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submitted 1 year ago by Tachanka@hexbear.net to c/memes@hexbear.net
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[-] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You really have to ignore the entire history of capitalist theory and history to pretend this is remotely a coherent take, besides the ancaps, social liberals are the most utopian of all liberal sects, they are willfully blind to the contradictions of class, property ownership, and the functions of the state

They fundamentally don't understand the social basis for the ideology they claim to uphold, it was only with the rise of socialism that liberals began to construct these social fantasies of class harmony and submission under capitalism, in the old days they were more sober about this shit as Adam Smith readily admitted

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all

But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary. (WN V.ii.2)

[-] Tachanka@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago

regarding the Adam Smith quote, I love the number of Adam Smith quotes that sound like Marx quotes. you can really break a person's brain with those.

[-] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor. In this age of shepherds, if one man possessed 500 oxen, and another had none at all, unless there were some government to secure them to him, he would not be allowed to possess them.”

Adam Smith, “ Lectures on Jurisprudence” 1766

this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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