they have expropriated very specific things

and a very small amount

so what

it doesn't matter

it doesn't

are you implying that regulations = socialism or something

regulated capitalism is not socialism

and yeah i think a lot of these policies are silly

if you are going to rely on the private sector

which venezuela does

then you have to allow the private sector to function properly

not really

at its core it has to do with property relationships

you could be more strict and say there also can't be generalized commodity production

but socialism isn't necessarily about government control

government control doesn't necessarily equal collective ownership and collective ownership doesn't necessarily equal government control

it doesn't though

having like price controls or a minimum wage doesn't change that the means of production are still privately owned

and there are examples of collective control that isn't realized in the form of state owned enterprise like in rojava and chiapas

even in the soviet union to an extent, kolkhozes were only partially directly state controlled and were sort of an intermediate between state owned enterprise and cooperatives

you would do it like you do in chiapas where power is held in a very decentralized manner

granted i don't personally advocate for such a thing

but it exists

via armed rebellion

i dunno i mean every society is backed by the threat of force

if you want to call like any organization of force no matter how decentralized and informal a government then fine but then asking how socialism could exist without a government is a pointless question since no society has or can

yeah the law is telling you how to live your life

it sounds like you're making an argument based on the liberal dichotomy between positive and negative liberty

that's not a paragraph

i dunno why do mexicans risk death to flee mexico

probably because the united states is richer than every single latin american country

with the overwhelming majority being capitalist

if you worked with the batista government or the usa then no it was not good to live there, and rightfully so

key figures from the previous administration and those who have shown themselves to do what amounted to treason had to be gotten rid of

also i don't think 30k people were killed by firing squads

usually in the death tolls for cuba they'll include things like war deaths and immigration deaths

the law telling you that you can't "infringe on other people's rights" is the law telling you how to live

then why do you think laws should be used to stop people from doing things that "directly hurt someone else"

because you find it immoral?

if it has nothing to do with morality then what is the basis for these "rights"

so is anything that you "inherently have" that cannot be given to you a right?

why is freedom of speech a right

so what if, as a society, we were to agree that workplace democracy for example is a right

so do you believe in private property rights

why

you aren't born with private property rights

they are a legal construct

no you aren't

what does that even mean

private property rights are a legal construct

you can call it whatever you like

something being your property just means that you excercise power over it

you have no "right" to property, you only either have power over something or you do not

usually, this power is upheld by legal rights, not some sort of weird notion of natural rights that transcends law

you have property rights that are given to you by the government sure

but your idea of rights that exist outside of law seems so arbitrary

why do you have some sort of right, existing outside of laws, to excercise power over things

and what is the character of this right and why

like do you believe you have some sort of natural right that transcends law to own land?

wait so do you think land ownership is different from other kinds of ownership or do you think this for all forms of ownership

so is your argument that these "rights" that transcend law are just principles that are the most efficient way to run a society

but what is the basis for these rights

you can't give me a straight answer

so what makes the concept of us agreeing that the ability to own land is a right different from us agreeing to the right for employees to excercise workplace democracy

circular logic

yeah but what if we don't agree that firms should be privately owned

why

we don't agree that owning firms is a right

but you just said that rights are a concept we agreed everyone deserves

yeah but i'm saying what if we didn't agree

is it no longer a right

no you could have legal property rights without having to justify those laws on the basis of protecting this weird notion of natural rights

because google being privately owned has an effect on society that greatly outstrips that of me owning a phone

anyone can take whatever they have the power to

but if you're talking about what ought to be done

then we could say, perhaps we should change our laws regarding property rights to improve society

and use the government as an apparatus of organized force to do so

or of course overthrow the government and create a new one

what don't you understand

idk how to rephrase it

basically you asked that without a belief in like some sort of right to property you are born with how could you justify owning a phone or whatever

i just said that you can justify legal property rights on grounds other than you are born with certain rights and the duty of the government is to protect them

the "letting everyone own whatever they earn" thing is dependent upon legal property rights to exist

certain property rights are encoded in law and protected by a system of organized force

you earn within the bounds of these legal constructs

hold on, i wanna go back to what you originally said

you said that the law exists to keep us from infringing on other people's rights (in response to me saying that laws tell you how to live)

then when i asked you what these rights are, you ultimately conceded that, if we were to decide that you don't have a right to property for example, then it is not a right

you seemed to ultimately rely on collective agreement as being the basis of a right

so why don't laws tell you how to live

if the law says that, for example, the people of flint, michigan are not allowed to use the clean water source near them because it is owned by nestle

how is that not the law telling you how to live

yeah but i don't get how this isn't telling people how to live

they can physically go to the water source and collect water and drink it

the law just makes it so if they do they will have force used against them

so what if we collectively decided that the ability to drink from whatever water source you like is a right

if we did so

and then people drank from nestle's water source

and nestle used force to defend their property

and they had punitive action taken against them