So, in your previous comment you said I wasn’t addressing your point. I did exactly that, in detail. Now you’re telling me I’m splitting hairs.
I explained why your syllogism doesn’t establish the conclusion you’re trying to draw from it, and rather than address that response, you’ve simply moved on to another objection. So I’ll restate my original argument one more time.
Socialism is an economic system. It does not inherently, nor was it specifically designed, to protect workers. Its fundamental purpose was to address the concentration of wealth and economic power associated with capitalism by changing the ownership and control of the means of production. It isn’t a magical philosophy for solving every social problem.
Socialism has also never historically produced the utopian outcomes people often attribute to it. In many cases, socialist systems produced enormous concentrations of political power and inflicted serious harm on the very people they were supposedly intended to liberate. You can’t simply look at the intended goal and pretend the historical outcomes don’t matter.
My argument has never been that worker protections are bad, nor that socialist movements have never advocated for them. I’ve said the exact opposite: if socialism results in better protections for workers, I’m perfectly fine with that. My argument is that the fact that workers can use collective control of the means of production to protect their own interests does not mean that socialism inherently will do so. There is nothing in the economic structure of socialism that magically guarantees that outcome.
You were making that guarantee. I was pointing out that it was an assertion based on what you believe socialism should accomplish, rather than something inherent to socialism itself.
And, frankly, I’ve never encountered this particular argument before. I’ve never had someone construct a syllogism specifically to argue that worker protection is a necessary consequence of socialism. It was actually an interesting argument to respond to, and I appreciate the different way of approaching the issue.
But ultimately, I still don’t think it establishes your conclusion.
There is no economic system that comes with a magical guarantee that its participants will use it in the way we think they should. And socialism certainly isn’t a universal philosophy for resolving every problem in society. It’s an economic model concerning ownership and control of the means of production.
I don’t understand why people keep treating socialism as though it is somehow inherently going to resolve inequality, protect every vulnerable group, empower workers, and solve all of society’s other problems. We have an enormous historical record to examine. At some point, you have to actually look at what these systems have done rather than what you believe they were supposed to do.
So, in your previous comment you said I wasn’t addressing your point. I did exactly that, in detail. Now you’re telling me I’m splitting hairs.
I explained why your syllogism doesn’t establish the conclusion you’re trying to draw from it, and rather than address that response, you’ve simply moved on to another objection. So I’ll restate my original argument one more time.
Socialism is an economic system. It does not inherently, nor was it specifically designed, to protect workers. Its fundamental purpose was to address the concentration of wealth and economic power associated with capitalism by changing the ownership and control of the means of production. It isn’t a magical philosophy for solving every social problem.
Socialism has also never historically produced the utopian outcomes people often attribute to it. In many cases, socialist systems produced enormous concentrations of political power and inflicted serious harm on the very people they were supposedly intended to liberate. You can’t simply look at the intended goal and pretend the historical outcomes don’t matter.
My argument has never been that worker protections are bad, nor that socialist movements have never advocated for them. I’ve said the exact opposite: if socialism results in better protections for workers, I’m perfectly fine with that. My argument is that the fact that workers can use collective control of the means of production to protect their own interests does not mean that socialism inherently will do so. There is nothing in the economic structure of socialism that magically guarantees that outcome.
You were making that guarantee. I was pointing out that it was an assertion based on what you believe socialism should accomplish, rather than something inherent to socialism itself.
And, frankly, I’ve never encountered this particular argument before. I’ve never had someone construct a syllogism specifically to argue that worker protection is a necessary consequence of socialism. It was actually an interesting argument to respond to, and I appreciate the different way of approaching the issue.
But ultimately, I still don’t think it establishes your conclusion.
There is no economic system that comes with a magical guarantee that its participants will use it in the way we think they should. And socialism certainly isn’t a universal philosophy for resolving every problem in society. It’s an economic model concerning ownership and control of the means of production.
I don’t understand why people keep treating socialism as though it is somehow inherently going to resolve inequality, protect every vulnerable group, empower workers, and solve all of society’s other problems. We have an enormous historical record to examine. At some point, you have to actually look at what these systems have done rather than what you believe they were supposed to do.