Is "Democracy" really, fundamentally, any different than Socialism? Is Socialism really any different than Communism? And what does Capitalism mean, when neither the monetary unit, nor the interest rates, nor the marketplace is "free", and humans have vastly fewer rights than fictions known as “corporations”, foundations, and governments? I didn't agree to allow any of those perversions and intrusions on my freedom. Did you? So how are you free if you are born in chains you aren't free to take off, even for a day?
At least a year ago, I was very interested in the names given to various government forms. I questioned whether they were really distinct. I posted on this board that I needed to rethink Democracy as somehow the antithesis of Communism, and I would come back to the topic. I just found the following on an undated note and I generally agree with everything written; at least I see no fundamental flaws. Do you?
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I think debating Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism fundamentally in ECONOMIC terms is "red herring". Ownership of property is just one individual freedom among many which the Collective may seek to confiscate.
As a naked individual, unbound by social constraints, you have a vast array of freedoms. You are "free" to try almost anything. You are free to chose your beliefs, your values, your actions, and even how to equate your consequences. You are free to not participate. There are also many forms of capital, beyond monetary.
As I said a few weeks ago, "democracy" may sound better than dictatorship to modern ears, but in truth that is very situational. Aristotle, Plato, et al. regarded "Democracy" as approximately the WORST form of government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis
Polybius was probably the primary "grandfather" of the American experiment as a Republic. The forefathers were well aware of his thinking and his placing pure "democracy" near the bottom of list of virtuous forms of governance: 1. monarchy, 2. kingship, 3. tyranny, 4. aristocracy, 5. oligarchy, 6. democracy, and 7. ochlocracy. His ideas about division of powers in Rome were fundamental to the US Constitutional structure of checks and balances.
Fundamentally the concept that you will kneel to "majority vote" is fundamentally at odds with the concept of individualism. Liberty is an individual value. Talking of liberty in a communal frame makes little sense. Democracy and government are, ipso facto, antithetical to freedom. Now, you may choose to surrender some of your individual freedoms -- including economic -- to the collective, but the collective has zero moral "right" to take those from you by "vote", much less by bureaucratic directives and regulations. If you initiate force, your life may be forfeit, but that is a different matter. The society (clique which controls and masquerades as the state) initiating force against YOU is no less wrong.
If some social clique does have that right, then freedom means nothing, and you have no inviolable rights at all!
So I think the hierarchy needs to start with total freedom. Mental freedom and freedom of speech is, IMO, at a considerably higher level than property rights; it is telling that the current “Socialism" wants to start by denying mental freedom and freedom of expression.
To the degree you strip economic and property rights, you strip human incentive on most matters. You may still feel you still have a right to create art, but that won't make much difference if you don’t have the right to buy paint, nor canvas, nor possess them, because of some “majority” vote that they are unsafe.
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