From: thescotandscotland.wordpress.com By Scotty M
Libertarian Socialism has become quite popular with a lot of my millenial generation and a lot of it is due to a common misunderstanding of what the word Socialism means. Sure, one could argue that words mean different to different people but when you dig deeper behind the meaning of Socialism one can easily see the many contradictions of Libertarian Socialism as they are two complete opposites. First we will begin with the name ‘Socialism’ itself:
Libertarian Socialists invariably tell us that Libertarian Socialism is a decentralised type of Socialist system, but the problem with that argument and why it is a contradiction to the word Socialism is in relation to its name. When we speak about Socialism we are speaking about the opposite of private individual ownership (Capitalism) which is decentralisation, you hear terms such as ‘Socialised medicine’ or ‘Socialised healthcare’, Socialists will always complain about individual ownership and of Free Market healthcare, they always argued for ‘Universal healthcare’ and this is the key point because Socialism itself is all about ‘Collectivisation’. Therefore when we speak of ‘Socialised medicine’ the word ‘Socialised’ simply means ‘Collectivised’ or ‘Centralised’, it’s the same meaning. A big part of what defines Socialism is Centralisation and it is for this reason itself that Libertarian Socialism is contradictory as you cannot have decentralised Socialism as the meaning of Socialism is Centralism.
The second and main problem as to why Libertarian Socialism is an oxymoron is the fact that you cannot oppose or for a better word ‘prevent‘ an individual from their own individual rights or liberty. The goal of Socialism itself is to eradicate private ownership completely from the economy which in other words means to prevent individuals from owning their own private business or property. This poses the question; “what gives other individuals the right to dictate my life over what I can or cannot own legitimately?’ Socialists view private ownership as a means of enslavement but what they fail to comprehend are the contracts people sign to agree to become part of the business work team, they ignore the job interview process which in itself is against all meaning of the word slavery. The word slavery relates to being ‘forced’whereby employers wouldn’t even give them a job interview, they would simply force them into working for their business, but that’s just it, they don’t!
The question is: “How can you call yourself a Libertarian if you seek to impose your will upon me whereby forcing me into a collective group and taking away my individual rights and liberty to owning my own private business?” The fact is, they have no answer to that because you cannot ‘prevent’ individuals from doing their own thing and call it Libertarian at the same time, it’s an oxymoron.
Suppose in their scenario they did reach their utopia with no government and there was no private ownership (which we know is just not possible), but let’s say for arguments sake they did, society is made up of individuals with their own self-interest, this is a simple fact of human nature that cannot be ignored, from this you have to ask yourself this question: “Okay, there’s no government, no private ownership, society is made up of individuals with self-interest, how are we going to ‘PREVENT’ individuals from going and doing their own thing such as starting up their own private business again?” This is where it becomes interesting because the only way you can ensure private ownership never returns is by having a select group of people watch over the ‘Libertarian Socialist economy’, now all it takes is a simple understanding of the meaning of the word ‘govern‘ to see why it’s a contradictory because they have no option but to govern over society to ensure private ownership never returns, that by definition is governance, therefore there is no Anarchy and there certainly is no Libertarianism under Socialism.
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