Dear friends,
Today I am posting a first article in what I hope will become a series about “re-thinking politics”. By that I mean the following: we are told that communism is dead. I am not so sure at all, but maybe. I would argue that what we think of as “European social-democracy” has died this year after a long and painful agony. The US is only a republic or a democracy in name, in reality it is a fascist oligarchy. Chavez in Venezuela spoke of “Bolivarian Socialism”. Arundhati Roy in India seems to think that democracy is dead and that Maoist guerrillas might have the answer to a lot of questions. One thing is sure, Fukuyama got in wrong and history has not ended (unless some crazy idiot in the White House launches an attack on Russia then yes, history will end).
I will never forget the day in 1992 or 1993 when during a session of the UN Conference on Disarmament a Pakistani Ambassador said something which I shall remember forever. He looked at the western delegations and said: “you think that your capitalism has defeated communism? You are wrong! What really happened is the internal contradictions of communism have caught up with communism before the internal contradictions of capitalism will catch up with capitalism”. Twenty years later it is pretty undeniable that he was absolutely correct. And no wonder that this realization first came from a Muslim as Islam today clearly offers at least two alternatives to all western ideologies: in Saudi Arabia a medieval and deeply reactionary one and in Iran a modern and very progressive one.
I think that it is high time to re-think our politics, our political categories, our certitudes about what is worse and what is better and all our assumptions about recent history. Most of us live in the so-called “West” and what thing is undeniable: our social order is dying, totally discredited and despised by the rest of the planet, our politicians simply seem unable to articulate anything remotely connected to the truth, and the world badly, badly, needs new ideas.
With this series “Rethinking Politics” I want to start with a tabula rasa in which we can re-examine it all and try to see if we can at least identify a few facts or ideas which would help us to think outside the iron “box” imposed on us all by our stupidifying societies. They key will not be finding the right answers, but asking the right questions.
This series begins today with Andreja Vrazalic asking a few very basic and important questions about what socialism is (which, of course, depends on who you ask). I am very happy with this first contribution and my gratitude goes to Vrazalic for launching what I hope will be a long and productive discussion involving many more contributions from very different authors with very different views.
The Saker
——-
The Irresistible Lure Of Socialism
by Andreja Vrazalic
A quarter of a century has passed since socialism was officially pronounced dead. Unmourned except by a few, such as the Yugoslav nostalgics, which could travel abroad, and were young, and so remember Tito’s socialist regime as something grand. They represent a small minority – so much so in fact, that a communist party transformed its country to capitalism, with excellent results – they recently became the first economy of the world.
Socialism, or communism, is completely discredited as an idea. There are some social-democratic parties, and they talk a little bit more about the working man, and that’s it. Even today, with the full-blown crisis of the „free“ market (that is a separate story), hardly anyone seriously entertains the thought of going over to socialism. That is not strange – socialism used to promise heaven on earth that somehow often tended to become hell. Even the hard-core Tito fans that gloss over the mass executions and dispossession he was guilty of do not approve of the Cambodian genocide or Stalin’s terror. Additionally, socialism did not establish equality. Far from it: there was a deep chasm between a “comrade Party member” and an ordinary citizen. And do not be so foolish to mess with your employer – there is only one, the State. With regard to the swift economic growth, well, somehow results were lacking even in that department; the Soviet Union even collapsed after an economic crisis. There are good reason for that failure, and they have to do with the inability of the State to replace the „Invisible Hand“, meaning the inability of one authority to pass decisions that millions of people pass every day. One participant in the market means no competition, etc., etc… In short, socialism, as a system, has betrayed all expectations.
All?
I am not sure, that, for instance, the Vietnamese would agree with that. They defeated the world’s premiere superpower under the red flag. The Russians defeated one of the best war-machines the world has ever seen, and became the world’s second superpower, all under the same flag. We have to remember that, when we look at socialism, we look at it from a perspective of wealthy Europe or North America. When we Serbs look at socialism, we see Tito, and all the mines that he has laid for us, and that continually blow up in our faces for the last 25 years. The same would go for all Eastern European nations, including the Russians (communist borders, anyone?). We need to be objective, or as objective as possible. An objective observer will clearly define the terms and analyze the alternatives a little bit. The results can be interesting.
What is socialism?
When I talk of socialism, I am referring to the economic and political system most people know as communism. However, Yugoslavia and USSR were socialist by name. The thing that we today know as socialism is social-democracy, an ideology that belongs to the capitalist-democratic system, and that has only a few elements of socialism.
Socialism in practice entails dictatorship and state-run economy. In that regard, it is most often compared with its main rival, the Western System which is described as democratic and capitalist, or free-market. However, the fact that such a comparison is made in the first place represents such a masterful propaganda coup that we can only sit back and admire it.
Comparing apples and oranges
Comparing socialism with democracy and the free market is as sensible as comparing a real thing with an imaginary one – it doesn’t make sense. The Western block has, by imposing this comparison, scored (one of the many) ingenious propaganda coups: it has made a glossy, polished and imaginary picture of itself: propaganda Photoshop so to speak. It has imposed a story about a fight for freedom and democracy, as if it actually respects freedom and democracy.
How can we talk about democracy when we know that in the premier country of that democracy a president can be elected even if he loses the popular vote, where referendums are nonexistent, and where two same parties alternate at the helm for the last 150 years??? It’s even worse in its client democracies: there is an old adage that says that democracy is possible only in the US, because it does not have an US embassy. And let’s not even mention the all-pervasive spying – Staling would go green with envy.
It would look as if the Western System would fare better on the question of free market. The State does not interfere too much in the functioning of the market, and people generally go about their transactions freely. But only on the micro-level. At the macro-level, the story of the freedom of the market barely holds water. It is true that the State does not interfere too much. But the State is not the only big player – there are corporations of all kinds, those that we know and those that we can glimpse at. The Federal Reserve System is run by private bankers; then and again an American billionaire does something somehow exactly in line with US national interests; and we will not even go into discussion on the American media – they are old acquaintances of us Serbs. Their lying would make Milosevic’s propagandists blush. How is it that the US tycoons, US media and the US government speak the same language and think with the same head? How is it that we have such smooth transfers from the Big Business to Big Government and back? What was that Military-Industrial Complex Eisenhower talked about?
If we did look at the Western System objectively we would not need to ask such questions, because we would not be surprised. The Western System exited long ago, in Rome. Rome had elections, an assembly, trade was free, private property was respected (people being private property is a minor detail). Almost a capitalist democracy. But now, two thousand years later, we can take an objective look at the Roman Republic and say that it was an oligarchic republic, where all strings of power and wealth were pulled by a few Senate families. Furthermore, they had an interesting recipe: since senators could not officially engage in trade, they did it through other men, with their money becoming invisible. Rome had another thing in common with the US of today: it was an empire.
Imperialism
Wealth, serious wealth, mind you, is simply a wonderful thing: you have the material angle covered, and people also start to think highly of you – that you are smarter, more capable, etc… They maybe envy you, but as someone said it, envy is something like a sincerest form of flattery.
In short, you are credited with attributes and powers that you may not have, and why not, you use it. If they ask you about your first million, you explain at great length how you worked day and night, chose your partners and employees carefully, and you tend to not mention that wee deal with the local politician in charge of construction. The same goes with great nations: they wax poetic about the workings of the free market, invisible hand and division of labor, and somehow neglect to mention plundering India, or land taken from natives. It is human to forget things. Especially those that make you look bad.
Simply, when we talk of wealth, we must have in mind that it (at the level of nations) can be obtained in two ways: by work or by plunder. Furthermore, we have to have in mind that those categories are not so far apart: even individuals can obtain money through both work and crime, nations even more so. It is even connected in a way: the prerequisite for both is strength.
Wealth: prerequisites
Let’s not get into marathon discussions if it is better to live in Norway or the US; it is relatively similar, and let’s ignore the extreme cases or small or micro nations like Switzerland or Singapore. Let’s concentrate on the essentials. We should look at the large countries or continents, and ask ourselves: where is wealth concentrated?
It somehow turns out that the greatest wealth is with the greatest powers. USSR was much poorer than the USA, but was far richer than China, India or Africa of its time. We can track this in history too: just look at the wealth of the British Empire or Rome: as they began to acquire colonies, so their wealth grew. There was plunder, of course, but their industry was blooming – in fact, Britain is the birth place of the Industrial Revolution, the cause of the unparalleled standard of living today.
As Adam Smith ingenuously put it: the prerequisites of wealth are peace, low (easy) taxes and tolerable administration of justice.
And now specifically: who can guarantee peace, if he is not a power? We are not talking about peace as in absence of wars: God, no. Victoria’s Britain or the modern US are permanently engaged in wars, campaigns, interventions, preparations for a coup, etc., etc… When we say peace, we mean peace at home. They had that. And that is the prerequisite for people to relax, to work and produce, and not to worry all the time if they are packed and ready to flee.
Destroy the competition
Wealth is a relative thing: people discuss all the time whether it is better to live in Norway or Sweden than in the US. To be honest, I don’t have a clue. It is not important for this story: neither Norway nor Sweden are in any competition with the US. The whole of Africa or Latin America could be. The wealth of the US is relative: the US simply has more than X country or continent, and hence, the US is wealthy, while X is poor. There is no specific measure of goods or money that the US has to have to be considered “wealthy” – simply having more than others will suffice. If the US does not have more than others it is not “wealthy”. And if it is not wealthy, well, than it maybe isn’t the Fountain of All Knowledge, Promised Land and the undisputed Ruler of the Planet. And that would not be nice.
That status can be maintained in two ways: by economic advancement, and by undermining/destroying the competition. It somehow goes hand in hand: when you destroy the competition, your economy can spread its wings. You can destroy the competition by protectionism – kicking them out from your market – but only the greatest powers can try this, like the 19th century US or Germany. According to free market theory, protectionism is nonsense, in effect tax on domestic consumers that leads to economic inefficiency. However, we have to remember that the market is not “really” free, and that foreign states and corporations occasionally intertwine, and that sometimes they are one and the same thing. They did not come to your country to improve it; they came to make a profit –this way or the other way. More often the other way. Kicking them out from your market is not necessarily a sin towards the consumers. Lastly, if they are doing you service, why are they trying so hard to come to you? Why would Austria-Hungary try so hard to prohibit Serbian import tariffs for industry goods, if the export of such goods was such a great service to Serbia? Why is there a term “conquer the market”?
If you not open your markets, there is always the good old option of occupation.
The colonies
Colonialism is simply a wondrous thing: you move into someone else’s country with a nebulous explanation that they are savages or something, and that you simply must civilize them, introduce them to God and soap, and prevent them from killing each other. And that somehow flies. Never mind that it was okay to say that in the 19th century, when mass media were not exactly on the spot in the heart of Africa to catch you not being entirely honest, it is okay today when Americans are making a mess from the Middle East, all under the excuse of bringing democracy.
It is truly wonderful that these Western countries put so much effort in civilizing natives, and in a such unselfish way. Yes, there were a few minor perks and benefits, such as gold and other minerals, timber, land, slaves, oil, etc., but it was beside the point. The important thing was to civilize the savages. That was the “White Man’s Burden” as Rudyard Kipling put it. The White Man applied himself so wholeheartedly to the business of civilizing, that for instance in Congo, at the moment of attaining independence after some hundred years of Belgian occupation, there where were as much as fifteen college graduates.
Liberation, or why socialism is not for the rich?
The ungrateful natives at some point decided they had enough of such care, and managed to kick out the colonizers. It is interesting to note that such anti-colonial movements usually had some form of leftist ideology, and that they somehow naturally gravitated toward the Soviet Union.
This was not quite in line with the original socialist theory, where communism was supposed to win in societies such as the English or German, where the bourgeoisie and industrial workers we dominant, and where workers would triumph in the end. Contrary to that, communism won in relatively poor countries. If communism was a complete nonsense, it would not be applied anywhere, except maybe in Cambodia led by Pol Pot. If communism was truly a genial idea, everyone would adopt it. There is a fact that some elements of socialism are present in every modern society, in the form of some workers’ rights. But those are elements, and not the essence. Social-democrats essentially support capitalism – otherwise they would be asking for nationalization of factories, and not privatization. On the other hand we have Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia where even today socialist ideas persist, or even advance, and even the Chinese communist party, that has embraced capitalism, has not embraced democracy.
So, it seems by almost a default that wealthy societies do not want socialism, while poor societies tend to implement it. What did the poor see in it, that the rich did not see? Economics-wise, it is not especially efficient system. In real-socialism the State runs the economy, and it is notorious as inefficient (let’s not even go into the communist theory, where there would be no money, which really does not fly). The societies of real socialism cannot be called just by any criteria: the bourgeoisie is robbed when communists come into power, thereafter a caste system is adopted, dividing people into “comrade members” and mere mortals.
Socialism establishes control of the economy from one place. Such a unified control is inefficient and unjust, and will not establish a society superior to a “capitalist” one. However, the socialist society can direct its energies more easily towards one goal, and will be more resistant to outside influence. If you are poor, socialism may be just the solution for you. You will not live better, but you are anyway poorer than the wealthy ones, regardless if you are capitalist or socialist. But you will be able to fight the wealthy ones, because your energies will be focused, and their soft power over you diminished.
How can you otherwise explain that the Cold War rivals were the US, without question the richest country in the world since 1919, and a Russia/USSR, just one of the European powers, devastated by two world wars and a revolution, and which anyway managed to send the first man into space? How can you explain the victory of little Vietnam over the great US? If Vietnam was not socialist, it could not do everything to win. Capitalism is notorious for its tycoons/oligarchs – the US would bribe a few, and Vietnam would fall like a ripe fruit.
There are no oligarchs in socialism – the political and economic power is connected at the party level, and not on the individual level. The Party presents a unified front to the foreigners – and unity is one of the prerequisites for a victory in a war.
A war is not only “hot”, it is also “cold”, where foreign powers want to obtain economic dominion over a country and turn it into a (neo)colony. That country has two possibilities: to be let itself be conquered, and become, for all intents and purposes, a colony, or to fight for its freedom. The choice is between two evils: a colony is exploited, and cruelly punished if it tries to regain its freedom, while freedom is expensive, and not so free, because hierarchy will exist anyway. It will be less rigid – the difference between a communist Vietnamese and ordinary Vietnamese is not made in stone. The difference between a Frenchman and a Vietnamese is.
In short, socialism is a system geared for war. Just ask the Spartans.
Two sides of the same coin: crimes
Socialism, or communism, is reproached for being inherently criminal, and is even equated with fascism. The communist crimes are without doubt. From Tito, whose easily forgotten victims range into tens or hundreds of thousands, Stalin, Mao, to Pol Pot, that killed most of his people, there were a number of communist regimes up to their knees in blood. Their victims were documented and numerous. Maybe more numerous than the victims of fascists.
The victims of the West are somehow always forgotten. From the “Final Solution” to the Indian problem, through Belgian Congo, a thousand and one bloody massacre of the natives we never even heard of, Hiroshima and Dresden, to the latest victories for democracy, it cannot be said that the Western System is lily-white. On the contrary, it may be good to count the victims of that system.
Reproaching socialism, or communism, for its special criminal nature is simply not realistic. Comparing communist Czechoslovakia and communist Cambodia, fascist Argentina and fascist Croatia, democratic Denmark and democratic Belgium or US tells us that every system has its share of criminals and non-criminals (ok, lesser criminals).
Instead of the end
I understand that some people search for a more just society, a society where everyone would live in peace in prosperity. Some saw socialism as that society. They were wrong.
However, as the examples of Sparta or Ancient Egypt tell us, socialism is not inherently new. It is a system of state control over resources. That system has existed since the dawn of time, and its recent defeat does not mean that it will disappear forever. On the contrary, history tells us that things tend to go in waves, and that this victory of the system called liberal capitalism, which it is not, will not be permanent. Socialism will again come into vogue at some point, probably under a different name, but with the same essence.
It is important for us to know what socialism is, what it can, and what it cannot do. Please do not tell me about the more just distribution of goods socialism will bring. It won’t. It has nothing to do with it. Human nature is such, people gravitate toward hierarchy, and those on top will be better off than those bellow. In any system. But it is slightly different if those on top are of different skin color, or just strangers. The difference is then greater, and exploitation more cruel. If you want to talk to me about socialism as a tool against imperialism, feel free. I’m listening.
Andreja – a leader or Head of State being in military uniform has VERY little to do with their ideology or how their state functions. It has everything to do with them enhancing the image of their personal authority by associating it withe ultimate source of state authority – violence – and hence the military.
And you STILL provide NO meaningful analysis of socialism or communism as ideologies beyond another meaningless assertion of uniforms having some sort of fait accompli meaning association of ideology.
I have a question for you:-
The monarch is the head of the UK state constitutionally (not parliament), yet the Queen or King will wear full military uniform at state occasions such as royal weddings or funerals, state occasions, the trooping of the colours etc.
If I obey what you just said then that means that they are socialist or communist doesn’t it?
Do you now see what a(nother) false premise and a – yes – intellectually dishonest thing that is to say?
Just because a head of state wears a military uniform does NOT mean they are socialist or communist. They may be overtly fascist (Hitler, Franco, Mussolini), monarchist (Sultan of Brunei), parliamentary monarchist (UK, Netherlands, Sweden and others).
They are merely using a visual cue to reinforce in the minds of ttheir subjects what the roots of their power really are – in order to subconsciously reinforce compliance.
MANY ideologically different states tsake advantage of this trick.
And, again, look at your definitions of fascism, ideological communism, democracy (rule of the demos – direct and indirect), socialism, social democracy etc.
Hint :-
Stalinist statism (e.g. Stalin/Tito/Castro – not 100% re Fidel though maybe) = centralised planning + control, personality cult of leadership, subordination of all people, organisations and resources to state, crushing of dissent, heavy propaganda.
Fascism (e.g. Nazism or Italian fascism, or Spanish fascism) = centralised planning + control, personality cult of leadership, subordination of all people, organisations and resources to state, crushing of dissent, heavy propaganda.
The differences are extremely minimal in terms of their sociopolitical organisations, economic configurations and the way they function and appear.
Ask any political historian (another hint – you are talking to one + MA in Propaganda Theory :)).
Then you can HONESTLY portray and describe them, rather than just making wildly generalised and demonstrably false assertions as you have just done – OMG – AGAIN! LOL :).
When you publish something in a public arena you owe it to yourself to do a bit of research is all I am saying – or you are just setting yourself up to fail, even if your heart is in the right place – WHICH IT IS btw!! :)
Again – many thanks :)
I must say that out of 72 comments so far, to my mind NK Ngoyo has offered the most compelling idea, with cooperation controlling competition. I think you could build a pretty workable society just with that principle.
I do think if you’re trying to build a system from scratch, you want to figure out principles for the ownership of property, and how that ownership is divided and allocated when enterprises become larger than one person, i.e. all collective endeavor.
By Ngoyo’s principle, you’d have to ask, could an individual accumulate great wealth (a competitive action) without the consent of the collective? And what kind of sharing should therefore be involved?
I think we humans are still trying in this world to create the best kind of society, I don’t think we’ve ever nailed it yet. It’s a work in progress. And all this discussion is valuable.
Einstein had a decent reputation for his ability to reason clearly. Perhaps you will think his views on Socialism are worth reading.
He wrote the essay “Why Socialism” for publication in 1949.
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/
If this link fails, GOOGLE “Why Socialism by Albert Einstein”.
from Rick with hopes for the best there is in Man.
[from Blue]
Before we get much further in this, if we are to be useful, we should do a thorough deconstruction of the abstractions termed ‘own’ and ‘property’.
I am the first to declare and claim ‘I own the sun’ — hardly more outlandish than those who claim to own large chunks of the earth, and its rivers, or the rain (cf laws against collecting rain water) or of knowledge even. The trick now is to get enough supporters to fight for my claim (I’ll give those who do ‘a piece of the action’ — portions of all the crops which are grown by the power of the sun).
The cats — always learn from the cats! Cat’s have some ideas about territory, of course, although rather loose ones, and they will guard their food until they are finished eating. Beyond that they are much for owning things — as with most animals.
Humans, on the other hand, really get into the abstraction of ownership. Part is the quest for security and stability, part attachment to familiar surroundings and things they have made, or take a fancy to. Small children are seen engaged with this — until they tire of some thing and abandon it.
But the core of the ownership abstraction is in convincing others of the idea, and passing laws concerning it. (Who owns my genes and the DNA codes? Who owns the patterns of living organisms or genetically engineered seeds, or words and phrases, or other ‘intellectual property’? And who owns the right to the throne or to rule a nation?)
This abstraction, embodied in culture and law, is hardly immutable, or ‘natural’, or can survive without public pressure and violence to enforce such notions. Ownership and property rights are artificial and transitory. We can consciously and collectively decide how we want to handle them.
__Blue
‘In a capitalistic society, the motive behind the production of food is not to feed people, housing is not made to give them shelter, clothing is not made to keep them warm and health care is not offered primarily to keep people healthy. All of these things, which should be viewed as basic rights, are nothing other than commodities – to be bought and sold – from which to make a profit. If a profit can not be made, usually due to overproduction in relation to the market, the commodity is considered useless by the capitalist and destroyed.’
From “Let the Children starve” by Sarah Carlson.
This is the kind of society we live in today.
“MK Ngoyo said…”
A very thoughtful response, much appreciated. I think capitalism (as we know it) within the bounds of a socialist construct is the best we can hope for, the trouble arises when we look more closely at the structure within which socialism itself exists. At the end of the day a socialist democracy that allows competition in theory would be able to reign in the excess of a capitalist system that seeks to overshoot its purpose and place within society as a whole. The reality as it now stands however ultimately distills down to budgets, and cash flow. Even the most forward thinking socialist state must contend with the realities of trade, taxation, and money creation. The very basis upon which our modern world exists, is indeed imperialistic, and concerns itself primarily with resource extraction and the distribution of the wealth created.
In a hunter gatherer, or small agrarian society the main thrust of social life was not extraction, it was not taxation, and it was not wealth distribution, it was collective survival via a ‘best practices’ developed over generations. This model of collective survival has been basically rooted out by means of a war on the indigenous of our world, whose alternative worldview has been systematically destroyed at every turn. The Catholic Church has been the most brutal with regard to this process, a process that continues to this day.
The fundamental basis for society should most invariably begin with the mutual respect of human rights in the widest sense, everything else can be constructed upon this foundation wherein anything developed that infringes upon those fundamental rights will be considered invalid and ‘unconstitutional’. The error of our current model is foundational, it cannot be remedied without a massive social deconstruction, and all the tribulations that this deconstruction would entail.
To PokeTheTruth @ 28 December, 2014 16:22
I would add ‘the freedom to travel unresticted’as it was in the past.
When If we could pay our way,we were at liberty to come & go as we pleased.
Without being facecious this reminds me of a joke:
A traveller asks directions of a worker in a field… directions to a town he is seeking,
who replies “well I would not start from here”
cheers.
The needed new ideas are here : lietaer.com or ellenbrown.com f.ex. Socialism is not needed. A new money system is. The existing kills democracy by extreme wealth inequality, now that the regulations (taxation and others) that prevented this in the past are removed.
http://rcmlibya.wordpress.com/the-green-book/
THE GREEN BOOK FROM THE LIBYAN REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEES MOVEMENT WEBSITE
PART I
PART II
PART III
The Green Book: Parts 1-3
Download The Green Book Here
Download The Green Book From Archive.org
First Communiqué Of The Al Fateh Revolution
Proclamation Of The Establishment of Popular Authority
Language Of The Third Universal Theory
The Great Green Charter Of Human Rights Of The Jamahiriyan Era
There is no economic reason why socialism and capitalism cannot coexist within the same nation. De-centralized, and locally-focused, both can work reasonably well. Be they predominantly capitalist or socialist, all governments should be administered “with a human face”.
Throughout America, there are a few hundred municipally-owned utilities. The local governments, whose entire governing body must be elected evrey few years, financed the construction of water and power grids and own the means of production and distribution. Their aim is to provide these essential services by charging enough to cover the cost of operations. It works!
Utility and transport sectors can be operated very efficintly as state-owned enterprises, especially if their executives are regularly selected through public referendums.
There is absolutely no ethical or competitive rationale for the military equipment, weapons, and ammunitions companies should be privately-owned, either. At the opposite end of the spectrums, education and healthcare do not operate any more efficiently or demonstrate any greater efficacy that state-owned enterprises.
It lies in the consumer sector where entrepreneurial capitalism outshines socialism. Commercial and residential real estate development is another.
Of necessity, banking and related financial industries must be closely and heavily-regulated, at the same time that they must be privately-owned, in order to suppress crime while preerving the profit motive.
What is important is that state-owned enterprises must be operated under the management and governance of bodies whose members are selected, and/or re-elected on a regular basis, as should the regulators of financial enterprises.
It follows then, that globalism must be subordinated to nationalism. World Trade treaties and organizations have been instituted to assure that the opposite is the case.
I know many will not read this past the word “Catholic”, but I think this is an interesting alternative.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/distributism-understanding-controversial-alternative-socialism-plutocracy
[from Blue]
Mostly off topic aside, although with some implications regarding socialism, capitalism, and state power. Cops vs cops? Breakdown of authority? Anomie? Law tossed out the window?
More and more typical of late, this police violence, lack of respect for human rights, and lawlessness, and the breakdown of the ‘social order’. Reminds me of the way the orcs in Tolkien’s books were always attacking each other. Surely this is a symptom of the overall political economic system.
http://www.ocalapost.com/opd-officer-to-military-veteran-i-am-a-cop-you-understand-you-stupid-mother-fer/
http://countercurrentnews.com/2014/12/cop-handcuffs-and-beats-african-american-military-police-officer/
Cop Handcuffs and Beats African American Military Police Officer
December 11, 2014 5:49 pm·
An Orlando police officer is being scrutinized after he illegally arrested and beat a military veteran. The entire Orlando Police Department is now being investigated along with Orlando Police Officer, William Escobar, after it was determined that they purposely withheld evidence from the State Attorney’s Office relevant to the assault by Officer Escobar.
The body cam video from Officer Escobar clearly showed him beating a military police officer who was in handcuffs and on the ground throughout the entire ordeal: unable to resist. To top things off, the handcuffing and arrest itself was illegal.
…
__Blue
http://rcmlibya.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/language-of-the-third-universal-theory/
The Third Universal Theory is a theory replacing the two Known theories: Capitalists Theory and Marxism Theory. And it aims for the change of the relations of both political and economic relations in their radical change, and the building of the Society according to accurate natural rules. This, could be practically se cured through the rise of the People’s Power, Natural Socialism, demolishing of monopolization, and the harmony between the Social Factor (National) with the Religious Factor, Till the securing of the Collective Stability of people’s and life grows up and becomes powerful purely grown up.
People’s Authority:
The Power of the people rises, when the people become the ruling means; and this could be secured thro
Hi Saker and Mr. Vrazalic –
While overall this is an interesting article, I’m afraid I cannot support the depictions of the SFRY employed within, and I find that to be a fatal flaw.
By no stretch of the imagination was the SFRY “state capitalist” after the 1950s. The attempt to create a new, mixed, worker-managed economy was beset with problems, exacerbated in the 70s and 80s by external factors including active subversion by both East and West, but it was a genuine attempt. It also let to the reform of the political system. To describe Yugoslavia as totalitarian or even hard authoritarian is odd, especially after 1966 and the de-federalization and slashing of the secret police, in number and powers.
The paralysis which gripped the federal government in the 80s was a direct result of the devolution of power, which while intended to eventually end up at the commune level, instead stalled at the republic level with the minor bureaucrats and functionaries in the League of Communists, despite warnings from Tito (while he still lived) and others of the necessity to fulfill constitutional roles and obligations and allow the new delegate-based democratic system to properly evolve and incorporate the people. This paralysis led directly to the unconstitutional power grab by Milosevic, which led to the unconstitutional separations of Slovenia and Croatia, and the the wars.
Unlike the writer, I have not lived under the SFRY. I can appreciate that he may, as I do, have reservations about the long-term wisdom or viability of the SFRY system based on the 1974 consitution, but it was a true attempt to forge a different type of society than had existed before, in a very complex demographic environment, and I think worthy of much more respect than it has been given here.
Finally, the idea that the transition from SFRY socialism to Western-style capitalism has been a success anywhere in the descendant nations of the SFRY, much less Croatia and Serbia, seems…let’s say excessively generous. Maybe Slovenia has done a bit better, but not much.
Sorry if I have written something offensive or have inaccurately understood Mr. Vrazalic. Thanks to both him and you, Saker, for your patience.
@Larchmonter 445 said
The system that works is the system closest to nature and humans. Unbelievably, that is capitalism.
That statement is unbelievable because it is untrue. Capitalism is not closest to nature nor does it work.
Homo sapiens sapiens, modern humans have been around for 200,000 years. Most of that time was spent in non capitalist systems such as communalism which are inherently closer to socialism. In fact they are just forms of socialism. That is what is closer to nature. That is what works.
It is manifestly clear that capitalism does not work. For the last 200 years most human beings have lived under capitalism. During that time most humans have been desperately poor and exploited. Most humans continue to live under capitalism and most humans continue to be poor and exploited.
Even those achievements that are claimed for capitalism on closer inspection turn out to be the fruit of collective state action i.e “socialism” within capitalist societies. These are achievements such as longer lifespans which are due to vastly improved public health. Universal education, due to state created, funded and mandated education systems. Global communication, due to state created systems. High technology due to state funding and direction etc etc.
Moreover most of the wealth of the rich capitalist has simply been expropriated from the poorer parts of the world through imperialism. Where would capitalism be today if it had had to pay for the land and resources of the native Americans, Africans and Asians in capitalist market transactions? I.e pay the price demanded by those peoples.
The wealth of the west is simply the expropriated resources of the east laundered through a global capitalist system.
Interesting point of view but not very accurate.
1. Socialism/communism has proved to work just fine in small societies where they are not really a threat to the capitalist environment. . Marinaleda (Spain) is one example of it.
2. Massacre examples of the writer are not due to socialism. They are not inherited. The so many times mentioned Pol Pot was an USA creation against Vietnam…I hope we know this by now…The fifth column in the USSR was not a lot different as the one we have today, Groover Fur tells some lovely things about it. The USSR was under constant sabotage from the west, ending in the great motherland war.
3. For that is’t much to easy to value socialism on its victims. The history of the USSR is written by the ones who lost the great war and now little by little we are seeing the lies.
4. Talking about socialism and the victims you should put capitalism and the victims next to it. How many people die of poverty each year? How many children?
5. Don´t talk about wealth when you compare. USA is richer….no!!! Just for some. Call it how we share poverty and go to a better world.
It´s useless to talk what is better, socialism or capitalism. Capitalism is decaying, the end is near, cos it’s based on growth. Growth is over trees don’t grow to heaven.
Russia has the key to break it and the history of cooperation. The empire imposes and extract Russia negotiates. That’s the hope. Breaking the hegemony is the first step.
@Wayoutwest
European (by Europe I mean the white west) history, politics, philosophy, economy, experience and world view are simply taken as the default for human beings. But that will inevitably change with the shift of global power to the non-white east. Then we will be able to consider different models and ideas, which today are considered strange, even primitive.
I believe these models and ideas will center around socialism of some eastern type. Capitalism will in time come to be seen as a nasty aberrant condition, a cancer, brought on the world by european civilization. That is to say capitalism as the dominant system, not as a component of socialism.
Nature is inherently socialist. Throughout most human history, private ownership of land, resources, nature even works of art was considered a strange notion. Most peoples could not really conceive of it. These are new concepts, going back in very limited form maybe a few thousand years and achieveing their obscene peak only in the last 500 years.
We must find a way back to the place we were before.
Ugh there had to be a Rome-America comparison. America is more like Carthage(Although that would probably be an insult to most Carthaginians) than Rome.
@Grieved @Angelo thanks for the endorsement. Please see @Arthur Brina (28 December, 2014 21:01). He very clearly explains one way of making this work. I’m sure there are other ways.
Personally I would like to see everything Mr Brina puts down plus more. So my vision of such an economy looks like this:
– All significant industries should have state and non profit participation.
– Some significant industries (commanding heights) should not permit private/individual ownership.
– All large corporations should be owned by their employees with participation by other community and government stakeholders. Some percentage formula could be developed.
– Private individuals (capitalists/enterpreneurs) would be allowed to start, run, own and profit from business enterprises upto a certain “size” in most industries. Once that size is attained they would have to have an “IPO” selling shares to the employees and other stakeholders i.e local governments, banks, parastatals, national government etc.
– All commercial banking, healthcare and education would be non-profit with a mix of employee, state and other stakeholder owned.
-All commercial banking would be local, within a municipality with no branching beyond that. Investment banking would be private, with competition from the state and subject to size rules as above. An Islamic banking system would be deliberately developed and maintained.
– I would create an interlocking system of state owned companies (parastatals) in every industry of any importance. These would be “network organizations” with components existing at local, regional and national levels. Their purpose would be to carry out “open market operations” acting as buyer and seller of last resort in their industry and area of responsibility. They would be self funding and insulated from day to day political interference and control.
– Employment/enterpreneurship, housing, healthcare, and education would in principle be guaranteed to all. (this may at first be an ideal to work towards)
– Individuals would have the right to own land for their homes and as farms up to a certain size. No land speculation or absentee land ownership.
– all large scale agriculture would be organized into for profit and notn-profit collectives, cooperatives, government/state owned farms.
In short capitalists would be able to start and run enterprises, employ others and profit from this up to a certain size of firm. Then they would have to sell to the employees and the “public”
Governments at every level would be involved in economic activities through parastatals and direct ownership.
The commanding heights of the economy would be closed off to private ownership.
Limited land ownership would be permitted.
A fascinating study of Marx’s thinking in the last years of his life. At that point, his ideas were similar to what MK Ngoyo wrote in 28 December, 2014 06:46.
Karl Marx and the Iroquois – Franklin Rosemont
https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-iroquois-franklin-rosemont
Contrary to what many think, including Andreja Vrazalic and his: “Socialism in practice entails dictatorship and state-run economy”, there were societies that were essentially socialist in nature, which were also essentially democratic, where individuals had a very high degree of real freedom and which were quite large in size. The Iroquis Confederation occupied much of what is now the American northeast (New England and then some), consisted of 4 distinct nations initially and eventually 6 and lasted several hundred years. And this by people who didn’t have a formal alphabet or even iron tools.
So the arguments that socialism cant work in large scale societies, or ends up dictatorial are false.
вот так
Hi Where Wolf, I agree that you owe Saker an apology…get it over with and re-join this discussion…
Please read my first and other comment on this thread about Rudolf Steiner. Nobody even comments except one person, who likes Steiner, but not so much me…but who said some good things. Read Angelo’s comment too, about Rudolf Steiner.
I don’t understand why nobody thinks its important to change the system except for the label.
Dick Cheney is being charged with some big crime, I read on Catherine Austin Fitts’ Solari.com…
but don’t you think that is just history repeating itself ???
Times call for different infrastructures…if society became threefold – gov. Finance and Culture (food production, hospitals schools, courts) then the oligarchs would go on trial for criminality, instead of owning the courts and the gov…
Wherewolf, we can’t just change ourselves…what about those who don’t see the need to change ?
There’s always an inner and an outer…yes we must change ourselves, but we must also change the outer to fit the needs of the times, otherwise, eventually the individual can’t grow. If children are taken away from their parents and put in places to make them stupider and stupider and there’s no religion…humanity will not progress.
We need freedom to progress.
Rudolf Steiner was clairvoyant and could see the predicament that the world is in today, in regards to the oligarchs…that’s why he wanted the threefold order, instead of the twofold order to be undertaken, in his own time.
Now its 100 years later…we are almost out of control…the world could be blown up or poisoned by the oligarchs…and gov and finance always are owned by oligarchs…
Putin is exceptional as is Xi…there are a few that can help the world to come around to the threefold way…before its too late, because these exceptional people come and then they’re gone and criminals step in.
If the infrastucture was threefold, gov fin. culture, then the people would be in control of the corrupt individuals and culture could find the way. but now culture more and more is being suppressed or infiltrated by crime. It needs to have room to expand and safety to unfold.
Mark Fitzgibbon
Mark, I notice that you are very educated…maybe even right on the things that you’re saying, but personally I don’t think you need to get personal with Andre…like this comment:
When you publish something in a public arena you owe it to yourself to do a bit of research is all I am saying – or you are just setting yourself up to fail, even if your heart is in the right place – WHICH IT IS btw!! :)
I think that’s a bit cruel and I really appreciate the time and the effort and courage that it takes to write articles.
Maybe I’ve been rude to people here to, but as time goes on I find that its hurtful to get personal with other commenters.
‘
We can bounce ideas back and forth like a ping pong ball… that’s great, but to be insulting is not necessary…its even hurtful to other readers to read a comment like that.
If you look at everything though ideological glasses you see distortion.
If you want nothing but a small village band of humans, any system would work.
If you want a civilization, you have to have capitalism of some sort.
Socialism is an ideology that comes into play to control people. It originates nothing. It produces a government of tyranny. It is government centered.
Capitalism is not necessarily by government. Governments use it for government;s purpose. Then both get evil.
Capitalism is barter ground up. Credit and banking develop. But most importantly, capital is in its first form Labor. The investment of work, labor, is what makes things develop. Even Marx did not exclude labor as Capital.
So, I will stick with my notion. Capitalism is a natural occurring system. It can be evil for two reasons—humans and governments.
But it is not intrinsically evil. Socialism is. It requires ideology and government coercion and then it still doesn’t work.
Take off the glasses and look clear-eyed at the topic.
It’s tough because we hate big business, bankers and corporative greed. We hate all the evil that comes from the sinners.
But there is a lot of good work, good products,good services, good inventions and good innovations, good art and music, science and technology that comes from capitalism.
I’m careful about it, but that’s my take.
Two thoughts I’d like to say:
1.I remember at the fall of the Berlin Wall CNN did a story showing a compound of “Party Leaders”.Talking about how sheltered they were from the general public.I remember thinking the houses shown wasn’t even as grand as the upper middle-class in the West.No giant palaces.And from what I’d
seen in other stories of the DDR,maybe 3 times the lifestyle of a regular citizen at most.Nothing like the lifestyle of the real rich in any country in the West.And certainly nowhere near that of the wealthy in the West Germany of the times.
2.The US courts have ruled that corporations had the rights that a person has.And that rich people and corporations political contributions are now classed as “free speech”.
No,money is not free speech,free speech is free speech.Me or anyone,an actual living human being, opening our mouths and saying words is free speech.Or sitting here typing words we want people to see is free speech.The elite donating money for others to use for propaganda is not free speech.No matter how many courts say otherwise.
Uncle Bob
Andreja Vrazalic said…
“A thing just occurred to me: look at China. It was ravaged by Western powers (Rus and Jap included), went communist and kicked out the foreigners, and now has returned to (controlled) capitalism. Could that be the recipe for Africa or Latin America?”
Yes,and really for others as well.
“Please read my first and other comment on this thread about Rudolf Steiner. Nobody even comments except one person, who likes Steiner, but not so much me…but who said some good things. Read Angelo’s comment too, about Rudolf Steiner.- Ann”
Ann, its not that I don’t like you, we don’t know each other so let’s not be hasty! I take issue only with some of your comments, I need not take it any further.
We agree on one crucial element it seems, and that is the importance of Rudolf Steiner, and his ideas and philosophies. I suspect that very few here know much of anything about him or his life, or that he was indeed a gifted clairvoyant whose message for humanity is of utmost importance.
I will reiterate what I said previously, there is no policy, or political system that will remedy humanities ills. There have been some very good comments in this thread about various methods of controlling private ownership, limiting certain industries to control by the state, and creating quotas or ratios to effect policy – none of this is very appealing to me, because history has shown time and again that these policies will be revisited and modified, and then modified again, until they no longer function as intended. The road to hell is paved with good intentions….
The crux of social life must begin with the well being of humanity, therefore the basis for all legal invention must be premised upon human rights, which are to be unalienable. If our energy is to be spent on anything it should be first and foremost on defining what human rights are inalienable, and which are just shrewd attempts at obfuscation. From this dialogue a respect for human dignity can be established, upon which all other systems of value can be constructed. We can devise masterful ways to control capital, limit ownership, restrict monopolies, etc…but these laws will always be open to debate, modification, and alteration by lawmakers whose personal ambitions supersede their desire to benefit the greater good.
To provide an example, the process of fracking for liquid fuels would be purely in opposition to the inalienable right of the person to clean water, if a process contaminates the water table the process is halted, quite simple really. There is no debate as to what is most economic. The role of the state will be as a neutral arbiter for determining harm to the person using science and best methods. The tap water is lighting on fire, cased closed, the fracking stops. A society that asserts itself in such a way creates long term value for the whole, casting aside short term gains without recourse to debates about the economic implications. The economic implications are secondary and tertiary to the human right to clean water. In this way decisions become much more cut and dried, there is no justification for creating a large harm for some vague long term economic benefit.
Some might argue that many of humanities best works would be void if this worldview were to be adopted, but the opposite would occur. There would be a renaissance of engineering, altogether new methods and technologies would develop which would prove much more harmonious to the earths biological systems (see Viktor Schauberger and Nikola Tesla).
It seems innate in man, or at least in his intellectual body, to want to devise laws and rules to restrict and control, yet these same strictures come resting upon a floating valuation system, and thus become arbitrary, cynical, and self serving. There is a much simpler way forward, and it lies in finding our self respect as human beings, drawing a line in the sand and saying, “Thou shall not cross!”.
One more thing Ann, Rudolf Steiner was a mystic, and his beliefs often do not find audience with Catholic or Orthodox religions. I was baptized Greek Orthodox and despite having many powerful experiences in that setting I consider myself a Gnostic Christian, which would set my beliefs on the outside of orthodoxy. The teaching of reincarnation is anathema to most orthodox religions, it is only in the mystical traditions of Christianity (Rosicrucianism and Gnosticism) and Islam (Sufism) that we make room for reincarnation and the laws of Karma as passed down from ancient Egypt.
Part 1
@Joy said…
“Yes Singapore is a micro state. But there is much wisdom there. Lee Kuan Yew found a way to retain asian wisdom while adopting western institutions. In brief, the secret is subsidising what you want more of and punishing what you want less of.”
You seem clueless, have you live there? You sound like the regime (PAP) supporter. For more than half of my entire life lived in Singapore. Since 2013 Americka based two USS Freedom (LCS 1) vessels to counter China expanding navies. The dictators – the father (Lee Kwan Yew) and now the son (Lee Hsien Loon) in power for 50 long years.
Oppositions were either ruthless crushed or fled overseas, and many were detained. Dr. Lim Hock Siew (deceased) served long sentences like Nelson Mandela. Some fled to UK and two are in US: Gopalan Nair (practicing lawyer in Fremont CA ) and Francis Seow in Connecticut US. Another Tang Liang Hong in Australia. Too numerous to name them all……
Please do research before posting disinformation. Anyone who opposed the regime was either detained without trials or had to flee after branded commies.
The words “subsidising what you want more of and punishing ” an insult to Singaporeans. They – Lee Kwan Yew and son Lee Hsien Loon subsidize FT (Singapore meaning Foreign’s Trash). FT hired their own kind example: Brit hire a Brit, Australian hire Australians, Filipino hire Filipinos’ Indian hire Indians. Even China hire Chinese from China etc… and fired the locals.
Singapore Rebel – Dr Lim Hock Siew
http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/
http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=6567
Gopalan Nair
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2015-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=21
US Naval Base in Singapore
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=73441
Francis Khoo and wife Dr Ang Swee Chai both Singapore’s dissenters
http://www.inminds.co.uk/from-beirut-to-jerusalem.html
Francis Seow in Connecticut USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzOLJE2ysNw&feature=player_embedded#!
http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
JB Jeyaretnam
https://chemgen.wordpress.com/tag/jb-jeyaretnam/
Kindest Regard
JC
…………………..part 2 below
Part2
Many have wrong prospective of Singapore. It’s a small island at the tip of Malay peninsular. Previous population 3.5 millions with 60 – 70% Chinese (Chinese immigrants from China before the turbulence years, civil wars, foreign and Japanese occupation) 20%, Malay and balance Caucasian (Anglo Saxon) and mixed race.
Estimate today population 5.5 millions increase by “New Citizens and FT (Foreign’s Trash). Even beggars from China, India begs in Singapore’s street (proven many cases).
There are two “Singapore” posters, one (Mgc??) can’t remember his handle? He always starts with “Greeting from Singapore…” The local would call him an “FT.” Most probably from Greece or Eastern Europe in marine trade. Another Singaporean post: Veritas, a real Singaporean and me JC.
Chinese are in every corner of the earth. From ancient history they explored Madagascar (Africa), Malacca (Malaysia) and worked as laborers in, Nevada and California Gold rush and building the Pacific Railroad. Chinese loyalties depend mainly where they were born and raised. A Chinese born and raises in USA are different China even more so Singapore’s Chinese are different from China’s Chinese. Like Russians everywhere they are still Russian and we are still Chinese.
Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau are part of China and will remain in most Chinese’s mind. Just like Crimea will always be part of Russia.
Finally a young Singaporean doctor (Doctor Without Boarders) a dissenter helps the people in Afghan
http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2014/11/in-singapore-afghanistan-and-the-arena-of-ideas/
http://warisacrime.org/content/singapore-afghanistan-and-arena-ideas
One of the top Opposition website (blog) in Singapore.
http://www.tremeritus.com/
Kindest Regards
JC
“Ann said…
Mark Fitzgibbon
Mark, I notice that you are very educated…maybe even right on the things that you’re saying, but personally I don’t think you need to get personal with Andre…like this comment:
When you publish something in a public arena you owe it to yourself to do a bit of research is all I am saying – or you are just setting yourself up to fail, even if your heart is in the right place – WHICH IT IS btw!! :)”
I agree, his posts are offensive and uncalled for. Most of his posts use, “appealing to authority “,in troll language. His remark that all “economic analyst, economic historian or political analyst”, agree with him is amusing.” I am a postgrad-certified political scientist”, so I am right and you are “Wrong”, is another example.
The author made valid arguments and does not deserve the rude comments.
Larchmonter445 said…
“If you look at everything though ideological glasses you see distortion.”
Irrelevant, I could write more, a lot more, but I’ll be polite. Or try to be… ;D
“If you want nothing but a small village band of humans, any system would work.”
I already posted that such a view is complete horseshit – look it us here.
“If you want a civilization, you have to have capitalism of some sort.”
Again, horseshit, see above.
“Socialism is an ideology that comes into play to control people. It originates nothing. It produces a government of tyranny. It is government centered.”
Horseshit. For example, without socialism (or more accurately, the threat of socialist imposition upon such) the enlightened capitalist “west” would still look like the Ami southeast of pre-civil war times.
“Capitalism is not necessarily by government. Governments use it for government;s purpose. Then both get evil.”
Both? You mean there is a difference? Come on :D Jesus…
“Capitalism is…as Capital.”
Yeah, My car is a lemon (typical capitalist product which seriously can apply across the board), so I’ll BS my next door neighbour, who needs a car, and sell it to him at the highest price I can flim-flam him into. Hey cool, right? He got the transportation he wanted (thinks he has), I got a bunch of notes – screw him – what’s not to love, right?
“So, I will stick with my notion. Capitalism is a natural occurring system. It can be evil for two reasons—humans and governments.”
Baseless, completely unsupported opinion.
“But it is not intrinsically evil. Socialism is. It requires ideology and government coercion and then it still doesn’t work.”
Again, unsupported prejudice, supported by ziltch.
“Take off the glasses and look clear-eyed at the topic.”
Embarrassing propaganda platitude usually used to dissuade serious of dubious argument presented.
“It’s tough because we hate big business, bankers and corporative greed. We hate all the evil that comes from the sinners.”
What a sympathetic set up. :D
“But there is a lot of good work, good products,good services, good inventions and good innovations, good art and music, science and technology that comes from capitalism.”
And the nazis kept the trains running, got to give them that, right?. :D
Sorry to be so harsh, but it had to be done. That was one of the most pathetic fails I’ve seen in a while. Nothing was sourced and it was all emotional propaganda based. This isn’t freerepublic (those zio-queens still exist?) or the guardian.
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Hi Angelo ! interesting comments… This one:
“We can devise masterful ways to control capital, limit ownership, restrict monopolies, etc…but these laws will always be open to debate, modification, and alteration by lawmakers whose personal ambitions supersede their desire to benefit the greater go”
Angelo,my understanding of corruption control is to have rotating law makers, …associations…. If the justice system is under the scrutiny of all within the guild(s), then corruption will be spotted.
But these ideas are not fully explained or developed by Steiner…its quite abstract and it seems to me that his ideas were beyond the audience of his time, and his ideas are aimed at us. We need to develop the ideas…they’re not so hard. The bottom line is that the gov and the finance are, and will always be if not regulated, in an unwholesome embrace.
And culture, such as, for instance the David Suzuki Foundations of the world…or Certified Organic… and all the other cultural institutions that people start, have a big say in what gov and finance do. Power. Law…
Mostly. I feel, if the laws and courts can indict crime, that this will solve many problems. Otherwise, Dick Cheney will take the rap. The media will (media is also cultural) blow it sky high and Georgie and his dad will get off, as well as many many others.
Finally it should be that the good prevails in every person..as it does also in children, when they are given art, music, and stories, gospels and animals and gardening, proper food and proper sleep. Crime comes from deprivation of soul life. Mostly anyway.
You’re examples of fracking are totally acceptable, but RS actually said that there is a new form of energy that is “etheric” that is the life forces of all things can be contained and used for energy…solar is close but I don’t think it truly etheric.
And Steiner also said that until the threefold society is up and working in at least one country in the world, the new form of energy would not be found…that’s because if it gets invented now, it will be wiped off the map by the oligarchs.
And thanks for your informing me about the lack of reincarnation in the world’s Christian religions. I agree, although I know that Catholic church denied that the earth moves around the sun until the early 1800’s when it was ridiculed into accepting the heliocentric model…so I’m not worried…the Polish pope was sympathetic with the idea of reincarnation in private conversations. I don’t know much about Orthodoxy except that it has definitely held onto a true piety in the its believers, in my experience.
But really, what do they think we do up there ? Mill around ? Go back into God and lose our personality ? Look down from on high at the mistakes we made and forever and ever more regret them ?
We come back…that’s what Karma means. We improve ourselves, because in the higher world we suffer from our errors.
Except for the people who choose again and again the bad choice. That’s the people who end up in the second death.
I also am a Christian Gnostic, as was Steiner.
Thanks Angelo.
Andre Vitchek offers a damning indictment of Western “Leftists” who, when push comes to shove, are just as bad as Right Wingers when it comes to their hostility towards leftists nations outside the Euro-American Empire:
Do Western Leftists Hate Socialist Countries?http://prolecenter.wordpress.com/2014/12/25/do-western-leftists-hate-socialist-countries/
Andreja Vrazalic: “A commentator proposed that this was not true socialism, as true socialism would eliminate oppression.”
This was just an example of a criterion (one of) which identifies true socialism the way it was defined by Marx and Lenin and was taken from the quote by Lenin. The point is just to show that “socialism” in any country you mention was not the socialism of Marx and Lenin. Thus, their notion of socialism could not have been discredited by any of these examples.
Fundamentally, socialism is not about eliminating oppression (this is just a byproduct), but in replacing capitalist method of production with a socialist one. One feature of this is that people who do the labor own the means of production. This will not happen quickly, if at all (for all we know we can all go in nuclear fumes soon), but it can definitely happen.
What the author is comparing are “superstructures” (in the Marx’s terminology) in the western countries and countries like Yugoslavia, USSR, and China. *All* of these countries were capitalist at all times. They differ in the socio-political structures and culture (the superstructure) and in what they choose to call these superstructures: “free-market democracy” or “socialism”. Their capitalist nature is apparent in the commodity market relations, exploitation, oppression, etc.
The reason I think it’s important to clarify this is because one can avoid pitfalls like thinking that “China went communist … and now has returned to (controlled) capitalism”. China never went communist or socialist. It was and remains a capitalist country. What has happened in China is a revolution that changed the superstructure of its society, which then allowed China to industrialize and steadily and rapidly increase the organic composition of its capital. Same story in USSR, except that for historical reasons USSR was always denied any western investment.
A
Fine, I apologise if I offended.
It doesn’t change the ideas expressed or my analysis of the political systems involved.
As to capitalism being ‘according to human nature’ perhaps it would be better to define the psychologically-based characteristics of ‘human nature’ first?
These involve nature vs nurture and altruism vs selfishness as traits affected by both environment and heredity.
Also, from a social psychology perspective, maybe we need to include the prevalence of pathological (psychopathic or sociopathic) characteristics in most capitalist and statist systems?
Once these have been acknowledged and understood then you ‘may’ have an understanding of ‘human nature’.
And the fact that a system with those pathological characteristics cannot be the best since it will inevitably damage everyone in it – psychologically (look up psychological induction – transmission of pathologies by socio-economic association), socially and economically.
If that is not done and people do not have a CLEAR and correct picture of human nature, then how can we match capitalism (with its many faults) to human nature as the best system possible?
What about its failings? The cognitive dissonance involved? Social alienation? Economic disempowerment? Other issues which do not accord with the psychological aspects and needs of human nature in the socio-economic sphere?
This is better than yet more undefined and incorrect blanket generalisations being used as QEDs to justify a blatantly unjust system.
And – Anonymous – I am not trolling.
If asking for using definitions properly and cogent analysis is trolling then you are clearly not speaking the same language as most.
you can’t use human nature as a justification for capitalism unless human nature is properly defined first.
You shouldn’t hold up states as examples of what you dislike (USSR, Mao’s China, Tito’s Yugoslavia) and mislabel them – this is misleading.
If asking for a bit of research and precision is rude, well then I apologise for the way it was said but not for what I said since the points are valid.
The definitions of the political systems outlined are incorrect – read up on them.
There is merely an unspoken assumption of the innate selfishness and competitivenenss of humanity as a definition of ‘human nature’ (untrue, incomplete and misleading) which is then used as a QED to lead the argument into an intellectual cul-de-sac that states capitalism is the only system that works.
If that is true then humans would not have made it to the 21st century would they, after existing under non-capitalist systems for all those millenia :)
The statements I highlighted were fait accomplis proceeding from incorrect premises and generalisations.
I have apologised but that does not change the facts.
And also, fyi, I stated repeatedly that I appreciated the article and that the writer’s heart was in the right place, and that I appreciated his contribution and I thanked him for giving that to us (READ my initial posts if you don’t believe me – near the end.).
The “democratic” (neo)liberal-capitalist system is not a democracy (like ancient Athens was) but an oligarchy with politics, media, banking, big businesses and state apparatus being controlled by a small group of elites.
Furthermore, in the age of globalisation most nation states have lost all or part of their sovereignty and all decisions are now made in secrecy by groups of (unelected) transnational elites who control the big multinational corporations, banking, media etc. The parliamentary system still exists but only as a facade with politicians being puppets.
Thats why the elites are pushing for regional political and economic integration like we see with EU and Eurozone. Its all about stripping the various countries from their sovereignty and promoting the interests of big multinational corporations. We can see the disastrous results of this by the destruction and poverty in many EU countries like Greece, Italy, Spain,Ireland etc. All caused by the policies of the bureaucrats of EU.
The answer is not a return to a soviet style system because there was no democracy there. What should be done ?
1) the various countries that are under EU occupation should withdraw from EU, regain their sovereignty and disconnect from globalisation and exit IMF, WTO etc.
2) these countries will have to promote and protect local industrial and agricultural production so as to create a more self sufficient economy and will have to invest in research and development so as to produce many of the basic and non-basic needs of their citizens.
Because autarky is not a choice, there will still be trade between countries although on mutual beneficial terms Neoliberal free trade agreements will have to be abolished.
The state will have to take control of the natural monopolies (Electricity, water, transportation etc), of the strategic sectors of the economy (banking, defence, refineries etc) and of the natural resources (oil, natural gas, forests, etc). The state will guarantee full employment and social benefits to citizens (free health and education).
For many of the smaller parts of the economy there could be co-operatives under worker’s self management. Also, a thriving private sector should be encouraged for small business and services (cafes, restaurants, etc) but also for start up technological corporations.
3) The parliamentary republican system (which is an oligarchy) will have to be abolished. There will be mandatory referendums for big and small issues (like in Switzerland) at the national and municipal level. At the municipal level there will be citizens councils (like in Ancient Athens) and at the workplace there will be workers councils. At the national level, there will still be a parliament but with delegates (not representatives) with limited terms that could also be removed at any time and a government that its powers will be limited and will deal mostly with foreign and military affairs.
@Joy
Addendum
Dr Chia Thye Poh (born 1941) another Singaporean a former political prisoner. Detained under the Internal Security Act of Singapore for “allegedly” conducting pro-communist activities against the government, he was imprisoned for 23 years without charge or trial and subsequently placed under conditions of house arrest for another nine years. A total of 32 years longer than Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison.
Dr Chia Thye Poh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_h6iylfpVA
Dr Poh Soo Kai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4GlGNgORZQ
Many dissenters were medical professionals. They were Socialists, NOT communist. Medical professional were rare in those days after Singapore gained independent from Anglo-Saxon Britain.
Mr. J. B. Jeyaretnam (1926 ~ 2008) an Indian, a former district Judge, fought against Lee Kwan Yew, finally went bankrupt. Paid millions sued by Lee Kwan Yew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTFx7atnMV4
Francis Khoo Kar Siang, husband of Dr Ang Swee Chai in Part 1 who tirelessly helped the Palestinians in Palestine and Beirut and flee to UK.
Francis Khoo Kar Siang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yY5cHDVR2I
Joy, are you still there? Very sorry using “clueless” , hope the videos will help to clear any doubt, Lee Kuan Yew is cruel and heartless….
Marjula Singapore!
Kindest Regards
JC
I do notice one thing – and again I will apologise in retrospect and in advance if anything I say re the words used or the tone offends people – nobody (I am referring to one or two people specifically here maybe) cares to actually critically analyse what I said and engage in rational informed debate about it.
All I see are comments re courtesy – which I have already conceded may be valid and have apologised for – and comments re my academic status (which is also a bit personal actually).
And I DO agree that Andreja has made valid comments:
His analyses of Western propaganda coups re socialism and the ‘apples and oranges’ analogy is spot on.
Also his analysis of corporate welfare as a fact in modern capitalism at the macro-economic level, and his analyses of Western imperialism and colonialism are very good.
I am prepared to give credit where credit is due, obviously :)
However, I would propose that when someone publishes something as an example of rational analysis and critical thought it is always inherently flawed.
Why?
Because we are HUMAN.
And human beings are wondrously, gloriously flawed.
Which is why we can be drawn to help others when there is nothing in it for us. Or we can save and look after someone with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when there is nothing in it for us. And we can also support them to be all they can be in the hope they can contribute something magnificent to society.
FYI – a prime example of someone who has ALS is Steven Hawking. In a pure capitalist system and without a ‘socialist’ health system like the one we have here in the UK (the NHS) he would have been left to rot without medical insurance – which would probably have bankrupted his family.
But due to a (cue hissing and booing LOL) ‘socialist’ healthcare system that looks after ALL regardless of the profit motive etc, he survived and made a unique and huge contribution to science and to human knowledge and progress.
In a pure capitalist system he, and many others (as happens now – all over the world), are denied the opportunity and the chance to reralise their potential – for the benefit of all.
Which CANNOT be a good thing….can it?
The advance and propagation of knowledge and ideas is a result of critical thought, reasoned debate (sometimes heated), and rational analysis.
When combined with the scientific method, and separated as much as possible from the subjective, then we make progress as human beings.
What I am doing, in case you hadn’t noticed Mr Anonymous, is “critical thought, reasoned debate (sometimes heated), and rational analysis” as outlined above.
If it helps advance the analysis and get people engaged and thinking then why is that a bad thing? :).
If I apologise for tonal aspects or terminology and as I have done, does that invalidate the points made because of the language used as you imply?
Mr ‘Anonymous’ – would you care for some actual debate rather than just flinging a bit of mud? :)
If you would actually debate me and deconstruct my analyses in a researched and critically informed and engaged manner then maybe I might learn something new!
I am always open to ideas….. :)
I think the expression is “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and that *envy* is an illness of varying degree,westerners being more prone than others.
As far as ‘another way’,the recent article on Oceania Saker about Eritrea would seem to point to an emerging blueprint that doesn’t blindly follow the ZNempire.
… a HNY2015 all.we’re winning,hold thumbs,fingers crossed.
XbNB.
I think that every Country should have a Proper Combination of Regulated Free Enterprise of Less Essential Industries, and Public Ownership of Essential Industries.
That is up to every Country to decide for themselves, because every Country is different from other Countries in many ways.
There are those who say that Capitalism is Efficient, and they say that Public Ownership is Inefficient, but the Reality is that it is Only People who are inefficient or efficient.
The Question can be asked of how efficient is it to Depend on Foreigners for your Basic Essentials?
We know that cars have basically reached their peak as far as aerodynamics, engines, etc, and those shapes will look modern in a hundred years time, and so they do not need to change their shape.
I think that as many Products should be of the 1930’s to 1950’s sturdy, reliable, and easy to repair Products, even if they are modified and made to look modern, and I like the air cooled motors for cold regions, because the simpler the car the better in my opinion.
A car only needs to do its job of getting People from one place to another, and washing machines only have to wash clothes, and they must only be mechanical with an electrical system but no electronic system, and definitely no computer chip.
There could be a system where the Government owns the Transportation Industry that produces, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, vans, trucks, vans, buses, trams, trains, etc, and where Private Russian Companies compete to manage those Publicly Owned Industries.
The tender would be given to those Russian Companies who put in the best bid.
Those best bids could be in the form of declaring what types of Profits are Guaranteed to the Government, or who has the lowest Subsidy bid to manage a Publicly Owned Company that cannot make a Profit.
Those Russian Management Companies of Publically Owned Companies would have their Company on the Stock Exchange, and because the Government fixes the Price to the Consumer of what a Russian Manufactured car is to be, then Companies will know what type of tender to submit, and shareholders will either lose or make money, and that is their business decision on what Shares they will Invest their Money, and Workers and Management can Only Own Shares in the Company they work for, so that they will work more efficiently.
The Russian Publicly Owned Manufactured Products can only be sold to and owned by Russian Citizens, otherwise Corruption may appear in those Industries or in Government.
A Country should have a National Bank, and they should provide 0 % Interest Rates for Businesses and Houses, but they can charge Interest on other types of Loans, and I think that would be good for any Country’s Economy.
Let’s have a reality check, shall we?Since when did centrally planned economies, big government and extreme taxation become the definition of capitalism? The enemy of humanity is socialism, the poison of envy that promises free everything for everybody if only unlimited power is given to an elite. It is simply tragic that The Saker and the socialist writers still believe in a type of system that already has taken over and destroyed the west. Let’s call a spade a spade, corrupt socialism is NOT your capitalist enemy. Why not read up a bit on austrian economics, anarchism and capitalism? Then use your brains, and realize that the solution is not more of the same, the solution is not yet another socialist government! Why can’t you understand that all empires, governments and large corporations inevitably expand, rot and become corrupt? Only an idiot keeps trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. It is very telling that socialists, fascists and corporatists all need to change history and change facts in order to make their case. You are all the same, however much you disagree. The end result of centralization is suffering.
…”identify a few facts or ideas which would help us to think outside the iron “box” imposed on us all by our stupidifying societies. They key will not be finding the right answers, but asking the right questions.”
any ideology will only work if the individual overcomes or diminishes the ego.
how many people actually work to change THEMSELVES?
people are full to the brim with their cultural conditioning and illusions.
it can be a very painful experience for your illusions ti be revealed to you.
question.
can changes be made to society if the basics of human conditioning are not addressed?
I realized that I should have said that those Russian Management Companies that manage Publicly Owned Essential Industries would have to submit a new tender every 5 years.
All other Russian Management Companies could lodge their tenders at that time, and the Government may hand the Management of any Publically Own Company to another Management Company if there is some Problem with the current Management Company, until other Russian Management Companies submit their tenders.
Another aspect is that any Employees including the Managers could lose their jobs if they are lazy, corrupt, or incompetent, and it would not be like it was with the less efficient Soviet Union Industries.
Thank you Ann, for your long comment, and for yours Angelo concerning RS. Much appreciated. It seems to me this blog deserves a sincere, in depth analysis of the Threefold Social Order, especially now, when the idea is the brain storming of new ideas ‘..the world badly, badly, needs new ideas… ‘ (Saker)
Thanks to all the other amazing commentators too, fantastic input, and where wolf, gulp back the pride, you have been missed…
peace on earth to all men of goodwill…
pb
Nice one Anonymous and Ann and everybody else!
Got some good discussions here :)
many thanks to all and a Happy New Year!
How can i think about a ideal social system if when i look around i see a black hole inside the chest of men insted of a heart? Plz let me walk under the hot sun while i think about my love, good luck to you all.
For Karl Marx, capitalism was a mode of exploitation, and very specifically, ‘wage labour’ was the mechanism of that exploitation. How so? A capitalist or for profit institution hires labour only with a view to making a profit. Consequently, the market value of the goods and services produced by labour is always less than the wages received by labour. This means that in the aggregate, in a capitalist economy, the consumers, who also happen to be the laboring mass and the majority, never receive in wages what the ‘capitalists’ want for ‘their’ goods and services, otherwise there would be no such thing as ‘profit,’ ‘profit’ being the difference between the ‘cost of production,’ which includes the wages of labour, and the ‘market price’ received for the products of labour. In other words, in a capitalist society, the consumer, as a class and economic category, never has in hand the wherewithal to purchase all of the goods and services produced by the ‘for-profit’ institutions. Hence the chronic and endemic recurrence of recessions.
This, for Marx, is the nub of his concern. It is the flaw in the system that must be addressed but that cannot in fact be resolved. You cannot both have ‘profit’ and a stable and fairly distributive economy.
As for socialism, this was the name he reserved for what in the future might replace the system of ‘wage labour’ upon which ‘capitalism’ is founded. Therefore, so long as you have ‘wage labour,’ to Marx’s way of thinking, you have yet to fully transcend the inequities of capitalism and enter into an epoch of ‘socialism,’ an epoch in which ‘human needs,’ rather than profits or the appropriation of ‘surplus labour,’ become the motive force behind production.
Correction:
Instead of reading: Consequently, the market value of the goods and services produced by labour is always less than the wages received by labour.
This should read: Consequently, the market value of the goods and services produced by labour is always “more” than the wages received by labour.
Morning dyslexia is a problem with me.
MK@22:59
Interesting outline for a hybrid system but I think that if you allow a Capitalist Class they can never be controlled and will inevitably buy their way to power. Small private enterprise might be controllable but Capitalism and true democracy are not compatible. I tend to be more of an Anarchist than a statist Socialist and I think that worker management is more important than ownership although I support ownership also.
The biggest challenge is to create or educate the revolutionary new man/woman who can become the protagonist that drives and controls the community based and managed society. So long as we depend on a Leadership Class we are doomed to serve their agendas.
As I said before,
India is far more advanced socialy as she is spiritually over the rest of the world.
The only acceptable system is the ancient Hindu system of 4 (FOUR) castes.
Capitalism is so bad because it is the rule of the THIRD caste, the traders. Socialism or communism is the absolutelly worst system in history because it brings the FOURTH caste to power, the workers.
Study India.
Learn from India.
That is the only way.
Regards from Serbia,
The Wend.
I found this article very interesting. I have but one objection:
Wealth is not necessarily relative.
Of course ALL wealth is relative in a way. A millionaire is not seen as wealthy in a group of billionaires, for example.
But when we speak about “wealthy” nations we tend to speak about nations where all, or at least the vast majority, have decent standards of living. If basically all inhabitants have access to housing, food and money left over for consumption of non-necessary goods – then they are wealthy. If a nation next door have even wealthier people they are simply MORE wealthy, but the first nation is not pooor because of that.
Beste Saker,
Thank you for this excellent analysis. I am a Proud Dutch Social Democrat although at the moment, US NGCs and Think Tanks are working hard on having any care for the elderly severely curtailed, if not dismantled. My Dutch mother died recently at 101 years of age. She would have been 102 this month. Her care was excellent and superb. Nederland was always an Calvinistic country where we are our brothers keeper and corporations have, besides making a profit ALSO have to serve a common good.
Most comments here are from Americans whose psyche has been ingrained that Socialism and Communism are one and the same thing. My question to them is if Capitalism is so superior orver Social Democracy or Social Capitalism why is it why the U.S. economic system is hitting the skids.
Ik ben trots op je.
“mark fitzgibbon said…
Nice one Anonymous and Ann and everybody else!”
This is a great quote by one of my favorite economists, Murry Rothbard.
“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”— Murray Rothbard
This is also a good criticism of the Venus Project you posted above:
“In the first important work written by an Austrian economist, Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics, Menger makes the observation that Communism(socialism) will work when resources are unlimited.”This is also true of a resource-based economy.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/what-paul-joseph-and-carl-menger-have-in-common/
“This is also a good criticism of the Venus Project you posted above:
“In the first important work written by an Austrian economist, Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics, Menger makes the observation that Communism(socialism) will work when resources are unlimited.”This is also true of a resource-based economy.”
you neglect to mention 3 things:
1. The Venus Project takes as a given that resources are finite and is in fact based on that actual premise. Scarcity is an illusion pereptuated for the benefit of the profit-based fractional reserve based monetary system. There is no scarcity – we can feed, clothe, educate, house and provide a decent quality of life for all NOW based on existing resources and technology – you need to look at it a bit more closely.
2. That those finite resources are used in a 95% sustainable manner. Again, the technology and knowledge to do this are here now.
Communism, socialism and capitalism all posit the premise of a MONEY-BASED system, or at least a system of money, barter or credit-based exchange – so when Menger says what he says re a resource based system he is wrong when it comes to the Venus project and/or the Zeitgeist movement – since a money based system and ANY form of monetary exchange is not involved.
If you give me your email I can send you a 300+ page text on this which is quite exhaustive.
And why are YOU now being rude re the Rothbard quote?
I apologised re what I said and you still failed to debate me re the points I raised.
You merely shifted ground to economics theory to call people names implying ignorance. That quote only serves to reinforce your own prejudices and Rothbard’s.
nor my points re people being flawed (me, Saker, Andreja, all the other people here and maybe even you).
But since socialism is so bad then answer my questions now:-
If people are flawed since they are human, then surely the ideologies and systems they create are also necessarily flawed?
If that is the case then how can capitalism be the best and only final system that we can possibly have (since like all the rest it is flawed)?
and (related to my previous post):-
Would you have let a potential Steven Hawking die under your nice capitalist privatised healthcare system (since socialism is obviously the root of all evil)?
It’s a bit sad really
[from Blue]
I see many comments here that are based on confusion and swallowed propaganda, or are quite tangential.
Profits are illegitimate because they come from having wealth, and power, rather than producing wealth. What people should get are not profits, but earnings — the result of work. The wealth of natural resources should be shared by all, as inhabitants of the planet, and this is not ‘profit’ but natural wealth. Capitalism is gaining profits from having wealth and power and is inherently exploitive of others. (I’ve looked into th Austrian schools and such, and found them fundamentally flawed, confused, and wrongheaded.)
Socialism is a wide range of practices and ideas over many decades, centuries, really, and is a work in progress.
The work at Rethinking Marxism, Albert pareconomics, and other web sites and organizations continue to examine socialistic and communistic ideas and the details of implementation, and the possible variations.
The use of such words as capitalism or socialism should be based on actual meanings, not the totems, biases, or fetishes established by propaganda and indoctrination.
A main difficulty with implementing sound politics and economics, in particular socialism, is that most of the people need to be either well informed and ‘educated’, and capable of solid critical thinking, or understand basic principles so they recognize when they are are being misled or scammed by the designated ‘leaders’ — or know enough to stop shooting their mouths off from a position of massive ignorance. It is as important to recognize what one does not know as what one does. I may be able to recognize generally if the results of brain surgery was successful, and have an opinion of the surgeon is competent, but I’m not about to try to tell a brain surgeon how to do his job.
Even if I knew nothing about economics I can say that capitalism and predatory competition is a failure just from looking at the results of it, especially as it became more and more dominant. We have made technological progress not because of capitalism, but in spite of it.
__Blue
Err…Mr Anonymous?….
you said Carl Menger proved that resource-based economics only works if resources are infinite?
1. if they are used at a 95-99% rate of reutilisation and moreover used sustainably then the scarcity issue is largely addressed.
2. Carl Menger was a MONETARIST. He disliked barter and resource-based systems on principles and took the existence of a system of value-based exchange as a given.
3. since my second point is true, then comparing the opinions of an economist who insists on the premise of value-based exchange as a pre-requisite, to those of a system (V-project or zeitgeist for example) that involves NO property, money or value-based exchange at all is a bit like comparing the belief in a flat Earth to planetary orbital theory isn’t it? :)
(sorry – couldn’t resist) :)
And if economists – especially monetarist ones are so clever, then how come NONE of them in the mainstream media or those who worked for the banks and the elites have predicted any of the last 20 busts globally? or applied any of the ideas suggested to try to fix the cycle of boom and bust?
(hint – maybe they do not want to fix it since it makes their bosses richer and more powerful in every cycle maybe?)
If they are all so clever then surely these people, who most of us delight in quoting, would have sorted things out by now wouldn’t they? :)
Socialism: the many using their connections in government to interfere in free markets, rather than just the few.
[from Blue]
Practical capitalism:
Two neighbor kids with lemonade stands, both doing good business. One goes in the house to take a leak and the other dumps a handful of dirt into his competitor’s pitcher, and raises the price he charges.
So much for efficiency and utilization of resources. This is way it very often works, driving each other out of business.
@Wayoutwest 16:57
The thing is can you prevent a class of speculators, accumulators, profiteers, racketeers, blackmarketeers etc from developing and taking over your socialist or even anarchist society? If you can then you can control the capitalists. Any system requires constant defence from its adversaries. This would be no different.
The key is in the balance. If capitalist accumulation is kept small enough relative to the whole economy it will be unable to take over. But that is something to be determined by experience.
I think the eurosocialist (communist?) systems of europe and asia failed because they tried to do too much. You can’t control/plan everything. It was insane to fight religion or prevent private ownership of homes and small plots of land. Or prevent the small scale hiring of labor. You can’t succeed long term and if you did, whats the gain? Its pure ideological madness. Fight the battles you can win now, and the rest leave for future generations.
From historical experience each revolution must carry out three acts. It must crush, co-opt and create. The trick lies in what it chooses to crush, to co-opt and to create.
Dear Mark Fitzgibbon
Thanks so much for your replies to me and anonymous…and now I say to you…thanks for your lively and very interested comments…I can see you really are very interested in the comments of others, and in your topic…
Happy New Year !!!~
The closest system which would be some sort of communism would be an automatically managed economy, all controlled by computer programs and automatic processes of production, manufacture, distribution and delivery, so that if anyone wanted to obtain a vehicle, he or she
could simply put in the order and have the vehicle delivered per specifications, promptly, or the same with a house, a computer, any appliance, and so forth. Then work as we know it would no longer be necessary, and everyone would presumably be free to pursue his or her own true interests and achievements in all areas, limited only by health and other logistical factors of reality. Yet, even such a system, economically, would not be the absolute solution to all the spiritual and all the emotional troubles among humankind. This kind of system is still in the realm of science fiction today, and it is hard to imagine it being feasible in the near future.
As far as socialism is concerned, the only workable system of real socialism has been in institutions like the military, the firefighters, the police, where the bulk of property belongs to the institution, not individuals, so private property is minimal. Actions are taken based on the concept of missions, usually assigned and ordered by the leaders. The rank and file lead rather regimented lives without much of the civilian personal freedoms as per the US Bill of Rights.
However, leaders can still serve rank and file followers, the “people”. Within the Cossack traditions and customs there has existed a kind of military democracy where rank and file troopers could call so-called “black councils” and vote abusive officers out of their office. So, could a whole country be organized like a great fire department, or great army, with the civilian status totally abolished? Then the private property would also be basically abolished. However, there would still be the concept that officers, leaders, could not just run rampant and do anything they pleased. They would still be subject to recall and to the interests of their rank and file, their followers. Then there would also be a greater honesty, an openness as to what is sought to be achieved. Perhaps even the capitalists who are reasonable will have respect for such an endeavor and will wait and see, give the project a chance, instead of attacking it.
Another possibility would be to reorganize the internal structure of businesses and corporations so that rank and file workers, employees, would have veto powers over important decisions like mergers, acquisitions, health and safety rules, wages/compensation, the election or recall of the managers, officers, directors, so that corporations and businesses would actually be “self-regulated from below.” The principle would be generally speaking, that for any business to survive, both the contribution of labor and the contribution of capital must be regarded equally important and must have pretty much equal say and power within the given business. So far, there are instances of employee ownership of corporations, or co-determination and power sharing between investors-capitalists, and workers, but these arrangements give still too little power and voice to the workers, the employees. When more true leadership and decision power is obtained by working people, greater riches for workers will also follow, and in such a system one might have several different rôles, as worker here, as investor/shareholder there, as independent businessman still somewhere else. The free market can then exist on a larger scale among all the business democracies so to speak, given that most businesses today are run basically as dictatorships. The trick is to make sure that decisions are made by persons truly qualified to make the given decisions. No doubt there would be areas where managers and capital would be more qualified to set the policies and make decisions, and vice versa, there would be areas where the workers would be more qualified.—Personally I prefer this alternative.
Not having read the commentary fully yet, on some slight consideration from an economic autodidact. It would seem at this time to ‘firewall’ the ‘wooden’ rouble used for internal exchange, given both price and wages find their equilibrium upon the value of that rouble [my dictionary has this and an alternate spelling – ruble and this is my accustomed form]. Construction of an exchange portal to the wooden rouble – possibly ‘golden arches’ to an externally orientated ‘rublex – ruble-exchange’, underwritten by some form of commodity deposit – say gold for example that would command a certain quantity of wooden roubles and whatever commodity or service they purchase. Something along these lines would isolate and provide some protection against the vagaries of predatory finance. No gold deposit, no skin in the game to affect the national economy nor access to the national economic commodities for export. Truly a ‘dollars not spoken here’ estate. On exiting the rouble market, the ‘rublex’ would be reconverted to the deposit commodity at whatever rate then in effect. Russia would then again exercise sovereign control over its currency and isolate its economy against the predations of IMF, WB and WTO manipulations. Just a thought.
After reading the couple of lines of the article I was amazed by the insight the author has about the inner workings of the “real socialism” as I’d experienced it (I am Slovak -former Czechoslovak- citizen).
I was curious about the nationality of the author – and indeed my intuition proved right: the article was written by someone who experienced the communist system personally.
Truly, this level of insight is hardly attainable by outsiders; it has to be gained by years of direct experience.
We know that Communism in the Soviet Union was an English Invention and it was run by Russian Jews, who were and are Partners of the British Empire and now of Anglo-America.
The British had promised the Jews Palestine for their cooperation to Manipulate and Control Continental Europe, and Jews in general are Loyal first to Israel rather than to any other Country where are Citizens of that Country.
Britain was Secretly behind the creation of the Soviet Union to prevent India or Japan from taking over Russia and other European Countries.
Britain knew that there would be a WW 2, because as Warmongers that they are, they planned WW 2, because Anglo-America wanted Western Europe at first, and they wanted Japan, and now they want other European Countries by means of NATO and the European Union.
A Soviet Union could not have Western Investment, and so the Jew Karl Marx was hired by the English to write the Communist Manifesto, and other books on Communist Economic Theory.
What this means is that the Soviet Economy was geared to resisting Germany, and deterring Japan, but after WW 2, this was no longer needed, but the English wanted to keep Secretly Ruling Russia and the Soviet Union, by means of their Secret Allies, who were the Ruling Bolshevik Jews.
I have read that Lenin and even Stalin were Jews, and that they Lied about their Ethnicity, and that is always a Possibility, because the English were controlling matters in that Region by means of Jews.
I am only saying this, because it needs to be understood that the Bolshevik Jews had to give Communism a bad reputation before WW 2, because of the coming Second World War, and because they wanted to help the Capitalist Jews in the rest of the World with their Capitalistic Endeavors.
This is why there was laziness, corruption, and deliberate incompetence or sabotaging of the Communist Economic Model, even though it was not that good to begin with, because the Jew Karl Marx, may have only written what the English told him to write.
I do not want People to think that this is anti Jewish, because I am only speaking about certain Jews, and we that People from every Race of Humans have done Evil, and it is no different with some Jews of the past.
The reason I mentioned this was to encourage a group of Experts to write a New Communist Economic Theory, knowing that Many Lies by Capitalists have be told, and I want to mention some of my opinions, and the term no laziness means that People are working at a Normal Human Comfortable Sustainable Rate for the time at work.
It has been said that Subsidizing Industries is Inefficient, but I think that as long as there is No laziness, No Corruption, and No Incompetence, then the Subsidy is really a Reduction in Taxation to the Consumers, and a Reduction in Taxation will stimulate the Economy, and it will create more Employment, and it will Increase Government Revenues.
That is an Example of the Clever Deception of the Capitalists, and those Experts who know the other Clever Deceptions against Communist Economics, can give their Opinions, even as I have with the matter of Subsidizing Industries.
It is Only People who are inefficient or efficient, and it is Only People who are lazy corrupt, or hardworking and honest, and it has nothing to do with Capitalism or Communism.
If Capitalism was 15 % more Productive than Communism, then the Communist Workers would only have work 15 % more if they wanted to be as productive as Capitalism, but Communism deprives Capitalists from Exploiting People, and so Communism or Socialism is a tool against Capitalist Imperialism, which is Tyrannical and is against the Sovereignty of Nations, because Imperialist Capitalist America considers itself to be the only indispensable Country.
I think that every Country should have a Proper Combination of Regulated Free Enterprise of Agriculture along with what they consider to be the Less Essential Industries, and Public Ownership of what they consider to be the Vital Essential Industries.
MK Ngoyo@ 23:48
I used to think, as you do, that we could preserve the dynamic aspects of Capitalism under a strong Socialist structure but I now think that that is an illusion, a very dangerous illusion.
Watching the developments and trials of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela for the last 15 years has shown just what a remnant Capitalist Class will do to destroy a peoples revolution. This class may be small but it feeds off the support of the world Capitalist Class which offers unlimited support, up to and including military intervention.
The structured developed for a Socialist state are important but I still think that the communal protagonist is the most critical component of a revolution as we have repeatedly seen in Venezuela.
Corruption will be with us forever but an equitable system free of many of the opportunities offered in the Capitalist system for corruption can be minimized.
“29 December, 2014 20:14
Blogger mark fitzgibbon said…
Err…Mr Anonymous?….
And if economists – especially monetarist ones are so clever, then how come NONE of them in the mainstream media or those who worked for the banks and the elites have predicted any of the last 20 busts globally? or applied any of the ideas suggested to try to fix the cycle of boom and bust?”
I apologize for putting the quote referring to ignorance. That was not necessary.
The Austrian school of economics did predict the last bust. Business cycles are created by Central banks artificially setting the price of interest to low. This distorts the market causing the bust. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for it. It is called the (ABCT) if you want to look it up. Peter Schiff and David Stockman us it if you want to see predations before the last recession/depression.
Ludwig Von Mises, who predicted the failure of Socialism in 1920 in a paper, then book in 1922. He wrote the lack of market prices to allow the manager or bureaucrats in a socialist system to know how much to produce and allocate resources. One of the interesting points he made, later in his life when asked what distinguished a socialist economy from a market economy. He said the presence of an active stock market. This was written in the article “The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited”, in 1991 after the collapse the USSR making Mises predictions correct.
Envy is one of the biggest problems in the world. It causes people to think the free market is a zero-some game and that if only the rich would give to the poor everyone would be happy. True capitalism makes everyone in society richer and wealth is unlimited. Punishing the top producers with taxes and regulations only makes the whole society less wealthy. This of course is also true of war with regard to wealth.
“29 December, 2014 20:14
Blogger mark fitzgibbon said…
Err…Mr Anonymous?….
And if economists – especially monetarist ones are so clever, then how come NONE of them in the mainstream media or those who worked for the banks and the elites have predicted any of the last 20 busts globally? or applied any of the ideas suggested to try to fix the cycle of boom and bust?”
I apologize for putting the quote referring to ignorance. That was not necessary.
The Austrian school of economics did predict the last bust. Business cycles are created by Central banks artificially setting the price of interest to low. This distorts the market causing the bust. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for it. It is called the (ABCT) if you want to look it up. Peter Schiff and David Stockman us it if you want to see predations before the last recession/depression.
Ludwig Von Mises, who predicted the failure of Socialism in 1920 in a paper, then book in 1922. He wrote the lack of market prices to allow the manager or bureaucrats in a socialist system to know how much to produce and allocate resources. One of the interesting points he made, later in his life when asked what distinguished a socialist economy from a market economy. He said the presence of an active stock market. This was written in the article “The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited”, in 1991 after the collapse the USSR making Mises predictions correct.
Envy is one of the biggest problems in the world. It causes people to think the free market is a zero-some game and that if only the rich would give to the poor everyone would be happy. True capitalism makes everyone in society richer and wealth is unlimited. Punishing the top producers with taxes and regulations only makes the whole society less wealthy. This of course is also true of war with regard to wealth.
I would like to explain how a Publicly Owned Industries would work, and I will use only one Product, and that would be a medium sized sedan car of the 1930’s to 1950’s style that has been Modified as I explain in this comment.
I think that a million of these cars can be sold in Russia over a few years to Russian Citizens, and if each car costs 5,000 Euros to produce, after taking into account the Cost of the Factories and Machinery and Equipment, etc, then that is an Investment of 5 Billion Euros, but Accountants would have to calculate that.
The car would not change in design even in a hundred years, and so the car has to be made properly to begin with, and I have mentioned 1930’s to 1950’s type of Modified Products, because these are sturdy, reliable, and easy to repair Products.
The different types and models of cars, means that there are so many different spare parts, but today, a car can be designed that does not need changing for one hundred years.
The Modifications that would need to be made are as to make them have some of the improvements that were made since then.
For example the cars in those days had drum brakes, and the new cars would be modified with disc brakes, and with head rests on the seats for safety, and possibly even have bucket seats in the front seats of the car, and it should not be a convertible, but it should have a metal roof.
They would have a heater, the demister for the rear window would be part of the heater, which demists the front window, and heated air would be sent to the back window to demist it, in the same manner that the front window is demisted, and there should not be the modern type of demister for the rear window.
It would have a cheap but reliable radio and sound system, and seat belts, and it would have improved suspension.
I think that the car should be able to have either a water cooled engine or a air cooled engine, because of different climates, but I prefer an air cooled engine wherever possible, because the simpler the netter in my opinion.
The car would have a carburetor, a generator rather than an alternator, and a regulator, and it would have an electrical system, an old style dashboard with old style Mechanical gauges, but no electronic system, and definitely no computers.
It should have fog lights front and back and hazard flashing lights, and LED lights, or old style lighting may be used on the car.
It would have a better aerodynamic shape, and any minor things that I may have not mentioned in this comment.
The cars that are not computerized are more reliable and easier and cheaper and quicker to repair, and if everyone learns how to tune these cars, then the exhaust will be relatively clean compared to Electronic Fuel Injection cars.
This may means that these cars might be better suited in places that are not large Cities, and that is something that Experts would know the answer to that.
I think that it is a good Investment for a Country to begin with one Product, because it will be a learning experience on how to produce other Products.
The Money that is spent stays in the Country, and so there is no expense to the Country, but the only expense to the Country will be if the People at the Publicly Owned Companies are lazy, corrupt, or incompetent, but if they are hardworking and honest, then there is only a gain for the Country.
This is a most fascinating thread about the inner workings of the human animal: my thanks to the Saker and to Andreja Vrazalic for starting it and to the many(!) commentators for contributing=cooperating :-)
“For me the answer is cooperation not competition. That is the meaningful distinction.”
I definitely resonate with the views of MK Ngoyo and Angelo who feel that overall cooperation with some localized competition allowed is valid for the common good. I am also comfortable with Ngoyo’s list of practical recipes (f. ex. restricting the size of fortunes and of land).
The only question which IMO is not completely addressed here is Earl Duthler’s valid objection that every society contains ~5% of sociopaths/psychopaths who will do the utmost to attain positions of power. This question is (medically) addressed in the book “Political Ponerology” by Lobaczewski who was the leader (and last survivor) of an international group of psychologists/psychiatrists based in Soviet-occupied Poland who studied these types of damaged personalities (psychopaths = associated with specific forms of brain damage, sociopaths = less severe damage) and who laid the foundations for (medically) detecting these types of personalities.
It is also interesting to note that this book adds another practical recipe for a viable society: a nation should be restricted in size (in the author’s view no more than 15 million people) so that a national character can form and that the leaders are known by their citizens and cannot hide in anonimity.
Anonymous
CHEAP CAR
India made a car that could be sold for $1600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano
A car factory only needs a few thousand workers, so a country needs more than the one industry, if it is to provide work for all its people.
The idea that work has to be in factories is not realistic. The first thing everyone needs, and keeps needing new supplies of, is FOOD. If this is NOT too automated, it can employ very large numbers of people. Even if they don’t do terribly well at it, at least they can eat their own production and therefore not starve. This is how life used to be.
If small-holder farmers can be given the tools to grow more, that takes care of the food needs of the cities, and gives the farmers enough cash to afford “city” things like electricity, internet and (maybe distance) education.
Making food production “efficient” by making it bulk and mechanised, is the first step to killing an economy. It puts a lot of people out of work (automatically reduces consumers for all goods produced), drives them to the cities seeking paid work (leading to social problems like shanty towns, overcrowding, crime etc).
History shows us that the English are Expert Liars and that Anglo-America commits Crimes and successfully blames it on others.
This Fact that the English began WW 2, is known by Many Independent People at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill,_Hitler_and_the_Unnecessary_War , and the author of that book tried to be nominated by his Political Party to become President of America at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan .
This is why Anglo-America Illegally and Immorally attacked Serbia to steal Kosovo to build Camp Bondsteel for WW 3, and this is why Anglo-America wants to expand NATO close to Russia for WW 3 in order to kill All Humans.
I am not saying that Hitler was a good man, but Hitler did not want war, and after the Servile Poles were used to begin WW 2, then all sides committed atrocities, but those of the Allies were covered up, and Germany’s Crimes were Exaggerated to make Anglo-America like good.
The Zionist Soviet Union led by the Jews Lenin and then Stalin, was really Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union being Secretly Ruled by the British Empire and Anglo-America, even though it was made to look like it was ruled by Russians, and All Europeans needs to know this.
Another Deception is that Germans were De Nazified after WW 2, but that could not happen, because of both the German Character, and the Very Bad Influence of Nazi Anglo-America, who are the Greatest Nazis of History, and this is why much of the European Union are Nazis, because of the Very Bad Association they have with Nazi Anglo-America.
This is why Many People think that Anglo-America needs to keep their Promise, which not made only to President Mikhail Gorbachev, but to All of the World, and leave Central Europe and the Balkans in order to Prevent WW 3, and Anglo-America wants to expand even further into Ukraine.
Anglo-America has no legitimate business being in Central Europe and the Balkans, and Anglo-America has clearly demonstrated that they have no good intentions for Continental Europe, and Continental Europeans can provide Security where it is needed in the Balkans.
The Facts that Serbia is innocent are on the Internet, and People can do their own Research, and there is an Honest News Article by an American Independent Journalist which shows how Anglo-America and its Puppets Lie, Slander, and Murder in Cold Blood, and the Article is Titled: The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic at http://www.michaelparenti.org/Milosevic.html .
There is a News Article written by a Honest British Journalist, which is rare in the realm of Anglo-America, and it is Titled: Milosevic: true or false at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/21/tenquestionsonslobodanmilo .
There is a News Article written by the same rare Honest Anglo-American Journalist on the cover up, and it is Titled: The Milosevic trial is a travesty at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/12/warcrimes.comment .
With regards to using Democratic Communism to Manufacturing Products, then it is not Inferior to Capitalism, as long as there is no laziness, no corruption, and no incompetence, because the more Useful Productive Work that is done, means that the Country is richer for it, and so just do more and more Useful Productive Work.
I realized that I should have said that the cars should have think metal like they did in the old days, and they should have a tow bar with the electrical wiring for a trailer as standard equipment, and some good images of some really good old cars can be found at https://www.google.com.au/search?q=1930%27s+to+1950%27s+cars&biw=1120&bih=639&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=n6ijVKbqNcP48QXI64L4Bw&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ .
Hi KatKan, yes I agree that food production without GMO or even much machinery would be the best employment…develop Sahara desert and farm it using organic methods and labor…
funnily enough, in the old testament…in Ruth. She goes into the field to work her share … too bad that can’t be the way it is now.
notsofast
I’ve read the book Political Ponerology…really sir, if you are truly interested in Angelo’s comment, then look up Rudolf Steiner Archive and search for “Three fold Social Order”
Or try, Nicanor Perlas, “Shaping Globalization” Nicanor Perlas has been the “opposition” in the Philippines for decades..great thinker. His book is older, but still gives a good overview of Steiner’s ideas.
Also Thorten Veblen…
If we accept this scholastic understanding of property, then the problem of political economy, the problem of social justice, must be radically restated. We should first begin with the human relationships dictated by natural law, those that support integral human flourishing. Then we should ask what property arrangements will best support these relationships.
The answer is “neofeudalism”.
1. Incorporation of the family. Conservatives have always opposed inheritance taxes, because in our minds when property passes from father to son, it doesn’t really change hands at all. The family itself is the owner. It would be better to assert this sovereignty with the family – making families property and responsibility-bearing subjects under the law. Details on how family property should be treated are tricky, since we want to incentivize its correct us and discourage abuses. Also, inheritance becomes a live issue again.
2. The abolition of private fortunes. The rich should be given a choice of having their surplus property confiscated by the State or buying their way into an duty-bound aristocracy, in which case they get to keep their fortunes as public trust, to be used to benefit the aristocrat’s local. Rights and duties need to be spelled out.
3. Strengthening and socialization of unions. Trade and workers’ organizations are to be encouraged, but they shouldn’t just exist to promote only members’ self-interest (although they should certainly do this). They should be the forum wherein these workers experience their duty to the wider social order. One possibility would be to put unions in charge of the training and training standards of new workers, which would begin an evolution of unions into self-governing guilds.
4. A revitalization of anti-usury laws. Activities that obscure the relations between property and social order (e.g. by giving money a life of its own independent of the social order, as the ancients
I would like to thank each and everyone here who participated in this discussion. Such valuable ideas that have informed me tremendously. I appreciate the freedom we all enjoy here to express ones mind and heart. Blessings!
ps Saker this was truly excellent!!