Should the Talented Thrive?

i think OP's point was, how can socialists differentiate between talent and monetary privilege?

Both are outside a persons control, are down to pure luck, and directly effect how well you will do in life. The people arguing against the OP claim that they want to allow people to reach their potential. Everyone varies in potential just like everyone varies in monetary privilege at birth. Both are factors outside a persons control. Why the differentiation?

Freedom to starve isn't a very useful freedom whereas freedom to enjoy the satisfaction of your needs is. You see? It's all about how you use the term 'freedom'. The right tend to present 'freedom' negatively, that is to say freedom 'from' rather than the left's interest in freedom 'to'. Nevertheless, the kind of 'freedom' the right applaud, that associated with private property and capitalism, is very much at the expense of the liberty of the many who are in fact alienated from their access and use of the earth and its resources. To this extent, your 'freedom' is built upon law-enforced interference.

Of course, I agree - talent can not only be nurtured but actually be generated by certain conditions. But in what way would you "place emphasis" on this?

Are you suggesting that our society should not be one which rewards talent, because the existence of that talent can be merely the result of fortunate conditions? Or are you saying our society should control and regulate each child's upbringing in order to distribute the creation of talent equally amongst all children?
Should society be attempting to change this? If so, is there any reasonable way to do so?

I can see what you've pointed out, but I'm not really sure what you're suggesting that the implications of this are. Perhaps you could explain further?

Give people too much negative freedom and they abuse it. You cannot have a foundation of equality and freedom as the two would oppose each other some sort of Social-Darwinism.

By suggesting, as I am, that much of what we recognise as 'talent' is generated by advantageous conditions, and not by 'innate ability' as is too often casually claimed, I am promoting the idea that society should aim to provide social conditions where everyone's potential for talents might emerge, not just those who have grand pianos in their homes. The issue of priority is thus less of rewarding the realised talent of the few but of cultivating the realisable talent of the many. We already have a powerful system of control and regulation over each child's upbringing, it's called capitalism, and the many, who experience the effects of alienation and exploitation, are very effectively controlled and regulated by their structured disadvantages within that system.

Talents primarily emerge from innate ability rather than social conditions. If society maintains it's function of stability those who have talent can prosper. It doesn't matter what sort of state is formed as talent can only be enriched but not faded. If you restrict certain liberties of people then it is possible to force talent under a regime. People are naturally hierarchical on ability and this is a flaw of socialism.

It's merely your opinion that 'talents primarily emerge from innate ability rather than social conditions'. I'm not a functionalist, society can be whatever we, the humans which constitute society, want it to be, it doesn't have its own agenda outside of us. Talents can easily fade, as an aging pianist or linguist who hasn't spoken a partiuclar language for a while would tell you. No, people are not 'naturally hierarchical', human societies have taken many forms and we have seen many instances of resistance to hierarchy, the fact that we live in a political democracy is evidence that the hierarchy of monarchy and aristocracy wasn't sustainable. Indeed, from an evolutionary standpoint, human societies have for their longest period been arranged around the so-called 'hunter-gatherer' form; communities which show relatively high levels of egalitarianism and in which everyone's needs, productive and consumptive, are given equal value. The glaring asymmetries we see today in the extent to which some have power and some don't, some have their needs met and some don't, is the the product of a human creation not a 'natural' one, it's called capitalism.

It's merely your opinion that 'talents primarily emerge from innate ability rather than social conditions'. I'm not a functionalist, society can be whatever we, the humans which constitute society, want it to be, it doesn't have its own agenda outside of us. Talents can easily fade, as an aging pianist or linguist who hasn't spoken a partiuclar language for a while would tell you. No, people are not 'naturally hierarchical', human societies have taken many forms and we have seen many instances of resistance to hierarchy, the fact that we live in a political democracy is evidence that the hierarchy of monarchy and aristocracy wasn't sustainable. Indeed, from an evolutionary standpoint, human societies have for their longest period been arranged around the so-called 'hunter-gatherer' form; communities which show relatively high levels of egalitarianism and in which everyone's needs, productive and consumptive, are given equal value. The glaring asymmetries we see today in the extent to which some have power and some don't, some have their needs met and some don't, is the the product of a human creation not a 'natural' one, it's called capitalism.

Where in the world does this nirvana exist, or previously exist? How big is/was the population and how technically advanced was the society?

By suggesting, as I am, that much of what we recognise as 'talent' is generated by advantageous conditions, and not by 'innate ability' as is too often casually claimed, I am promoting the idea that society should aim to provide social conditions where everyone's potential for talents might emerge, not just those who have grand pianos in their homes. The issue of priority is thus less of rewarding the realised talent of the few but of cultivating the realisable talent of the many. We already have a powerful system of control and regulation over each child's upbringing, it's called capitalism, and the many, who experience the effects of alienation and exploitation, are very effectively controlled and regulated by their structured disadvantages within that system.

Socialists hate the idea of the privileged rich dominating society, and they'd like to see talented ppl from all backgrounds thrive.

Shouldn't they be vehemently opposed to this idea too?

Aren't they supposed to despise the fact that luck (such as inheriting riches or being born talented) gives some people an unfair leg-up in life and usually leads to them being more fulfilled?

Socialists are generally motivated by the idea that everyone should have their needs met and their potentials supported. If a system allows some to gain privileged advantage in those things while others are excluded then socialists quite rightly oppose that system. Did you read a book defending socialism or just, you know, listen to your dad?

No what you lefties want is equality of result. If you have say someone like me (small, girl, pathetic runner) run against Usain Bolt. You would like the outcome to be the same - ie. a draw.

Haaa. They don't. They play by the rules: you do well at school. you earn you money. you spend your money. .

Human societies go back a long way. Depending on how you want to define what it means to be 'human' we're still talking about hundreds of thousands of years if not millions. For almost all of that time human societies have been more-or-less consistent with the 'hunter-gatherer' model we still have small surviving pockets of today, albeit much denuded, infiltrated, persecuted and removed from, or marginalised within, their preferred lands. This long-standing model of human society is instructive in that social and economic arrangements are highly egalitarian; every member of such communities is valued and their collective needs prioritised. I'm not here suggesting that back to hunter-gathering is the way to go, or that such societies are perfect in their egalitarian nature, I'm sure they're not. But the example shows us that humans clearly can live, and indeed have lived for a very long time, in societies with a high degree of equality and mutual support. If anything the technological advances which have been made under subsequent forms of society (what we marxists would call 'modes of production') make the change towards an egalitarian society more, not less, realistic. Thanks to developments in science and technology we live in an era where scarcity has been largely done away with, it is only artificially maintained by the profit-driven demands of capitalism. Indeed, overproduction is a routine faling in capitalism as grain mountains rot and butter lakes go off, people starve. That aspect of capitalism is hardly an 'advance' by any stretch of the imagination.

This debate is clearly way over your head, you can't see that? Seriously, have you ever, like, read a book?

The 'rules' under capitalism distinctively favour the capitalists. They use their monopolisation of things like land and resources (and which includes things like money and good education) to dominate those who do not. That monopolisation means that the rest of us must work for them, to make them richer, otherwise, if they don't want us to work for them we suffer unemployment - because we've been long alientated from any power to directly secure our needs. Everything is wrong with that.

Tell me, how do I, a girl, completely uninterested in football, and with parents not in the sporting industry, even remotely connected benefit from the highlighted part?

Communism and socialism just mean you lose your freedoms. It's freedom to the right and equality to the left. I prefer freedom. Minimal state interference economically.

In Politics the lefties always go on about how corrupt America is (we study America) yet I think they forget North Korea and China and Russia are quite a bit more corrupt than that!!

I think you meantioned Mao and Stalin earlier on - regards wealth distribution Western Europe is much more socialist than Communist China or Russia. Russia and China both operated as an oligarchy - with political power and power of resources held by a tiny minority of people.



Why have you come to this conclusion? This point is just the definition of a straw man.



Do you really think life is as simple as that?

They will whether we want them to or not, alas.

Socialists hate the idea of the privileged rich dominating society, and they'd like to see talented ppl from all backgrounds thrive.

Shouldn't they be vehemently opposed to this idea too?

Aren't they supposed to despise the fact that luck (such as inheriting riches or being born talented) gives some people an unfair leg-up in life and usually leads to them being more fulfilled?