Are socialists sociopathic?

It’s an interesting conjecture. But I think socialists are by definition the opposite of sociopaths, and true to form it is always the sociopaths first in line to maul them, followed hotly by dullards who wouldn’t know the difference between a socialist and a manhole cover.

By that logic, anyone who votes is a sociopath.

What the hell is kibbutzniks?

Sociopathy is defined as a disorder that manifests in antisocial behavior and lack of empathy. What you have described cannot be considered antisocial (if anything, you seem to think that socialists care too much about society) or lack of empathy (again, you seem to think that socialists care too much about the good of others). So I get that you were trying to be clever with words, but I think you picked the wrong one.

“Socialism” isn’t one but rather several political theories. In the US when I was growing up, it was considered a bad thing (and people called “socialists” were automatically labeled bad people)—and in some ways, I suppose that might be true. But I think it’s worth checking out some definitions of it before making final judgements.

@Pachy Democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive. One is a type of political system, the other is a type of economic system. So it’s possible, at least in theory, to have a socialist democracy.

@JeSuisRickSpringfield, thanks for the clarification, though that reference wasn’t really the point of my comment. I was merely saying that “Socialism, ” being a very broad term that may not always mean what we (at least we older jellies) were taught, is worth studying up on.

@Pachy I know, and it’s definitely an important point. But I think my comment has the same goal: the pre-edit version of your answer implied that you couldn’t support both democracy and socialism, so I just wanted to be explicit about what the possibilities are and what their definitions really entail.

I’d like to hear Obama say that #whistlingdixie

socialism is the shared ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution by the workers themselves.
As such, it is inherently egalitarian and democratic.

All socialists that follow all forms of Socialism, or just certain types or certain forms of Socialism? But seriously, we are all sociopathic, aren’t we??

If there is a group on the economic spectrum that is sociopathic, it is capitalists.
They are perfectly willing to exploit their workers, force them to work 12 and more hours a day, paying them almost nothing, in unhealthy and unsafe conditions, going so far as to not give a toss if an entire building full of workers burns to death because the capitalist could not be bothered to install fire escapes.
They are perfectly willing to employ child labour.
They are perfeclty willing to basically enslave workers by having them live in company owned camps, shopping in company owned shops, at prices that will intentionally and automatically indebt them to the company.
They are perfectly willing to destroy the environment, and drive entire species extinct.
They are perfectly willing to pump poison into the air and water and wreck the health of millions of people.

None of these are hypotheticals, these are things that are happening, and/or have happened in the past.
And they are willing to do all that for their own personal enrichment and profit.

“I am talking about people using the power of the political state to force people to act on behalf of others not of their choosing.”

Like having medical decisions made for you by the government instead of leaving them between you and your doctor? Socialists believe that some things should be decided by people rather than their rulers. Oddly, the party that proclaims to want smaller, less-intrusive government is the ones that wish to take power from the people there.

Or are we talking about using power to protect those who cannot protect themselves by having a system of rules and punishments for those that prey on others? Socialists are there to do what’s best for the largest part of society. While some will be hurt in the process, the total pain caused by their rule will be less than the total pain inflicted without their intervention yielding a net-positive result. Those that don’t believe in the concept of “greater good” are more sociopathic than those who seek to lessen the sum total of harm inflicted on humanity.

Since most members of American society are working-class, it seems that the people you want to protect from harm are the workers if you are interested in protecting people. However, a sociopath wouldn’t care about the greater good if there were opportunity for personal gain. And if there is personal gain to be had from helping a small minority oppress others, a sociopath would gladly take the “campaign contribution” while a Socialist would stick to their guns and let their empathy and principles override their desire for profit.

If you’re so worried about people using power to bend others to their will, how is it that you can be anything other than a Socialist yourself? The only thing that makes sense is that you are an Anarchist who feels that there should be no rules other than those you can enforce yourself, and advocate a “might makes right” society where anyone can murder anyone else with no repercussions as there is no central authority nor any rules beyond mob rules. But that wouldn’t really allow for much of a society, now would it? Just a bunch of people going around robbing, looting, raping, and pillaging.

Oh, wait… even then, you’d have some bigger badass making you conform to his will, thus leading to a more coercive system than a Socialist would tolerate. But if you’d rather have that than Socialism, if you’d risk being the man-bitch of someone crazier than you in order to avoid being like a European citizen, then go right ahead. Just don’t be enough of a sociopath yourself to make that decision for me or anyone else.

“People using the power of the political state to force people to act”.
Doesn’t that describe democracy rather than socialism? Accepting democracy is the opposite of sociopathy.

@jerv “Like having medical decisions made for you by the government instead of leaving them between you and your doctor?”

Sure, but @josie is against this, too.

“Socialists believe that some things should be decided by people rather than their rulers.”

Perhaps some socialists believe this, but try presenting this blanket claim to anyone who has been oppressed under the Communist (aka “state socialist”) parties of the USSR, China, or North Korea. As @Pachy correctly notes, socialism comes in many flavors. There are democratic socialisms, and there are totalitarian socialisms. Making claims like this, then, does nothing but weaken your argument.

“Oddly, the party that proclaims to want smaller, less-intrusive government is the ones that wish to take power from the people there.”

And @josie doesn’t support them, either. Seriously, just because he is not a liberal Democrat doesn’t mean that he is a conservative Republican. You are falling victim to the same “with us or against us” bullshit that is regularly trotted out by the very party you are trying to criticize. Political discussion—and rational discussion more generally—is ill-served by this sort of assumption that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is some cookie-cutter antagonist lacking in any sort of individuality or nuance.

“The only thing that makes sense is that you are an Anarchist who feels that there should be no rules other than those you can enforce yourself, and advocate a “might makes right” society where anyone can murder anyone else with no repercussions as there is no central authority nor any rules beyond mob rules.”

Or we could not aim at straw men and recognize that in his time on Fluther @josie has consistently advocated a form of right-libertarianism heavily influenced by Ayn Rand. It is not incoherent to hold that (1) there are a very small number of rights that the state can legitimately enforce, (2) we should therefore have a minimal state that enforces all and only those rights, (3) this is the largest state one could create without violating anyone’s basic rights, and (4) such a state could at least hypothetically be created voluntarily in the state of nature without violating anyone’s basic rights. Indeed, one of the best books in all of political philosophy—Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia—defends precisely such an account. Whatever one might think of the conclusion, then, it is intellectually unacceptable to ignore or straw man it.

@flutherother “People using the power of the political state to force people to act”. Doesn’t that describe democracy rather than socialism?

To be fair, the next few words of the OP are rather important. The objection is not to all cases of people using the power of the political state to force people to act, but rather people using the power of the political state to force people to act on behalf of others not of their choosing. To a libertarian of @josie‘s persuasion, it is this last bit that is particularly offensive as it goes beyond what he sees as the proper and legitimate role of the state.

According to such a view, the coercive power of the state ought to be limited to the enforcement and protection of a very small number of rights (or, in some formulations, a single right: the property right that each person has in themselves, which entails a number of concomitant rights). So forcing people to act may be legitimate if the alternative is to allow someone to violate another’s basic rights, but forcing them to act on behalf of another on this view is to violate their basic rights.

Key to the debate here, then, are questions regarding what counts as a basic right and how morally independent people are from one another. Do we have only a negative right not to be unjustly hindered in our own pursuit of happiness, or do we have a positive right to be provided with those things that are necessary for a good human life? Are we independent Lockean agents who owe nothing to one another except non-interference, or are we Aristotelian political animals whose well-being is intimately linked with our community and the well-being of others and who owe our fellow citizens the benefits we are fit to provide (both for their and our own good)?

These are deep and abiding questions of political philosophy. And while we may think we know the answer, the truth is hardly obvious. The United States was founded—paradoxically, it must be admitted—on both ideals, and we’ve been having the debate over how to balance them (or which to jettison) ever since.

@stanleybymanly certainly sounds like one, in addition to fitting his own bill as someone who clearly doesn’t know what socialism is. Likewise the others trying in cain to No True Scots the argument with the usual fallacious handwringing and goalpost moving about oxymoronic “democratic socialism”, as well as those who can’t distinguish between society and socialism.

@SavoirFaire

You can move all the goalposts and revise all you want, but socialism, by its very definition, os inherently and inescapably totalitarian.

@jerv Are you patently dishonest, or just completely clueless?

“ike having medical decisions made for you by the government instead of leaving them between you and your doctor? Socialists believe that some things should be decided by people rather than their rulers.”

Apparently you don’t understand what socialism is. Socialism is the very definition of the government controlling every aspect of “the people”, up to and especially your healthcare. BS yourself about imaginary socialist “empathy” all you like, but history remains unaltered.

@ThatSkepticGuy Moving the goalposts is a rather specific fallacy. It requires that opposing parties have already agreed upon what would constitute a successful response, that one side has met that burden, and that the other side has subsequently and unilaterally redefined what constitutes success. I don’t think you can point to that sort of thing happening in any of the above responses, and certainly not my own.

Furthermore, it is demonstrably false that socialism is totalitarian by definition. For one thing, totalitarianism requires—and is defined in terms of—a state that claims unlimited authority and that exercises as much control as it can. Socialism, however, is defined in terms of public ownership and collective regulation of the means of production. And while there are obviously statist versions of socialism, the view itself does not require a state at all (as evidenced by things like anarcho-socialism).

Therefore, socialism cannot be totalitarian by definition since the definition of the latter requires something that the definition of the former does not. Even if all historical attempts at socialism have in fact been totalitarian, and even if all future attempts are destined to be (or become) totalitarian, it still wouldn’t follow that socialism is totalitarian by definition. At best, what would follow is that socialism is necessarily totalitarian in practice. This is an important difference, both rhetorically and philosophically.

@ThatSkepticGuy welcome to fluther.

@SavoirFaire Yes, that’s an EXCELLENT example of goalposting moving you’ve provided, specifically the way you’re rewriting the definition of socialism (“state monopoly of the means of production”) to mean something completely different so you can pretend that socialism’s results conflicting with your PERSONAL and INACCURATE definition mean it Wasn’t A True Scotsman.

Truly brilliant in it’s disingenuousness.

@ThatSkepticGuy Three years later and all you’ve got is a fustian version of “I know you are but what am I?”

(1) I can’t be moving the goalposts on you because we haven’t agreed to any sort of standard of evidence yet. In fact, you accused me of moving the goalposts before I had even responded to you (which shows that you don’t actually know how moving the goalposts works).

(2) Socialism is not a “state monopoly of the means of production.” It is defined in terms of collective or social ownership of the means of production, which may or may not involve a state at all (a group of people living on an island with no government can still operate as a socialist collective). Since you seem to think this definition is idiosyncratic, here are some sources for you.

(3) I have not claimed that state socialism is not a form of socialism, nor have I made the oft repeated (but incredibly feeble) claim that “true socialism” has never been tried. So your no true Scotsman accusation is absurd on its face.

(4) Even if we were to define socialism in terms of a state monopoly on the means of production, that still wouldn’t be enough to make it necessarily and by definition totalitarian. This is because totalitarianism requires control over more than just the means of production. Again, here are some sources. So while all totalitarian states might count as socialist states under this definition (since any state that completely controls everything would completely control, and thus have a monopoly on, the means of production), it still wouldn’t follow that all socialist states are totalitarian states (and drawing such a conclusion would be to commit the converse error fallacy).