Tag: Communism

1375: Murray Rothbard – Man Cannot Live as a Parasite

W1375: Murray Rothbard – Man Cannot Live as a Parasite
The man who seizes another's property is living in basic contradiction to his own nature as a man. For man can only live and prosper by his own production and exchange of products. The aggressor, on the other hand, is not a producer at all but a predator; he lives parasitically off the labor and product of others. Parasites must have non-parasites to feed upon. The parasite depends completely on the production of the host body. Any increase in coercive exploitation (parasitism) decreases the quantity and the output of the producers, until finally, if the producers die out, the parasites will quickly follow suit. Thus, parasitism cannot be a universal ethic. —Murray Rothbard
The man who seizes another's property is living in basic contradiction to his own nature as a man. For man can only live and prosper by his own production and exchange of products. The aggressor, on the other hand, is not a producer at all but a predator; he lives parasitically off the labor and product of others. Parasites must have non-parasites to feed upon. The parasite depends completely on the production of the host body. Any increase in coercive exploitation (parasitism) decreases the quantity and the output of the producers, until finally, if the producers die out, the parasites will quickly follow suit. Thus, parasitism cannot be a universal ethic. —Murray RothbardDownload Print Quality (7680×4020) 239KB  |  Normal Quality (3840×2010) 129KB
The man who seizes another's property is living in basic contradiction to his own nature as a man. For man can only live and prosper by his own production and exchange of products. The aggressor, on the other hand, is not a producer at all but a predator; he lives parasitically off the labor and product of others. Parasites must have non-parasites to feed upon. The parasite depends completely on the production of the host body. Any increase in coercive exploitation (parasitism) decreases the quantity and the output of the producers, until finally, if the producers die out, the parasites will quickly follow suit. Thus, parasitism cannot be a universal ethic. —Murray RothbardDownload Print Quality (6144×7680) 317KB  |  Normal Quality (3072×3840) 159KB

The man who seizes another’s property is living in basic contradiction to his own nature as a man. For man can only live and prosper by his own production and exchange of products. The aggressor, on the other hand, is not a producer at all but a predator; he lives parasitically off the labor and product of others. Parasites must have non-parasites to feed upon. The parasite depends completely on the production of the host body. Any increase in coercive exploitation (parasitism) decreases the quantity and the output of the producers, until finally, if the producers die out, the parasites will quickly follow suit. Thus, parasitism cannot be a universal ethic. —Murray Rothbard

1358: They Lie to Us

W1358: They Lie to Us
The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them. —from the memoir of a young girl who grew up in the Soviet Union

The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them. —from the memoir of a young girl who grew up in the Soviet Union

1356: Frank Dikotter – The Great Leap Forward

F1356: Frank Dikotter – The Great Leap Forward
By unleashing China’s greatest asset, a labour force that was counted in the hundreds of millions, Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors. Instead of following the Soviet model of development, which leaned heavily towards industry alone, China would ‘walk on two legs’: the peasant masses were mobilised to transform both agriculture and industry at the same time, converting a backward economy into a modern communist society of plenty for all.

By unleashing China’s greatest asset, a labour force that was counted in the hundreds of millions, Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors. Instead of following the Soviet model of development, which leaned heavily towards industry alone, China would ‘walk on two legs’: the peasant masses were mobilised to transform both agriculture and industry at the same time, converting a backward economy into a modern communist society of plenty for all.

In the pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised, as villagers were herded together in giant communes which heralded the advent of communism.

People in the countryside were robbed of their work, their homes, their land, their belongings and their livelihood. Food, distributed by the spoonful in collective canteens according to merit, became a weapon to force people to follow the party’s every dictate.

Irrigation campaigns forced up to half the villagers to work for weeks on end on giant water-conservancy projects, often far from home, without adequate food and rest. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives.

—Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine