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The two terms socialism and communism are synonyms. Communism is a very old term, while the term socialism was first coined in France at the end of the 1830s. Up to the year 1917 both were used indiscriminately. Thus Marx and Engels called the program they published in 1848 the Communist Manifesto, while the parties they organized for the realization of this program called themselves socialist parties.
Before 1917 no distinction was made between the two words. When Lenin called his party “communist,” he meant that it was a party sincerely aiming at the realization of socialism as distinct from the parties that, according to Lenin, merely called themselves socialist parties while in fact they were “social traitors” and “servants” of the bourgeoisie. Lenin never pretended that his Communist party had any other goal than the realization of socialism. The official name he gave to his government was?and is?the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. If somebody says he is opposed to communism, but cherishes socialism, he is no more consistent or logical than a man who declares that he is opposed to murder but cherishes assassination.
— Ludwig von Mises, Economic Freedom & Interventionism, Chapter 21.Have you ever read Confessions of an Economic Hitman?
Did it change your political beliefs? Did it flip your world view upside down and inside out?
Tea Party Condemns Children’s Book About Anarchy
A Rule Is to Break: A Child’s Guide to Anarchy described by Tea Party publication as ‘downright shocking’
The gently humorous children’s book A Rule Is to Break: A Child’s Guide to Anarchy, which exhorts kids to “Think for Yourself”, “Give Away Stuff for Free” and “Do What You Want”, has come under fire from the Tea Party.
Originally self-published, A Rule is to Break was released late last month by small San Francisco publisher Manic D Press. Written and illustrated by husband-and-wife team John Seven and Jana Christy, it follows the story of Wild Child “as she learns about just being herself and how that translates into kid autonomy”. Advice includes “don’t look like everybody else! Be you”, and “Paint pictures on your TV! Forget about grocery stores and get dirty in your garden!”
A review in Publishers Weekly suggested that “even adult readers taken aback by lines like ‘when someone says ‘Work!’, you say Why?’ and ‘No baths ever again!’ will be able to get behind suggestions to ‘Educate yourself. Use your brain’ and “Listen to the tiniest voice’”, calling the book “the softer side of anarchy, with an emphasis on fun and independence, but also community and kindness”.
But a write-up from Tea Party publication the Liberty News Network condemned the book as “downright shocking”. It also took issue with the support the book has received from renowned US educationalist Bill Ayers, who provided a blurb for the title, in which he calls it “a delight to read” and says that “a children’s book on anarchy seems somehow just right: an instinctive, intuitive sense of fairness, community, and interdependence sits naturally enough with a desire for participatory democracy, feminism, queer-rights, environmental balance, self-determination, and peace and global justice”. Ayers is described, tongue in cheek, beneath his blurb in the book as an “author … teacher, Barack Obama’s alleged terrorist pal, and grandpa”.
“The book alone is horrendous enough. But it gets even worse when we realise Bill Ayers, radical terrorist leftist and friend of Obama, not only endorsed it through his Twitter account, his comments in support of the book are listed on the actual Amazon.com book page,” writes Eric Odom, managing director of Liberty News Network. “Wow … If a person can be read by the company he keeps, what does this say about Obama?”
The book’s publisher isn’t bothered by the attack, however: sales are already “pretty good”, marketing manager Jennifer Swihart Voegele told Publishers Weekly, and she only expects the Tea Party slating to increase interest. “The Tea Party doesn’t like A Rule Is to Break because it’s anti-capitalism,” publisher Jennifer Joseph told the magazine, adding that she’d also sent copies to rightwing pundit Bill O’Reilly and comedian Stephen Colbert with a “happy holidays” card.
Just ordered this for my kid from Amazon.com
Anonymous asked: Sup Coach, I'm the guy who sent you a message last time asking about my ECON paper. Again, do you have any example social science papers that I could follow? I saw your post with the MEME and decided not to respond, but it looks like I still need your help. The goal of the paper is to show that I understand the technical models (AD/AS/Loanable Funds/Planned Investments/etc.) using macroeconomic domestic and/or international issues in the past 6 months.
I’m not sure what, exactly, you’re looking for (what you’re asking for is pretty broad is that’s why it’s an entire class and not a blog post).
How much time do you have? Read Economics in One Lesson and Human Action.
Why is it that Europeans ended up conquering so much of the world? Or, as one of Diamond’s New Guinean friends asks him, why do they have all the “cargo”? Despite all the contrary evidence from anthropology and human biology, many persist in attributing the differing political and economic successes of the world’s peoples to biological, “racial” differences. Others appeal to cultural differences or to historical contingency. But Diamond sees the fundamental causes as environmental, resting ultimately on ecological differences between the continents. An extended argument for this, Guns, Germs and Steel is nothing less than a history of Homo sapiens on a scale of continents and millennia.
Diamond begins with a survey of human pre-history, covering the spread of humans around the world down to 11000 BC. He then introduces Polynesia as a “natural experiment”, an illustration on a smaller scale of his overall thesis. In the Polynesian exploration and settlement of the Pacific, settlers from the one cultural and ethnic background ended up in vastly different environments, ranging from continental New Zealand, through volcanic islands of various sizes, to barren atolls and remote Easter Island. Hunter-gatherer societies eventuated on some islands — and sophisticated states and proto-empires on others.
As an exemplar of contact between different societies, Diamond chooses the meeting of the Spanish conquistador Pizarro and the Inca Atahuallpa at Cajamarca in 1532. This resulted in Pizarro’s victory, despite a numerical disadvantage, and the capture of Atahuallpa. The proximate causes of this were germs, technology (guns and steel weapons, ships), domestic animals (horses), and writing. Hence the title.
continued review: http://dannyreviews.com/h/Guns_Germs_Steel.html
Informative book right here.
Started this book, maybe 3 or 4 years ago, I’m still technically reading it. It’s very long and very dense. So much info that it’s hard to read but it’s incredible informative and well worth the read. I’m sure most don’t take as long as me, I’ve just been lazy with this particular book.
(via america-wakiewakie)
What is Law?
By Frederic Bastiat
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
Always reblog Frederic Bastiat
(via theonecalledbiz)
1. The “War on Terror” or the simple act of creating a fear driven society around the idea of “terrorism”.
2. Guantanamo and many, many other secret prisons all around the world.
3. Drone warfare.
4. NSA, TSA, Drones, FBI and CIA warrant-less wire taps.
5. False Flag attacks: FBI and DHS setting up OWS and Anti-Fed “terrorists”
6. NDAA, PATRIOT Act, AUMF, etc.
7. The vilification of the 1%ers, Libertarians, Muslims, Business Owners and many others.
8. Amber Lyon: Government paid off the media
9. Obama’s war on whistleblowers like Bradly Manning, Thomas Drake, Julian Assange and many, many more.
10. Suspension of Due Process. Also anything related to United States AG, Eric Holder.
11. Obama’s call for an Assault Weapons Ban
It’s really hard to argue the fact that were not just standing at the door of fascism, but we are sitting inside her house, eating her tainted pie.
You know what is really interesting? Naomi Wolf’s book covered all but the eleventh step. Though I really liked her book The End of America, I was shocked that she never brought up the subject of disarmament. She is progressive, so there are obvious reasons why she wouldn’t talk about this—and she had touched on the subject briefly in her book, but this list is identical to hers. I liked her book, but she worked on the Gore campaign, and that made me kind of suspicious. Controlled opposition, perhaps…?
Interesting. I’ll check that out.
