
Socialist disagreements tend to be more esoteric, whereas libertarian disagreements tend to be applying the esoteric to current issues.
hard to pin them down on what socialisim even is
They usually just want more welfarism and do not understand that socialism is an economic system.
True, but that means they should be calling themselves welfarists.
“Welfare justice” doesn’t ring as nicely woke as “social justice”, brah. In a pure welfare system you admit that what you want is for others to be robbed so you can get free shit, while in the other you pretend you are robbing others to fix some problem/inequality (usually one you blame the people that have the shit you want to steal for creating).
But they do not define a clear process which will lead to said utopia
OBEY
Meaning others must give up what they want/have, while they themselves reap the rewards & plunder?
“I came here to chew bubblegum and kick…”
“And I do not care for bubblegum.”
What I object to in this whole exercise is we are defining both in extreme terms.
Libertarianism is moderate.
You’re letting the other side pretend it’s radical and extreme like socialism.
It’s not a philosophy of no government or absolute freedom. It’s one that simply accepts human nature and the nature of government for how it really is.
Libertarianism is simply the philosophy that the US was founded on. Sure it’s been chipped away over time and i dislike that. but it didn’t radically devolve into the murder of millions.
I was mostly addressing that people can randomly call the US now an unregulated free market and if you say it is not they equate that to not-real-socialism. Which is not true. And it is spreading online.
Things are what they are. US is not a free market. Denmark is not socialist. Commie Romania was commie.
yeah it wasn’t specifically about your article but some of the discussion i keep seeing.
like socialism and libertarianism are a yin and yang of two radical extremes.
nah, we are just the reasonable moderates here.
I was not presenting that. I was saying that sometime X is the real X and sometimes it is not. Call things what they are.
nah, we are just the reasonable moderates here. – not all of us. Some are anarchists, some are extremist in the area of the female bosom
i know. like i said, it wasn’t directly about your article.
The difference between a libertarian and a socialist is that a libertarian hates his fellow man so much he tries to avoid him as much as possible, whereas a socialist hates his fellow man so much he refuses to leave him alone.
insert C S Lewis quote here
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Libertarianism is moderate.
Anarchism is an extreme. Libertarianism, in my book, is minarchism – there is a government, but it should be just big and powerful enough to protect individual rights and the nation itself.
To me, at this point in time, libertarianism is a tendency – we live under a big government, so it is a tendency to reduce the scope and power of the government. Ideally, this would be done incrementally, but that doesn’t seem practical or possible, except perhaps in a very few areas. Because of its current context, libertarianism is oppositional – opposed to the current trend toward bigger, more powerful government. To the extent opposes these changes, it is conservative. When it proposed changes (such as repealing agencies or law, it may or may not be conservative, depending on your definition of “conservative”.
American libertarians are blessed or cursed with a fundamentally minarchist and libertarian government charter – the Constitution. A reasonably strict adherence to the Constitution would require such drastic changes that it would amount to a revolution, or something like it. Weirdly, this would be in some sense a conservative revolution. The difference between “reform” libertarianism and “revolutionary” libertarianism in the US is probably just the typical argument about the possibility (and pace) of change in our preferred direction. Reform libertarianism is probably pretty moderate, really.
We are so far from a minarchy that it frustrates me that libertarians waste so much of their time debating “true” libertarianism, as if we were just fussing over a few details in a fundamentally minarchist society. I’m (probably naively) a reform guy – I have no stomach for revolution and the risk and suffering it brings. Sadly, I suspect that reform of a fundamentally corrupted and entrenched Total State is pretty much a pipe dream. Hence, my long-range plans to try to air-gap my life and finances as much as possible from the State.
Well put. I’m not sure there is any hope of reversing or even restraining the growth of Leviathan. At least until it becomes so top heavy, that it capsizes. I certainly agree that all the purity bullshit is a total waste of time given the state of things. I’d be happy with a candidate who was willing to cut spending even by a small amount at this point. Oh the austerity! Krugman hits the fainting couch.
I like Daniel Mitchel’s idea. Slow the rate of increase of government to less than the rate of increase of the private sector. Most recent article is on State Capacity Libertarianism.
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/
I finally realized who Greta reminds me of.
That clip at 33s in of the guy rolling on the floor – top draw editing skillz.
*drawer
goram homophones
I bet European apples are better than American apples.
You’d lose that bet, Pie.
Nice article, though.
I always tell my proggies that their way requires men with guns to force me to comply. That doesn’t sound too woke to me. Especially since the alternative I prefer requires nothing except peaceful coexistence.
They never have much of an answer.
I bet European apples are better than American apples.
Someone hasn’t heard of Johnny Appleseed.
Asian apples = pretty good. i think apples originally emanate from Asia.
Kazahkstan or thereabouts.
Yeah, but America has a long history of improving Chinese food.
just add sugar
and MSG
What up with MSG?
Yeah you know me!
And sriracha
Euroapples are more compliant with guidlines on tree-grown, core-bearing, pithless agricultural products, therefore better
/eurocrat
I doubt that most apples are regulated much. Certainly not in Romania
The “Romanian Tree Fruit” does not meet the standard for “Apple” as laid out in regulation…
/eurocrat
I read once that red delicious is the most popular apple in the US. Is that your best?
I can’t recall the last time I’ve had that cultivar. It’s a marketing name, trying to draw people to it, not an objective measure.
By personal preference I tend to go with Granny SMITH apples. I just don’t turn my back on them.
STEVE SMITH SAY “HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?”
Granny SMITH just doesn’t rape like she used to. The arthritis makes it difficult to get the strap-on, on.
LOOK LIKE ARNOLD SWARZENEGGER ARM HOLDING BIG APPLE
Honeycrisp or GTFO
I would’ve thought Granny Smith.
That’s insulting.
From the home of the Gilded Rodents, how do you like them apples?
Honeycrisp and Sweet Tango are my faves.
Honeycrisp…..
Hmmmmmmm.
Honeycrisp for Red, Granny Smith for Green.
Granny smith is crap. Rhode Island Greening is far superior.
Rhode Island is mythical, like Narnia or Buffalo.
Or Louisville.
Pink Lady is probably our best right now. Red delicious was sweet, soft, and non-confrontational. Perfect for the preferences for back when this was published. Less so now.
Were apples lacking fructose back then?
I didn’t know Pink Lady was American.
The most popular apple in Romania is called Jonathan apple
Boy that thar is an American apple Ahl Have Ewe Kno
No American produce meets the definition of “Apple” and must be sold as “Fructose globules”
/eurocrat
Fructose Globules was my nickname in high school.
Golden Delicious for me.
Wolf River apples are the most popular in these here parts.
It’s almost as if there were some sort of individual preferences.
?
That’s an oddly shaped apple.
The original Delicious apple originated in Iowa. It was a random tree that started growing in some guys field. He cut it down a couple of times but couldn’t kill it. So he let it grow out.
He took the apple to Stark (I think) who said “that’s delicious”. So Stark started selling the tree named “Delicious”. When the Golden Delicious cultivar was created, the Delicious apple became the Red Delicious.
At one point, a natural mutation produced a branch on a tree that turned red far earlier than the rest of the tree. Someone paid a bunch of money for the branch and started a new culivar. These trees produced apples that were brilliant red before they were fully ripened. They could be harvested and shipped all over the country. This started the process of breeding all flavor out of the apple as they focused on color and shipability.
The original cultivar is available as the “Hawkeye”. I will get one and plant it eventually.
Personally, I liked those bitter crunchy bright red apples that almost destroyed the Washington apple industry. I miss them.
It’s just like the anti-2A folks. They aren’t against having guns, they’re against YOU having guns. Guns are dandy if they’re being held by people they agree with and used to force people they don’t agree with to comply. As with all this shit, it comes down to control.
I presented that argument to a proggie neighbor, eventually asking her if she’s cool with forcing me to do things her way, while I don’t want to force her to do anything. She said yes.
OT: What are the politically vanquished to do?
This is a great article, even if it is 2 years old. I’m a fan of Deist and think he’s got a bead on what is important. The fact is that libertarianism will likely never ever be popular, and certainly not popular enough to hold power in congress. So why are so many opposed to splitting up?
“So why are so many opposed to splitting up?”
Because some think that they can force others to be free, while even more just want a firm pat on the head from the NYT. The former are misguided and no different from the people they supposedly hate, while the latter are useless and should be rightly ignored, when they are not being mocked.
Because everybody’s waiting for judgement day, so they can say “told ya so!”
Unlike the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the United States doesn’t have a history of breaking up peacefully.
Yugoslavia had a peaceful breakup?
It’s a religion. That’s all you need to know about why its adherents persist regardless of how much evidence piles up that it’s crap.
Some truth to that. There’s a reason Marxists embraced atheism. They were removing the competition.
As you wish.
🙂
In all seriousness I have spent some time pondering this, but it occurs to me that any and all ostensibly serious and scholarly answers tend to fall at the hurdles of being incredibly selective in their “evidence”, and discount any real economics, or at least only focuses on economic arguments to a certain degree, conveniently not comprehensively enough to give the full picture of economic realities. It always falls on emotional, and post-modernist arguments that are conveniently untethered from anything remotely objective or scientific. Basically I feel that much of left-wing politics is (often deliberately) limited in the scope of what it is prepared to consider to make it’s arguments.
Here’s a Soho Forum debate on between Bhaskar Sunkara and Gene Epstein.
Here’s a tangentially interesting discussion between Russ Roberts and Richard Thaler, who is trying to make an argument for what he calls “libertarian paternalism”.
Would this be considered White Supremacist if it were written today?
And this one is just right out for being too individualist
Well, it could be re-tooled as ‘I identify as a rock’, which might fly. I dunno.
Hehehe
*mental image of Jim Belushi (raises beer) smashing acoustic guitar into wall until demolished*
John Belushi.
*Gives JB stink-eye*
That, incidentally, was Steven Bishop
I prefer Garfunkel and Oates. NSFW.
https://youtu.be/DRAY1ObihcE
My poop is stuck
Where’s the chapter about the poop knife? My comment is stuck in moderation oblivion (Thread no. 19 as I see it).
You put in more than 2 links.
I sure did. Does this mean it never gets approved, or does it mean I can pay a fee to the comment wardens so they can send their union guy to remove the boot, so to speak? Perhaps I should know this by now. Double dunce cap for me?
I means you get catbutted
.(.
(*)
Uh oh, here I go.
F’n Cartman! Lol
Guess I should have read the other comments first.
I’m sorry.
Needz MOAR poop knife.
New, Deadlier AR-16 Introduced Which Is An AR-15 Wearing A MAGA Hat
The AR-15 was the deadliest gun ever made, able to fire over 100 rounds a day. The “AR” in it stands for “AR-15 Rifle” and the 15 stands for “50% more than 10.” The new AR-16 is obviously even more destructive, though. “Guns are scary enough,” said being-scared-by-guns expert Noah Carlson, “but knowing a gun is a supporter of Donald Trump makes it even more terrifying. What’s it planning to do? Obviously nothing good.”
Carlson warned that the gun was probably racist and sexist and that he wouldn’t be surprised if it was also rude to women. There is now a campaign to have the gun banned, signed onto by all the major Democratic presidential candidates. Many gun rights supporters have called this hypocrisy, though, as recently the LGBTQ-15 also went on sale — an AR-15 with a rainbow scarf — and the left praised that gun and called it “appropriate for children.”
I love the Bee so much.
#metoo
Guitarist Accidentally Steps On Wrong Pedal, Turns Worship Service Into Face-Melting Shredfest
Damn, they are savage.
Actually I think it is a Sig.
I wanted to start a pun thread, but drew a blank, now I’m trying to avoid a case of Sauer grapes.
I would’ve punned as well, but all this talk of the Colt of socialism has me distracted.
Lol
That about sums up the entire article. And you could probably go one step further:
But things exist on a spectrum and, as far as history shows, moving closer to liberty leads to better results, moving closer to authoritarianism does not.
The rest is semantics.
Hate and anger lead to the Dark Side.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/18/democrats-unfixable-extremism-uses-trump-as-an-excuse-goodwin/
If the rubes would just do what their betters say.
OT: repost from last night due to the photo in Pie’s post
https://www.tmz.com/2020/01/14/highlander-star-stan-kirsch-dead-suicide/
CPRM suggested that the series isn’t cannon. I must respectfully disagree and offer as evidence Alexandra Vandernoot.
Movie is a classic. Never saw the series. Would Alexandra.
Suicide? Or beheading?
They tried to make it canon with that movie with the two Highlanders. So I can accept that.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE (Highlander Movie).
Oh, except for that other one. And another. Oh and that one we don’t talk about. And that ther one we don’t talk about. And THAT one we don’t talk about…
There was only one, the one with the French guy pretending to speak English. I don’t know what all you are going on about.
You’ve clearly never watched any, or you might have mentioned it as the one with Lex Luthor in it.
I thought it was the one with Mr Crab in it!?
You’re thinking of Starship Troopers.
If it doesn’t have Clancy Brown in it, it is just fanfic.
I don’t seem to remember that character. Was he named in dialog?
The only thing canon is the original, the rest just muddled the story.
Boy am I loving the new Chinese virus panic. We always need something to FREAK OUT ABOUT or else life becomes drab and boring.
It’s just a bunch of Chinese Repsiratory Arrest Pathogens.
Sounds like Bronchial Suppression to me.
I was in China for a portion of the SARs “epidemic”. The Chinese will snuff it out, one way or another. They don’t have any rules that keep them from taking any step they deem necessary.
When playing Plague Inc, I always starting my viruses in that corner of the world.
I tended to use India as a starting locale.
My favorite run was when I set up a parasite, infected 100% of the population with 0 fatalities and 0 detection.
oh, and fuck greenland.
Too cold and clammy, no thanks.
If you ever played Plague Inc, Greenland was hard to infect. It was cold, and easily self-quarantined. I’ve had a number of iterations where the only survivors were greenlanders because they closed their one port befor ethe pandemic got in.
+1, and only 1 spore.
LOL. Yup.
Every year a virus attacks hundreds of millions of people around the world! It kills tens of thousands a year!
So they’re going to ruin the Z.
Twin turbos and a 30% price increase.
I’ll stick with my 13 yo 350Z thanks.
Always loved the Z cars. Sounds like it will still be rear-wheel drive (*insert chorus of angels*). I’m not seeing anything ruined yet, but they aren’t showing us the new body style, either.
Yeah, if they truly take styling cues from the 240Z, I approve.
I am not a fan of turbos.
Taking the base price from less than an Altima to the equivalent of the Infinity coupe that it is siblings with is terrible.
Maybe. Its a value question. Getting a decent engine in one has always bumped the price, but except for the track version they have been very reasonable. I believe the more powerful engines now for the Zs are turbos, but I’d have to check. More of a supercharger guy, myself, but outside a few very niche makers, the powerful naturally aspirated engine is pretty much history, I think (could be missing something, but I know the Dodge Hellcats and Demons are supercharged).
I wonder how the visibility will be.
I’ll give credit to Ford that they managed make the Mustang something you can daily drive. The Camaro not so much. And much as I wanted to like the Supra its BMW origins are too much for me.
Since I expect it to be a 2 seater the new Corvette is likely to put a ceiling on what they can charge.
The Corvette is gonna cap a lot of things.
Definitely gonna hurt Shelby 500 sales.
Yup. Although since it is only 2 seats it will cushion the blow a little bit.
The press I’ve read on it suggests the GM is losing money on the base model. I’d expect them to be scarce. I wonder what price for the available models will be.
Well crap. The 370Z was my dream midlife crisis car.
The left views capitalism as selfish and socialism as selfless. They also view morality on a scale from selfish to selfless with the ultimate in selflessness being surrendering the self to the collective. Interesting though how they all want “free” stuff at the expense of those “selfish” others.
To which I’ll pose the same challenge I raised in the last thread. If they really do view selfishness as the sum of evil and selflessness the sum of virtue, then there’s no rational basis to restrict that standard to material goods and services. Indeed, if they really believe this, they should wholeheartedly embrace the incel notion of a duty to sexually service those who can’t otherwise find sexual satisfaction. All the incel credo is is the application of the left’s doctrines to intimacy and sexuality. If they believe it with goods and services, they have a responsibility to start servicing the neckbeards.
“The left views capitalism as selfish and socialism as selfless.”
I think they want to peddle that reality, especially since they damned well know there is nothing selfless from stealing from the productive to buy power from handouts to the pedantic.
I think they want to peddle that reality, especially since they damned well know there is nothing selfless
fromabout stealing from the productive to buy power from handouts to the pedantic.Well, that’s what they advocate for everyone else, anyway. Most Leftists I know are very wealthy, and they will still rant and rave about “those damn billionaires who have way more money than they need”.
I always want to ask them, “If income inequality is the biggest problem facing the country, why are you not giving away all of your excess money? You lambast the billionaire for having more than what you deem necessary, yet you’re living in this big house, driving that nice car, and taking all those vacations. You don’t actually need any of that stuff, whereas the hobo on the street needs a meal and a place to stay. And as you say, the wealth should be taken away from the wealthy (who don’t need it) and be given to the poor (who do need it). There’s a pretty big contradiction between your luxurious lifestyle and the redistributionist ideas that you espouse. You seem to be advocating a moral system for everyone else that you’re not willing to follow yourself.”
Maybe it’s not that (((they))) want everyone else to sacrifice, just those who have more than they themselves (and those present at the cocktail party) have.
There’s always a line where income above that is more than anybody needs. And it’s always just above what they make.
Then you have my left-wing in-law who votes straight D – and never filed a tax return until he started getting 1099’d on some of his his jobs. Then he cheated on every tax return and got audited and had to spend about 20K to straighten everything out (and he got off light). He voted for bigger government, and he got it good and hard. But he still blames Republicans despite the fact that all the shit started happening during Obama’s term from policies Obama advocated.
Notice how Trump’s tax “reform” increased taxes on the wealthy (SALT cap) and the blue staters went apeshit – apparently they only wanted to raise taxes on conservatives.
I think that good people who are socialists (and they do exist) believe that unless the state manages the economy a combination of ignorance and ineptitude on the part of the many and selfishness on the part of the few will result in at best an inefficient distribution of resources and, at worst, people dying in the streets as fat cats drive past in limousines. They see poverty as a failure of society. Society is a mechanism which is to be judged by the state of the least of its members, so if someone is lacking adequate food, or housing, or education, or whatever, that’s a signal that the state is either failing to do something or doing something wrong.
I don’t agree even a little bit. And there are a shit-ton of people who are not good people who use socialism as a vehicle for their own benefit. AND there are a ton of people who say “socialism” and mean “gib me dat”. But there are also people who genuinely believe that it’s the superior moral choice and are willing to live by the consequences.
For all the Rush fans, and everyone else,
winter with Geddy,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOVh_C7XTHA
Funny as winter with Geddy!
“Then I have my Roadie take it back up to the top”.
I know I risk summoning Don from wherever he most recently escaped, I just felt compelled to mention – I’ve been in my house since June 2016, and I’ve gotten it half paid for. If the trend continues, I’ll have paid of the mortgage in 6-7 years from closing.
😀
It might be a shoebox with no lawn, but soon it will be My* shoebox with no lawn.
*please don’t bring up property taxes.
Congratulations!
*makes sign of devil, summons Georgist adherents*
UCS, you’re doing a great job. I paid off my first house in 8 years. When I sold that house all the money went to investments. With no house payments, I built this house as I went. With the sweat equity it was 1/2 price.
As I have said many times before, you MUST have your house paid for when you retire, unless you are wealthy and few of us are. Its tough enough keeping up the maintenance, taxes and insurance without a house payment.
If you’re making your joint trip alone you are always welcome here, I’ll leave the light on at the cabin for you.
Plans have not been finalized. So I don’t know where I’ll be during vacation.
I’m still undecided as to where I want to move when I leave New York. But I want to use the slack between paying off the shoebox and moving in order to make it as me-compatable as I can. It seems living in a space impairs changing it around.
Based on what I’ve seen with various people in different circumstances reaching retirement age, I believe you’re right.
Good for you, and it is indeed brave to post anything positive related to personal finances on this site.
I finally got everything in order a few years back.
*pouts in the corner*
That’s awesome.
The primary mechanism for actually implementing socialism so far has been shooting the opponents until the survivors allow the boot on their neck.
The secondary mechanism has been voting someone into power who then implements socialism, then starts shooting the opponents until the survivors allow the boot on their neck.
The most favored current approach is to slowly vote into existence socialist programs one by one. Based on the above, at some point if this continues they’ll start shooting the opponents until the survivors allow the boot on their neck.