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July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
17:47
Why I Was Wrong About Socialism
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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyny from Freedom Main Radio.
Hope you're doing well. So we got a question from Diogo.
He says, first, I get why you can't stand communism because of dictatorship, but what's wrong with socialism?
You literally said that you were a socialist during your youth.
What turned you away from it?
I suppose it wasn't liberalism, so what was it?
Secondly, what's wrong with ideology?
Well, I think these two questions are kind of one of the same.
So yes, when I was younger, I was a socialist, and I was also a Christian, and lots of things have evolved in my thinking on the coming up to half century time that I've been pushing out some carbon dioxide.
So the reason why this is an interesting question is twofold.
One is the content, the other is the form.
What turned you away from socialism?
That is... A very interesting question to get in a philosophy show.
And let me put it to you another way.
You say, well, you used to be into an Earth-centered model of the solar system.
You know, the Earth's in the middle and all the planets and all that go around.
What, oh human race, turned you away from the Earth-centered model of the solar system?
And the answer would be, it was wrong.
I learned more.
We learned better.
So when it comes to socialism, I don't want to get into all of the reasons why, because that would be a very long show, but fundamentally, when it comes to what's in your brain, a very relaxing and wonderful experience to go through is to recognize that for pretty much everything of particular importance, particularly moral importance, everything that's in your mind, it's not up to you.
It's not up to you whether the Sun is the center of the solar system.
It's not up to you whether a gas expands when heated.
It's not up to you whether...
You can fly or fall if you jump from a wall.
It is not up to you.
You must accept and surrender your judgment to that which is.
And that really is the fundamental purpose of philosophy.
Philosophy is about helping you differentiate that which you can choose and that which you cannot choose.
Whether the sun is the center of the solar system It's not a choice.
You don't flip a coin. It's not how you feel that morning.
It's not whether a cool guy told you.
It's not whether some pretty girl believes it.
Okay, maybe that one. But it's not up to you.
It's not up to you. What you want to do with your life, okay, that's up to you.
Maybe the kind of music that you like, yeah, that can kind of be up to you.
You can expose yourself to different music.
You can pursue different artists and so on.
Which book you're going to read next, whether you want to watch the show.
These are all up to you.
But when it comes to things outside your consciousness, things that are outside your mere personal emotional preferences, such as what you want to do with your life, if you want to be a fireman, or if you want to be a painter, or if you want to be a programmer, or if you want to be a philosopher, these are not moral choices.
These are choices to do with aesthetic preferences, perhaps balanced with a little bit of natural skill set and abilities and so on.
These are not moral choices.
And they're important to you.
They're just not that important to the world as a whole.
Just, you know, not trying to be mean.
It's just, you know, whether you become a fireman or a programmer, the world is not going to turn on that.
But whether you are a good or a bad person, and the degree to which you are willing to surrender your ego to that which is, well, that matters in the world a lot more than your choice of profession.
And recognizing the difference between what you can reasonably choose and what you cannot reasonably choose.
Foundation, I've been talking about this for, I guess we're coming on for 10 years in this philosophy conversation and this philosophy show.
There's things you can choose, there's things you can't.
You know that old prayer, God grant me the...
The serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
And it's a very, you know, obviously we don't want the metaphysical deity element to it, but this is very important for any kind of rational philosophy.
And so it wasn't like, well, I just turned away from socialism because, I don't know, I became an entrepreneur.
I made a little bit of money.
I... A socialist woman broke my heart.
These aren't things that would have any philosophical content.
Why did I turn away from socialism?
Because it's irrational.
Socialism is the equivalent of putting the Earth at the center of the solar system.
It may explain a few things if you look at it in a certain way, but the errors accumulate, the problems accumulate so much that you can't sustain it.
And this is not fundamentally about socialism.
You can't just create arbitrary categories in philosophy.
I mean, you can't. You can't create arbitrary categories in any rational discipline.
Because the whole point of rational is there's got to be a reason for your categories, right?
So in biology, you can't just start creating arbitrary categories and throw cold-blooded animals into the mammal bucket, because one of the definitions of the mammal bucket is warm-blooded.
Don't get me started on the platypus and egg-laying people.
Apparently that's different.
But you just, you can't create arbitrary categories.
You can't say that something is both a gas and a solid in exactly the same circumstances.
Yeah, okay, it can go from a gas to a liquid if it gets cold enough or whatever, but you just, you can't create arbitrary distinctions, even where there may be some distinctions, right?
So there's lizards as a category.
There are different species of lizards as a category because they have biological genetic differences, but there's no such thing as a green chameleon followed by a blue chameleon.
If you take it from a green surface and put it under a blue surface, these aren't different species.
That's just what the chameleons do in terms of changing their colors.
So refusing to grant to your thinking arbitrary distinctions is foundational to Growing up and being wise and being thoughtful.
And the wonderful thing is it offloads a huge amount of processing.
Philosophy is like the GPU, the graphics processing unit for your video game.
It offloads a lot of processing onto something else.
So when it comes to what is virtuous, what is right, what is true, what is good, how should I promote virtue and what is virtue, the wonderful thing is it's not up to you.
It's not up to you. It's not up to me.
It's not up to any individual person.
In the same way that the Sun being the center of the solar system is not up to Copernicus, it's not up to Tycho Brahe, it's not up to the Pope, it's not up to anyone.
It's just what is true, what is factual, what is real.
And so once you take the megalomaniacal will out of your approach to truth, in other words, Goodness must be willed and the sentimentality and, quote, concern for the poor or whatever it is that defines your approach to social organization.
What is nice? What appears to solve problems in the short run?
What is pragmatic? What is the greatest good for the greatest number?
That's all subjective nonsense.
We don't say, well, the choice as to whether the sun or the earth is at the center of the solar system is judged by that which is best for society, that which seems to solve problems in the short run, that which makes me feel better, or that which is the greatest good for the greatest number.
We can put all of that aside.
That is the great epiphany of philosophy.
We can put all of that aside.
Don't have to will it.
Don't have to try and convince it.
Don't have to go chasing data down that in a confirmation bias supports my prior prejudices.
I don't have to deal with sentimentality.
I don't have to deal with any of that.
What is consistent?
I mean, there's so much that's wrong with socialism, but very, very briefly, the steps that led me to reject it as an Earth-centered model of the solar system was basically...
We own ourselves and we own the effects of our actions.
You can't have a debate with anyone.
You can't even have a conversation with anyone without accepting those two basic realities.
We own ourselves and we are responsible for the effects of our actions, right?
That's why if a guy kills a woman, he owns the murder.
He is responsible for the murder and you punish him, not just his hands or his fingerprints or his dog or the lamppost out front of his house.
He is in control of himself and he is responsible for the effects of his actions.
This is as true whether he creates a murder or creates crops or a house or some piece of property.
So we own ourselves and we are responsible for the effects of our actions.
And nobody can deny that to you.
I mean, they can try, but they're just being ridiculous.
Because they are using their own self-control, the control over their own body, to create an argument that they are responsible for, opposing an argument that you used your body to create and to expostulate, which you are responsible for, so you simply can't possibly reject the idea of self-ownership and being responsible for the effects of your actions.
You can do anything you want.
It's just wrong. You can say that two and two make five.
It's just wrong. So we own...
Our own bodies and we own the effects of our actions.
Now, nobody says that if you plant one flower on your property, that's your flower.
But if you plant ten flowers, well, after nine, it's not your property.
That's creating an arbitrary distinction.
The volume or degree or size of property ownership is immaterial to property rights.
Property rights aren't like solid...
If you have one toothbrush, but if you have three toothbrushes, you're stealing from someone who deserves or wants or needs a toothbrush.
So, this basic reality...
And it's not up to me. It's not up to me.
This is just basic, philosophical, rational, empirical consistency.
Nobody says, well, if you kill one person, you're a murderer.
But if you kill ten people, you're a saint, right?
I mean, assuming it's just murder.
So, if you steal...
One candy bar, you're a shoplifter.
If you steal a million candy bars, you're a grand theft, larceny, or whatever it would be.
And so, it's not up to me the degree to which property rights are valid.
It's not my choice.
It's not, well, okay, but after a certain amount of money, it's stealing from the poor.
Like, that's just not part of a philosophical conversation.
Property rights are valid, and as a principle, you can't create arbitrary distinctions.
So socialism, of course, is about socializing the means of production, which means factories that people have worked very hard to create get stolen from them by some state apparatus and turned over to the workers for some collective management and so on.
Now, of course, you could say, well, this is nice, this is good, this is bad, this is more economic productivity, it's fair to the workers, there's more equal distribution of blah-de-blah-de-blah, but that's all nonsense, because that's all, is it good or bad for society if the sun is the center of the solar system?
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter whether it's good or bad for society.
We pursue the facts.
We pursue the facts.
Is it good or bad for society that reptiles are cold-blooded?
I mean, that would be an incomprehensible question.
Is it good or bad for society that two and two make four and that lead is heavier than air?
Doesn't matter. So the reality is that self-ownership and owning the effects of one's actions have no upward limit.
Because that would be to create an arbitrary distinction.
That's like saying one lizard is cold-blooded.
Five lizards are cold-blooded.
But ten lizards are not, right?
It doesn't matter if you're talking about some individual thing.
It doesn't matter the extent or degree of it at all.
This is not like some emergent property called the opposite of property rights if you have too much property.
That's sort of the graduated income tax idea where if you have more property you must pay more.
This is not how ethics works.
Slavery is immoral. It doesn't matter if you have one person in the hold of a ship or a thousand people in the hold of a ship.
It's just immoral. Multiplying immoralities does not suddenly produce morality.
Multiplying property does not eventually justify theft.
It's not up to me. It's not up to you.
These are just philosophical realities.
Now, once you recognize that there's no foundational difference between a toothbrush and a factory, then you cannot have opposing property rights for a toothbrush than to a factory.
You can't say, well, if I steal your toothbrush, I'm a bad guy.
But if I come along and steal your factory for the sake of the workers, I'm suddenly a moral agent of class warfare.
This is all just nonsense.
It's an arbitrary distinction.
No fundamental difference between a toothbrush and a factory.
They're both property that people work to create, and there's collaboration, cooperation, competition, doesn't really matter.
As long as it's voluntary trade that has produced the effect of property, it's not up to you.
So this idea is like, well, what mysterious thing turns you against socialism?
Well, what mysterious thing turns sensible people away from creationism and towards evolution?
Well, it's valid.
It's true. Did someone who believed in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus really break your heart?
I mean, when you were younger, you believed in the tooth fairy, you believed in Santa Claus.
What happened? What turned you against these things?
It's like, well, nothing.
I just grew up and stopped using arbitrary distinctions and stopped creating...
Imaginary categories of magical opposition based on inconsequential things like volume.
I mean, mass has the property called gravity.
And the more mass, the more gravity.
And it's not like you go over a certain amount of mass and gravity reverses itself.
I mean, it's just the way it is.
And so it's not a choice.
Now, ideology is the second part of your question.
Ideology is that which creates arbitrary categories.
Right? That's just the way it is.
It's an arbitrary category.
So ideology says, well, you know, the moment somebody has a factory, we should steal it from them and give it to the workers.
Why? Would you steal his kidney and give it to someone, even if that person really wanted the kidney?
Well, no. There are people out there who are blind, and if you got Joe's socialist eyeball plucker out there with a spork, you could transfer one of my eyes to the person who...
Was blind. And then he would have one eye and I would have one eye.
Would we be arguably better off?
I don't know. But it's wrong to pull a full-on King Lear Gloucester and out vial jelly my eye with a spork.
Sorry. It's not up to me.
It's not up to you. That's wrong. And there's no fundamental difference between a kidney and a factory, between an eyeball and a toothbrush.
They are both aspects of self-ownership that you have worked to create or maintain.
So there's just this relaxation.
You offload the decision making to philosophy and it no longer is a matter of will where you're trying to balance some social outcome and nag and negotiate with people and so on.
It's like, no, sorry. It's wrong.
It's wrong. I don't care if it feels like agricultural productivity is higher in the 16th century if you have slaves.
It's wrong. It doesn't matter what other complications ensue because of that.
And life gets so much simpler.
When you offload moral decision-making to philosophy, it's a wonderful thing.
Okay. Admittedly, it puts you smack dab face at high speed, sometimes into the rough brick wall of socialist and social ideology.
But when you unite your mind with reality and you offload the decision-making about fundamentally important issues like ethics onto philosophy, it puts you in direct collision with the ideology and prejudice and hysteria of society.
Well, that's okay. You know, people who accepted that the sun was the center of the solar system ran into some ideologies of their time, particularly theologies where the Bible says the earth is fixed and does not move and so on.
Well, you know, that's just the natural conflict between superstition and philosophy, between irrationality and rationality between ideology and empiricism.
So, offload things onto philosophy and your life is fully clear and you have wonderful principles that are stable and great.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
And virtue, to be achieved, must be surrendered to philosophy and taken out of the realm of personal preference.
So, that's why.
And this happened in a wide variety of spheres and fields with me.
And it's a relaxing and wonderful place to be.
With, again, the exception being that for a time, it will put you as a rational thinker in conflict with the ideologues and sophists and propagandizers of your age.
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