The Gnostic Fallacy

If people are allowed to own things, exchange them, and set the terms of exchange themselves, then you have one type of economic system: misleadingly called capitalism. (Notice that capital is non-defining. Capital can also be accumulated in a slave state, although with greater difficulty.) On the other hand, if people are not allowed to own things—especially big things like factories—or exchange them without permission, or themselves set the terms of exchange, then you have another type of economic system: socialism.

For several centuries learned people in various countries have shared a similar dream, as follows. Government officials (with soldiers at their command) could decide what material goods people needed. Government-owned production facilities could then make these goods. And then government workers could distribute them to the people. It was that simple. Instead of competing with one another, people would cooperate. They wouldn’t even need money any more. After work they would simply go to the government granaries and warehouses and help themselves to whatever they needed.

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Tom Bethell

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If people are allowed to own things, exchange them, and set the terms of exchange themselves, then you have one type of economic system: misleadingly called capitalism. (Notice that capital is non-defining. Capital can also be accumulated in a slave state, although with greater difficulty.) On the other hand, if people are not allowed to own things—especially big things like factories—or exchange them without permission, or themselves set the terms of exchange, then you have another type of economic system: socialism.

For several centuries learned people in various countries have shared a similar dream, as follows. Government officials (with soldiers at their command) could decide what material goods people needed. Government-owned production facilities could then make these goods. And then government workers could distribute them to the people. It was that simple. Instead of competing with one another, people would cooperate. They wouldn’t even need money any more. After work they would simply go to the government granaries and warehouses and help themselves to whatever they needed.