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.
HAPPY by Barack Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSWMIol8ttE
The video shows US President dancing to Pharrell Williams’ Happy against the backdrop of the burning Maidan protest, and the ruins of Egypt, Iraq and other countries where the United States has come to promote its “democracy.” Exploding residential and office buildings and cars, and moving armored vehicles are seen behind Obama’s back.
Читать далее: http://en.ukraina.ru/news/20141228/1011644274.html
An intelligent point of view, but one caught in angst.
Mistaking primitive communism is a mistake of seeing things as alternative systems. There are no alternative systems, we never get to remake society as we wish, all we can do is guide our societies into new directions.
We are already living in a period of socialism, the means of producing things are socialisied through capital, even the capitalists have disappeared all that is left is extremely wealthy managers.
The question has never been if socialism? It has always been whence society?
If socialism is a given, a historically derived stage of derived from previous private capitalism (now long gone), the question is not which system, but in whose interest is it run?
The 1% have run their course, it is time for the rest of us, the common person to have our interests served. And in reality it has been that simple it is just a lot of fixed ideas clog our perception.
Managerial socialism, technocrats socialism characterized the USSR. China is a different kettle of fish theirs is a national socialism, a national liberation a restoration of the Middle Kingdom on new and modern ground.
Is that socialism where we should head? Partly, but only partly, we have different fish to fry and I hopoe something to give to the world.
Verkhovna Rada to hold hearings on embezzlement of loans from China
Nearly $260 million of the $3 billion provided by China for the development of the Ukrainian agricultural sector has been embezzled, said Yegor Sobolev, Verkhovna Rada deputy and chairman of the parliamentary committee on preventing and fighting corruption Sobolev said that the findings of an investigation into the misuse of loans in the amount of $3 billion provided by the Chinese government for the development of Ukrainian agriculture will be submitted for discussion. “We will specifically target corruption in the agriculture sector,” said Sobolev. “The loan was received from China in the amount of $3 billion, of which $260 million has been embezzled. Therefore, we propose to bring this issue to parliament and hold parliamentary hearings to ensure transparency of the investigation of these outrageous occurrences.” In 2012, the Export-Import Bank of China agreed to issue the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine corporation a loan of $3 billion, which was planned to be used to purchase grain for future delivery to China. The contract also stipulates that Ukraine is to purchase Chinese goods worth $1.5 billion in total. However, contrary to the agreement, only $153 million worth of grain was sold to China, in connection. As a result, China has filed a lawsuit with the London Court of International Arbitration seeking damages from Ukraine.
Читать далее: http://en.ukraina.ru/news/20141228/1011644396.html
This is not a surprise. Ukraine is a serial criminal state. The rule of law in ukieland is a distant memory. They are similar to a friend or relative who repeatedly asks for help, says he or she will pay you back as soon as they get right, but know full well there is no intention of doing so. Criminals do not often change.
well, all socialist experiments in history had to face an economic and military war by the West, so it is impossible to know whether the system could develop and solve some of its major contradictions.
We are seeing today how an economic war can destroy a country … in the 20th century the “socialist” countries have managed to survive for long under constant attack by the capitalist nations. Even losing important aspects of democratic freedom.
I still believe the socialist utopia as a real possibility.
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.
Democratic socialism has been an economic, moral, and social catastrophe in New Zealand. The end point is a godless state where anything goes and nothing matters. Alcoholics are paid to drink, drug addicts are paid to get high, sociopaths who just prefer not to work get paid, single women (typically mentally ill, alcoholic, and on drugs) get paid to mass produce babies, whom they then abuse. Meanwhile hard working sober people are getting sterilised after their second child as that is all they can afford to raise. Madness.
My idea of a model society would be based on how wise elders would manage their own family. Suppose you have two sons. One is an honor student. The other has fallen in with a bad crowd, uses drugs, steals, and has been arrested several times. The honor student wants to go to university. The criminal junkie says he wants another go at rehab in an expensive private facility. You only have enough money to pay for one. Which do you choose to help? The one most likely to support you in your old age. The other has made bad decisions and must live with the consequences. Any viable socialist state would have to work like that.
Yes, Rudolf Steiner said that until we the people, ie – not the public sector, because that’s gov. and not the private sector because that’s finance, but a third sector…he called it the cultural sector held as much power…ie the courts and the prisons and the lawmaking would have to be in the cultural sector (along with education, medical, religion and everything else that’s cultural…argi-culture etc…until this is accomplished, humanity would be unable to progress.
It is something like the ideals but not the outcomes of the French Revolution – Fraternity, Equality and Liberty…the Fraternity is in economics…how much wages does he need ? The Liberty is in the life of rights…not police…everyone needs to decide what is best for themselves. But of course there is also protection from crime within the culture. And the Equality is in the cultural sphere…medicine, education, food, travel where you want to live on the planet…and this is equal.
Anyway, it needs to happen, that’s obvious. Its not capitalism against communism against socialism against libertarianism, its stopping corruption and cruelty in any of the above mentioned.
I have an article that’s really good…just going to put it here.
Feature: Is It Just Us, Or Are Kids Getting Really Stupid?
They don’t read. They can’t spell. They spend all their time playing computer games and texting and hanging out with one another on Facebook. But the problem is much worse than you think, because the way your kids live now is rewiring their brains
By Sandy Hingston | November 26, 2010
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236 Comments
Two autumns ago, in my son Jake’s junior year of high school, he took an AP English course. Junior year was bad for him and me — we never seemed to have anything nice to say to one another. But Jake did like to read, and it occurred to me at some point that perhaps I could use his AP English course to connect with him. Surely I’d read the same books he was reading, since the high-school reading list was carved in stone sometime in the early 1950s. So I asked him: What are you reading in AP English?
“The Great Gatsby,” he said.
“Do you … like it?” I asked delicately, thrilled to be having what was almost a conversation with my teenage son.
“I don’t really like the actor who plays Gatsby,” he said. “He’s got these weird bumps on his face that keep distracting me.”
“The actor?”
“We’re not actually reading the book,” Jake informed me. “We haven’t read a book all semester. We watch the movies instead.”
It sort of made sense, once I calmed down and thought about it. It was hard to get kids to read back when I was in high school; what must it be like now, when there are iPods and iPhones and Internet and cable TV? Better to have seen Robert Redford pretend to be Gatsby than never to have known Gatsby at all.
Just the same, I was glad when, for his senior year, Jake proposed taking an English course at the local community college. Come September, he and a buddy drove to the college every Monday night and sat for three hours in English 101 — where they never once read a book. They watched movies instead.
Jake got an A- in the course.
We live in interesting times. In the past decade, the number of college grads who can interpret a food label has fallen from 40 percent to 30 percent. An American child is six times more likely to know who won American Idol than the name of the Speaker of the House. (For more bad news, see the sidebar on page 59.) Reading and writing scores both fell on the 2008 SATs. Not long ago, a high-school teacher in California handed out an assignment that required students to use a ruler — and discovered not a single one of them knew how.
What in the world is going on with our kids?
Bring the subject up in any group of parents around Philadelphia, and you’ll hear the same thing: Children today seem, well, dumber than they used to. They don’t know the most basic stuff: who fought against whom in World War II, how many pints are in a quart, and in Jake’s case, the days of the week. (He’s shaky on the months, too.) They may be taking every AP and Honors course their schools offer, but they can’t tell you who invented pasteurization. (They do know who invented Facebook, because they saw the movie The Social Network.) They spend an average of eight and a half hours a day in front of screens — computer screens, TV screens, iPhone screens. Add in eight hours of sleep and seven of school, and that leaves half an hour when their senses aren’t under siege — just enough time for a shower.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/articles/feature-is-it-just-us-or-are-kids-getting-really-stupid/#Xg10KKlek5ZkSB7i.99
What is described here is a transition from stored to on-demand knowledge. Why memorize something when you can look it up in 5 seconds? Which is more manipulable, the Internet or the school system? Which produces more enlightened, capable students? The education and value system of the current generation of leaders and powerbrokers has had its chance and utterly failed. The jury is still out on the new generation…
Sorry. This is really off-topic, but this is the 3d article I’ve read that says Novorossiya is being starved. The aid trucks are being blocked, and they are totally reliant on food aid.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraines-government-is-starving-residents-of-the-breakaway-region/5421564
I like this sentence:
“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?”
The answer of course is not that the rich don’t see it for what it is, but that because they are rich, it means they have attained control over society and see socialism for exactly what it is, and will stamp it out and destroy it an an enemy.
Socialism seems to arise from the earth. No one creates it, it’s the natural system that arises, in the same way that the lie is spread saying the “free market” arises as the natural thing. That was a story put out by the rich.
Saker, I’m greatly impressed by your thinking of revisiting the systems of social organization. As a capitalist living in the full decline and failure of capitalism in the US, I keep turning to socialism, Marx, and all these theories that never received a good airing in the West, wishing to examine them. Now’s the chance. Thank you!
To learn about socialism and free markets read, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, free at the Mises institute:
http://mises.org/sites/default/files/Socialism%20An%20Economic%20and%20Sociological%20Analysis_3.pdf
Part of the introduction at the institute:
“Socialism is most famous for Mises’s penetrating economic calculation argument. The book contains much more however. Mises not only shows the impossibility of socialism: he defends capitalism against the main arguments socialists and other critics have raised against it. A centrally planned system cannot substitute some other form of economic calculation for market prices, because no such alternative exists. Capitalism is true economic democracy.”
Socialism, Communism, Facism and Corpratism (USA system today)do not work and unfortunately self destruct.
Greg, I’m sorry, but I think everything you wrote is claptrap. Words have specific meanings and if you want to communicate w other people, you can’t just redefine everything to mean mush. I’m not going to take the time to go thru the entirety of what you say, but here’s one quote:
“We are already living in a period of socialism, the means of producing things are socialisied through capital, even the capitalists have disappeared all that is left is extremely wealthy managers.”
No, Greg, neither produced things, nor medical care, nor higher education are socialized.
It’s called capitalism– in fact an extreme variant of capitalism which has crowded out almost all limitation on capitalism. Even legal protections and the distribution of justice are no longer socialized.
The Southern Agrarians saw corporatism, the most radical form of capitalism, as the stalking horse for socialism. In corporatism, the legal owners of the corporation are said to be the stock holders; but the effective owners are the managerial elites. In socialism, the legal owners are said to be the people, the citizens; but the effective owners are the party cadre and the nomenclatura. The Southern Agrarians said that Bolshevism would come to America but not in the form of communism or socialism but in the form of corporate managers and the elites whom they serve. This same evil dichotomy was understood by Robert Dabney, Benjamin Palmer and John Girardeaux. I was reared, regrettably, in the false dichotomy of communism versus Americanism (corporate capitalism wrapped in the flag). One is Mephistopheles and the other Beelzebub.
The Donetsk military leader Givi speaks at length with Georgian journalist in interesting interview, with good English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bw7DMB37eA
I think the author’s starting premise is flawed and needs to be discussed. The author calls the system that existed in Yugoslavia, USSR, etc. “socialism”. However, it needs to be clarified that like democracies are “only in name”, “socialism” in these countries was also only in name. These countries never had socialism in the sense used by Marx or Lenin. In fact, what they had is a form of capitalism, in which capitalist production and investment was directed primarily by government bureaucracy, as opposed to “management bureaucracy” of the capitalism in the western countries. In other words, countries like USSR were different from the western capitalist countries only in their “superstructure” but not in the method of production, which was capitalist.
Here are a few quotes from Lenin (my translation, so may not be grammatically precise, but correct in essence):
“Socialism is a complete liberation of workers from all oppression, both political and economical.”
“Socialism is a social order, in which there will be no poverty of the masses and there will be no exploitation by one person of another.”
You can compare these definitions with what actually in countries like Yugoslavia and USSR: there was definitely oppression, both political and economical, and there was definitely exploitation of workers. In fact, it is well known that neither Marx nor Lenin thought it was possible to build a social order in a single country, even of the size of the USSR, only on the planetary scale after capitalism demise. And history so far confirmed this.
What masqueraded as “socialism” in many countries was a socialist-oriented dictatorships with capitalist economy, which, as the author correctly noted, is quite advantageous for the weaker countries in their struggle against colonization and for the development of their own capitals.
A
To add to the plethora of ‘ism’s’ let me state that all systems are in fact derivations of the apparatus of Opportunism by the powerful. The political system that takes hold in one society or another is simply the most viable means of achieving control by the group most leveraged to power, if that society describes itself as capitalist or socialist does not really matter, the end goal is the maintenance of power by the few over the many. It may seem cliché, or simplistic but the crux of the matter is power, the system of political control is never definitive, it is by nature a fluid form that must meet the needs of the powerful in maintaining their ability to manage the population. The problem facing human populations is the implementation of politics itself, which is a system of coercion and manipulation, where the main purpose is power maintenance and the extension of the tools which allow that maintenance.
Another voice in the comment section of this board has dropped the name of Rudolf Steiner, and as much as I absolutely do not agree with much of what this person in the comment section has to say, I can say that Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Order is a very concise breakdown of how a successful spiritual society can exist in harmony, where ‘politics’ is merely the mechanism of negotiations between the three realms of social life – the economic, legal, and cultural.
In brief, the political domain as it exists currently is dominated by the economic domain to such a degree that there is no definitive barrier between them, and it does not really matter which society we reference, the political body finds it main power in the realm of economic applications – politics is the decision making process of a business enterprise we call the state. All decisions are made on account of economic priority, this is a de-facto subversion of human integrity at the most basic level. When politics is governed not by the mediation of the various human realms and their needs and interests but by the economic powers of the day, than politics will always be beholden to the money elite and their banking apparatus.
The idea of political evolution is a mirage as long as the system of money creation of the state is enslaved to a private body which governs economic reality through artificial means, and which takes no heed or care for human well being. Therefore I bid good luck discussing your politics, it’s like discussing the outcome of a rigged boxing match, it might make for some heated discussions, but will accomplish nothing as far as solving the human tragedy we currently face. The Money Changers must be over-thrown, the rest can follow in due course, but tackling the issue of politics without proper context is futile.
Cheers
Any system is corruptable, the US is a case in point. The founders tried to provide safeguards, but as we can see, these static defenses have been overcome.
If a state has ‘good’ leadership based on some morals, the population at large can prosper, while the trolls do their best to subvert.
Its’ all pretty simple, but simple things are usually the most difficult.
Of the group up to Joy, she makes sense.
However, sense making is not a system.
The system that works is the system closest to nature and humans. Unbelievably, that is capitalism. It brings efficiency and need for rule of law, not elites or parties. So it fosters more freedom for individuals.
It requires restraints because it can get cancerous just like nature. It is wasteful, as nature sometimes is.
It suits all sorts of personalities and fills needs of people. Find a need and fill it and you do well as a capitalist. It promotes art and imaginative output like music and theatre. It requires storing knowledge. These are all good social output.
So, I’m a bit more likely to think Capitalism is the economic system best suited for most societies. Certainly large nations and nations with large populations do best with it.
Socialism is a terrible solution.
The Chinese say they have Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
I say they have Capitalism with Chinese characteristics. Socialism brought them to their knees. Communism led them to wars (all of which they lost.)
Capitalism is going to remake China and Russia.
And India (maybe) and several other big nations.
It made Brazil. Though corruption jumped into the middle of things now in Brazil.
It takes people with values to make any society work. It’s not the system of capitalism that fails. It’s the people, particularly the corrupt, lazy keepers of the taxes who don’t do their duty.
Like sleepy border guards, they let the wolves eat the hens.
The oligarchs have succeeded in equating capitalist economics with “freedom and democracy”. In fact, there is nothing at all free and democratic about their version of the so-called “free market” and certainly not in its total perversion and corruption of “democratic” governance.
True democracy would, in fact, lead almost inevitably to some “socialist” interventions in the realm of economics and commerce. What we have now is almost a complete reversal of those more appropriate roles and relationships.
Penelope said…
The problem with definitions is that they are not logical or theoretical, they are “just as”.
when a corporation forms the private capital is socialized into the corporate holding which ultimately is governed by the state (the manger of last resort).
The share holders do not own the company, they own exactly what they have a share in its dividends and certain rights over its governorship — you cannot go up and pull out 1% of its machinery and leave your share behind.
That is capital socialized by capital, and yes higher education and medicine, in fact all but a very few productive activities and services are socialized.
You have the same fixed notions about things as the author and it was that I was trying to criticize.
In this I am actually being orthodox, not inventive at all, it is just that it is n understanding that has for a long time now been pushed aside in favour of static definitional alternatives — there are no such things in history. Feudalism became capitalism, capitalism has become socialism, the political lags behind the social event that is all and there is some cost in that.
“Greg Schofield said…”
Greg, may I say as politely as I can, that you are imprisoned in an intellectual labyrinth, you use so many words but say so very little its astonishing in its own right. Do you write so that others can comprehend, or do you write for your own intellectual ego?
The author is missing out on the idea of socialism as an organic or natural solution to unresolved problems of the previous capitalist system. We can talk all day, and probably should, about the problems of socialism but those unresolved problems of capitalism remain.
Another point, important in a different way, comes with some simple reflection. Human beings lived for ages and ages, eons and eons, as simple hunter-gatherers in a form of society that we would today call simple communism. If it was human nature to have hierarchy, as one commentator noted, we would not have been hunter-gatherers so long. This points to something simple and obvious, when you think about it; we lived so long with shared poverty, as a species, it really seems a no-brainer to claim that shared wealth, which is socialism, would also, once properly established, last just as long. We’re still too entangled in the present to see our future.
“Arundhati Roy in India seems to think that democracy is dead and that Maoist guerrillas might have the answer to a lot of questions.” -Disappointing. Maoist guerrillas could be as brutal as ISIS and chechen Jehadis. Very frequent stories, when they drag out people from clutches of their wife and children and shut them at the end of the village. They cry into the darkness of night. Accusation – mere police informer.
Maoist guerrillas became powerful years after India tested nukes – I suspect it is not a mere coincidence. As per DNS, The Maoist website was registered in Canada when it started around 2003. Now it shows a new delhi address. The BBC would attack govt efforts at local resistance to maoist guerrillas. Saker, it is time to remove Arundhoty Roy. She is powerful because what you call fourth column.
Socialism was a solution to perceived problems of an age. It didn’t work out, with many failures. The problems have more clarity today than in 19th century. Today’s solution will be better.
I go with the “claptrap” comment.
An expose on socialism? … then why not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
How to achieve the right balance between environmental, social and economic factors is a function of good governance within cultural frameworks.
What works, works (by definition). What doesn’t, increasingly, is any form of “…ism” espoused as ideology divorced from the local context and dynamics.
American capitalism c. 1950s = 70-90% taxation on the rich sounds about right.
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4e1c5b08ccd1d50779000000/image.jpg
Greetings from a stormy/rainy France today:
As Jameson said somewhere: “It is easier for us to imagine the end of the World, but not the end of Capitalism”
I guess, once we break with this psychological wall, we are making our first step to freedom.
Rgds
Mario Medjeral
Dear Angelo, perhaps you could point to the problem with what I have said, rather than the problem of me saying it?
It is quite simple is it not that private property is mine to use, abuse or dispose of.
If I own a share in a corporation that is all I own, I may do as I wish with the share, but not that portion of corporation itself. That is socialization, it certainly is not private ownership, the only private property is the dividend.
If you don’t believe me look at what Marx said about it.
“The capital…is here directly endowed with the form of social capital (capital of directly associated individuals) as distinct from private capital, and its undertakings assume the form of social undertakings as distinct from private undertakings. It is the abolition of capital as private property within the framework of capitalism.”
[from Blue]
I’m afraid the author is rather confused and dogmatic on a number of issues, and has been taken in by some of the propaganda and word manipulation used by the oligarchy.
Socialism, and more so communism, is economic democracy. Without economic democracy, political democracy ceases to exists as the oligarchs buy the government, laws, and forces of power (even such as private armies to oppose unions and peoples’ uprisings). Rule by government owned by the oligarchs or elite is not socialism or communism, but oligarchy, plutocracy, or tyranny, no matter what anyone calls it.
Private property — the stuff people own in private. A large, powerful corporation which has a major bite in the lives of millions can not, by definition, private. Furthermore, they increasingly (as they gain more wealth) control not only public functions and commodities (police, water, manufactured goods, banking), but politics and information — and thus are able to rig the system to accumulate ever increasing money and power.
Capitalism is about the benefit of the capitalists — those with wealth and who own the means of production; socialism and moving towards communism is about benefit for the society and community — for the people.
To look at the failure of so-called socialist or communist states or organizations which failed because of other all-too-human causes such as greed, ambition, authoritarianism, corruption, psychopathy, or stupidity and say that socialism or communism failed is wrong. These failures are far more endemic to capitalism, and some are indeed often touted as positive values — “greed is good”.
Richard Wolff, while weak is various areas, does have some very good things to say about the subject. For instance, a few weeks ago he said in one of shows or presentations (forget which) that just as capitalism took many decades and with many false starts to take over the system of feudalism, so socialism can not be expected to spring full grown and functional from the head of one of the intellectual or revolutionary ‘gods’. It is an evolutionary process, like all political / economic systems.
The kids in the back seat should stop constantly whining and asking ‘are we there yet’ and study history, economics, sociology, political science, and other such related areas to get a better idea of what they can do to help move the species along on this difficult road — or making dogmatic pronouncements such as “Human nature is such, people gravitate toward hierarchy” based on an absurdly small sample of geography, history, and range of cultures — how grandiose to try to define ‘human nature’ is such a phrase when the answers have been elusive all though mankind’s short and biased inquiry into such matters, and the often agenda-driven statements on the subject by those in power (often evil psychopaths).
And, yes, let us note that socialist societies have generally been attacked, internally and externally, often with catastrophic results, by those who wanted to plunder them.
__Blue
It is better to start here:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Political-Thought-Northcote-Parkinson/dp/B0006D6M1M/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419748463&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=c.+northcote+parkinson+politcal
What the world thinks are the important fault lines, distinctions and definitions will change as the world moves east.
For me, an African, socialism does not have to be the “scientific socialism” of Marx. The European variety. I know that socialism existed in various guises, throughout African history (and in the rest of the world).
Socialism, capitalism, democracy, dictatorship; these are just western distinctions and western systems.
Socialism has no more to do with dictatorship than capitalism. I was born and brought up under a dictatorial capitalist system. My forbears lived under democratic socialist systems. The greatest tyranny in my continent’s history was established by capitalism. The greatest struggles for freedom were by socialists. The capitalist powers of the world supported apartheid, the socialist powers opposed it. I can go on in this vein for a long time.
In the end I must ask what defines the best political system. For me the answer is cooperation not competition. That is the meaningful distinction.
From conception, the egg cooperates with the sperm. The embryo cooperates with the womb. The mother cooperates with the child. The children and parents cooperate in the family. Families cooperate in the tribe. Tribes cooperate in the society.
Humans are cooperative beings. Capitalism emphasises competition. Socialism emphasises cooperation.
Socialism is the best system for human beings. But socialism is not only that which the west, from its imperial chair, has defined asuch! THere are many socialisms and to each society, its own.
For me the western experience of socialism and of capitalism is a cautionary tale.
Now what of competition and capitalism?
They are not all bad. They just have their place, within socialism.
We must discard this European idea, that socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive. Its just as wrong as the Euroidea that church and state are mutually exclusive. These ideas stem from accidents of european experience and have been universalised through the arrogance of imperialism.
Its not that socialism and capitalism are in conflict, its just that they are a binary that exists in a necessary hierarchy. In that balanced hierarchy capitalism is necessarily subordinate to socialism. Capitalism works for socialism. Socialism sets the structures and relations of society and capitalism does its stuff within those constraints. THere is no necessary contradiction between the two.
Capitalism is like the engine in a car. Socialism is everything else. You need all the systems to make for a good car. If the engine is over developed relative to the other systems. You will eventually find yourself dead by the side of the road. ANd if you remove the engine and load up on the other features. You won’t go anywhere and will get run over by everybody else. There is a balance. But still capitalism is subordinate to socialism. THe engine is subordinate to the car. But you have to have both.
The worst excesses of human history resulted from an excess of competition. It is always better to have an abundance of cooperation, than an abundance of competition.
Fundamentally war is competition, peace is cooperation. THat is why cooperation must always be superior TO competition; as master is to apprentice.
Socialism must subsume, contain and harness the fire of capitalism as a house in winter subsumes, contains and harnesses a furnace to generate warmth and comfort.
What of democracy? The west has given us the best definition: Government of the people by the people and for the people. One cannot speak of such a thing without cooperation. Democracy is definitively a collective enterprise. A coming together of the people in their own name. A “people” cannot exist except in cooperation. Because a people is the many functioning as one.
Therefore socialism is best suited to democracy and capitalism is utterly unsuited to democracy. A society must be socialist to be democratic.
Very close to my own thinking, well articulated.
Good and interesting piece.
There is only one way to organize a mass society according to any materialistic paradigm. Calling it Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy, etc. makes no difference whatsoever. It would be helpful if everyone understood the answer implied by the question; concerning which political system is best. Coke OR Pepsi is not a choice but it’s the most important decision you’ll ever make if we leave up to the same people.
If the question before us is how do we exploit and distribute resources, including so-called human ‘capital’ resources, then all our answers lead us back to the same disasterous answers forged in the 19th and 20th centuries. Need I remind you, by definition, resources are expendable.
If the question we ask is how do we change ourselves and by extension, the way we govern ourselves, new paths immediately become apparent, not at the level of the abstract or meta, but at the level of each of us as spiritually divine beings.
Even the bible says God helps those who helps themselves. If each of us could come to understand the eternal wisdom that arises from this simple parable, all of our political problems would immediately melt away.
As an irreligious person with a lifelong interest in politics, I’m almost shocked to admit this realization: There are NO systemic answers. Until recently I believed it was otherwise. Our problems are not, nor can they ever be, politically solvable.
Resource distribution and redistribution, as with all forms of charity, can never cause growth or spiritual awakening. Punishments and rewards, deeply imbedded into our belief systems, are traps set by magicians, priests and politicians alike. As ever, the same scum floats to the top of a pyramid emersed in excrement.
People will dance for their supper and go through all manner of rituals to be saved but if you’ve ever been poor, you’ll immediately understand the inherent contradictions of everything our so-called leaders say. Governments attempt their own forms of materialistic and spiritual charity but only force people into ever more severe forms of dependence and slavery — as is the intent.
I say let Moses and his laws of enslavement be washed away by the mighty Red Sea. I don’t need a law to know it is wrong to kill.
It seemed to me, for a while at least, that the Iranian and Bolivarian Revolutions understood their limitations innately, at least in a rhetorical sense. By now we should all recognize the pattern into which these movements have devolved. In Venezuela they already use microchips to ration food, if you’re in any doubt. Like all revolutions that came before, they have spawned top-down statist systems that are fundamentally antithetical to the realization of human potential.
Only in a revolutionary struggle, as with Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah, or perhaps the Naxalites, do we see attention focussed properly on what must actually be done. One day after the revolution succeeeds, the rot begins anew and we are right back where we started. If I were Muslim I might call this the real meaning of jihad, in the very best sense of my limited understanding.
Knowing what we already know and remembering it, how do we proceed without making exactly the same mistakes?
How do stop belittling, humiliating and destroying human beings that don’t fit into abstract definitions of right and wrong? Isn’t any law that requires ‘expert’ interpretation a farce from the begining?
Again and most of all, what must we change within ourselves to make the world a better place?
Oh yes, I too am familiar with Tito’s socialism, since I had lived through it (друже Тито…), and am also one of those who fled from it – only to forever fondly remember solely its good side, after acquainting myself first hand with horrors of American capitalism… (Yes, you are right, to forget is human; and to paraphrase Nietzsche, “the misery and sorrow are left behind us and only sunshine and happiness remain”.)…
A few decades back I had a discussion with a colleague Marxist from the neighboring philosophy department at my university, in which I maintained that communist system would indeed be the way into the future – provided it could somehow shed its coercive side, eminently exemplified by Stalinist terror. I still recall his reply: that all the human sacrifices under Stalin absolutely pale in contrast to *the sum total* of all the untold sufferings of all the people who live under the capitalism! (This quite aside from the fact that Stalin was slandered, and that the supposed number of “millions” of his victims turned out to had been fabricated by the western propaganda machine.)
[from Blue]
Through strange ways, from the gods or synchronicity, or whatever’, I was just propelled (it just started while watching another) into this video from Chomsky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUwBc-GvFFM
“Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young” – Noam Chomsky
which is curiously apropos to this subject.
Well, I guess I’ll comment on the comment by the guy who doesn’t like this commenter…
Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Order:
To say this or that must be done, will never get things done. The only time that these things can be implemented, as far as this girl can see, is when the system is suddenly in the hands of the mob.
I worry quite a bit about what will happen when this mess is at a huge end…will it become just as it was, in different clothes ? Like what happened in Russia under Lenin…and probably what happened in France, and England and all else besides.
My understanding is that in Russia,the workers just kind of came into the offices of the governments and businesses and sat down…but didn’t know what they were doing.
This three fold order is extremely important to have formulated beforehand.
As far as I can see, its the courts now that are the most important. And how hard is it to have trials with the big criminals on the dock…it happens in every revolution,
But the internal structure of ‘who wields the power of the courts’ has to be changed. Its obvious government won’t work. Nor will the ‘private sector’. There’s another sector that has to be created…it has not be implemented anywhere on Earth yet.
The courts should be controlled by the law guild…and the prisons have to be controlled by human rights organization and educators, and religion too.
I mean I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve thought about what Steiner kept saying in his books about this. Mostly these ideas are in lectures that were totally geared towards the times…100 years ago almost, and it could have been implemented in Austria after the Austo-Hungarian Empire was dismantled.
The costs of all the cultural institutions like running prisons need still to be paid for by taxpayers. But…
The most corruption of all is in the huge pool of money that is available from taxes. Ask Catherine Austin Fitts. She knows about these corruptions.
In the previous Russian revolution, it was the middle classes, professionals and merchants that were targeted…this will not happen again. We need the professionals to be there with their expertise when the egg drops.
Practically speaking,I don’t see that too much has to change except for the courts right now. We will never win until the justice system is ours.
I guess I will stick up for Greg…
I totally agree that the political lags behind the social…we’ve needed change for at least a century…we’re using outdated structures in our civilization(s).
Hi Saker, apparently Putin just bought out 30% of the shares owned by Americans and Europeans in big Russian energy companies. Basically those big companies had shares owned by foreigners, which means that oil and gas revenues were going abroad. Apparently with the rumours that Russia wouldn’t be able to back its currency and Putin’s statement that he will protect the Russians in Ukraine, “financial sharks” panicked and started selling before the shares dropped. Putin waited a whole week just politely smiling at press conferences and then ordered for 30% of them to be bought back earning 20 billion $ instantly. Just wondering if you were aware and you think its true as it would be very good news.
Here is the source http://www.crveneberetke.com/putin-nadigrao-eu-i-ameriku/
If you want a translation as its in Serbian i’ll do it
I often see people writing in comments sections of western MSM how people are “free” in the west as compared to say Russia for example or North Korea.
“Freedom” and “democracy” in the west are mere illusions and do not exist. Your personal “freedom” under western so called democratic systems is directly proprtional to how wealthy you are as an individual. If you happen to be a millionair then you have all the “freedom” your wealth can buy, but if you happen to be one of the vast majority of the working class or rapidly disappearing middle classes then your “freedom” is rather severely limited to what you can afford.
Capitalism as now practised by the west is pure enslavement of the masses for the benefit of the few. Western governments no longer represent their own people rather they represent big business and global banking, and if the EU are so stupid as to go ahead with the TTIP trade deal with America then the citizens of Europe will be even further enslaved by American multinationals and we will get to a point where everything and I mean everything will have a price and if you cant afford that price then tough shit.
At the moment in the UK a significant number of people are now being forced to turn to food banks in order to feed themselves and their families even though they are in employment. This situation can only get worse and shows capitalism for what it really is , the exploitation of the majority by a relative handful of greedy people who want it all for themselves. In Britain we are having to suffer so called “austerity” in order for the budget deficit to be reduced, but guess what, despite years of austerity the budget deficit is still going up.
Austerity is no more than the redistribution of the public wealth from 90 percent of the population into the pockets of the remaining 10 percent. The west is badly in need of its own “arab spring”.
[from Blue]
I’ve been spending a little time looking for new videos on MMT since those I looked at last year — found a few from Prof. Bill Mitchell, and Warren Mosler, and Steve Keen so far (aside from the periodic ones from Hudson).
By MMT, a sovereign government with fiat money regulates the economy by issuing money and investing it in the economy, or taxing (neither of which has anything to do with ‘how much money the government has since the government is the source of money), according to unemployment, productivity and utilization, inflation, and other such macro considerations.
With the system we have now any ‘economic planning’ is done by the private financial sector and banksters, who are interested in their own welfare, not that of the economy or society — although much of it is left to the mythical and chaotic ‘invisible hand’. That’s how capitalist and casino finance works.
So how is it possible to use the insights of MMT and conscious planning and control of the economy for the benefit of all under capitalism? This is a strong reason to operate under a socialist system, with the government, and the economist planners, under the democratic control by the people.
Compare this (as a weak analogy) to a village where ‘farmers’ go out in the Autumn to gather up what ever happened to grow and they can find instead of investing in labor and seeds and planting and tending crops. Does a village get food from an ‘invisible hand’, or ‘farm’ according to whatever people who have taken over all the arable land as their own decides to plant by whim?
This is a key point of socialism: deliberate planning and control of the macro-economy — but it should be by the people, democratically, and not a self-appointed elite or royalty, of course.
MMT makes very good sense, but to do it effectively we have to move beyond the predatory capitalist system for the few.
__Blue
Thank you all for your comments.
It is true that much depends on how we define things. I (being East European) tended to use the Western definitions. Again, I lived in a “socialist” country. A commentator proposed that this was not true socialism, as true socialism would eliminate oppression. I am skeptical that this is possible. Don’t get me wrong, I support the idea to find a more just system, it’s just that I am somewhat disappointed in my search.
There was another comment that democracy would go hand in hand with socialism. Very true for social democracy, although I do not know about full-blown socialism though. Democratic Athens was rather pro-market, while totalitarian Sparta was rather communal. Again, the point of the article was to compare the systems of the Western and Eastern blocks, the Western system being “democracy” and “capitalism”.
Personally, I am pro-libertarian/pro-market, but this is on a level of principles. Any system will get hijacked by the Bad Guys. I got the idea for writing this article when I read how Ho Chi Ming and Giap decided to fight for liberation. In that regard, I am glad that one of our friends gave an African take on the subject, because political thinking seems to be too West-centered.
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?
Here’s a couple of outside-the-box notions since the gauntlet has somewhat been laid down:
1. What if the collapsed velocity of money is a sign of…contentment breaking out as manifested by disinterest in shiny new things?
2. What if Eddie Bernays’ 100-year project of manufacturing desire and irrational need through Freudian/ subliminal manipulation techniques is encountering push-back from the soul? At last!
Pockets of budding enlightenment in the West would, of necessity, be contextualized pejoratively in the MSM as fear, uncertainty about the future, etc.
After all, we have a ‘civic obligation’ to proliferate debt. ‘Mass contentment breaking out’ unravels the pyramid and undoes the usurists’ dreams of world domination.
Are evolutionary advances in mass consciousness being fed back to us through a prism of fear in the hopes of derailing our mounting contentment?
It’s not brave to buy. Mouthwash sales are dependent upon fear and insecurity.
The mantra of growth has been drummed into us for generations. One pictures a seed ‘growing’ into a mighty oak. In fact growth is encouraged because debt servicing requires it. N needs N+1. I have another synonym for growth: ecological predation. I have an alternative for growth: the sustainment model. Neither of these will excite the bankers. They live on fear, anxiety, tension, alienation and dissatisfaction.
Scale the Pyramid, enlarge us or die!
Any system will be gamed by self interested people. Regardless of intelligence we will suffer same fate. There is a sort of law of progression in cultural systems, civilizations that rule their birth, growth, decline and death as in progression from revolution in russia to corrupt decay and new system in 80 years or the history of rome. Our whole global system is based on cheap resources, which are running out like wood and good soil in rome. Our humanist techn based resource intensive culture is running out. The left-right dichotomy merely asks how one should distribute wealth. Now wealth is shrinking the only solution is oldfashioned racial national war for resources to maintain survival.
So many very intelligent and well versed commentators lead a disposed and interested person to further thinking and self education. Filling the gaps as it were or rethinking the basics such as Aristotles definition of man as a political animal. I am so very grateful to the Saker for his providing this blog and its informative forum. I applaud the commenters as well, but especially those of NK Ngoyo who has come through with such clarity for one who has never had the freedom from Western propaganda to explore the core truths of these ideas in practise. From birth the idea of capitalism was enforced as if a rigid theology. I can only say that spending time in central and eastern Europe before the change was the greatest time of my life even witnessing the hardships of oppression as in Romania under its dictator Ceausescu.Therefore I have been a greater lover of people, their traditions and their arts and culture than the rigid exposition of the brand of their state politics. I hated politics all of my life especially here in America and only now am willing to take a second look because of the despair at what my country is doing and has done. It has been necessary to remove the blindfolds of my privilege and really open my eyes to the pain and cost of suffering to the world that this oligarchical cabal has produced. I only hope that Mr. Nogoyo’s perception is correct, that homosapiens at base is cooperative rather than destructive and blood lusting which is how I have come to see him at least through leaders and history. Cooperation is what we need now if we are not to go down in nuclear holocaust and planetary ruin and extinction.Karpatok
I have just started what promises to be a very interesting essay. I have some profound disagreements quite from the start, namely what was paraded as communist socialism was in fact state capitalism of autarchic economic AND political monopoly differing from a similar corporate state capitalism, also autarchical kindly known to the world as fascism. Political elites controlled the former whilst corporate elites direct the later through the political elite.
From the beginning of the species, some form of direction to economic ends was (almost) genetically engineered into survival, those which successfully survived had found the most efficient method of direction. That is one wheel that will not be improved upon in attempts to re-invent. Political power, status (the elite) and wealth are twined at the neck down. One cannot be tamed without harnessing and taming the other heads as well; that troika is an indispensable part of the social order of the species. The social reins that once controlled that troika have slipped the grasp of their drowsed driver and the vehicle the troika pulls is headed towards a deep ravine and the undoing of wellbeing of all passengers. Whether the reins are restored to capable hands in time or not determines the fate of all.
Now back to reading what promises to be a marvellous essay …
Some people are smart, some people are dumb. Some are foolish and some are wise. Some saints, some criminals.
No one likes having their hard earned wealth confiscated and redistributed to reward the lawless, indolent and obstinate in exchange for their political patronage of the confiscators.
Hierarchy is part of human existence. it cannot be disposed of.
The political theory of socialism promised to do this by the elimination of class distinctions, which is impossible.
Hierarchy must be controlled rather than eliminated. (but this is quite a trick when the powerful have no limits).
The theory of liberalism promised to do this by the guarantee of property rights, and presumption of equal legal status for all. (That works marginally well until one class accumulates enough wealth to buy the whole system one piece at a time.
In the old days, the first kings were chosen for their character and integrity. They kept power only by the consent of the priest class and other leading citizens. Thus monarchy promised to maintain the high character of the hierarchy.(until they reached a point.)
Monarchy only works when you have a wise and benevolent king. But even then, his progeny are pretty much guaranteed to be spoilt, and out of touch with the masses.
It is only a mater of a few generations before we end up with a Caligula, or Nero.
You are going to have a hierarchy. So a new political theory must control what sort of behavior, indeed what sort of people, will be allowed to be in the top rank of the hierarchy.
We have the political technology and hardware to do this transparently, fairly, and without possibility of corruption.
Right now what we have in the US and EU, is a kakistocracy.
Synthetic and organic mechanisms have evolved that assure that the very worst, evil, narcissistic fools available gain power.
If it seems demonic that’s because it is.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities in high places.
The time is right for a new political theory. It can be implemented very soon if things are done in the right order. Certain spheres of power and influence must be captured, replaced, subverted or infiltrated. Especially media! Apparatuses must be formed and activated. Most importantly, this new theory must be simply articulated, described and broadcast.
A lot of the commentariat here and in other similar sites I go to, seem to be wanting very badly to hold onto the old forms despite all their obvious baggage.
Model T’s were great cars for their time, but no amount of tinkering or modification will make it glide down the interstate 80mph all day with no problem.
Socialism vs. Capitalism.
This can be a complex topic, but if we hold to the essences of each, not too complex.
First, proper definitions. To me, the words themselves are self defining.
Capitalism = of, by and for capital. Not four or five figure amounts, but far greater. Big money. Basically, oligarchal. Or quickly morphing to oligarchal.
Socialism= of, by and for people. Sounds simple. But it’s never been done on a large scale. But the power rests with the people, and mostly from the ground up to the top, which would be mostly coordination, not controlling. The real power is local and area, among the people. No powerful person or group at the top running things.
Far and away, most people want the same things and generally agree on the basics, including values. But – and here is the fly in the ointment – there are some, roughly 5%, give or take, that are sociopaths. Unable to empathize, only concerned with themselves. And here is the problem.
Whatever system you have, ultimately the biggest problem with be the sociopaths; the greedy, the kind that have no regard for others. And these you will find in positions of power in order to gather all they can for themselves, and at the expense of others.
Capitalism lends itself well to sociopaths. Socialism less so if not centralized, State run.
Another basic problem: The State. If the State has ultimate power, it will be inhabited by sociopaths in the top positions. Regardless of the type of economy or form of government, it will be a State run system. Capitalism all but guarantees this. Socialism – in order to become established and displace Capitalism – must have a strong State to get started. And once that strong State is there, it will not change.
Socialism can work, in theory, but it has to have peace and no interference from the outside to get started and organized. And no sociopaths in power. And this takes time. In todays world, that is not possible. First of all, the competitive capitalist system has to be totally done away with. And then, survival through the transition period resulting in the power resting in the people, not the State.
So then, my question:
How do we deal with, control, or do away with the sociopaths, and in a fair manner?
And then, how do we establish a cooperative system instead of a competitive one?
Yugoslavia SFRY, the small Yugoslavia of Milosevic, Iraq, Lybia and Syria were socialist.
They have been attacked and erased from the world map.
You’ve made some good points and quite accurate description of all that western capitalisam, British colonialisam and US neocolonialisam, but than, so did Marx. I cannot agree with your view of socialisam.
First of all I think that you are wrong in your viewings of distribution of wealth to the people. I can think of a few cases where that actually worked well enough. For example Zapatist movement in Mexico and Spanish revolution. I will mention Paris commune and Spartacists. I agree that there will always be some kind of hierachy and there will always be some kind of leadership. Even in anarchisam. That is because you need leaders in every revolution. You need that few individuals who ignite the masses. But those leaders are not the problem. They come from the people, they fight for the people and they stand with the people. Problem are all those other people who stand between the leader and the common people. Those are called bureaucrats. Problem with them is that they want to distribute the wealth between themselfs first, and than give the rest to the people. And the more bureaucrats you have the less wealth remains for the common people. That is how you end up poor in a rich country. And than you have situation when bureaucrats become leaders, and than you know that something went very wrong. Instead of “dictatorship of the proletariat” you get “dictatorship of the bureaucrats”. That is something Bakunin told to Marx right before Marx had him kicked out of Internationale.
Second, I don’t like that “Stalin terror” phrase that much either. Most of the thing we know about that come from western media who did their best to demonise Stalin. They added every man who didn’t die of natural causes to a “victim of Stalin’s terror” list. That would be like saying that every man who died of hunger in the world is a victim of Adam Smith. Although I can see more sense in that second statement than in the first one. Official numbers are about 600k. And in my opinion that is also too high because after Stalin there came Nikita Hrushchev who didn’t like Stalin that much and so he added the real number as well. So in my opinion the real number isn’t more than 200k. Ok, enough of defending Stalin. And no, I don’t have Stalin’s picture burried somewhere in my basement, but that is mainly because there isn’t that much basements in Zagreb. :) But I do indeed place Stalin higher than most revolutionaries with an exception of Fidel Castro.
Final point. I love how you remembered to mention “fascist Croatia” but somehow forgot to remember that the government in Serbia at the time wasn’t that much different. And you somehow forgot that “Chetniks” and “Ustase” were colaborating a lot, especially when they were fighting partisans or they needed to burn some partisan village. And as if the Tudjman’s and Milosevic’s regimes were that much different. They both created a lot of brother-killing people. And I really don’t like all of that “We the Serbs” stuff. They sound too much like some serbian radical nationalist and “Us the Croats” type fascists that you can see in every corner of this country. Where are those Serbs who refer to us as “our people” rather than “those blood-thirsty Croatin buthcers”? And also why is serbian version of this blog on serbian cyrilic rather than latinic letter? You people know cyrilic as well as latinic and as I can recall Saker made the point that “They the Russians” are good at military, decent in economy and bad in all of that softpower stuff and that they need the people that will spread the word around. So, isn’t there more logic in making that blog in latinic simply because more people will be able to read it.
Again I’m having deep problems with the definitions of socialism and communism, however similar are not congruent. It may help to hold socialism as social control and/or direction of the economic means of production; communism would be the social ownership of the means of economic production. Ownership implies property. That would be the basis of my earlier contribution to the commentary here: that state capitalism was parading as communism.
This conflation of similar ideas becomes a problem when considering the four means of economic production (and the incomes accruing to each): Land (Rents); Labour (Wages); capital [economic tools] (Interest); and the Entrepreneur (Profits). When the markets for economic production become controlled by either monopoly or monopolistic domination, the economic distinctions between means of economic production and their incomes are conflated with profits and camouflaged as Capital’s interest. Capital, aka tools necessary for economic production is immaterial and without address and cannot be charged with the crimes of the entrepreneur (or commissar) committed in its name.
Precise definitions are required; their absence makes for dismal science.
Well, totally agree with the last 3 comment (to say, Blue, MK Ngoyo and Petar).
The author, Andreja, comes, curiously, with the same speech, which is also the establishment of communism and socialism have been proven as ineffective as capitalism. This leads to the actual danger and first goal of the oligarchical elites, viewing the necessary return to socialism of oppressed populations in the wild neoliberalism that has become their “capitalism”, that is to leave us with no ideology, naked, as if passing birth waiting to be molded for something new, probably worse.
My admired Professor Monedero always points the idea (can not remember of whom, perhaps Gramsci) that of to keep eye! “when the old is outdated and new does not stop arriving, the monsters appear.”
What I was trying to point yesterday, with that text in Spanish I attached (I guess many of you have not bothered to translate it), is that communist systems that have been, included Stalin´s, never had the opportunity to develop in retention times of peace or without harassment by the “guarantor of democracy USA and his henchmen”. Immersed in massive wars and continuous blocks, plus harassment from within through fifth and sixth columns ever could develop in the same conditions as capitalism, to who the socialist countries have never harassed.
For the same reason the continuous harassment, these socialist systems had to evolve towards a policial and political such defensive apparatus, which degenerated into quasi-dictatorship.
So, yes, capitalism yes, it has rebelled unable to solve the problems of most people, staying as the guarantor of the interests, spurious, of a few thugs.
However, socialism still have the benefit of the doubt on how it will worked in times of permanent peace, no harassment, no blocks by Hegemon-
Getting rid of the Hegemon and oligarchs who run it, and give an opportunity to socialism, articulating with popular control agencies so that, if the system derailed in some kind of authoritarianism, retain the power to dismantle the ruling domes and replace with others who respect the law established by all and steps toward the common good.
“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.”
i stopped reading right there. A victim of the gulag is supposed to give up his “privileged” position just so he can satisfy your conditions on what a supposed “objective” viewpoint is?
Essays that begin with this is more about silencing voices than establishing genuine and well-intentioned parameters of debate.
There is NO such think as objectivity! The Killers of the Killing Fields did not arrest and torture a metaphor but a living breathing human being–a subject!–who dissented.
As an Afrocentrist I find these reevaluations of dessicated European value systems amusing–all genuflecting before The Gods Who Are Dead–meanwhile in the Black and Brown world the stirrings of new spiritual values in the fight against Empire can be perceived–the Ethiopian-derived Madonna and Child of Russian Christian Orthodoxy notwithstanding.
They key will not be finding……. the right answers, but asking the right questions. OK, lets restart: The subject of all kinds of politics are human beings. How they behave? As they learned for millions of years. They live successfull in groups with explicit rankings AND social behavior. This way they spread over the world, lead by competition. So every human being is skilled in ranking systems from family until state. Everybody is everytime looking for his own actual and future ranking in groups. The bold ones become leaders which are in competition which each other. The so called capitalisme is only one way to gain top positions in a ranking. Yes and it creates a lot of collateral damages, which started the socialisme as a try to change ranking positions. We have to accept that top rankers fight each other in all ways, losses included by will.(I dont care about a million death as long I am the imperator of….) This development did not extinct the second part of successfull evolution: the social behavior of human beings. Its benefits during evolution are impressive, so even now everybody has a feeling of right and wrong. This part is to intensify.
Conclusio: We dont have to care about capitalisme and socialisme. First of all we have to tame the excesses of topranking seekers in our social systems. Propositions are welcome!
Thanks to the saker
M.W.
@Petar:
Regarding what your coleague of the department of philosophy said
“…that all the human sacrifices under Stalin absolutely pale in contrast to *the sum total* of all the untold sufferings of all the people who live under the capitalism! “
I can only remember one fragment of a letter of resignation that was written by an employee of the World Bank or IMF (I do not remember, but I do not care, they are the same), who had worked in Africa, to his superior, and that we can find in the book of Naomi Klein’s “the Shock Doctrine” which, more or less said like this:
… “because of the things I’ve had to do in your name, my hands are so stained with blood, that there is not enough soap in the world to clean them …”
Implying that Socialism/Communism IS necessarily always absolutely without deviation Bolshevism/Marxism-Leninism is stupid.
Mondragon has been socialist for 50 or so years without ‘state control.’ Thousands of co-operatives exist all over the world.
As Chomsky put it, The USSR called itself socialist to legitimize it’s illegitimate rule, and the US called the USSR socialist to delegitimize a legitimate attempt to create a sustainable social order.
The system used by Russians or Vietnanamese wasn’t socialism but war (or military) communism. It’s extremely unjust, efficiency driven system, similar to regime in forced labour camps. Nothing in common with a version of socialism. It can exist only in defensive war against obvious agression. Sadly, it’s also source of power of current Islamic State which is (besides its subsidiary activities) organisation protecting Sunni Muslims in Syria and Iraq against very real oppression.
…”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.”
Sounds good to me, let’s start the new year outside the iron box of stupidifications.
Young people, teenagers especially, need teachers who are original, genuine and totally fired up with enthusiasm for their ideas of life, science, art, whatever..
In the UK our education system is akin to a living nightmare. One hardly knows who to feel more sorry for, the children or their teachers.
The worst of it is the creeping, strangulating forms of control and thought that first raised their monstrous heads in the education systems of Bolshevism in Mother Russia.
Saker, this theme may seem unrelated but it is not, please will you CONSIDER writing an article for this series on the Three-fold Social Order ideas of Rudolf Steiner? – yes you because your style is readable, and there won’t be too much chest thumping, and maybe if we’re lucky, there’ll be some humour, and also I like your spelling, and maybe there will be some new ideas for you if you are not already familiar with this topic. (((cheer!!!)))
pb
The education system has always been, in fact most education systems are, like that…a creeping strangulating form not so much of thought control but of dissuasion from thought…or as some one put it “it teaches us to spell words but not to deduce their meaning”…
While I enjoyed the writing style and description of capitalism in this article by Andreja Vrazalic, I had some serious disagreements with the author’s coverage of the socialist side. Ironically, the author seems to have bought into the propaganda about socialism they mention here:
“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.”
But what I wanted to say about that has already been very well covered in the comments, so I’ll leave it at that.
Another thing in the article I strongly disagreed with was the author’s characterisation of human nature. This appears to be the textbook neocon that selfishness makes the human. This also has been debunked in the comments quite thoroughly, so I wont say more.
So in summary, I would say the author nailed down capitalism well, but failed to really address a real socialist alternative. So basically, the article was really only about capitalism.
The comments posted here are some of the best discussion I have seen in a long while. As a tool to elicit intelligent and informative discussion, the article did a fantastic job. Thanks everyone, excellent job.
вот так
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/02.10/conspiracy.html
Socialism, the road to power for the super rich.
Sorry Saker, but this piece, “Rethinking Politics: The Irresistible Lure Of Socialism”, does not really advance the global debate about socialism vs capitalism—still the maximum debate of our age— because it is a thinly veiled attack on socialism from a man pretending to be impartial and fair. AT BEST we can see the author is a member of the shameless anti-communist “left” so prevalent in the West anreven in the old Soviet bloc, a bourgeois pretending to be fair about what socialism does and doesn’t have to offer.
It’s pure delusion to think we have so many choices on the plate. History has shown the flaws of most if not all past formations, including “capitalist democracy” (which is way more capitalistic than democratic), and “Constitutional monarchies”, which end up honoring a fossilized social system.
With all its flaws, inevitable when you consider the incredibly hostile historical environment in which socialist construction has been attempted, whether in Cuba, China or the USSR, the fact remains that socialism is the political arrangement that promises (and delivers) the most to the masses. In that sense Andreja Vrazalic’s ponderous text does not begin to do justice to the historical matrix in which socialism was born or existed. Like so many other Eastern European/former Soviet bloc middle class intellectuals, Andreja Vrazalic is still enamored with capitalism and its market freedoms (sic).
considering The Saker’s intent and worthy contributions to social information, we expect a deeper, longer discussion of socialism in these pages.
For our part we suggest the readers of this blog spend 10 minutes listening to Michael Parenti —one of the best genuine socialist intellectuals the US and the West has produced, analyzing the overthrow of communism, by whom and with which results. It’s a sobering lecture. With far less meandering, he explains the reality we confront far better than Andreja Vrazalic.
He’s the main link t the audio:
http://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mparenti_reflections.mp3
A video version, with subtitles in Dutch is available on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYVes44hcJg
Viva Novorossiya, the great Russian People, and with our best wishes and support for the new year of struggles—
Patrice Greanville, Editor, The Greanville Post
Branford Perry, Assoc. Editor
Sean Lenihan, Assoc. Editor
MK Ngoyo@05:46
Excellent comment, MK it shows just how insulated and discriminatory the North is about fresh ideas from the South. We ignore ideas coming from those we are used to exploiting
Paternalism, authoritarianism and the cult of the leader have infected all of the dogmas of Western thought since what we call civilization began. This is why even good ideas such as Socialism failed so regularly in the past.
There are examples of 21st Century Socialism growing in South America with some success and many challenges
I’ve read most of the comments offered on this topic and there is one common thread that is clear to me: people are not happy with the historical systems of governance humanity has been subjected to (socialism, communism, capitalism, fascism, monarchism, etc.) and the quasi-variants of these old world ideologies. I also am not satisfied; we need something new if not for us then for posterity.
I suggest we start over with a blank sheet of theoretical paper and list the things we do want and the things we don’t want. We’ll go back and forth and find some common ground and maybe even give it a name. We’ll be the new founding fathers so to speak.
Here is want I personally want: (1). I want to be able to freely express my ideas concerning any subject (e.g. rules of societal behavior, commerce, health, education, religion, cultural traditions, etc.) without fear of reprisal, even if they are negatively received by others. If such ideas become popular among a coalition of like minded persons and are adopted by them, so be it. However by no means should such ideas be imposed by coercion upon other groups of people. (2). I reserve the right to protect myself from aggression by any defensive means necessary including deadly force without seeking permission from a higher authority. (3). I want to be able to freely move about by any means available as long as it does not infringe on the lives of others or usurps the use of their property without their permission or by deception. (4). I want to engage in commerce with others without seeking permission from a higher authority so long as that activity does not directly endanger the lives of others or cause damage to their property.
Here is what I want from governance: (1). There are only two acts that are considered crimes against persons: assaults and the taking of property by theft or by fraud. (2) People are to be left alone so long as they do not commit a criminal act. (3). If a defendant is accused by another person of committing a crime; the accuser, not the government, must prosecute the defendant in a criminal court except in the case where the accuser is unable to prosecute in which case the government is the prosecutor. If found guilty the punishment must be commensurate with the crime. (3). If a defendant is accused of committing a tort against another person; the accuser must prosecute the defendant in a civil court. If found guilty the compensation must be commensurate with the damages caused by defendant.
Here is want I don’t want: (1). I do not want to be coerced by government to participate in any activity for which I have no interest.
That’s my starting point; feel free to comment with criticisms, additions, changes, etc.
What about the economic democracy in Yugoslavia? The workers had a degree of self-management of their workplaces – incidentally (at least according to economist Robert Hahnel) Yugoslavia had the highest economic growth rate in the world for part of the post-war Keynesian world order. Surely, this is what socialism is basically about – economic democracy, democratic decision-making at the workplace, for the benefit of communities rather than for a few private capitalists? A truly good society should combine economic, socialist democracy with political, liberal democracy – so far all attempts att creating such societies (anarchist Spain being perhaps the greatest example) have been ruthlessly crushed. According to Chomsky, all the other major powers – fascists, communists and liberals – pretty much collaborated in bringing about the downfall of the revolution. Surely, when all imperialist powers of differing ideologies wholeheartedly agree on being against something, that should give us a clue to what what we should be for.
@Where-Wolf: Frankly, I don’t object to you coming back. What I *do* object to is you coming back pretending like nothing has happened. But something did. You posted a nasty, stupid, slanderous and plain rude comment (http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/12/ruble-oil-shale-gas-derivatives-and_8.html?showComment=1419314889819#c116866123472899499) in which you specifically implied that I had sold out to the devil. You also insulted my religion. Okay, we all have our moments, but unless you muster the courage for an apology you are no longer welcome here.
The Saker
MK Ngoyo @ 28 December, 2014 06:46 said…
100% correct Well written..
Petar @ 28 December, 2014 07:28 said…
“all the human sacrifices under Stalin absolutely pale in contrast to *the sum total* of all the untold sufferings of all the people who live under the capitalism!”
well said!.
cheers.
“Socialism in practice entails dictatorship and state-run economy.”
Err…as a postgrad-certified political scientist I cannot even begin to describe the flaws in this statement.
COMPLETELY wrong.
The article seems to indicate one thing very clearly, this is the particular phobias and prejudices of the writers being dressed up in pseudo-rational argument based on demonstrably false assumptions, false premises and flawed conclusions.
Might be worthwhile to try some reasoned analysis based on scientific method maybe?:-
1. make hypotheses.
2. test these hypotheses with unbiased methods (experimental methods, sampling etc, etc). also ensure these tests are reliable (can be duplicated by others)
3. Evaluate the hypotheses again in light of the measured empirical results – proven or not etc.
This man fails on ALL counts.
VERY sad.
But thanks for posting it :)
“Socialism is a system just geared for war – just ask the Spartans.”
What on Earth is that supposed to mean?? LOL
The Spartans had a FASCIST system. The Spartan city-state was EVERYTHING and all needs were sublimated to it. That is what fascism is. Please read some of Thucydides’ Pelopponesian War on how the Spartans lived etc and some basic political analyses’ of their state!!!
Rather than just the movie interpretation (based on Frank Miller’s COMIC book)???
This is plain WRONG.
Using it to illustrate a point as a fait accompli example of socialism in action is VERY dishonest and just abysmal scholarship on EVERY level.
Again, the writer is confusing statist absolutism (fascism) with communism and socialism. Maybe this is because of the writer’s personal experience with statist Stalinism, which is merely fascism with another label (communism and/or socialism being the lavel used) since it has little to do with actual socio-ideological socialism or communism as expounded by Marx or any other economic analyst, economic historian or political analyst (of ANY political persuasion).
This is dishonest in the extreme and makes this article very flawed and misleading for many readers who may not be trained in academic or political analysis.
I would like to point out that I am not a socialist or a communist – so I have NO personal animus here.
Actually I am an anarchist zeitgeister :), so to defend any kind of statism is a bit distasteful to me to tell the truth :).
But I am academically trained in these areas and find such flawed premises, baseless assertions, bad historical knowledge, faulty analysis and sheer dishonesty disturbing to say the least.
Andreja (the writer) – thank you for at least expending the effort but you must do a LOT better, since this is not good at all.
Are the Yanks really going to force a war over Crimea?
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/dont-risk-war-with-russia/
Gorbachev was the golden boy of the West until he said that he saw the Soviet Union developing into a democratic socialist state similar to Sweden. Within a year he was replaced by a drunk (Yeltsin) who gave a party, which was followed by the theft of billions in state assets much of it now in Montenegro, London, Paris, New York and Nicosia real-estate and banks. Shaker and Mr. Vrazalic you have swallowed Western propaganda about Marxism (Communism) , which has been with us since the Paris Commune.
As Marx’s ideas became popular upper classes used the power of the state to attack Marx and his ideas. The attacks continue to this day. These attacks manifested themselves in two World Wars . WWI was orchestrated by the upper classes to silence the rise of unionism and labor discontent while WWII was a Western Plot to get Nazi Germany into a war with USSR in hopes that Fascism would destroy Stalinist Dictatorship and Britain and France could once more step in and claim the spoils. As you know both the Upper Classes and the Western powers failed to achieve their objective and in the process lost their colonial empire and dominant position in world affairs. The dominant position in world affairs moved from London and Paris to Washington and Moscow.
Due to concentration of the Media in the West in private hands, journalism succumbed to propaganda, and in the minds of many, Washington became synonymous with Democracy while Moscow became synonymous with dictatorship. In reality they were both dictatorships . Washington was and continues to be a corporate dictatorship while Moscow was a state dictatorship. In reality both were capitalist, one was/is ruled by corporate bosses while the other was ruled by deputies. Wealth flowed from the work of common people to the privileged elite in both societies.
Lenin attempted to establish Communism in Russia after gaining power. He failed as distribution of goods became chaotic during War Communism. Lenin reintroduced some privatization in agriculture with state control of industry, a mixed Capitalist society with Lenin as dictator was established.
Stalin’s, Mao’s, Ho’s, Tito’s, Castro’s, and Kim’s, rule was not communism but state Capitalism with a political dictatorship running the show. Journalists in the West never mentioned the democratic socialist parties of Northern Europe or any socialist party that e3xisted in UK, France or Italy in defining socialism. They always used Stalin, Mao, Kim and the dead bodies that were a result of social engineering as examples when writing about socialist parties in the Americas.
To Western Journalists as far as America was concerned Civil Rights Movement was a Communist Plot, the death squads in Central and South America were OK since the perpetrators were friendly dictators. The death of one Polish priest was front page news while the death of many priests and nuns in Central and South America was omitted or the news was buried in a two sentence column in the back section of the paper.
Gentlemen give me an example of a society where political and economic democracy has found a home so I can go and see it for myself.
Gorbachev was the golden boy of the West until he said that he saw the Soviet Union developing into a democratic socialist state similar to Sweden. Within a year he was replaced by a drunk (Yeltsin) who gave a party, which was followed by the theft of billions in state assets much of it now in Montenegro, London, Paris, New York and Nicosia real-estate and banks. Shaker and Mr. Vrazalic you have swallowed Western propaganda about Marxism (Communism) , which has been with us since the Paris Commune.
As Marx’s ideas became popular upper classes used the power of the state to attack Marx and his ideas. The attacks continue to this day. These attacks manifested themselves in two World Wars . WWI was orchestrated by the upper classes to silence the rise of unionism and labor discontent while WWII was a Western Plot to get Nazi Germany into a war with USSR in hopes that Fascism would destroy Stalinist Dictatorship and Britain and France could once more step in and claim the spoils. As you know both the Upper Classes and the Western powers failed to achieve their objective and in the process lost their colonial empire and dominant position in world affairs. The dominant position in world affairs moved from London and Paris to Washington and Moscow.
Due to concentration of the Media in the West in private hands, journalism succumbed to propaganda, and in the minds of many, Washington became synonymous with Democracy while Moscow became synonymous with dictatorship. In reality they were both dictatorships . Washington was and continues to be a corporate dictatorship while Moscow was a state dictatorship. In reality both were capitalist, one was/is ruled by corporate bosses while the other was ruled by deputies. Wealth flowed from the work of common people to the privileged elite in both societies.
Lenin attempted to establish Communism in Russia after gaining power. He failed as distribution of goods became chaotic during War Communism. Lenin reintroduced some privatization in agriculture with state control of industry, a mixed Capitalist society with Lenin as dictator was established.
Stalin’s, Mao’s, Ho’s, Tito’s, Castro’s, and Kim’s, rule was not communism but state Capitalism with a political dictatorship running the show. Journalists in the West never mentioned the democratic socialist parties of Northern Europe or any socialist party that e3xisted in UK, France or Italy in defining socialism. They always used Stalin, Mao, Kim and the dead bodies that were a result of social engineering as examples when writing about socialist parties in the Americas.
To Western Journalists as far as America was concerned Civil Rights Movement was a Communist Plot, the death squads in Central and South America were OK since the perpetrators were friendly dictators. The death of one Polish priest was front page news while the death of many priests and nuns in Central and South America was omitted or the news was buried in a two sentence column in the back section of the paper.
Gentlemen give me an example of a society where political and economic democracy has found a home so I can go and see it for myself.
Wow – I just read Where wolf’s historical analysis of the bolshevik Revolution and Mao’s ascendancy and their links to Jewish/Anglo/Zionist conspiracy.
amazing….
I wonder if – when I have actually stopped myself from being physically ill from laughing so hard – he would ever get time to actually start a blog of his own, as he states is so hard to do.
Difficult to find the time with all those invisible bogeymen to track down and more and more furniture to chew on :)
Sorry Wolfie mate – couldn’t resist – it’s the historian in me from my BA :)
The guidelines of this Saker project appear to favor questions rather than fixed notions. My first question is: why? Shall we do away with the North Star? Or Shakespeare’s famous poem on love?
Why do we omit or misrepresent the first 50,000 years of our species? Was it really hunting and gathering, or was it gathering (together as people) and gathering (food)?
Is work itself a way to “civilize the savages”? Does any ism system question the work ethic?
Is this true or false: “Human nature is. . .people gravitate toward hierarchy. . .In any system.”?
True or false? “Hierarchy will exist anyway.”
Is good capitalism “The system that is closest to nature and humans”?
Why is the dualism of capitalism and communism so easily assumed? Why is politics accepted? Why do “We live in a political world.”? (Dylan).
If socialism is “a system geared for war (Spartans)” and Stalin’s crimes pale in comparison with capitalism’s, why is this dualism itself not rejected?
I have many other questions about this “third way” of culture, but I am constrained in this culture by my fixed notions. Regardless, this saker project is the best question venue I’ve seen in some time. Thanks.
Prior to all kind of theories that are discussed. Nobody mentioned an essential motivation why one should be part of a whole – a whole that embodies & tributes all the individual qualities of their members.
This indeed has to do with the question that has started with the trick-box “socialism,” assuming that this motivation (any “-ism”) grounded in a cultural and mathematical approximation of our reality, would do the trick. While both are derivatives of the reality, they are in that dependencies unable to act; they can’t escape the box of moods & abstractions.
Really out of the box and inspiring would be a society that is centralized & designed to establish ones most own – that by its nature connects everyone and everything.
Feng
for an ideology that may go beyond all the “-isms” and the dichotomies of individuals vs groups and the need for money etc – why not take a look at the following?:-
1. the zeitgeist films at – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbIu8Zeqp0
2. The Venus Project – https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/
worth a look even if we don’t see it in our lifetimes :)
To Earl Duthler @ 28 December, 2014 12:39 said…
“How do we deal with, control, or do away with the sociopaths, and in a fair manner?
And then, how do we establish a cooperative system instead of a competitive one?”
R. sociopaths & psycopaths are easy to identify from an early age,as are empaths.
Early school behaviour shows all! ,but while this class of person RULES,they will never change the system which empowers them.
Swinging cats by the tail?,pulling the wings off butterflies? and other such escapades?..
” boys will be boys” ..they say!.
School is the first place that actively encourages competition (outside of family),think teams, e.g. debating groups,’top of the class’,’prefects’,sports etc.
But who sets the curriculum?,thats right! the status quo!.
Home schooling by committed parents can help,but only a critical mass,of critical thinkers will be effective in creating meaningful change to the education system.
The education system is merely a system to produce the appropriate cogs for the machine,it does not ‘educe’ i.e. ‘to bring out’,the system ‘puts in’,that is,it conditions the mind of the young to… ‘fit in’,’belong’,conform….
“Some peoples lives roll easy,some never roll at all”…..Paul Simon
Caveat Emptor.
Medivil – LOVE the Obama youtube in the first comment btw – many thanks!!!
sadly all too true though, and also goes for all other US Presidents, Merkel, Camemoron, Tony B. Liar and all the rest too :/
“mark fitzgibbon said…”
Tsk, tsk…
Spartans fascist? Stalin fascist?
And I am intellectually dishonest???
Nice…
Please look at communist heads of state – I don’t recall a single one that is not in uniform – Stalin, Castro, Tito (and did he love his uniforms)… Constant saber rattling.
For other readers:
I certainly have no love lost for the Yugoslavian communists, but I said that openly at the beginning, and that was not the point of the article anyway. The point was the national liberation movements tended to go for communism/socialism. In other words communism/socialism obviously had something strongly going for it with people trying to win back their freedom. What exactly, that I am not sure, but I gave my hypothesis. Someone mentioned Parenti – I listened to his lectures recently, and loved the part criticizing the Western System. I just don’t buy into the story of socialism being more just.
The first thing to do when talking about something as amorphous and vague as “Socialism” is to define your terms. The definition put forth by this author – “Dictatorship and a State-run economy” is so horrible and Marxist that any further discussion is fruitless. I prefer Wikipedia’s – Socialism is the “social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy.” Both Marxism and Capitalism concentrate economic and political power into the hands of an elite – Socialism should democratize and share it.
To Elsi @ 28 December, 2014 13:57
Thank you for the link you posted about Stalin…. I used Yandex to translate:
https://translate.yandex.com/translate
(which defaults to english but choose from the list) I keep it as a bookmark entry.
The problem in communicating on this blog is the large number of time zones and the large number of comments,often cross threaded.
I appreciate your contribution,as I am sure do many others,Gracias.