by Gary Flomenhoft
This whole Bernie thing has got people debating about what socialism is. Is it New Deal liberalism? Scandinavian welfare statism? State communism? Or what?
Let me simplify it for you. Socialism is basically anything run by or paid for by government.
Socialism is what free enterprise needs to operate. You might even call it the operating system for business. Business needs stable government, a strong judiciary to protect property rights and contracts, and good public services for delivery of materials and goods to firms and customers. All are socialist. Business also needs a socialist safety net to cover the failures of capitalism including the many people living in poverty and the enormous unemployment that results from the repeating collapse of the business cycle.
Let’s look at a typical firm making widgets or delivering services. Employees drive on socialist roads to work, and if they can’t afford a car they ride the socialist bus or socialist train. Trucks deliver materials and goods on socialist highways guarded by the socialist highway patrol. If there is a fire they call the socialist fire department at the socialist city hall where the socialist dispatcher works (except for a town in Tennessee with a private fire department, which lets people’s houses burn down if they aren’t subscribed[1]). For local crime they call the socialist police department usually at the same socialist city hall.
Their water is delivered through socialist pipes by the socialist water department, and their sewage is removed through socialist sewer pipes to the socialist sewage treatment plant, where it is treated by socialist sanitary engineers and disposed of safely. Their trash is picked up by the socialist public works department and taken to the socialist recycling center where it is separated, and solid waste taken to the socialist landfill. Lighting at the plant is provided by the local socialist or private electric company and delivered over socialist electric lines. Natural gas is delivered by the local socialist or private gas company and delivered through socialist gas pipes. Water, waste, electric, gas, and phone connections are called utility “hook-ups” at the site of an empty lot when something is going to get built. Having hook-ups to the socialist, tax-supported infrastructure (including roads) raises the “free market” property value by quite a bit.
The company may do their billing through the quasi-socialist postal service, and talk to people through the socialist telephone lines, or private cell phone towers both regulated by the socialist Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Advertising and most communication is through the socialist internet, created by the socialist US federal DARPA agency. They undoubtedly have a company website, using the world-wide web, which was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in his spare time working at CERN, a socialist research laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1993 Berners-Lee ensured that CERN would agree to make the underlying code (html, URL, http) available on a royalty-free basis, for ever, which sounds like a socialist (open-source), not capitalist (proprietary) thing to do.
[Side-note: I recently went to a talk by the local neo-liberal political party where the speaker said that only business creates innovation, and government suppresses it. Since the internet and world wide web are the two biggest innovations in the last 50 years, and both were created at government institutions, I just wonder how ideologues can be that dumb, but they are]
If company stock is traded on the private NY stock market, it is monitored for fairness (supposedly) by the socialist Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If they have a legal dispute they take it to the socialist local, state, or federal courts where a socialist judge or socialist jury decide the case. If it is a criminal case the socialist district attourneys and socialist prosecutors will try the case, and if the defendant can’t afford a lawyer they will provide a socialist public defender.
97% the money they use is created by private bank loans through the Federal Reserve System, a quasi-socialist private bank, whose profits supposedly go back to the government. The 3% of coins and bills are made directly by the socialist Treasury department.
On weekends employees walk on socialist sidewalks to socialist parks and lakes for picnics, or hike in socialist forests. They enjoy the clean air and water created by socialist legislation reducing the pollution by “free market” business, who formerly dumped it into the air and water directly to reduce costs and increase profits. If employees get sick they use prescription drugs, most of which were developed by socialist funding to researchers at socialist and private universities. When they retire they get socialist retirement benefits (Social security) and socialist health care (Medicare). Since employees pay for these insurance benefits themselves over their career, you might say they are not socialist, but all the government employees running them are socialist. If they are disabled on the job they get socialist worker’s compensation, and possibly socialist Medicaid if permanently disabled. If they become unemployed they get socialist unemployment insurance. Again this insurance is taken out of their salaries, but the employees running it are socialist.
If people are worried about invading communists disrupting capitalism, they rely on the socialist military who have socialist training, socialist pay, socialist health care, socialist housing, and socialist everything else. Since it is a totalitarian system you might even call it communist. No wonder the military hates communism so much, they live in it! Imagine the US military fighting China, North Korea, or the old Soviet Union: communists fighting communists, for democracy, go figure!
What is the difference between communism, capitalism, and socialism?
Communism is when government runs business.
Capitalism is when business runs government.
Socialism is when people run business and government.
Gary Flomenhoft,
Gary Flomenhoft is a citizen of the Second Vermont Republic, rejecting the legitimacy of the quadruple Nuremburg War criminals currently running the US Empire, and advocates peaceful secession of Vermont from the Union. He is inspired by engagement of the youth, but not optimistic about Bernie’s “revolution”. Most recently he has been a university lecturer, academic and popular media writer and blogger. Currently resides in the land of Bush’s “Deputy Sheriff of the Pacific” Australia, where he is pursuing a PhD in political economy. For his first impressions of the land down under see:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-time-machine-in-australia.html
15 March, 2016
If an individual builds a product and its application is co-opted by government, does that too become socialist? My wife grew up just outside Tombstone AZ and there at least, in the beginning, the federal government wasn’t responsible for anything. Mail, roads and community defense against cattle rustling were all initiated by private individuals, for their own interest, and at their own expense.
Lately the Feds have seized local water rights and gifted military equipment to their agents.
What in this picture is socialist? Is it the business owners pooling funds to hire a sheriff? Or is socialism the federal government coming in and taking over certain institutions?
third string plug, what you are talking about is an underdeveloped community of eremites, where any external impact is a cultural shock and is considered a belligerent act. To talk about Socialism doesn’t make too much sense in absence of a complex society and a certain degree of development.
@ Bilito:
“””””To talk about Socialism doesn’t make too much sense in absence of a complex society and a certain degree of development.”””””
Exactly!
I honestly don’t really understand your comment. Tombstone was hardly a religious enclave, and outside forces were bandits, settlers, or natives tradings furs. The whole goup was made of foreigners, they were all from the outside and everyone (initially) was external.
How can something work on a large scale but not on a small scale? Or is there something required / beneficial in complexity for the theory to become functional? If so, what?
@third string plug
There is no difference between socialism and technocratic fascism. Like communism and capitalism, they are variations of the same Judaic theme –all together masquerading as ‘scientific’ but fundamentally committed to the godless values of shtetl refugees. Some are leftist-maternal while others rightist-paternal, the fundamental dialectic of all modern political interpretation.
As you can see by the answer given by Bilito and seconded by Martin, you are not ‘sophisticated’ enough to understand how Judaic and post Socratic inversion operates, therefore, your observations of reality are deemed completely invalid.
They used to call these people Judaisers but as you can see, they are fond of rebranding themselves, doing so whenever it suits their purposes.
That’s how Cohenism became Calvinism, way back in the 16th century Reformation, a project for Judaisation, repeated over and over for any ideology or belief system you can name.
C I eh?, thank you for your In-depth expertise or shall I say psychoanalysis. So this (see below) must be me.
ME!
Thank you again for making your ideological point of view clear. ;-)
Anyhow, if you like to say: “I built my house, built my fence, digged my well, made my land fertile and I am going to defend it with my gun against anybody, neighbor or coyote!”, so you have absolutely no need for any government, socialist or not. And of course you are absolutely right. Just keep your “Crocodile Dundee”-like way of live. But please, don’t poke your nose into other people’s problems (e.g. those who use to live in developed societies).
@C I eh?
I am a fellow Canadian and I really appreciate your posts. I first posted a comment in response to one of the Daesh Chronicles, and I concealed my country of residence because I was unsure if it would be accepted by others to consider Canada as under some kind of hybrid war… or something. Thank you for being so vocal about this. I appreciate your willingness to speak openly!!
About socialism, Canadian socialism is so not complicated, in my opinion. We hire the government as administrators for certain areas concerning all the citizens of Canada because we don’t have time to hold citizen referendums on the hiring of National Park Directors, set fishing quotas, mingle with the Queen, various Sultans and so on. I agree with your comments as to how something basic and pragmatic is misconstrued to serve special interests and ideologies. It’s not magic, a fairy tale, or some abstract art collage. It is very basic. It has nothing to do with party politics. In my opinion, if someone was to survey Canadians throughout the country at Tim Horton’s, the local arena, the mall, wherever, I believe you would find a broad consensus on what areas of responsibility the federal government should manage and administer — with the money they receive from taxes and other sources of revenue. Maintenance and preservation of national parks is one of them, I would guess. In Canada, so is the public healthcare system. The problem arises because the govt doesn’t want to do it – and here is where our blessed American neighbours and their boorish lobbyists come into the picture quite frequently. Although we do certainly have strong lobbies in Canada too (oil and gas, mining as examples) and there are legitimate areas of controversy (environment vs. natural resource exploitation, as one example).
So to Mama and Papa Ad agency and PR firm: fill the streets with your pinhead actors, fill the chat rooms with lengthy obscure comments, tell us more horror stories from Venezuela and from the days of the USSR. I still think Canadian citizens know what socialism is in Canada and although entertaining at times, these elaborate ruses and hoaxes do nothing to change that. Why is it that when a company decides to hire a firm to handle their accounting, whether it’s because they don’t have the knowledge in the company, or don’t want to do it, whatever, this is not a philosophical debate and is viewed usually as practical and prudent? But when we apply the exact, identical same reasoning to the government and the use of taxpayer (and other) funds (i.e. that taxpayers outsource to the govt), the streets fill with actors, there are balloons, costumes, games and family parties – it’s all too philosophical and controversial to possibly ever be resolved or agreed upon?? Who is paying these PR and advertising expenses anyway??
So frustrating. Why are we protecting anti-Canadians? I’m not sure if that’s an accurate assessment of what’s happening, but it sure feels like that in my day-to-day life.
You have two cows, the state takes both and gives you some milk
Your simplified example forgets to tell the story of those who don’t have any “cow” (or own a factory), which is the majority.
This example looks life USA 1950ties Anti-Commies propaganda.
Simple slogans for simple (poorly educated and otherwise misinformed) audiences.
p.s. Not every short slogan is necessarily a simple slogan.
That’s the difference between CCCP vs. USA’s.
Everyone has a cow (capital) in some form. We all play the role of producer, consumer, capitalist, entrepreneur etc at different times in our lives. They are simply roles. Not necessarily classes.
You know, business owners pooling their funds to hire a sheriff sounds kind of like a problem to me–at least, if you don’t happen to be a business owner. Lefties are always saying that the police are there basically to enforce the interests of the people with money. Apparently it’s a bit more nakedly true without a government.
“….and there at least, in the beginning, the federal government wasn’t responsible for anything.”
They were responsible for the most important thing. They cleared the land of the pesky natives so that proper economic activity could take place.
Just had a little discussion here with the lady and I (we) have another question for the author:
Uber is probably not socialist by anyone’s definition, as it’s effectively me and my car offering you a ride for consideration. Similarly, taxis are probably not socialist either, despite being regulated. Buses, despite being a fee for service, are socialist? Are buses socialist simply because they’re subsidized? Post office too? How about FedEx? Where is the line? I don’t see the line.
Socialism to me is a small group of people deciding what is best for me, with or without my consent, then forcing the decision. I think socialism is just a pretty word for totalitarianism, or, something designed to protect me from myself while flaunting perceived benefits that I may or may not want. And while I’m stuck in a system and unable to escape (try opting out of any benefit-privilege system under any government anywhere), cutsy labels make me feel better about it certainly.
I don’t want to pay for your kids to go to school. If I refuse to play along, I’m punished. Socialist or totalitarian? I can’t see a difference.
If you’re making money in this society, you are doing it because of the socialism you’re complaining about. If you’re not making money, are off the grid in various ways and so genuinely fairly self-sufficient, you don’t have to pay tax so you have nothing to complain about. Of course if that were true you wouldn’t be posting things on the internet.
Society exists. You are part of it and its beneficiary. Without it your life would be nasty, brutal and short. Whining about paying for people to go to school is moronic. If previous generations hadn’t gone to school, because society at large paid for it, you’d be a sort of poorer Amish.
PLG – first, I’m a big fan of most of your posts. Except this one, because while you know very little about me, you rattle off major (false) assumptions anyway, and seemingly do it to justify statism.
My wife and I are independent artists and we’ve been surviving at it for years. We receive no monthly government assistance, we both paid for our own educations, and neither of us have any debts. Our income has nothing to do with social benefits. We did not get to here because of socialism. In fact, quite the opposite. Socialism charges us gas taxes, sales taxes, income taxes and takes from us more than it gives.
Her great grand mother ran the trading post in Winslow. She did just fine without socialism too actually. She lived by her wits, had a gun for insurance, and left hundreds of ounces of gold for her kids. She didn’t need government for anything.
“Society exists.” Doesn’t justify any form of forced theft. People lived thousands of generations without socialism and we are both evidence of their survival. Socialism is not society, socialism is not required for society, and I think it’s normally impossible for more than 50% of the population to receive benefits, or would be, if money was real. Yet, here we are. With every government employee trying desperately to justify a system that takes from us so they may live (without having to be responsible for their own survival.)
“Whiny about paying for people to go to school is moronic.” Seriously, wtf is that? If you had to pay thousands of dollars per year to train street cops to learn military techniques, would that be okay with you? While I have no say in what is being taught, I will balk at all payments to anything I consider to be teaching slave thinking, social dependency, or group think.
I don’t want to fund new Ukranian government recruits to learn how to use US tactics against civilians, I suspect you don’t either, and I’m quite offended that you call my perspective moronic. Especially after using society at large to justify socialism, specifically from someone who clearly knows that humanity has spent much, much more time without central government than with.
If anything is moronic, it’s the attempt to supplant the work of my ancestors in building what we have into a characteristic of centralized government. My great grandfather arrived with a shovel, a stove and an axe. He got nothing from the state, because there wasn’t one, and proceeded to raise seven kids who all lived to be happy and old. Please don’t fault me for trying to do the same.
“I thought you were cute until I realized you’re a statist.”
(Actually seen on a California t-shirt.)
“My great grandfather arrived with a shovel, a stove and an axe. He got nothing from the state, because there wasn’t one, and proceeded to raise seven kids who all lived to be happy and old. Please don’t fault me for trying to do the same.”
You are the lucky one.
Most people try to pick some xxx-ism as a best way of managing a life in a cage.
When it comes to me, I don’t pick any. I don’t like to lie to myself. It’s just a stupid f@cking cage, no matter how you arrange it.
I enjoyed this debate, which is still going on within me.
The words mean something slightly different to everyone, and everyone has a different experience and different prejudices.
I used to immediately dismiss “Anarchy” as a stupid concept of complete chaos and interminable violence. Then I heard the etymology of the word explained as “No Ruler”. We all want to be free, so that seemed a little better than my previous prejudice of one huge bar room brawl of shootings and hold-ups.
Then I heard the etymology of “Government” broken down to equal “gubernare” = to restrain, and “ment” = mind, ergo……………… Mass Mind Control !!!
Then I heard about Natural Law….the immutable, omnipresent boundary conditions of the Universe that we live in and how its ONE application to society “Don’t Steal” contains all the Ten Commandments (each “don’t” is an expression of something not to steal, like a person’s life, or space that belongs to them, or spouse that is married to another, etc, etc.) and how many man made laws violate Natural Law.\, and are far worse than no man made law at all!!!
Then I heard an analysis of George H W Bush’s NWO speech https://youtu.be/txukr5zgHnw
declaring that with the glorious NWO, the “rule of law” (made by the psychpaths that George works for) will supplant “the Law of the Jungle” by which they mean Natural Law, which they will ignore, as they style themselves Gods and humanity as their slaves.
Then I decided that Internal Monarchy (Mon = One Archy = Ruler so, One Ruler…..I and no one else rules me…) sounded good, coupled by External Anarchy (no one outside of me ruling me or others, which could work, theoretically, if I and everyone else obeyed Natural Law and NO ONE stole anything from anyone else.
Then what? Well for now, we have freeways or autobahns, Martin, built by Mind Control, and External Anarchy means no Highway Patrol, no more speeding tickets. Cool!!!
Then I wondered if I really wanted to chance losing my life because someone decided to go 140 mph and lost control and hit me, or whether it were better to put up with the Highway Patrol until more drivers reach a state of Enlightenment????
Then you get into states, armies, militias, gun control, the right to bear arms and use justified force if unjustified force (violence) is violating my or your Natural Law rights, etc, etc, etc ad infinitum.
The answer is obviously a world of fully Enlightened human beings free of Mind Control living in peace and harmony under Natural Law!
The Trick is: How to Get from Here to There. In the meantime, I find myself in a state of gratitude that formerly communist Russia and still communist China are blocking the the imprisonment of the entire planet by our self appointed Gods of Olympus and their psychotic NWO project.
Hmmmm. This is somewhat complicated.
“and still communist China”
Interesting – until that.
I see you are prone to predictability in your responses, Anonymous. Work on that. Machines are “turned off” or “turned on” by switches. Humans should not function that way. It is called “Mind Control”. Makes you putty in the hands of the controllers…………………..I seek no approval from mechanical devices. The world is more rich, more interesting than your binary options of either “circuit open” or circuit closed. That’s mind closed. Case closed.
“Case closed”
Er, which case are you referring to?
The case of your mind, clearly, the one that closed down because of one trigger word, on pre-programmed instructions from your controllers.
I’m busy today with house hunting, but others here may offer you some help in freeing your mind.
Best of luck with that noble goal!
“I’m busy today with house hunting”
Good luck with that – you’ll be able to free your mind from the crazy date syndrome for a while.
Actually, I am into multi-tasking and reserve as one worthwhile task the work of penetrating the thickest skulls that come out of the woodwork, but want to blend in with it by refusing to choose a handle.
Your comment on number, by the way, is simply incompetent and unconscious.
Try Number, The Silent Poetry and Number Symbolism and see if you have anything whatsoever to say on the subject after Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas, among others, have opened a slight crack in your cranium.
I can’t seem to get any of my not-so-agapic replies to Anonymous with the snide suggestions through the moderator, so let’s try Agape.
By the way, others, this is not an entirely personal p***ing contest between Bro Anon and Anonymous. There is a broader point that more than a few people besides Anonymous may not yet understand about the human construct of Number, that is worth the time to at least introduce..
Which leads in fairly short order to 911 and the flight numbers, especially 93, but it is obvious that a few short tutorials are required, in order to not leave most of the skeptics (easily 99% of all persons…yes I uderstand this is an uphill task……) scratching their heads and deciding to remain where exactly where they are, without further investigation, wandering about “on the checkerboard floor of the house”.
All I will go over today is Anonymous’ number, the number of Ego, the number NINE.
In Masonry, it is also known as the number of Base Consciousness. It has a corrolary, which is the physical symbol known as “The Floor of the House” generally, or more specifically “The Checkerboard floor of black and white tiles at the base of the Temple of Solomon”.
These rich allegories pertain to human consciousness AND specifically also, specifically, to the structure of the human brain. Ignorance of these matters is ignorance of yourSELF!
Sol= Sun, the Sacred Masculine, the left hemisphere of the brain Mon= Moon, The Goddess, The Sacred Feminine, the right hemisphere of the brain. But we’re getting ahead, aren’t we?
The property of the number 9 is that adding it or multiplying using it fails to get you off the “floor of the house”. It does not “go anywhere”, it cannot rise:
9+ 8= 17 1+7 = 8 9 cannot change 8 (or ANY other number!) through addition of 9.
Nor through multiplication. 9 X 7 = 63 6+3 = 9 You start with 9, you are back to 9 ALWAYS.
9 X 2784 = 25,056 2+ 5 + 0 +5 + 6 = 18 1+8 = 9 You start with 9, you are back to 9 ALWAYS.
You start with EGO, add that to anything, without Care or Love, and all you get is more EGO.
The End, Number Symbology Tutorial #1
I assumed nothing; the options I listed are the only ones that currently exist.
If it were not for the existence of publicly maintained infrastructure, public education and so forth, your ability to survive as an independent artist would not exist. There would be no stratum of society with both the money and cultural inclination to go around buying art from such people. You can pretend to be an island if you want, but a pretense is all it will be.
Your wife’s great grandmother and your great grandfather, contrariwise, almost certainly didn’t pay a whole heck of a lot of taxes. And they wouldn’t have bought your art. But in any case, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the fundamental enabler of that kind of life no longer exists. That is, the frontier, with its apparently-endless freely available land, which required a state only to conveniently genocide the injuns so when people grabbed that land there wouldn’t be anyone complaining. In the absence of a frontier, when all the land is owned and fairly expensive and there are quite a few people around, the alternative to public infrastructure is ignorance, poverty and cholera. Also, without the frontier keeping everything private does not allow independence, it allows exploitation–with the frontier, there is always the option for the factory worker, the mistreated servant, the peon of whatever sort to head for the frontier and homestead using the free land. Thus the frontier creates a stabilizer for class conflict. Without it, private overlords are as tyrannical as public ones, and you don’t get to vote on them.
But yeah, the frontier is gone. And that changes things fundamentally. Americans waxing romantic about frontier days are not presenting a serious political position, they’re just gullible people buying into a well crafted myth.
Excellent points, PLG, however, as they say “All generalizations are false, including this one.”
Isn’t Eastern Russia a pretty vast frontier? https://www.rt.com/politics/224099-russia-land-free-east/
Third String can live the example of his frontier ancestor settlers and take advantage of Putin’s offer of free land for those, either foreign or Russian, that will work it, in eastern, Asian Russia.
I haven’t been there, but I have been to Alaska, which is another place to head to, if you like moose, salmon swimming up the stream in front of your log cabin, etc, etc more than people and their interminable “isms”. Then, with no one around to be educated or provided health care or policed or anything else, no more complaints!
Except for the new complaint about lack of customers for buying the art he and his wife create.
Thanks for injecting some much needed common sense into the debate. Perhaps the main point is that “things change and evolve.” Technology marches forward and we cannot live as people did 100-200 yrs ago. A good example are Roma in Europe. They want to keep their lifestyle from 200yrs ago – while then it might have worked, today, not so much. Also, that child TSP objects to educating may one day grow up to the nurse or a doctor who saves his life… There are studies documenting that when people in societies learn to pool resources, they become more prosperous (with prosperous not defined strictly in financial terms). Even Genghis Khan realized this, when he united many warring and poor Mongolian tribes (I know, conquest would not have the preferred goal today, but those were different times). Socialism as it manifested itself in E. Europe and Sov. U. is likely not the only way, but it is important to understand it (without demonizing it), so we can learn. Today’s socialism would have to be different. Plus – anyway – resource constraints and climate change will force humanity to abandon unfettered capitalism, since it is unsustainable long-term (they just haven’t told us yet).
Very well said.
Additionally, I am amazed when folk assert the organization of their ancestral cultures were somehow not socialist. A unified defense against enemies, maintenance of a central culture/norms of interaction, language, assistance in times of poor harvest or epidemic, mediation of disputes, mutual respect for property rights and codes of conduct.
The note re the frontier and neo-liberal capitalism as is commonly understood also spot on.
Not a single person on this planet asked to be here, or asked to be bound up in pre-existing social contracts, whatever the nature. I’m not advocating for socialism on its own, but from a democratic world view it is to some extent the dominant desire anytime that desire is accurately reflected. Capitalism works great if there’s room for expansion (historically created through theft), or when it comes to luxury items and services.
As a general principle, cooperation keeps paying off as it paid off for untold millennia. The simple fact that any archaic (non-governed by written rules) society organizes into clans tells everything.
Fight socialism if you please. It will be as successful as fighting life. As a primer, you will have to fight alone. Any cooperation, for good or bad, will result in shared benefits or costs – the nucleus of socialism.
You should also understand that you are not living in a socialist society because the people do _not_ run the government. Instead, you live in an oligarchy – run by the rich and tailored to their needs.
By the way, the assumption that 50% cannot live off the rest is wrong because 60% to 75% live off the rest since decades. Think of an average family with three children and/or retired ancestors living off the parents’ work.
Why does that function, you keep asking?
Productivity! Today, one farmer feeds 50 to 100 people. Skipping all the consumer trash we are buying and producing just for the sake of economic growth, a mere 5% of the population could warrant a decent living for everyone.
Life brutal and short?
Don’t think so, as the hunter gatherers of this world were free, happy, and had long and healthy lives. Authority there was, goverment as we know it now, not. Usually it are both socialist as well as capitalist forces eliminating the really free people on this planet. For their own ‘good’, of course…
@PLG
Here in Europe off the grid is usually punished, as regulations exist to tax you more. School is mandatory up to 16 years old, enough to interfere with good, sound education. Homeschoolers in Europe as well as the US always win all contests and are often banned from competition.
So, where does the poorer Amish come from? Your fantasy?
So true, and well said. If the guys wife was in an accide t he would hope a paramedic will arrive in an ambulance and take her to a hospital building where nurses and doctors will tend to her. Life is other people, other people going to skool, other people being educated, other peoplebeing healthy and living their lives and going to and thro on public roads.
Third String Plug
Any group of people voluntarily (without coercion) deciding things collectively is “government” in my opinion including early Tombstone, AZ. The federal government can hardly described this way now. It is an oligarchy controlled by money, especially Wall St and the MIC. We are decentralists in Vermont. See: http://www.vermontindependent.org/
We still have town meetings to vote on police, fire, and school budgets.
As for your other questions, you pretty well missed the point of the article:
You said, “Uber is probably not socialist by anyone’s definition, as it’s effectively me and my car offering you a ride for consideration….Similarly, taxis are probably not socialist either, despite being regulated.”
You are ignoring the socialist roads they drive on, the socialist police who control the traffic, the socialist internet and www where they book the rides, the socialist schools that educated the people who created the internet and the www, the socialist DMV which licenses them, the socialist money system they use, etc. ad infinitum. But of course libertarians believe, “I did it all by myself!”
“Buses, despite being a fee for service, are socialist?”
Buses are run by municipal governments. I’m not talking about Greyhound or Peter Pan.
“Post office too?” The PO was 100% socialist for several hundred years since Ben Franklin created it as a public service (along with libraries and fire departments), but was recently privatized mostly.
“How about FedEx? Where is the line? I don’t see the line.”
FedEx is a private business, not run by government, but uses many socialist services.
BTW, the PO is required to offer service to east timbuktu for the same price as high traffic routes like NY-DC. Not so for FedEx.
You said, “Socialism to me is a small group of people deciding what is best for me, with or without my consent, then forcing the decision.”
You have defined totalitarianism.
I gave a simple definition as food for thought. government = socialist. Private = capitalist. There are many other possible definitions.
Thanks for all the comments.
GF
@ Gary Flomenhoft:
“You are ignoring the socialist roads they drive on, the socialist police who control the traffic, the socialist internet and www where they book the rides, the socialist schools that educated the people who created the internet and the www, the socialist DMV which licenses them, the socialist money system they use, etc. ad infinitum [..]”
^ Excellent comment, which proves Capitalism without Socialism cannot not even exist! And this is also the reason why Capitalism is known as predatory, or more precisely: as a parasitic system.
I’m all for Private businesses to be except from taxes, provided they’re prepared to pay for whatever they need to actually have any sort of business, including things like; private refuse removal, a hefty toll on roads [or any other form of public funded infrastructure they’re benefiting from], and things like rebating the State for the free State-funded education their employees had, that’s just to name a few… because as you said, the list is endless.
As the example you gave, the unlicensed Uber taxi driver is benefiting from a myriad of things the ‘socialist’ State gave him, but the most obvious has to be; free roads > which are not really free, they’re built, maintained and lit on the backs of the tax-payer.
This is why I believe there should be some form of two-tier tax system going on. If you work for a living [and that means if you work for someone else, not for yourself] you should still pay taxes, yes, but those taxes should be drastically reduced.
While if you’re a businessman seeking to make [private] profit out of things others built, you should be on a higher tax bracket. There shouldn’t even be a question about this.
But this is why we are in the situation we are. Those working for someone else, are paying the highest proportion of taxes, while, never-mind Corporate giants like Google or Amazon-> idiots like Cameron are still able to dodge taxes too!
That’s like… the complete reverse of the premise I’m proposing :/
-TL2Q
“I’m all for Private businesses to be except from taxes, provided they’re prepared to pay for whatever they need to actually have any sort of business”
With that you still end with the corporate oligarchy in control of the Government.
A solution: the man with the idea must be taxed to such an extent that his differential income (and accrued wealth) is within tight tolerance of the man that he employs (or who has no job). If the man is then not motivated to enact his idea by such reward then his idea should be left to rot (along with the search for “perpetual” growth).
A two-tiered tax system was one of the planks of Alexander Hamilton’s “American System” political economy, rather more like a sliding-scale system regulating both taxes and interest rates according to an objective measurement of the productive potential of private investment. In this way capitalist means of production can lead to attainment of the public good (or “common wealth” in the sense of Clay or Carey). Yet deep science and technological progress toward enlightenment and social freedom (NASA, internet, plasma physics, etc.) are often not “profitable” even under carefully layered incentives for investors who after all expect to see returns within their lifetime. The ticket for these “big picture” items (as well as highways, education, ports, health, railroads, power grid, etc.) needs to be picked up by some form of “government”, “administration” or however you tag your best shot at a universal social agent. The unit of action for this symbiosis of the one and the many is the Nation State, going back to the roots of the European Renaissance and the birth of modern science. The “Philosopher King” envisioned by Plato, or an institutional expression thereof, must strike a balance between individual well-being and the future greater good through the generalization of individual creative potential and social awareness, or what some in my generation used to call “historical identity.” A big “huh?” from the Trumpies, GOPniks and neocons, but also a wallop of skepticism from present-day “left”-ideologized (especially American) Baby Boom, X or “Millenial” generations, whose perception of social, physical and economic processes continues to sink into the muck of nominalist academic folderol which defines existence as the act of fitting into a category. Thus Marx failed to see, as he labored feverishly in his London library with his family dying all around him, that Hamilton, List, Clay, Carey and others had already done the math on the social component of what he interpreted as the principal thrust of capitalism as defined in his day by Malthus, Ricardo and Smith, paid agents of the British East India Company who promoted this hoax through Lord Palmerston’s and Giuseppe Mazzini’s “Young Europe” and other proto-fascist and -bolshevik spawn of Gorki’s and Lenin’s Isle of Capri, joined in the United States by Confederate General and KKK founder Albert Pike (he has a statue in Washington) who conspired with the above to destroy the legacy and influence of the original, brilliant and unique American System of socialist capitalism from within and from without, continuing today in the multifarious semantic and ideological phantasmagoria which increasingly haunt and bedevil our political landscape. Somebody please pick up on this before Alzheimer’s finally takes me out.
“Yet deep science and technological progress toward enlightenment and social freedom (NASA, internet, plasma physics, etc.)…”
Of course the opposite may also be the case
/russia-sitrep-april-12-2016-by-scott/comment-page-1/#comment-229419
BTW, back when I was a Marxist, “communism” was defined as “capitalism of state,” and “socialism” was some kind of metamorphic in-between stage, like a pupa or chrysalis. What Bernie is talking about is simple human decency. Actually, I’m not sure what he’s talking about, or he isn’t sure (or is he just “lily-livered,” like Hamlet?), because if he were (or weren’t) he wouldn’t have such a hard time trouncing shrieking harridan Hillary Clinton in these embarrassingly low-level, intellectually barren “debates,” and we wouldn’t be facing the ghastly prospect of a White House run by that lying, warmongering power freak. Whatever watered-down, Tinkertoy version of “socialism” Bernie offers, it has to be better than Hillary’s cackling “we came, we saw, he died.” That’s evil on a Caligula scale right there, and no form of socialism or capitalism poses a greater threat to our species (except perhaps “Il Duce” Trump, although his fate seems to be limited to precipitating the well-deserved demise of the Republican Party).
Gatopardo,
You have an epic writing style, a tour de force of history, philosophy, and political economy. I beg you to write a complete essay for the Saker blog on a subject of interest “before Alzheimer’s finally takes you out”.
Gary,
I agree that it’s epic but i’m not at all sure that there much of substance since it matters not who occupies the White House.
While history indicates the dictatorship of the oligarchy repeats ad infinitum (regardless of the “ism”) unless our collective consciousness says “no more” then we will be forever doomed to writing interesting essays about the problem.
In all my years visiting here the only words that really attempt to address the problem and hint at a solution were written by SysATI during a series of exchanges here /moveable-feast-cafe-2016-03-29/
I guess you’re right, unfortunately.
Thanks, G, but I’m afraid my fighting is behind me now, my whole life wasted on Quixotic pursuits with no effect on the world around me. Now I merely try to exert some residual influence in places where people still seem to be using their brains. But intellectual or moral integrity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and can’t alone guarantee the survival of civilization and a better future for mankind. Many readers would probably disagree with your characterization and consider my writing bombastic, pompous or vain. As a friend of mine puts it (a far better, more knowledgeable writer), I’m just “holding my nose and voting for Bernie.” Hope that works for now. Also saw an Australian movie last night, about the end of the world. Maybe that. Sorry, kids.
Movie was probably “On the Beach”.
Gato, if it’s any consolation, many of us “submarines in the desert” have spent our lives “on Quixotic pursuits with no effect on the world. That does not mean our lives were wasted. It is the effort, not the result that matters. Sometimes the result is unexpected, or happens much later. I have seen it happen too many times to discount it.
Your writing may be bombastic, pompous or vain, but it is well informed and entertaining. I hope you’ll write something.
OK, G. I’ll give it a try. Thank you for your encouragement. It’s lonely out here.
omg I love roads. I saw that while working and wanted to respond so badly.
Today I paid gas tax. My aunt Shelly built roads today, I suspect today that I paid her salary.
Roads are not socialist. Absent fiat extension of credit at least, I pay for them and other people build. No government required.
I didn’t miss the point of your article, I disagreed with it. Socialism didn’t build anything, people build them and (in theory) tax payers pay, ideally on a fee for service basis. You use roads? You pay. Roads are simply not a socialist construct.
The pony express predates any government system and people paid more to get mail to California than they did from NY to DC. As common sense would suggest it should be.
I’m going to add another comment at the bottom, but wanted to bury this road thing here.
Gas tax is supposed to be the source of roads and it’s a user pay system. Just like public transport and mail and schools and libraries clearly (to me) should be.
Please don’t credit socialism for things it clearly cannot do. People build roads. Governments are fictions that exist as black ink on white paper. Registered corporations build nothing. Just like socialism. It cannot, and never had, built anything. Including roads.
That you can argue ‘roads are not socialist’ only shows that somewhere there is a gap in your thinking on this topic… The little bit each individual pays toward the roads would not be enough to build each even a quarter mile of a road. The whole point is that we (the people) pool resources and create larger things, which all of us then get to use … commonwealth!
Capitalism did not build anything either.
It is plain obvious that it is always people building things. It is also always people agreeing and enacting a government, a state, a corporation, and so on.
Let me put it this way:
In pure capitalism, only private business exists. Any common control is absent because nobody wants to support such. Free markets cannot exist without strict rules. Hence, martial law reigns. Everyone will have to pay for every service/good whenever needed. As there will be no warranted sharing, everyone is on his/her own. Going to the market unsecured = invitation to get robbed. Getting old alone = death sentence. Result in the short term: people organize in clans (clan-socialism). Result in the mid term: people procreate like bunnies (life insurance). Result in the long term: people fight for life or death (everyone against everyone for finite resources).
Sounds like the good old times.
Even if you never ever would have touched/benefited of anything other people did (*), you should feel pretty glad that you are left in peace. Your peace would not last long if everyone would just look exclusively for his/her own.
*) Impossible because every child needs support for at least five years, usually fifteen years.
@ Marcel Leutenegger:
“[..] Free markets cannot exist without strict rules. Hence, martial law reigns.”
Aah! But that’s the thing! Even without Martial Law, there still should be someone policing the Free Market [making sure it’s really free (and fair), and no-one creates cartels/monopolies via cronyism, bribes, tribalism or whatever], and ideally, they should be impartial, hence; the financing of this Free Market Policing Body should come from some form of non-partisan money-pooling.
So…. Boom! We’re back to Socialism making sure Capitalism works as it should – for its own good, mind you. I’m so not a fan of favoring Big Business against small-to-medium businesses. But this is the regime we‘re all living under right now, btw.
Capitalism is supposed to be about; let the best product/price Capitalism has to offer: win, and let non-viable businesses to die as they may.
But we don’t have that, do we?
It doesn’t matter which way you slice this, the bottom line always comes back to the reality that Capitalism can’t work without a hefty dose of Socialism.
–
Regarding the rest of your post… I can’t agree more :) But I liked this part you brought up:
“Even if you never ever would have touched/benefited of anything other people did (*)” + “*) Impossible because every child needs support for at least five years, usually fifteen years”
Spot on. Those “man”-hours, usually fall on women’s shoulders in the form hours/years of unpaid labor while raising a child up… these are underwritten by the System. Overlooked and taken for granted.
A pure Capitalist system [if run fairly, that is] would have to pay for them too.
Oooh… but, good luck with that, because the Capitalists never saw a freebie they never liked :/
-TL2Q
All the noise in the USA about “Socialism” is – noise.
As the “governments” are more and more privately infilterated, privately blackmailed, debts-enslaved and literally owned by the hidden cabal of the 0.001%, all derived “conclusions” about “socialism” are simply nonsense.
Reminder: “””””Anything follows from a false statement.”””””
http://tavernini.com/arc/foundations01.pdf
The talk about “socialism” or “communism” in the US reminds me much of the “hell” and inquisition talk from the dark ages.
But in the US almost nobody notices, because they never experienced anything related to true Communism or at least real-existing Marxism/Leninism(plus Stalinism).
After their anti-communism brainwashing campaign and purge of the 1940/50ties it is to them as un-imaginable as the beast of Lochness and therefore they have to believe whatever they hear , at best are confused and get distracted that way.
I was in California 9 years ago – never go there again. I smell such americans 100km against the wind: :ohhh, helloooo, glad to meet ya, ohh, how do you do”, and this 20 times per hour.
Nothing against the autor, only against the subject of this article.
Due to the level of corruption and brainwashing, the theoretically true formula:
“””””Communism is when government runs business.
Capitalism is when business runs government.
Socialism is when people run business and government.”””””
no longer works that easily.
We live in a freak show virtual reality.
Only somebody like Stalin could save us from that.
You call Californians brainwashed then suggest we need more government to save us?
When do we save ourselves?
“When do we save ourselves?”
Now, since yesterday is gone and tomorrow is an idea that may never arrive.
Martin, thanks for posting the mathematics paper. At least one person here will go through it!
I don’t have a degree in the subject, but I did work through Godel’s Proof (of the incompleteability of even Arithmetic, ie Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem) and was quite amused to learn that all the AI freaks, despite the proof, in their own language of mathematical logic, on their own terms, persist nearly a century later in all their demented attempts to enslave humanity under their mind control doctrines, robots and supercomputers.
Oh, I live in California. I hope to meet you in Death Valley in summer. All the resorts there used to close for the summer, until demand from German tourists to visit in the summer so they could return to Deutschland and boast of the 130 degrees Fahrenheit they experienced, and survived, forced the resorts to stay open year round, through the summers too.
Ergo, the majority in that Valley, in the summer, may be Germans, not my fellow “dudes” and dudettes you are so sick of. LOL
Socialism is the antithesis of Capitalism.
Socialism is Worker (public) control of production and distribution of National wealth. Capitalism is private control of production and distribution of wealth so as to concentrate it and isolate it from public use and control. True democracy as a social system is impossible under capitalist control of production and as such is only possible under Socialism.
Democracy is possible under socialism?
If democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on whom to eat for dinner, how is that inheirently better suited to socialism than capitalism?
You’re a fast man with a slogan. Thing is, human beings are all human beings; any division into wolves and sheep is some sort of social construct. Specifically, generally a class distinction.
So as long as there are “wolves” and “sheep” there will be some absurdity in democracy. Meanwhile, the reality is that capitalism involves just a few wolves and a whole lot of sheep; democracy under capitalism is about coming up with ways to get the sheep to agree that wolves continuing to eat them for dinner is for the best.
The only way to have non-absurd democracy is to get rid of classes. Which is to say, force the “wolves” and let the “sheep” take their damn costumes off, at which point everyone can vote not to eat each other for dinner. That would be socialism.
Spot on.
@ PLG
Purple Library Guy at his simple best!
While I appreciate the article’s defence of the public sector in a mixed economy, I don’t agree that that’s what “socialism” is. You can support one and not the other. I support both as it happens, but many people don’t.
There are two sides to my disagreement. First, I disagree with the idea that “socialism” is about letting business get on with capitalism while “socialism” takes care of the infrastructure so that capitalists can better do their thing. No, socialism, genuine socialism as an ideology, wants the whole enchilada. Ownership of the means of production is not just a concern of Communism. Socialism just doesn’t have this whole Communist thing about the necessity of violent revolution, complete central control, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, dialectical materialism, and stuff. But it’s still about not letting private rich dudes own and control both the jobs and the stuff the jobs make, which people need to live.
Second, socialism is not necessarily about government owning that stuff. Actually, I tend to agree with Mr. Flomenhoft’s final three lines in bold. Socialism is about the people owning the means of production–but not necessarily as government entities. Co-ops are socialist. Socialism can be decentralized. If you have a government that is representative of the people, then state ownership can be taken as ownership by the people, so that can be socialist. So yes, (democratic) government ownership is one kind of socialism. I would argue that as soon as the government is not representative of the people, like you’ve got a dictatorship or something, then the government owning stuff is not the people owning it in any way and so it’s not socialist. More like a recreation of some kind of ancient Mesopotamian despot economy. But anyway, government ownership is certainly not the only kind of socialism; communities or workplaces can own and control stuff directly and on a basis of equality and co-operation and that’s socialism as well.
Side note about my personal preferences: I favour socialism. But even at the best of times, representative government owning stuff and running it through a top-down hierarchy the top of which is sort of responsible to the elected representatives who are sort of responsible to the people, is in my opinion a pretty crappy, really indirect kind of socialism. I like my popular control a lot more direct, which implies a lot more decentralized. I’m not quite sure if true social anarchism with no central co-ordination is feasible, but that’s the direction I lean; my camp is basically “As close to social anarchism as still lets you have broader infrastructures and standards, and allows you to defend yourself against outside military and other attacks”–how close that is, has yet to be demonstrated. I also believe it is possible under almost all circumstances to make decisions effectively without a boss unilaterally deciding. I favour horizontal, egalitarian structures. No bosses, no managers, people run stuff together. This is challenging, partly because it’s just difficult, but mostly because hardly anybody has really gotten serious about figuring out how to do it well. Think about all the masses of literature on management, administration, how to run a company effectively, motivate subordinates, organize them efficiently and blah blah blah blah. Think of all the university courses, whole departments of “Business Administration”, devoted to how to administrate a hierarchy. Not to mention the project management software, the surveillance technology, on and on. How much of that stuff is there for egalitarian firms? Almost zip. If much more work was done on that, we’d be better at it. It’s amazing that worker-controlled firms run half decently at all, but in fact when it’s done it seems to work pretty well. Scaling beyond the individual factory level gets tricky, but I think it can be done if we sweat the details while keeping the big objective in mind.
One of the things I always love debating with Americans is their hatred of Socialism. When I ask about paying taxes for the military they are more than happy. To pay for road maintenance, again no problem. Paying for universal education of kids up to 16, why would I even question such a thing..?
Then I broach the idea of paying for a national health care system. The defensive walls come up and I face an intransigent foe. Paying for other people’s health care!?! Preposterous, insane, no way in hell… what am I, some kind of damn socialist?
When I calmly point out that everything else I they agreed with me about paying taxes for is actually socialism, they suffer a brain melt down and refuse to accept it.
Its weird. Probably the best example of _repeatable_ cognitive dissonance I’ve found to date.
I agree. It’s hilarious and simultaneously, extremely dangerous.
It’s all about consciousness and unconsciousness and the desire of certain people who can’t even control themselves to control everyone else, and others that might have very good self control living amidst millions of others that are not even remotely ruling or controlling themselves, and wishing all those others (both controllers and out of control adult children) were just like them, so no more worries, no work to do, just “Leave me alone.”
No going to happen until people like that extend this admirable care they have for themselves, to everyone else, as controlling or out of control as they may be.
“No Man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away be the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for THEE.”
John Donne
Ha ha! Thank you. They don’t recognize any of those things as “socialist”, which is why I wrote the article.
GF
Gary I assert that the root of the problem is dualism. “Us vs them” in all of its myriad manifestations.
There are excesses in both collectivism and individualism that reek of this dualism, which at its root is fundamentally satanic. And I don’t mean to be wildly polemical, but rather, spiritually precise.
If people accept the idea that the material world is corrupt and separate from the world of spirit, all of these dualisms and endless arguments must inevitably follow that basic, false assumption. Whereas the fact is that it is “ALL ONE”, that is, all intertwined, interconnected, entangled matter and spirit, no separation except in the minds of some human beings,as a deception, an illusion.
Third string plug and PLG can go around in circles forever and never get any closer, because TSP will not yield an inch on his stance that he has no interest in his larger Self, as expressed by John Donne, above.
Same with Joe, Freidrich Von Hayek and all adherents of the demonic dualism that afflicts the oligarchies that have always pushed separation and dualism, Ayn Rand, the Austrian School, and other means of effecting the shrinkage of the individual to atomic, tiny moral proportions and identity, the better to hold them under permanent mind control and political impotence, by ancient tried and true practice of an entrenched oligarchy of mind controllers that have been at this game for thousands of years.
PLG, Aristides, plainsman, and yourself (the Author)appear to me to have more of the courage to seriously attempt love and care for the larger Self, starting with community, nation and extending to other communities and other nations than just their own, as well. I don’t pick that up in the people they are debating here. Their radius of concern and care seems to be measured in small plots of an acre or less, or maybe a few hundred acres , max. It certainly doesn’t seem to transcend oceans.
The individual should never be crushed by any majority that violates his or her natural law rights. The majority must care about the dissenting individual, but the majority is composed of one consciousness at a time composing a larger consciousness, and each such individual also ought to care for the larger Self of human consciousness of the entire society. Ayn Rand fanatics regard this notion as a silly weakenss, with the same lack of care attributed to Satan himself, the abstraction known as the Great Opposer, a spirit that visits the consciousness of every human being, dominates many, and is finally subdued in a few, to their everlasting, truer “freedom”.
Though I personally am wary of the tyranny of the majority, I am even more wary of the lack of care for that majority by those so fanatically committed to the Me vs Everyone Else dualism.
Bro Anon,
Thanks for your kind thoughts. I agree and pretty much said the same thing below on April 15, 2016 · at 5:12 pm UTC. Selfishness, what you call individualism (capitalism) and altruism, what you call collectivism (socialism) co-exist and form a larger whole.
First and foremost socialism is an idea, or set of ideas. The ideas and how those ideas are applied are usually at great variance. That’s the problem with ideologies, in practice they don’t quite meet the promise of how the looked on paper. Consequently when situations arise that contradict socialist ideas, it’s adherents tend to force fit whatever they consider to be the wrong shape, or die trying.
The most glaring example of this occurs when socialists encounter their arch enemy, a hierarchy. In trying to flatten out any dominance, real or perceived, socialists will use any means at their disposal, including extreme violence. And threats to the socialist, egalitarian ideal abound and they are therefore forever hard at work trying to bring everyone into the uniform fold. The fact that they see these contradictions to the the egalitarian rule everywhere ought to give them pause for thought, as should their own ‘some animals are more equal than others’ position, but no, the fact that nature is inherently hierarchical doesn’t deter them from attempting to create Utopia.
There’s a book I read recently called Social Justice Warriors Always Lie, it addresses the phenomen I just outlined very well. Its hard to take mad men seriously and hard core socialists are dangerously mad, but the historical body count ought to be enough to make that fact abundantly clear.
“There’s a book I read recently called Social Justice Warriors Always Lie”
Um, really?! Yeah, that sounds so thoughtful and analytical. I’m quite sure that if I saw a book entitled “(X) Always Lie” I would expect it to be deep and intelligent and absolutely worth paying attention to.
NOT. You are a lovely example of someone with an extreme ideology trying to present it as just some sort of background neutral reality. This lets you wax smug about “people with ideologies” and how they do violence to the world based on their pre-conceived bla bla bla. But here’s the thing–people with ideologies, who know it and think about it, may get things wrong or resist things that don’t fit. But at least they can see the process. They have some notion that there is a world, and there is their ideology, and that it is important that the two match up somehow.
People who pretend they don’t have ideologies are blind to the fact that their assumptions are assumptions, and don’t have to ever make an effort at even internal consistency of their beliefs, let alone matching them to the world outside. That’s when you get countries waxing millions of people and backing dictatorships, for the sake of democracy. Or backing unaccountable hierarchies and even slave-holding, in the name of freedom.
If you’re going to reply at least offer something a bit more substantial and coherent than ‘this guy is insufferable because he reads books with rhetorical titles, which is beneath me, and he thinks that ideologues are dangerous, which is a slight on me, so I’ll waffle on about how he’s in denial about his own ideology, which is probably right wing and involves the subjugation of millions. Oops, that sounds a bit like socialism, but I’ll say it anyway because I’m angry’.
I do have ideas, but no firm ideology that I hold as a ideal template like socialists have. You could say I believe that any movement, political or otherwise, that doesn’t honour the natural order of humans: that we are hierarchical and diverse in ability and intelligence, amongst many other indisputable facts that socialists spend their time either ignoring or offering idiotic, deconstructionist arguments against to get their square pegs to fit.
Socialists talk about rule by the people for the people as if they’ve somehow circumvented hierarchical social structures, but to rule requires authority and authority must be conferred by an authority figure. You get the picture? Socialism seeks the destruction of a ruling class only to impose its own ruling class. And it justifies this because socialism acts like a quasi religion and sanctifies it’s dictates.
George Orwell recognized this and so does Vox Day in his brilliant book Social Justice Warriors Always Lie. They lie because they have no choice. You should get over your snobbishness and read it
By the way I’m laboriously writing this on my phone as I’ve just moved. In my previous comment I should have fleshed out my remark about ideologies. Not all ideologies are as bad as socialism, but having a fixed template, especially a political one, often leads to horrible outcomes. Much better to take a more flexible approach and always, always have the humility to admit when you’re wrong.
It’s an excellent book Hayek. If you’re perturbed by the antics of Black Lives Matter, current feminism and other barmy, bigoted social justice causes, you’ll appreciate his writing.
@PLG
I posted my last comment as anonymous by mistake (it’s hard navigating comments by phone). I’m Joe still.
Looked it up, will be ordering this weekend when I see how much money I have left after taxes ect ! I would recommend Eric Hoffer- The True Believer- thoughts on the nature of mass movements . Sounds like it would compliment ‘Social Warrior’ although it was published in 1951. Human motivations never change, just how we accomplish the change does.
It was hard for me to respond with much substance, given that you didn’t offer much but blanket smearage. How polite do you really expect me to be when you called me “dangerously mad”?
You don’t strike me as the kind of person with “the humility to admit when you’re wrong”, and since you are obviously extremely ignorant about all the phenomena you’re so dead set against it’s clear you aren’t taking “a more flexible approach”. So, lots of irony going on here.
Your ideas about hierarchy are ridiculous. Further, since your claim is categorical (“to rule requires“) it would be disproved with just a single example of a reasonably complex organization being effectively run without an authority figure ruling it. Wait, did I say “would be”? Sorry, I meant “it is disproved”. It so happens there are many such organizations, actually existing, in the real world right now. It is possible to make decisions in groups on an equal basis without a singular person or small group “in charge”. People do it all the time. Therefore, there is no real argument here–you’re just wrong.
True, the bigger the group, the more cumbersome it gets, and there can certainly be procedural snags. Occupy, with its huge in-person meetings using rough-and-ready procedures that had serious shortcomings, could apparently be inspiring but also frustrating. But there are many ideas for ways around these problems; big hierarchies create problems too, and huge amounts of effort are devoted to overcoming them. I have a number of ideas myself for ways to deal with the scaling problem, but they would take rather a long post to go through.
It is true that there is an instinct in humans to seek status. But that is not quite the same thing as authority–we get that stuff from our ancestral bands of apes, but ancestral bands of apes don’t have language. The dominant ones can hog stuff, but they can’t tell anyone what to do. Lower-status apes can do what they want, they just are uncomfortably aware that the higher-status ones can at a moment’s notice grab their food or interrupt their schmoozing with an opposite-sex ape. Status is not the same as control. And granting status via things like wealth and political power is if anything kind of indirect. What really gives people feelings that they have status, gratifies that instinct, is respect–personal respect from people they actually know. Because our instincts, again, were forged in small bands of creatures who all know each other–being king of the world can’t basically gratify that instinct more than getting respect (not obedience–proto-humans didn’t have that) from a dozen or so acquaintances. And the neat thing about modern, complex society is that people can have different niches and areas of expertise, so most people can get some respect. And in a classless society, nobody has to be low ape on the totem pole. Big hierarchies are actually deeply unhealthy, instinct-wise, because almost nobody really gets to be the top ape–everyone has superiors they have to knuckle under to.
It’s also true that people are diverse in intelligence. It’s pretty much impossible to define or measure, but still, it really seems to be there. But so what? That’s a terrible reason for letting some dominate others. I myself am convinced that I am a very, very, very smart person. When I was young, I kind of assumed that must mean my ideas would be a sort of superior superset of the ideas of people I considered not as smart. I noticed later that in fact, people I thought dumber than me sometimes came up with ideas that were good and that I would never have had. Their thoughts were not just a smaller, less incisive version of mine–they thought differently from me, had different mental channels and habits, and so their creative/analytical processes ran in different directions from mine. So it’s good to have everyone contribute.
But even if that were not the case, the problem is that different people have different interests. And in particular, rulers have different interests from the ruled. Intelligence and ability, imagining them to have something to do with who’s in charge, are useful in coming up with effective policies and strategies, but policies and strategies to what ends? Why, to the ends of the ones deciding, the rulers not the ruled. Meanwhile, there is nothing about intelligence or ability that make an individual more inherently deserving. Everyone has their own point of view, is the protagonist of their own story, is equally a “moral agent”, can equally feel joy, suffer and so forth. So rulership would only be defensible if it were to the benefit of the majority–and it won’t be, because rulers see things from their point of view and rule for their benefit (and, instincts from small bands again, the benefit of people they know personally–but not for massive classes of subordinates that represent an abstraction for them).
The way you talk about socialism is also ridiculous. There are certain broad ideas, principles, that can I think be basically agreed on as “socialist”. But while it’s fairly true to say that Communism, or at least people in formal Communist parties, present a fairly specific programme, deviations from which are not tolerated, and which specifically involves some sort of elite rule over the masses “in their name”, it’s just ludicrous to make that allegation about socialism. Socialism is a very broad term, an umbrella under which a wide variety of specific ideologies and ideas exist. Even within relatively specific strands and traditions, debate and discussion is wide-ranging and open. Look at Bolivarian socialism in Venezuela–there is more vibrant democracy and debate there currently than there has ever been in history, and I’m talking about just within the broadly “socialist” groupings. Talking about something so vague and varied as a “quasi religion” simply shows that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Why are you “concerned” about “Black Lives Matter”? I’m assuming you’re not a cop who goes around shooting blacks, so what the hell do you care? You do realize that no other country in the world has like a tenth the rate of police killings as the US, right? Mostly it’s like one percent or so, even less in peaceful countries, and yes I’m talking rate per population. So it’s clearly not a necessity for policing to happen. And, the killing does disproportionately happen to blacks–and the poor generally, but blacks even within that. So, why exactly is it so awful for blacks to get uppity and object to that? Is there something about cops not being able to shoot blacks with impunity that would cause you a problem?
Incidentally, the general narrative that even the slightest potential risk to a police officer makes them justified in shooting to kill in an attempt to reduce it, is disgraceful. Police officers acting as though their lives were worth a hundred times as much as the life of an ordinary citizen is a disgusting inversion. Policing is a dangerous job (not as dangerous as mining or fishing or forestry or . . . but still fairly)–yes, but that’s the point. Police officers know the danger when they sign up, and they take on a responsibility–“to serve and protect”. Both taking up the job in general and various incidents in specific, involve the accepting of somewhat heightened risk in order to protect the public. They took the badge, they took the pay, they probably swore an oath; that’s the deal. If they instead kill members of the public any time that would reduce their danger level by 1%, that means they’d mass murder a hundred of the citizens they’re sworn to protect to save their miserable life. It’s a rotten betrayal of the (ostensible) principles of policework. Many people might justifiably say “But I don’t want to deal with that level of risk!” Such people should simply not become police officers, much the way people who can’t understand boolean logic should not become computer programmers.
Bolivarian socialism in Venezuela- More vibrant democracy and debate- Well,that statement just about floored me. I would suggest that you watch this 11 min+ video and see if you would like to retract that statement.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UOQb7Y5QVO8
Well, I’ll take a look, but fair warning: The title is “You won’t believe what we saw in socialist Venezuela” and frankly, given the track record of the opposition + State Department types, no, I probably won’t believe it. It is amazing, for instance, how many pictures and clips purporting to be horrible things happening in Venezuela have turned out to be of completely different places, from New York state to the Middle East. Your lot lie like rugs, frequently and audaciously. The sheer chutzpah of the propaganda is amazing. After nearly fifteen years of this, I’m afraid I’ve come to the point of rather discounting sensationalist claims by upper class Venezuelans, right wing Venezuelan media, and NED-backed colour revolutionaries of various stripes.
PLG; you’re wasting your energy, they are dolts.
Now there is a comment with some real gravitas. Why don’t you share with us your own personal experiences of time spent in Venezuela so we can get a real counterpoint to these two so called “dolts” .
It’s not rocket science. If you want to take the temperature of the state of a country just check out its currency. It will tell you if a body is healthy or if it is sick. You can write paragraph after paragraph of political psycho-babble but it doesn’t change what the facts are. If it so great there why not take a vacation there and then post a video so you can expose the lies and corruption being posed by evil western capitalists. While your at it why don’t you tell us what a economic nirvana North Korea is as well.
Bolívar was a criollo agent of Jeremy Bentham assigned to break up the Spanish colonies on behalf of the British, while wiping out the pro-American faction of Santander and others who followed the work of Hamilton, Franklin et al. In his Encyclopaedia Britannica note on Bolívar Karl Marx, who didn’t altogether lack a sense of humor, called him the “Napoleon of retreats” due to Bolivar’s standard tactic of using hordes of disorganized, disposable skirmishers to draw Spanish regulars into the open, where they were met by disciplined British artillery who finished them off handily. The open secret about South American “Independence” is that it was an extension of Britain’s war on Spain and isolation of the United States, reinforced by British piracy in the Caribbean and masked by centuries of British historiography including the “Black Legend” which depicts Spain as a genocidal tyranny that ruled its colonies with an iron fist (unlike, say, the British Raj in India, or the Opium Wars in China?). Modern-day “socialist” interpretations of Bolivar’s status merely capitalize on his well-publicized anti-American rants and serve as cover for the economic incompetence and lawless rabble-rousing of his Jacobin spoor. Of course this magnum opus of revisionism is validated for Latin Americans by the relapse of US policy to the very imperialism its founding revolution opposed, via the (British-backed) Southern Secession, the Lincoln assassination, the 1875 Specie Resumption Act, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam war and… need I go further?
Thanks, Gatopardo. As problematic as US/North America history is, that of our less developed neighbors to the south is even less straightforward or simple, as it is riddled with even more complication and less heroes and fewer clearly good models to follow. NONE actually, that I know of to not be tainted by oligarchy rot.
Spain? Spanish colonies? The Hapsburg Empire? That’s not a very promising start, is it?
Then, as you describe, all become pawns, chess pieces in a wider civilizational war caused by forces that project power and influence and economic and cultural control from thousands of miles away, whether in Britain, Europe, or the USA.
Precious little enduring sovereignty for “we the people” was achieved in North America in the last 250 years. But it was more than anywhere else. WAS. Now it is almost entirely eroded and converted to imperial rot with which to enslave the world. There is resistance in South and Central America but it is hardly pure and without problems. In general, same as up north here, except for the fact that the local conditions,country by country are richly varied and different. I lived there 5 years. There is great potential in South America, as there is in the Arab world. But the problems are extremely deep, in both, and are intimately related:
Consult the section on Latin America in Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope. “The Pakistan-Peruvian Axis” Quigley calls it. That Axis has an underlying ARABIC/ASIAN cultural foundation deeply embedded in Spain through centuries of Moorish occupation, and transferred from there to the New World.
Actually, when seen from the standpoint of Perfide Albion and British manipulation of world affairs since at least the 1660 Stuart Restoration, a lot of things start popping into place. But you’re right about oligarchy as an ever-present pathology of civilization, in constant struggle with currents of humanist inspiration which only occasionally and locally prevail through various revolutions, renaissances and improbable periods of enlightenment which so far have never lasted.
The ruthless Victorian holocaust in Southern and Southeast Asia has been estimated by some commentators in the tens of millions, brought about by planned famines caused by single-crop plantation agriculture (rubber, silk, opium) and tactics such as forced opium addiction of entire subcontinents. As recently as 1951 Lord Bertrand Russell advocated for radical Malthusian methods to control population growth, especially non-white. “War,” says Russell, “has hitherto been disappointing in this respect… but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full… The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people’s.” [The Impact of Science on Society]. Such “phlegm.”
Empire has long argued for the notion of “carrying capacity” not as an actual measure of the planet’s ability to support a human population but as a limit to the number of people controllable under oligarchical rule, which seeks to contain economic growth through scientific and technological development precisely to make such limits seem materially necessary. (In contemporary pop psychology, this is known as “gaslighting.”) Though presently a very popular hoax, even among “progressive” intellectuals, still a hoax in light of the proven effect of technological leaps derived from advances in fundamental science to increase system throughput and energy flux density to any degree necessary to overcome temporary limitations and redefine the “resources” available for civilization of this or other planets. Oligarchy’s dilemma is that it still needs science and technology to ensure military hegemony, but must control it to prevent the growth and empowerment of lesser races.
Jumping back again, U.S. General McClellan’s distribution of smallpox-infected blankets to exterminate native Americans was an early bacteriological war tactic apparently learned from the British military who first used it to put down Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763. Nazi eugenics were also prefigured by “really high-minded people” like Russell, again, who’d already written in 1923: “Gradually, by selective breeding the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species.” [Prospects of Industrial Civilization].
As shown by the following statement, U.S. Secretary of Defense and later World Bank President Robert Strange McNamara was a well-versed practitioner of the dark arts: “Either the current birth rates must come down more quickly, or the current death rates must go up… In a thermonuclear age, war can accomplish this very quickly and decisively. Famine and disease are nature’s ancient checks on population growth, and neither one has disappeared from the scene.” So much for Third World Development. Sorry about the long quotes. Just backing up my riff on oligarchy a little. Vote for Bernie in New York! I’ll stop now.
“Vote for Bernie”
http://tomatobubble.com/sanders.html
“On the foreign policy front, Sanders is quick to rightfully condemn the GOP and Bibi Satanyahu as warmongers; but he has also supported sanctions against Iran while repeating the dirty Zionist lie that Iran is a potential nuclear threat. He supported the brutal war on Kosovo, the invasion of Afghanistan, funding for the endless disaster in Iraq and the never-ending “War on Terror”.
As for Israel; Bernie may pay lip service to peace, yet he faithfully supports billions of dollars in foreign aid to Tel Aviv and has backed Bibi Satanyahu’s murderous bombing of Gaza, both in 2014 and 2009. Several former members of Bernie’s staff have even worked for AIPAC”
Well, Lincoln he ain’t. Not even JFK or FDR. But he shows some respect for them, and isn’t quite the same flavor of Exceptionalistan as “we came, we saw, he died” HRC. Much to learn, maybe, but a chance to survive, perhaps. All other options curdle my blood.
You can also repudiate the whole elections process and wait for “revolution” in the streets, which will probably also be controlled by the usual social engineers and mass psychologists.
My, oh my, what is one to do?
“My, oh my, what is one to do?”
Perhaps /hillarys-secret-letter-and-the-whole-matter-of-endless-war-and-the-almost-complete-corruption-of-americas-government/comment-page-1/#comment-215904 ?
Gatopardo I am pretty sure I know you, or am at least acquainted with you. I agree with Mr Flomenhoft that you should write a guest article here, and are far more qualified as a writer than I am.
If you email Saker he’ll exchange emails for us, like he did with Internal Exile and I.
If you don’t wish to, I understand!
Take care.
@PLG
There’s a phenomenon that has become commonplace on online comment sections whereby people make rash character judgements about other posters based on scant information, often just a few sentences. Such juvenile emotional outburst do get tedious. People take criticism of their concepts as an attack on them and respond rudely by fallaciously attacking the man. It hints that I’m dealing with someone who’s not going to engage in a reasoned argument. It’s really difficult to motivate myself to take seriously or respond to people who behave this way and on this topic you’ve reached your limit with your insults, put downs and as for your inane, self aggrandizement (‘I myself am convinced that I am a very, very, very smart person.’)Man, really? That’s looking very doubtful from where I am.
And don’t misrepresent what I wrote. I didn’t smear anyone or anything. To smear is to try to makes something that smells nice, smell bad by fabrication or conscious misrepresentation–ring any bells? I did neither. I stated clearly that socialism stinks and attacked it’s core concepts to explain why it stinks and you’ve refuted nothing I wrote so far. .
You say my ideas about hierarchy are ridiculous, which would hint that you have a rebuttal to offer. Instead you write a vague account about groups and organizations that run effectively without a boss or bosses,and how larger organizations are hindered by having hierarchies, but offer no examples. Give me one flourishing organization that is completely egalitarian? The only ones that are nominally non-hierarchical, under closer scrutiny reveal, shock horror, a hierarchy. They’ve just adopted structures that differ from orthodox business hierarchies. But that translates to more meetings and many other problems, not least of which would be in-fighting due to status seeking in a status denying environment. Such a structure would suit some business and wouldn’t be suitable for the majority. The fact is though, just as apes will have an alpha male, there will always be bosses around.
Putting aside that in your utopian future there is no war, apart from vestiges of “The Patriarchy”, let take that hardest and most logistically intense business in human affairs. If you and I were on opposing forces in a war, good luck with trying to beat my army with any egalitarian mob your could manage to get to pick up a weapon. I’ll hit you while you’re deep into your consensus meeting, focus group or whatever other meeting your officers, oops, your comrades happen to be in, take all your weapons and hope the lesson was salutary—or just put you all out of the misery of having to suffer all those interminable meetings. It would be a rout. The reason armies are strictly and pyramidically hierarchical is because it’s the only way of organising a large group of people to execute time-lined, complex tasks efficiently. In fact, I recall John Taylor Gatto saying that the Prussians had to make changes to their education system to attempt to eradicate the insubordinate decision making they felt cost them dearly in the Napoleonic wars.
Your ideas on hierarchies just come across as you rapping how you’d like things to be, not how they actually are–which is what socialist ideologues tend to do. Holding high status, whether within human or animal groups, does indeed mean authority. Having authority, though, doesn’t always mean giving verbal orders, but it does mean having influence over others that leaves little doubt as to who’s dominant and what the underling has to do or not do. There are ways of communicating orders other than with words. And no, lower status creatures, apes or otherwise, cannot do what they want, they have rules and social mores, as do we. Also, like us, apes are status seeking animals, the higher the status the more chance you get spread your genes. A simple google search will pull up lots of papers on ape behaviour. The fact that you brought up primates and the innateness of hierarchies in social structures, even though what you wrote was incorrect, makes my point for me. Egalitarianism, outside of equal rights under law, goes against our very nature, how we’re hard wired to behave.
In regards to Black Lives Matter, it was just an example of a leftist social justice victim group that I chose arbitrarily. It’s in the headlines a lot, as are those crazy feminists, in case you haven’t noticed, and so fair game. There’s lots of statistics to blow most of their arguments out of the water. Take yourself off to Sargon of Arkad’s YouTube channel and get educated. I believe he’s uploaded a video on BLM just recently and has a particular soft spot for the regressive left.
“There’s a phenomenon that has become commonplace on online comment sections whereby people make rash character judgements about other posters based on scant information, often just a few sentences.”
Well, you’re way ahead of me there: You made a rash character judgement about me based on zero sentences. Allow me to point out that in your first post you did not criticize the relevance or accuracy of socialism as an ideology so much as you called socialists, as people, individually and severally dangerously insane. That is extremely offensive. I should have opened by simply demanding an apology.
I’ve given you far better arguments than you deserve. You have done little argumentation worthy of the name–mostly you have just airily made claims that an argument exists and therefore I’m wrong. And the core thing you have failed to deal with is a lead pipe simple fact:
If you are right, it should be impossible for any human enterprise to exist and work half decently without domination by leaders. Except, there are lots of worker-owned, egalitarian-run co-operatives around, including some sizable fairly-heavy-industry factories with not only no outside owner but also no management. They work, they pay their worker-owners wages, and people in them seem happier and more prosperous than ones in similar outfits run by bosses.
So you’re wrong. It’s just that simple–what you say cannot happen, happens. Your view is scientifically falsified. You might want to claim that some of the workers in those places are proto-leaders who get listened to more than some other people. No doubt, but so what? The place as a whole is running as well or better than if those proto-leaders got to be full-on run-everyone’s-lives leaders, and the people are happier.
You are also deeply misunderstanding just what instinct is and why, and to what extent, it should guide our visions for society. People don’t have “an instinct for hierarchy”, they have instincts to try and dominate other people (they also have instincts to try and get along with other people). But that’s the thing–everyone wants to be the boss. Lots of different kinds of people end up being the boss, and none of them seem to give it up voluntarily. Furthermore, for the most part everyone doesn’t like being bossed–that’s part of the instinct. Critters being bossed get increased stress, less serotonin and what all; it’s bad for the brain chemistry.
So OK, in practice this tends to result in some degree of hierarchy, although how much varies a lot. But what situation would satisfy most people’s instincts individually? Hierarchy doesn’t actually satisfy most people’s instinctive urges. It’s more like a monkey getting its paw caught in a jar–its instincts pushed it to reach in to grab stuff, its instincts tell it not to let go of the stuff it grabbed, but the results are it doesn’t get to eat the stuff and its paw is caught; its instincts haven’t actually been satisfied.
Hierarchy is the same. The drive to be at the top of one is a product of evolution, because people at the top of one got better food and more sex, ie survive and reproduce better. But the net result is most people ending up at the bottom of one. So if you analyze the situation in terms of instinct and evolution, you get the same result as from common sense: Hierarchies are good for the people at the top, bad for the people at the bottom. And there are more people at the bottom. So people for the most part would be better satisfied, at a common sense and instinctive level, if the hierarchy weren’t there. Or rather, if it were institutionally not there and practically speaking very, very muted. It’s probably true that the sultans and presidents and top executives will be worse off without hierarchy. Yeah, to hell with them.
A wonderfully hard fought debate between Joe and PLG.
And I’m neither a socialist nor a Hayekian.
You didn’t waste your breath not converting the other guy, either one of you.
I am still back to my assessment thay PLG has considerably more care for the human race than Joe or Friedrich von Hayek or Ludwig von Mises have, but that the only way to reach harmony and abundance reliably (without any “ism” being dominated by oligarchies so fear ridden that they must accumulate thousands of times more money than they could ever possibly spend….) is some sort of Great Awakening of human consciousness that may bring us some form of societal and economic organization that none of us can quite put our finger on yet.
At the risk of getting stoned by both, I have a hunch some ideas, some balance between the two sides might show up in that end result, if it is a successful advancement.
If it is a failure, I am equally confident at least one side will be very well represented in theory, but fear ridden controllers will take it over and wreck it.. And non-sovereign, brainwashed millions of very low aggregate consciousness will willingly allow it, rather than take any responsibility.
Looking the book up now, thanks Joe
I believe this article should address “corporatism” – the control of a state or a people by a special interest group, namely global corporations, and in some cases, a religion.
This is merely a cute nursery rhyme where they replaced the articles (a, an, and the) with socialist.
Lets try again with substance.
This article reminds me of the professor from this clip:
http://youtu.be/YlVDGmjz7eM
writing from the (socialist) city of Olympia, WA I applaud this article and will broadcast it far and wide over the ‘socialist’ Internet (until it expires). We used to have many more public (socialist) utilities in this fair country of ours like public (socialist) owned gas companies, water companies, and electric companies. My dear mother once owned stocks in a local water company. Socialist companies issued stock which people could buy in order to expand services etc. And the companies that sold the stocks were publicly (socially) owned, I think. Anyone who wanted to front their money could do that.
I think we don’t know socialism for what it actually is!
Actually, the utility business is a good example here (el., but others, like water, too). Back in the dark ages, the private business did not see it as profitable to provide electr. power to the rural areas of Texas (large distances, few customers). The ‘evil’ govt. stepped in and set up funding and conditions for the rural areas to get power (TX now has about 74 el. co-ops, but same is true for other parts of the country). Some large cities (Austin, San Antonio) got municipally owned power cos. In practice, it means that the local folks can exercise some power over the munis and the profits flow into the city’s coffers – to benefit all citizens. Of course, for the republican retards in the TX legislature that is too much of a good thing, and they insist on privatizing such enterprises (so that only a few can benefit from the profits). Elevating individualism and profits above all else will be our undoing… Rather, though, think of ‘commonwealth.’
Many comments to this post are very interesting. What I perceive as a tendency, is to take a general concept (e.g. socialism), and fit or attempt to fit it to a personal situation, leading to an impossible solution. Then taking the impossible solution and use it as a means to discredit the general concept.
Given the monumental, published and unpublished, material available on the issue, here we can only express limited opinions, some of which interesting in their own right, even if we cannot, from them, derive a comprehensive conclusion.
In the same spirit, I offer the following analogy.
A socialist and a turbo-capitalist approach a red light at a road crossing. If they wanted, they could ignore it without visible danger of accidents. Both stop. The socialist thinks (unconsciously), “This is the price I have to pay to live in the community. If I wanted I could ignore the red light and there are good chances that a cop is not around to get me. But by so doing I would commit a little act of treason against what I profess to believe, and, in the end, against myself.”
The turbo-capitalist thinks, “If I did not waste this time in waiting I could use it more profitably (“Time is money”). But I cannot be completely sure that a cop is not around the corner. Calculating potential profit, potential loss and the risk factor, I will wait for the green.”
The immediate results are the same, but the spirits inspiring them are 180 degrees apart.
Capitalist thinking is actually an offshoot – through a sequence of intermediate steps – of the patriarchal mode of thought. It was such patriarchal mode of thought that Lenin was hoping to overcome in a short time, after the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” With the wisdom of hindsight he was overly-optimistic.
Nevertheless, the theoretical groundwork that guided the 1917 Revolution is (was) an extension of the reasoning of the socialist in the example of the traffic light.
That current Western society favors the ‘turbo-capitalist’ approach does not mean that it is better or, as often repeated, that it is “the end of history”. It only means that, by hook or by crook, those who gain by disregarding the rules of the traffic (and by extension of civilized, humanistic living), have gained predominance – thanks also and in part to the “color revolution” that destroyed the Soviet Union.
Excellent piece of analogy … The best post within this article.
@ Voltaire1964
Indeed Lenin was too optimistic in hoping that man would reach the highest degree of moral development voluntarily, with guidance, in a short generation. Stalin realized there were big barriers, and thought that a push was also needed; he almost got there, at a terrible cost, but his death was also the end of the effort. The big question is: can man be good by himself or must he be prodded (taught, forced, conditioned, etc.)?
Kim
They are not 180 degrees apart. Both are the same. Both require sacrifice in return for peace that is an illusion. Because there will always be a third guy who will ignore the red light and cause the accident.
About independent art:
My wife’s great grandmother most definitely bought art. Just like in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, people bought art. The train station in Winslow featured a Navajo art gallery where people from the east stopped to get incredible art. And actually that was the foundation of her store, and Winslow actually. Art. Built the town. Not socialism. Not government. Indian art.
I’ve travelled extensively through the US and have found giant tracts of land in every state except RI. Miami was so packed, yet two hours away are empty fields for miles. In Oklahoma there is land for hours and hours. The frontier has gone, sure, but off grid living is still viable. You want forty acres an a mule? It’s available everywhere. But you don’t want it, you want to live in the city working at a socialist library.
Alaskans buy art, Louisianans buy art. We’ve honed our skills to fit into modern advertising and that shakes out everywhere. By shedding the shackles of a monthly hand out, we had to produce things that people want. Like the Navajo. We had to be better. And good for us. Our photo of the Napa Valley Opera House is getting 10 000 hits per month. Good for the architect who designed it, then hired us. Right? No government required.
But you want to bleed me so that some library can have another beaurocrat? Gross I say. Go get your own revenue stream without burdening the backs of others.
Here is a story about socialism. My great grand father started a potato farm. The city took it through imminent domain and built a swimming pool for the physically disabled. He got $20K, and I got nothing. Thanks socialism. Thanks for that one especially.
I wish he hired an architectural photographer because then I might at least have gotten a copy of that. But as it stands, I got nothing but a monthly bill for pool maintenance. Thanks socialism.
“The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer people become…the more rules and regulations, the more thieves and robbers.”
Lao Tzu
“He got $20K, and I got nothing. Thanks socialism. Thanks for that one especially.”
PS great grandaddy and inheritance is part root cause problem of how empire begins.
I hesitate to do this because I am just poking the dragon, but I can’t resist. TSP refuses to recognize public property or services as socialist and equates totalitarianism with socialism. He makes some valid points about coercion, and being forced to pay for services he doesn’t want. I agree. I don’t want to pay for the genocidal US Empire. My solution, don’t pay. :-) Feel free to do the same if you don’t like municipal services.
Spend some time in a developing country where there is no socialist government sector (just capitalism) no trash pickup, no sewage treatment, poor water pipes, and roads are horrendous and filled with car-sized potholes, police live on bribery instead of salaries, etc. You’ll come to appreciate municipal government (socialism). Case in point: I spent 4 months in Belize where the sewer pipes go into an empty building, and then straight out the other side into the river. I started appreciating municipal socialism. Don’t tell me the private sector should do it, because it’s not profitable and they don’t do it anywhere. Have a nice swim!
Regarding the $20,000 potato farm, here’s my spin on it. Somehow it is the government’s fault that your great-grandfather didn’t give you any inheritance? Bullshit!
Using 30 years as a generation, I’m guessing this happened around 1900 or maybe a bit after. Using the inflation calculator at bls.gov I go back to the earliest year available which is 1913. $20,000 in 1913 is a shitload of money, $481,075 in fact in 2016 dollars. This must have been a rather large potato farm. Surely he could have used the money to buy another farm somewhere else that he could have passed on to you? Don’t blame the government.
I’m guessing $20,000 was a fair market payment as required in the US, since they cannot expropriate your property without fair compensation. Another one of those “socialist” laws you hate enforced by the socialist judiciary. Who enforced his original title to the property? Oh, the local government land registry with the courts and sheriff to back it up. Government land titles are crucial to private wealth creation (Read DeSoto Mystery of Capital). Another example of free enterprise needing socialism.
I’ll bet he got the land through homesteading for free, or paid rather less than $20,000 for it, a tidy profit I’m sure. Going back a few years before that as several others have pointed out, the US military drove out the Native Americans on behalf of the Anglos to steal their land. So the (socialist) government is responsible for the land he owned from start to finish and paid fair compensation. But your great-grand father rugged individualist of the frontier “did it all by himself”, and the government screwed you out of your inheritance.
Boo hoo, poor me, I didn’t get a farm, it’s the government’s fault. Spare me.
The “swimming pool for the physically disabled” is a fascinating coincidence, synchronistic in fact. I just got finished watching the Australian Olympic trials online including the para-Olympic swimming trials. I have never seen anything so inspiring in my life as these people, some with severe disabilities and missing arms and legs are great swimmers. Some of the developmentally disabled swimmers are incredibly articulate and extremely grateful for the opportunity they have to compete. It puts things in perspective as we take everything so for granted and should be grateful for every day we live. Oh, and most of their funding is from the government, because what profit is there for capitalists to fund cripples to swim?
I can’t think of anything better the local government could have done than build a “swimming pool for the physically disabled”.
I should have been more clear: I was speaking of the economic loss, the fact that I can’t continue using that incredible soil to feed the locals. Forget the money for a sec ( he was paid out around 1950? and even if he kept the small farm I would have gotten no inheiritance either way) the new farm was not by the river and cannot produce the same vegetables due to soil types and proximity to town.
The local economy lost how many jobs? And locally grown vegetables in the heart of downtown to boot. And now my choice is to start from nothing via debt finance? Because of a park?
Like churches (where I have witnessed incredible choirs) if people want pools, I think they should totally be allowed to build them. Any make, any model. I love pools like I love roads. And farms. Point is, socialism is no golden goose of goodness justice and love.
And the native thing, at the time he landed, they were still nomadic, he traded with them, and afaik no one was shooting at anyone.
I forgot about the third world part. Recently in a Mexican orphanage I saw joy like I wish I saw in my own kid. I saw young people taking care of their elders, families together, and small industry despite the economics of their federalies.
Q: Is Mexico 100 years behind, or 100 years ahead?
@ Gary Flomenhoft
I second your concern about poking the dragon, but I’m going to respond too. I think one key issue is responsibility. In an oligarchy, where the citizens really have no voice or involvement in decisions, the individual citizens carry no burden of responsibility for the welfare of their locality, region or nation. If the oligarchy is called “socialism”, all kinds of debates may happen, with varying perspectives about life and the evolution of culture, civilization and society BUT still, the citizens have no actual responsibility or involvement in decisions and so there is absolutely no consequence to taking responsibility or not, for anything outside of their individual sphere of influence.
It seems like this is what is happening in some of these disucssions. On the other hand, when you live in a nation where the oligarchy does not have full control, and is trying to consolidate it, the choices each individual citizen makes are so very important. When the citizens still carry some influence and responsibility for the welfare of their nation, the consequences of being trite, flippant and irreverent with that responsibility are great. Very great.
I suppose anyone can choose to use a word to mean anything they want. However, historically, Socialism was a reaction to, and rejection of, industrial Capitalism. Production prior to this time was based on the artisan system. Artisan production consisted of localized, individualized production by worker/owner/producers analogous to the small business owner today. Under that system, the owner/producer set his own working hours, determined his working conditions and owned the product of his labor. If he worked twice as hard he would accrue twice the economic reward.
Under the Capitalist system, the product of the worker was owned by his employer. The worker is told what to do, and how, when and where to do it. Moreover, since the worker is compensated by means of a commodified hourly wage, the benefit of any surplus output he produces would accrue to the profits of his employer. Large scale mass industrial production allowed for the emergence of a Capitalist class of owners who themselves contributed nothing to production aside from the fact of their ownership.
Two possible alternatives (at least) to the Capitalist system suggest themselves. The first is a return to localized individualized production as existed under the artisan system. The strategy of Marx was to retain large scale industrial production but simply replace the ownership class with worker collectives, unions etc. Under the state socialist systems such as the USSR the owning entity was the government.
+1 for Jonathan.
As Orwell presciently observed, he who defines words controls the world. Gary Flomenhoft’s attempt to redefine socialism as any government program, regulation or good implies that the founding fathers created a socialist government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Beware of socialists trying to redefine the word socialist, or more recently democratic socialist – a wolf in sheep’s clothing is really a wolf.
Socialist government is redundant. Government is socialist. Is it private for profit? No it’s public, collective, non-profit Get over it.
@ Gary Flomenhoft:
“Socialist government is redundant. Government is socialist. Is it private for profit? NO it’s public, collective, non-profit. Get over it.”
^ Bingo!
I’m so losing the will to live at this point, I’m afraid to say… :(
Even for people who should know better, they believe Socialism is something that it ain’t and never was to begin with.
Yet, when you ask them to define Socialism, the answers they come-up with are soooo off the mark that it will make you wanna jump off the closet bridge. [BTW, I had this type of argument with a cousin of mine, and honest to dog: I couldn’t believe the nonsense he was spewing!]
Essentially: they’re opposing something they don’t even know WHAT the freak it is! All they know is they should be opposing it, no matter what! (How can you have a dialogue with people like that, I ask…. (?) )
But, there you go!
That’s the power of the Capitalist, Western Propaganda which from Gladio [and their 5th column campaigns all over the world, seeking to crush anything Socialist, or dog forbid: ‘Communist,’ Workers’ Unions and so on…] and to this very day are still very busy demonizing anything “Socialist.”
Seriously! How can you have a decent debate with these people if they can’t even tell the difference between publicly-owned and privately-owned !?!?!
-TL2Q
Yes, Goverment by nature is socialist and yet Goverment also profits through revenue collection – taxes ect- in increasing its size and therefore it’s own self interest in contrast to the private economy. Goverment through fiscal confiscation controls huge segments of the economy and profits itself through Goverment jobs with all the attendant benefits at the expense of the private sector, and through regulatory and fiscal controls creates an autonomous entity that profits from these measures. Goverments primary beneficiary is Goverment itself. If the taxpayers gets the scraps like the Kings dogs are you telling us we should be thankful and count our blessings ?
Why do federal workers earn on average 78% more than their private sector counterparts ? If you don’t know , the answer is above- self interest PROFITING at the private sectors expense.
@ Jonathan
In other words, socialism seeks to stop the exploitation of man. Slavery was exploitation of man and has been abolished (theoretically). Socialism is just the next stage for man’s ultimate liberation from the fetters blocking his way to achieve his full potential.
Kim
@ Kim:
Can’t agree with you more there, Kim :)
Why is this so hard to understand for some, I wonder… [quote] “[..] In other words, socialism seeks to stop the exploitation of man.”
So… what are these creatures? Closeted-slavers (?) Hmm?
-TL2Q
PS: this is the second time I’ve sent this… so if there’s a double post, don’t look at me… :/
Imagine your village of 1000 people (old, young, babies, pregnants, crippleds, idiots, etc., the lot) were suddenly transported to this uninhabited continent, on a planet just like earth.
You now need to organise in order to survive and progress.
What would you need to do and which of those actions would be capitalist, socialist, communist, fascist etc. etc.?
The Pilgrims experience in the New World is a living example of what you describe. Whatever view one might take of their experiment what is not disputed is the fact that they abandoned ” communal agriculture ” in favor of “individual agriculture” and the results are indisputable.
Great article. Exposes the hypocrisy we are subject to every day. Socialist roads. Just great.
i lived in well functioning socialism and now in capitalism. difference i see now are that that people are forced in various way to be divided. more capitalism is successful, people are lonelier and the higher consumers of meaningless needs. capitalism actually helps people to not be lonely in this world. that is only positive with capitalism. the negative is that capitalism caused that state in societies imposing some values like greed as moral one making people dependent and divided. because if someone has to value himself as rich, there has to be somewhere poor people as references point. otherwise how to value things? in socialism we were poor and rich in same time. except some really “rich” people in state structures or stae industial giants. but even then that was limited in positive way…… for example of “capitalist success” are millions of smartphones. people are not looking at other peoples eyes anymore. they have smartphone screens. and if they have to talk to each other, they put sunglasses on nose.
@ Sanjin
It’s hard to be a socialist… you have to be kind to other people!
There is something enthralling about Vermont. But not Bernie.
The discussion is a little short on definitions. Socialism comes from ‘society,’ which is certainly not co-extensive with “government” or the “state”. Don’t see any definitions for society, capital, capitalism, state — people are jabbering away within their own frames of reference in a discourse that brings no light.
Just a start: Capitalism is a term introduced by Karl Marx, and the concept is hence little older than a century. Various ideas and institutions about “property” are considerably older. Speaking literally, a capitalist is someone with a few heads of cattle. Funny thing about capitalists is that you don’t have to be in favour of capitalism to be one, nor are you reckoned to be a capitalist just for supporting the movement.
Just a question: If I feed my children, am I being a socialist or a capitalist?
Feeding your children is the natural act of a parent. You don’t need to receive mandatory training or reference an ideology to implement it either. If I understand your point correctly, Mr Flomenhoft and many comments here attribute natural social acts to be friuts of an ideology, which is clearly wrongheaded. Those who live in ideological boxes have a tendency to put everyone else in a box, a priori and conflate their actions and ideas accordingly.
It seems that the one huge advantage we have over other animals, our ability to formulate complex ideas and communicate them, can also be our greatest shortcoming.
Not to be facetious, but given your complaint, your example of Capitalism would not seem to provide much more substance to advance the discussion. As far as I know, Marx did not consider livestock ownership part of the definition. More seriously though, owning or controlling Capital does not in itself make you a Capitalist. One becomes a Capitalist by utilizing one’s capital assets to extract productive labor value from the working classes. This is how a distinct class of pure owners arises.
As to your question: if you feed your children because you love them and because it is your responsibility as a parent you’re a Socialist. If you feed them because you expect them to compensate your investment (with suitable rate of interest, of course) you’re a Capitalist.
All from google:
social
ˈsəʊʃ(ə)l/
adjective: social
1. relating to society or its organization.
synonyms: communal, community, community-based, collective, group, general, popular, civil, civic, public, societal;
ism
ˈɪz(ə)m/
nouninformalderogatory
noun: ism; plural noun: isms
a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement.
capitalism
ˈkapɪt(ə)lɪz(ə)m/
noun: capitalism
an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Government services (roads, utilities, parks, military) are non-profit, organized collectively and therefore socialist. The existence of private capitalist versions of all the above (such as toll roads, private parks, mercenaries) proves it.
“Just a question: If I feed my children, am I being a socialist or a capitalist?”
You’re being a parent.
These concepts are not mutually exclusive. Repeating myself, capitalism (for-profit private business) cannot exist without government, especially to provide stability, essential infrastructure, and protect property rights (Even George Will admits this). Successful economies are mixed economies, recognizing the place for various forms of organization, including the non-economic sphere of the home.
Dogmatism is what dooms capitalist and socialist fundamentalists. It essentially comes down to the evolutionary argument between selfishness and altruism. Guess what? Living organism have BOTH characteristics simultaneously. Funny that, how they co-exist.
Thanks for all the interesting comments.
Dogmatism is what dooms capitalist and socialist fundamentalists.
Dogmatism equals an ideology, becomes a religion .. Capitalism, socialism, communism.
Exactly!
What’s the matter, couldn’t you find a definition for socialism?
Mind you, I don’t think it’s absolutely essential that we build society to indulge all human instincts. Taking them into account is some way is wise, but some instincts we take into account by trying to block their negative expression. For instance, last I checked manslaughter and rape were illegal, and I’m fine with it staying that way.
So OK, maybe people have instinctive urges to make money at others’ expense. But there may be good reasons to want to minimize the expression of those urges rather than to indulge them.
A good reminder of what socialism is not:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
And curiously, Austria is certainly not what one would think of as neoliberal… even today.
Your comment..Gary
Your compatriot, Bernie Sanders has just waxed lyrics about the Pope’s desire for a ‘moral economy’:
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/04/15/sanders-at-the-vatican-enormously-impressed-by-pope-speaking-out-about-creating-a-moral-economy/
Your thoughts?
You’ve heard my thoughts, why don’t you give us yours?
Anything posted on Breitbart is probably meant as a provocation.
It’s useful as a barometer, otherwise as rubbish as the rest.
It is the idea of a ‘moral economy’ that interests me.
I haven’t thoughts deeply enough about it, but my intuition says it must involve personal restraint (not an economy that bases its success on merely satisfying human appetites, irrespective of the social and personal costs)
inter-generational responsibility (including a recognition of duty-of-care to the most vulnerable)
abhorrence of lying (which would raise problems for sellers of products that would not be profitable without distortion, evasion, deceit and manipulation, particularly military)
This doesn’t address the distribution/resource control issue I know.
So though I do not know precisely what either the Pope or Sanders propose, I believe it must contain one or more of these elements.
Your thoughts?
Eimar,
Thank you for your thoughtful ideas. To me moral involves justice, including avoiding coercion, which some of the comments on this blog have rightly addressed. To address the distribution/resource issue there is ample precedent which we have ignored for centuries, such as Thomas Paine. Read Agrarian Justice:
“The earth is a commons given to all…God didn’t open a land office to give out land titles”. They are all taken by theft or conquest. On the other hand, the products of labor are private property. Locke said the same thing. Combining one’s labor with items taken from the commons creates private property, but the commons remain. Socially produced assets should also be owned in common (like municipal services). Natural and social assets create the commonwealth (thanks GoraKoska).
If you follow this logic through it leads to an “ownership” society like Alaska where the people own the oil (and receive a dividend), but there is no income tax, and people keep the products of their labor. It’s not perfect, but points in the right direction.
Capitalism claims private ownership of everything, including the commons and the products of other people’s labor. Communism claims state ownership of everything including the results of private effort. They are both “immoral” since they involve stealing.
Free enterprise should involve people taking from the commons to fulfill their needs.
Thanks Gary.
That makes a lot of sense.
Ps The problem I have with communism is not ownership by the state, where its organization and distribution of resources both represents and benefits all of the people: it is in the execution.
I believe ithat in order to function, it creates a large administrative class, which in turn generates the very ‘evil’ it is supposed to circumvent – hierarchy.
And this creates a culture of bribery to circumvent restrictions (decided by the hierarchy.)
This only intensifies over time, and the ideals of people equality through state ownership of all resources, including labour, become buried under resentment, attrition and class enmity – the very vices it is supposed to nullify.
So the state finally becomes an ‘enemy’ in the eyes of the people, an ‘apparatus’ to be used, misused, even abused for personal gain.
Which leads to its inevitable collapse.
The main problem is not so much human failings, but scale. I don’t believe communism can work on a large scale over the long-term. But I do think it can work on a smaller scale.
It would be an interesting question to explore mathematically/psychologically using modelling techniques to see if optimal conditions have ever existed for it, or ever can.
Maybe Martin could test it ;)
Pps Loved your example of disabled folk being able to swim competitively – or even at all – thanks to socialist principles.
Couldn’t agree more!!:)
My god!
This article is the socialization of BS…
+1
Well – such things can only come from the USA
Where they believe they have a democracy, only because their digital election machines or a judge pick(s) one billionaire over another every 4 years (pre-selected by the same goldman shadow forces)
You are absolutely right!
Beautiful !
I never thought such nonsense would ever make it into this blog, never read such silly things before:
“””””The company may do their billing through the quasi-socialist postal service, and talk to people through the socialist telephone lines, or private cell phone towers both regulated by the socialist Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Advertising and most communication is through the socialist internet, created by the socialist US federal DARPA agency.”””””
DARPA == socialist??
Has the Fukushima radiation already reached the US?
@ Martin;
You’re flying off the handle there, like you do sometimes… (no worries, I admit to do that myself sometimes, so, you’re in good company)
When I read the part you quoted I took it to mean Darpa, since it was created and funded by the US government (look it up), it is indeed socialist funded. That doesn’t mean the organization itself is “Socialist,” politically or ideologically speaking. Same goes for the CIA, FBI, NSA (etc), or even the police for that matter!
What the author of this piece said is absolutely correct; if Darpa was created by the US government and funded by the US taxpayer, whatever innovation came out of them, like famously: the Internet, it belongs to the commonwealth (thanks GoraKoska for THAT word, it was on the tip of my tongue yet I couldn’t remember it).
So, in essence, it’s Socialism what made the internet happen, not Capitalism.
When Capitalism ‘invents’ something, they patent it (or copyright it) then it charges fees for others to use it, or reproduce it. That’s the difference between something that was collectively funded and later becomes available more or less for free [no fees] and when private interests create something they’re not willing to share, not without a fee attached to it.
And because I know you’re into programming, coding, software design (etc). Let me put it terms that will be black and white for you: Open Source = Socialism. Copyrighted stuff such as; OS, Adobe packages (etc) = Capitalism.
Hope that helps… :)
-TL2Q
Hello TL2Q,
are you kidding me?
Thanks for giving me a kindergaden lesson about “statehood”.
You may not believe it, but I not only knew all of that before but even dared to take it for granted.
This however doesn’t change the original matter: It is not “Socialism”, he confuses “Sate” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_%28polity%29 (including its administration) with it.
Under his definition of “Socialism” the Roman Empire was also “Socialism”.
How ridiculous is that?
> So, in essence, it’s Socialism what made the internet happen, not Capitalism.
No, the US military and secret services made it happen. Do you have a clue what DARPA is?
The Internet was developed during the 70ties for military purposes, not in the 90ties (when only http and the first browser were released).
Maybe you are off the handle: Most “states” are no longer “socialist” states even under your definition, but capitalist businesses protected by copyrights – completely fake state-simulation enteties fully under international trade law. This includes everything from a to z, such as post offices, police, judges, courts, prisons and so on.
Even the EUR bank notes have a small commercial (c) for Copyright on them.
What they don’t have on the other hand: Anything official issues by any real state.
There are no souvereign nation states anymore. The last ones were Iraq, Libya and Syria. From now on we still have North-Korea and I’m not sure about Kuba. But that’s it.
No, I am dead-serious about this subject.
Go figure …
Russia is also no souvereign nation anymore, although there are a few things which are difficult to figure out.
Not sure about China.
As for so called Germany I am 100% certain.
You find all “state” institutions in public international trade registers featuring their unique D.U.N.S. number, such as https://www.upik.de/
What do your experts now say about “Socialism” ??
Really the most silly article I’v ever come across on Saker’s blog.
@ Martin:
“are you kidding me? Thanks for giving me a kindergaden lesson about “statehood”.
Seriously, now, I would never dare do such thing. Honestly :/
“Under his definition of “Socialism” the Roman Empire was also “Socialism” [..]”
Well…. but you see, the Roman Empire probably was a proto-Socialist system to some limited extent – they were obsessed with building roads. Plus aqueducts (to bring water to masses plus irrigate crops and/or give water to their life stock), they did have a system of wellfare, believe it or not (look it up) and they were big on canals too [Romans probably stole that idea from the Egyptians] to help irrigate crop fields far away from water sources.
They all sound pretty Socialist to me, even if the word “Socialist” wasn’t invented yet at the time.
“No, the US military and secret services made it happen. Do you have a clue what DARPA is?”
Oh! I do, yes.
“The Internet was developed during the 70ties for military purposes, not in the 90ties (when only http and the first browser were released)”
70’s or 90’s, who cares? BTW, DARPA was founded in 1958.
Of course the Internet wasn’t created in the 90’s, maybe it was released to the masses in the 90’s, but that doesn’t mean it was actually ‘created’ in the 90’s. duh!
“Maybe you are off the handle: Most “states” are no longer “socialist” states even under your definition, but capitalist businesses protected by copyrights – completely fake state-simulation enteties fully under international trade law. This includes everything from a to z, such as post offices, police, judges, courts, prisons and so on”
I’m not disagreeing with you there. That’s what privatization does to State-built – whatever! From Post Services, to Utilities, to Rail Services to whatever the hell you care to mention.
This is why, privatization of State Services/Industries is so utterly wrong, especially if they’re sold a rock bottom prices.
“There are no sovereign nation states anymore. The last ones were Iraq, Libya and Syria. From now on we still have North-Korea and I’m not sure about Cuba. But that’s it.”
I agree.
“No, I am dead-serious about this subject. Go figure …
Russia is also no sovereign nation anymore, although there are a few things which are difficult to figure out.
Not sure about China.”
LoL! Trust me, we’re all wondering the same thing (and I’m not making fun of you, btw. I’m being dead-serious myself here too!) …but is like: the rhetorical million dollar question, isn’t it?
-TL2Q
“””””70’s or 90’s, who cares? BTW, DARPA was founded in 1958.”””””
I didn’t claim anything else.
I was referring to the Internet, and that was not created in 1958.
DARPA itself was set up in 1958 as USA’s response to the Soviet Union winning the Space race, even though the Soviets could not base their progress on the Nazis (their engineers and Zuse rocket building research program from Peenemuende) with whom they would create NASA and place Nazis into the highest ranks, but the americans lacked behind nevertheless.
Souvereignity: If you are all wondering about these subjects, why isn’t anybody publishing articles or at least comments about the matter? It is not enough to always vaguely rant a bit about the “AngloZionist Empire”. Many real facts are out there, but one needs to cover them in detail, rather than to only hint them in some manner which may appear to look racists to newcomers.
And no, the Roman Empire had nothing to do with Socialism.
You over there in the US really seem to have a problem with the words “communism” and “socialism”. It was an imperialist Empire! I noticed that over the years on ZH. It is only silly.
The Soviet Union often dubbed an “Empire” was not.
But let’s not argue about terminology. There are certainly different appreciations about misc. aspects.
@ Martin:
“DARPA itself was set up in 1958 as USA’s response to the Soviet Union winning the Space race, even though the Soviets could not base their progress on the Nazis [etc]”
I know all that, particularly NASA being injected with Nazi scientists from Operation Paper Clip.
But I think what it raised you hackles here is the misunderstanding – or from your point of view: misrepresentation, that DARPA [or NASA for that matter] is a Socialist organization. Again; I don’t feel that’s what the author meant.
If I read someone saying Halliburton or Monsanto are Socialist organizations, I would get pretty upset too, because they clearly ain’t. But, whether we like it or not, they are publicly funded, particularly Halliburton. Who else is gonna buy Arms Manufactures’ products if not Governments? And who funds Governments? The Tax Payer = Publicly Funded = it has an element of Socialism goin’ on, but its mostly limited to how they get financed.
“Souvereignity: If you are all wondering about these subjects, why isn’t anybody publishing articles or at least comments about the matter?”
Donno. Beats me! But wondering is not the same as knowing, mind you.
My stab in the dark here would be that no-one really knows. No-one has that inside scoop that will put this subject finally to rest. You know, like Snowden did.
Before Snowden… I cannot tell you how many times I tried to tell people that the USians were spying on everybody [their phones, their e-mails, their online activity, their GPS records (etc)] and invariably, they all looked at me like I grew a second head :/
“And no, the Roman Empire had nothing to do with Socialism.
You over there in the US really seem to have a problem with the words “communism” and “socialism”. It was an imperialist Empire! I noticed that over the years on ZH. It is only silly.”
Whoa! First of all, I’m not American, nor I live in Yankland (I’m in Europe at the moment, but I’m originally from the so-called “3rd World“). And I can assure you I have zero problems with the words “communism” and/or “socialism.” My biggest political activist hero, if I’m pressed to choose just the one: is Dr. Michael Parenti [he’s a Socialist/Marxist, a scholar graduated in Political Science with several must-read books under his name].
Second; most of ZH commenters couldn’t tell their ass from their face when it comes down to things, like: “the Left” [as in: true Left], liberals, neo-liberals, socialism (etc). So, we both agree there ;-)
Lastly; I didn’t say the Roman Empire was Socialist. I just said [or implied?] they did have socialists elements that made the Empire possible.
And that’s the whole point of this article we’re all commenting on!!!!!!!!
It is socialism that makes capitalism possible, not the other way around. AND! And! That’s not to say Socialism is responsible for Capitalism to come into existence!
I’ve said, oh, it feels like months ago… that unlike what some people may believe, namely; that humans are bloodthirsty b@astards out to kill everything, the opposite is actually true, according to new psychological studies.
I’ve said, back then, that humans are at their happiest when they cooperate with each other, when they help one another. Provided they’re not forced into it, that is. And this is across the board; from children to adults [sociopaths/psychopaths non-withstanding, of course].
So in a way, Humans have Socialism imbedded in their DNA, even back in the days when Humans didn’t have a name for it: socialism.
So! What we’re dealing here is a bunch of psychopaths [= capitalist/slavers] trying to harness that innate Human quality [socialism/cooperation] for their own selfish profit in order to accumulate wealth, which in turn will bring them influence and power.
That’s all there is to it. Really.
-TL2Q
Arg, sorry for the typos. And I forgot Iran as one of the last souvereign nations.
I’m 100% sure about the german situation (no sovereign state).
But it was difficult to find international sources for other countries and in english language.
(although the german situation is very special, also other countries are now Cabal owned, as it appears including the USA itself).
But I provide the following links without having checked them, use on your own evaluation:
UNITED STATES is a Corporation There are Two Constitutions – NO Sovereignty??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktelD4gxyAA
The Act of 1871: The “United States” Is a Corporation – There are Two Constitutions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Lw_5ex8KA
THE BANK OF ENGLANDS MASTER, THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRX3rcgSu3A
federal reserve 1913
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=federal+reserve+1913
income tax 1913
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=income+tax+1913
Hope that helps… :)
Yiur world is run by Nazis and they have _YOU_ in their books as a debts slave asset.
So no, it is not Socialism.
And that article was – c r a p.
Saker should for his next guest author rather bring some light onto the real story: lost souvereignity globally.
rgds. Martin
I forgot: What we now have is not “Capitalism” either.
It is Neo-Feudalism.
Such articles only contribute to keep the masses – at best – confused.
The Truth Behind The Income Tax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwEPAPIjh0Y
Federal Reserve and IRS = private corporations!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVzkceT521A
Bill Still – Jekyll Island: The Truth Behind the Federal Reserve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SshQ5PmKKJs
This is how JP Morgan sunk his unsikable Titanic to create the Federal Reserve Bank
ANOIRTHEMEHDI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJWFQniEpM
5 Most Powerful Families That Secretly Control The World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bn24qdZ7c
… funny, and instaed of sheding light onto that, there is such an article here if the USA is soon to be a “socialist” country.
What shall I say about that?
@Martin:
“I forgot: What we now have is not “Capitalism” either.
It is Neo-Feudalism.”
Correct!
Trouble is… Feudalism, neo or otherwise, is what you’re left with if you leave parasitic Capitalism run amok unchallenged.
BTW; we call it Capitalism today, but in the old days it was called Mercantilism.
Same thing!
-TL2Q
Hi TooLegit2Quit thanks for your messges (same applies to Blue and S113).
I spent too much time here last week and this week I can visit only very shortly.
Only so much for now: That you are not from the US makes you a whole lot more sympathetic.
And #2.) Following your narrative, the concentration camps were also “socialist”, “God is a socialist”, and not sure about the Middle Ages’ Hell …
@blue: I disagree that the Soviet Union was “State Capitalism”
Maybe to the outside market, but not inwards..
Marx: (1) everything is realized by means by nature and labour, (2) those who realize are not those who profit, (3) the problem is capitalism which can only survive on the basis of (2), (4) thus capitalism=slavery.
Rosa Luxemburg: the choice is socialism of barbarism.
Democracy does not exist and never did.
So we have still a long way to go before we enter civilisation.
KInd Regards, Ben
So Socialism is the church, its the red cross, its every example of two people working together? Lets tell that to those who fought against the National Socialist Party.
Socialism, as I read this, is a small group forcing me to share with others. They decide who are the beneficiaries of my overages, and if I fail to comply, I’m punished. Gary called this definition totalitarian, and to me socialism is identical. Socialism is totalitarian to anyone not on the receiving end of the benefits.
Being forced to share is my contention with this whole line of thought. I’ve been helped by many from their free will. I have helped people according to my own choice. I am not remotely out against the world. Its not me versus anyone. Rather, a group representing the 51% forcing me to comply is the problem I have been trying to frame.
Socialism is justified theft. You can say its for the benefit of the less fortunate, that its some glorious new world of communion and pleasantries, but in reality it takes from me at the point of a gun and gives no consideration to my interests. It forces me to share with people I’ve never met, it provides the receiver no means or incentive to be grateful or to improve their ability to produce for themselves.
If the federal government pays $12 000 per citizen annually, and you’re not paying $12K in taxes, you are probably a socialist, and probably hoping that next year that I am forced to pay $13 (instead of buying land and starting a farm that would give you a job). And if I’m not interested in that relationship, its because I have no sense of humanity and am a heartless wolf who probably needs to be declawed.
It must be fun to run in circles.
Why do you need to buy much land and hire people to work it? Instead, you could combine your resources with these people, get your share of the same land for less and without worries how to pay wages. The first approach is capitalistic, the second socialistic.
So why are you shying away from the socialistic approach?
I don’t know but I can guess. The top guesses are:
1. It does not reward you as self-made man.
2. You won’t have control over your partners.
3. You won’t be the sole beneficiary of returns.
4. It can be difficult to find like-minded partners.
Many people dislike the socialistic approach because it does not reward them with a feeling of being exceptional, mighty, rich, etc.
You mean work together with some one else able to both save money and willing to do hard work? Where would I find them? At a Bernie Sanders rally? Maybe currently employed by a socialist library? (probably not that one.) Would they be American and full of exceptional anti depressants?
Where are these prospective partners at? I’ve found a thread full of people willing to tell me how much too much I make, and though I’m able to save the money and build the business, I’m only finding people more able than me to determine how I should best manage the bounty (and apparently also willing to take what they consider excess and specifically at the point of a gun.)
Book suggestion: The Little Red Hen. Its yuuge.
I understand. Such contacts must be frustrating. It seems that companies and credit institutes succeeded in effing people to spend every cent and a dime immediately. Sadly, that is the way capitalism is kept alive.
Maybe you find your luck in the mid west. It is already a couple years ago, but it appeared to me that the people there rather avoided financial adventures for hyper-consumption.
Socialism is when people run business and government. Begging the question of which people, which governments and which businesses and how are the people running a business, or the government running a business, and how unsocial the political system is.
Socialism is not defined by the tasks of the government – that’s just a silly definition – but by the negation of the individual. But obviously there is a relationship between the size of a government and socialism.
I haven’t been coming here often, and don’t intend to start again, but I ran into this thread in passing as a result of following a link from elsewhere, and it’s appalling, with all the old deceptive propaganda, misinformation, and lies.
Before discussing socialism one should at least listen to someone who actually knows what he is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4WuynCnBrlY
Global Capitalism: Monthly Econimic Update, April 2016
Democracy At Work
Published on Apr 14, 2016
Democracy at Work, The Left Forum and Judson Memorial Church present:
Global Capitalism: Monthly Economic Update, April 2016
The Varieties of Socialism: An Economic Analysis
Wednesday, April 13, 2016 at 7:30pm
Judson Memorial Church, Assembly Hall
239 Thompson Street at Washington Square, Manhattan
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several of today’s major economic issues. This month, these will include:
1. Socialism and State Ownership
2. Socialism and State Planning
3. Socialism and the Organization of Production
…
Segment on socialism begins at just after 1 hour 6 minutes.
Welcome back, blue. How is your health?
Socialism: The Prof. in your video is joking and laughing too much in my taste.
Modern times and the topic aren’t that funny. Facts come a bit sluggish, so I only listened a few minutes after @01:06
Here another shot, even recorded in the US (main audience of this blog appears to be there) and in relation to Sanders:
Revolutionary to Democratic Socialism: From V.I. Lenin to Bernie Sanders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUGjgyNRHic
As I said, I’m not really back, beyond perhaps a few post in this thread.
My health? As national anthems of Poland and Ukraine, I’m not dead yet.
As for that video, I like listening to Becker (regularly listen to his ‘Loud and Clear’ radio from Sputnik news — but I’m not a big fan Lenin), but it’s about the 20th century history of imperialism and hardly covers the question of “what is socialism’ at all, which Wolff’s video does, and it does get better as it goes: keep in mind Prof. Wolff is accustomed to teaching people who have no or little idea of what it really is. I suspect you will find it worth hearing the whole thing, and if anyone is interested in more there are video courses on Marxism at http://www.rdwolff.com/classes .
As for Sanders, he is not an actual socialist, but a social democrat (as Becker alludes to), and for one who understands what socialism and capitalism are that would be apparent (although the line between is socialism and communism is somewhat blurry, although Wolff has covered that at other times).
From this article, the quote
“Communism is when government runs business.
Capitalism is when business runs government.
Socialism is when people run business and government”
is not accurate at all as it starts, although getting a bit better by the third line.
Communism is the completion of socialist ideas: business ‘owned’ and run by the workers, although the concept of what ‘ownership’ means needs to be examined. To say that people ‘own’ the land or Earth, instead of the reverse, is a strange and modern idea which the ‘American Indian’ natives found baffling.
Capitalism is not when business runs government but when the means of production and ‘commons’ are run and owned privately. — but capitalism devolves into monopolies, fascism and/or imperialism in it’s later stages.
There is much more to understand about this, of course, but Wolff’s sites ( http://www.rdwolff.com/ & http://www.democracyatwork.info/ ) are two places to start which are quite good.
Political science, political economics, and social and management theory, and the history, is a wide and deep ocean, but it is good to get one’s feet wet and learn to swim with the real experts who will start with the fundamentals.
Blue, good message, tnx.
I will give Prof. Wolff a new try and watch the entire video to the end, but not during the next days.
I’m surprised that you are not a Lenin enthusiast, because you appear to essentially quote him partially (some contradictions are a sign of active thinking, and not problematic, but actually better than blind believers).
Well – one should forgive him the chaos during the revolution. Also he cannot be held responsible for everything (they had no Internet, many more people were involved and information took days or weeks). He paid a high personal price: died for his visions, like his brother decades earlier (Lenin’s slow body poisioning after the attempted assassination on him).
rgds. and come here more often.
Quite some formerly important contributors like you are missing recently.
Anonymous
I’m a big fan of Prof Wolff and his narrative of “capitalism hits the fan” found online.
regarding this statement:
“Communism is when government runs business.
Capitalism is when business runs government.
Socialism is when people run business and government”
This was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, but regarding the first two lines, but it is actually pretty close to the truth.
(Soviet, North Korean, or formerly Chinese) communism involved the government operating every aspect of the economy, owning all the “means of production” and running all business ventures.
The US and western “capitalism” has essentially devolved into business controlling the operation of government for it’s own profit, basically as a subsidiary, call it oligarchy, fascism or your choice of terminology. If you have any doubt look at the heads of finance for the EU, IMF, US Treasury Dept. all from Goldman Sachs, the vampire squid.
I’ll stick by those statements.
I needed a pithy saying to define socialism, and that is what came to mind. I’m not wedded to it. It is perhaps an idealistic one based on a human scale. There are certainly mainly other definitions. It probably fits worker ownership better than larger scale models, which may be less likely to work. As institutions become larger they become less democratic. That’s why we are decentralists in Vermont. The nation-state may be unworkable.
That’s why we are decentralists in Vermont. The nation-state may be unworkable.
That may be the most important statement in this whole thread.
I believe Plato said a nation should be no larger than its largest stadium. Secretly I long for a $20 gallon because then people would be unable to travel to suburbian costco and community would blossom. If the nation was small enough (and gas expensive enough) people would need to actually concern themselves with the opinions of their neighbors, and likely most of the problems would end right there.
Spoken like a true oligarch – if only an ideological one at this point. I second Martin from SEB – this is c r a p.
USSR, etc. were/are not really communist, but state capitalist — or plutocracies, oligarchies. or whichever term. As Wolff points out, this isn’t economic democracy, although USSR and China approached it in some areas. N.K. I don’t know enough about to say if they ever got close. In one talk Wolff said that shorty after the Russian revolution the factories were taken over by the state, and often the same people who had owned them were put in charge, simply changing the hats they wore, then being government bureaucrats.
One ‘pithy saying’ I’ve used on occasion is that ‘capitalism is about being for capitalists while socialism is for being for people and society’.
A major problem in academia is that many there don’t understand this very well because it is generally not taught, and as Wolff points out, it hasn’t been for some time so even professors never got taught the material, and he had to educate himself in it. Add the government and media demonization since the beginning of the cold war and Powell Memo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.#Powell_Memorandum ) and the disinformation is rampant.
(It took me a long time to break through the propaganda and track down what was happening.)
Sanders is about the best we have now in practical terms (actual socialists are much more marginalized), even if he is not a real socialist, and soft on imperialism and militarism, but we should understand what the differences are — not so easy with all the disinformation we are immersed in, and the vast money and organization of the capitalists.
Socialism (or communism) itself is much divided and still just developing in the context of national or world governments, although further ahead and better understood than during the great revolutions of the past, and has some inherent problems such as people’s education level in this, management principles and methods, and economic, production, and social systems. New paradigms take a while to get right.
BTW, if you are in Australia, you might be able to have some interaction with Bill Keen (U. of Sydney), or have some interaction with Bill Mitchel (U. of Newcastle) — both familiar with modern monetary theory). Both have blogs and information on the web. This is very compatible with socialist political economy and corrects fundamental errors in classical, etc., as well and Keynesian economics and capitalistic tenets.
Ah Blue – maybe you could come back and give some sense to this cowboy place.
Having said that I never appreciated that you appreciated the grandeur for the settings of the Russian state presentations.
Anyway, good to know you’re not out on a wave yet sometimeplace.
Blue – in the link you included at 1:31:41 the speaker says,
You can’t read Marx and then begin to believe that if all you do is get rid of the employer who’s private and substitute an employer who’s public, you’ve gotten rid of the relationship. You haven’t. You’ve substituted state capitalism for private capitalism. There is a solution that comes out of Marx’s theory but its not that one. The solution is that the people who produce the surplus have to be the same people who get it and decide what to do with it.”
Sounds like anarchy, no?
Anarchism is often integrated into socialist and Marxist thinking, and is integral to both individual freedom and control by the workers and people, especially at local levels. The alternatives are control, often tyrannical, but either a select group of governmental authoritarian chiefs or a select group of capitalist authoritarian chiefs. Anarchism generally supports horizontal leadership and authority except for essentially temporary authorities accountable to the the people or participatory (delegatory) leadership: ‘no chiefs’ (much like the internet).
The details of how to do this in a large, complex organization and system, with some functions virtually demanding strong centralization while others require localization are still being developed, and may need some modern technological resources, such as computer networks, and new knowledge using management, cybernetic, information, and mathematical theories. Consider the difficulties of developing reliable computer operating systems and networks: many of the same paradigms and models are applicable, but anarchism is surely a part of it.
@ Third String Plug
This quote has profound implications. I both agree and disagree with Prof. Wolff. I agree in the sense that replacing a Capitalist owner with the State does not solve the problem of heirarchichal systems of oppression. I disagree, though, with the implied argument that this is not a step in the right direction.
The quote essentially describes the Soviet system of economic organization and provides key insight into the collapse of that system. Under the Soviet system, the elite ruling group were no more than managers. Powerful to be sure, but they did not own the means of production. Their power was contingent on their position. There was no clear means to pass on the benefits of that position to their children.
Faced with the prospect of economic liberalization, the Soviet ruling group perceived that the opportunity of being owners rather than managers provided a means to advance their own personal postions. This is the cause of the otherwise perplexing phenomenon that the ruling group post-collapse was essentially the same as under the Soviet system.
I want to thank you all for engaging in such an intelligent conversation about ideas, with a minimum of personal attacks. I didn’t think the conversation would go on this long or get this many comments. I have always been annoyed by Americans hatred of the word socialist when a large portion of the US economy is run on that basis. The point is that anything the government does is socialist. It may not be democratic, but it is socialist. Free enterprise is crucial because freedom is crucial. Free enterprise requires at a minimum a socialist (publicly funded) judiciary to protect property rights, land titles in particular. The two are not mutually exclusive as many people think. I find it ironic that many conservatives who love the military hate communism. I pointed out that the military, which is an authoritarian dictatorship with cradle to grave government benefits, is nearly identical to Soviet communism. Nobody even challenged me on this, but I find it kind of funny. We take our excellent municipal services so for granted, and don’t realize it is working socialism. Live in a developing country and come to appreciate it. The socialist dogmatists are equally guilty when they don’t recognize the benefits of free enterprise, or the stupidity of forbidding it. Just look at the results. The two systems of organization are not mutually exclusive but symbiotic. Successful economies are mixed as MIchael Hudson always points out. The market and state are a false dichotomy. One says that everything should belong to the state, the other that everything should be private. They are both wrong. The commons belongs to the public (not the state) and the products of labor and capital belong to the producers. Read Capitalism 3.0 by Barnes. As government gets bigger it becomes less democratic and tyrannical. Big governments all seem to turn to empires as ours has done. It won’t last much longer. Decentralization and human scale are important to us in the Second Vermont Republic, which is why we want to secede from the Empire. Free Vermont.
“anything the government does is socialist”
If the government uses troops to break a strike, gas and beatings to stop a protest, or starts an aggressive war, is that socialist? I don’t think so.
Real socialism is democratic by definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
“Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production,[7] as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim at their establishment.”
If the means of production is democratically controlled than everything else must follow because everything depends on production.
‘Free enterprise’ is a largely undefined term, as is ‘free market’. Neither is free but depends on laws and normative values, often made by those with money and power. There is a big difference between a small business where the members share in decisions and earnings, and an authoritarian corporation which may exploit resources which should be ‘owned’ by the people, and ‘freely’ creates external costs to the society.
The very ideas of ‘ownership’ and ‘privately held’ are creatures of law and power.
“As government gets bigger it becomes less democratic and tyrannical. Big governments all seem to turn to empires as ours has done.”
Getting bigger presents problems, but democracy is not necessarily one of them, and neither is imperialism. Neither Russia nor China are imperialistic now — they have largely outgrown that period, although they are concerned with international relations, trade, and a ‘sphere of influence — this last mostly in defense of western imperialism. (The western empire projects it’s own lunacy and assumes everyone else is interested in the same obsessions, of money, power, and expansion, that it has).
Looking at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdRHKp–elw and Barnes with ‘Capitalism 3.0, he fails to understand Marx’s key insights about surplus value and exploitation. Capitalism is qualitatively different from socialism in that the capitalist makes money not by producing wealth but by grabbing the surplus value of the workers (exploiting them), and the commons, because he has enough wealth and power to get away with it. As he gets richer he becomes even more powerful, and richer yet, and can exploit even more — and does eventually take over the government and country. Capitalism is inherently self-contradictory, and ultimately unsustainable, and will always fall into over-production, economic crises, and limits to the competitively required endless (cancerous) growth.
Blue,
I agree with most of what you said. However:
“If the government uses troops to break a strike, gas and beatings to stop a protest, or starts an aggressive war, is that socialist? I don’t think so.”
Ever hear of National Socialism? ie: Naziism. Need I say more?
Soviet Union called itself “socialist” but wasn’t the slightest bit democratic.
“Real socialism is democratic by definition.” History says otherwise.
Perhaps Bernie is right to specify DEMOCRATIC Socialism, as there seem to be other types including authoritarian.
Point for Bernie. :-)
Hitler called his movement “national-socialist” and chose a red color for his flag only to trick traditional KPD voters into electing him (communists had a massive followership in Germany at the time!) plus later to discredit Bolshevism because he hated it more than anything else. I’m quoting his speech where he justified invading the Soviet Union in 1941 and where he said it like this.
It is maybe somewhat ridiculous if you USA person insist on your “Bernie. :-)” being a genuine “socialist” after having compared the Soviet Union to Hitler and after having claimed that Soviet-Russia was less “socialist” than Hitler.
WTF is going on on this blog??
What a waste of bandwidth …
I wanted to avoid you, but maybe I should have taken a few days off to respond to your “views”.
You were talking about the Soviet Union and democracy.
Now, let’s focus a bit on your USA: Do you believe you live in a Democracy?
police brutality usa
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=police+brutality+usa
You have more than 2 parties (wow!), but if somebody wants to get preselected to run for presidency he has to come from one of your two (almost identical) parties.
Even then, if he fights for the truth then the media hardly report about him and often enough publish poll charts missing his name (we saw that with Dr. Ron Paul in 2008).
Your voting system is a joke.
I’m not covering your voting machines yet, and don’t mention Bush’s false victory over AlGore in 2000 but only your system itself, which is utterly distorted.
On top of than every child knows that only Billionaires have a chance to at least run for president.
Now tell me: Which right on earth do you have to judge the Soviet Union on its levels of “socialism” or “democracy”?
Have youy ever been abroad in your entire life?
Nazism — ‘National Socialism’ — was not socialism. They just said that for political purposes and killed off the socialists as soon as they could.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.”
Yes, you need to say more — and correctly.
USSR called itself socialist, but only had some of the aspects and was largely not socialist at the core except in the very beginning (If you like Wolff you can hear him say that). It was not the workers who controlled the operation or earnings of the work, and not even the people in general either. It was controlled by a bureaucracy and oligarchs, and was very authoritarian — not at all what Marx or earlier socialists supported. (A sad side effect of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who were besieged by and reacted to the enemies of the revolution, including invasion by western countries.)
USSR liked calling itself socialist for politics, and the US also liked it because of politics, and propagandist purposes. It’s like the US likes to call itself, and the countries it conquers, ‘democracy’. You can’t believe everything people tell you about who or what they are. Many people are wrong about a lot of things, or just lie, and finding the truth takes a huge amount of time and effort, if such a thing can be found at all.
If you ignore the offensive title, ‘Socialism For Dummies’, there is a two part excerpt from Wolff’s global updates which are pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZC0JOYYWw
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMUuw_K-ky0
There is also World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org/ with material about it, and various Marxist site easily found with a web search.
There is, near the top of the list,searching on ‘what is socialism’
—-
http://www.worldsocialism.org/english/what-socialism
” What is Socialism?
Central to the meaning of socialism is common ownership. This means the resources of the world being owned in common by the entire global population.
But does it really make sense for everybody to own everything in common? Of course, some goods tend to be for personal consumption, rather than to share—clothes, for example. People ‘owning’ certain personal possessions does not contradict the principle of a society based upon common ownership.
In practice, common ownership will mean everybody having the right to participate in decisions on how global resources will be used. It means nobody being able to take personal control of resources, beyond their own personal possessions.
Democratic control is therefore also essential to the meaning of socialism. Socialism will be a society in which everybody will have the right to participate in the social decisions that affect them. These decisions could be on a wide range of issues—one of the most important kinds of decision, for example, would be how to organise the production of goods and services.
”
—-
You find this over and over again, in many different sources — it’s a fundamental principle. But there is lots of propaganda written by capitalist, similar to how the image they created for anarchists are strange fellows dressed in black throwing bombs. (Similar to how they use ‘terrorists’ now to apply to anyone they don’t like).
The most difficult part of understanding what socialism is is unlearning all the nonsense and insidious disinformation that the empire has said about it. It’s like Obama and others saying the country has ‘run out of money’ (or the false understanding of what money is, even) — pure poppycock, but part of the propaganda to transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich oligarchs.
Even Sanders seems to be taken in by it — or thinks it’s too complex to explain in a campaign, since he should know, with Stephanie Kelton and Bill Black as advisers — to the question of ‘how will you pay for all these programs?’. The answer, of course, is just have the government create the money as it does for all US currency, and use it to make investements in education, health care, infrastructure, and other such things as will improve the economy such that in years to come everyone will be richer (unless the wealthy keep stealing it all). Again the problem is misunderstanding the fundamental nature of things — either money or socialism in these cases.
It’s like trying to understand the solar system without ever realizing, or keep forgetting, that the sun is at the center. If you forget that democracy (by, for, and of the people) is a necessary and defining characteristic of socialism, regardless of how much a government may ‘give to the people’, then one can become confused by what it is. None of that stuff is ‘free’ in that it all funded by the economy, but at the same time, if it’s good investment then it is healthy for the economy and grows it — abut the same as if a company invests in new or better tooling and machinery, or worker training, or ‘stay well’ programs and adequate health care, or making sure you land is suitable for planting crops and giving plants adequate water and fertilizer. Does a farmer worry about his plants getting ‘free water’ and the moral hazard of them not paying for the fertilizer they need? Gotta get real!
Martin and Blue,
I have no interest in getting in an argument with. I’ve already addressed many issues that you raise, but they are in other threads further up the page. The US is a fascist police state, I never said it was a democracy.
I wrote the article because Americans (and many others apparently) don’t recognize government services as “socialist” defined as collectively organized activities, done on a non-profit basis, for the common good including roads, police, water, sewerage, fire, judiciary, etc.
Thank you for the conversation.
But you also never answered the fact that Goverment is in the profit business . You are defining what profit means and expect everybody to accept your definition. Goverment profits from the private sector everyday from its confiscation of monies through taxes etc. They create monopolys, give themselves jobs, create their own pay scales and benefits and this is all at the taxpayers expense. There are many ways to create profitable businesses and Goverment is at the top of the scale. Just because this does not fit your definition of business does not make it any less valid and just because it does not fit your definition of profit does not make it any less valid.
Hi Hayek,
very true.
And the funny point is, at least for Germany, they _are_ businesses now.
Every pseudo “state” institution has a VAT Tax id, like a business. Including the german “Bundestag”:
http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/service/imprint
“””””VAT registration number
DE 122119035″””””
Even the so called “Tax office” itself has a VAT id, and so do public courts and really _all_ other former “state” institutions!.
The govs of the west don’t support the interest of the people, but clearly work against the people. Meanwhile it gets more visible by the day that they are in fact literally owned by the banks.
It is no longer a conspiracy theory.
It is not a singe company, but an wide network.
Would you expect that the management of Germany’s state debts (almost 3 Billion USD) is performed by a small GmbH (limited company with a capital of less than 30 thousands)?
Now, let’s have a look at their own homepage:
http://www.deutsche-finanzagentur.de/en/imprint/
“””””The Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Finanzagentur (Federal Republic of Germany – Finance Agency) is a company of the Federal Government, with its headquarters in Frankfurt/Main, founded at the end of 2000. The sole shareholder is the Federal Government, represented through the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The Federal Republic of Germany – Finance Agency acts solely and exclusively on behalf of and for the account of the Federal Republic of Germany, or for its special funds, in respect of all money market and capital market transactions.
Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Finanzagentur GmbH
Lurgiallee 5
60439 Frankfurt/Main
Telefon: +49 (0) 69 25 616 0
Telefax: +49 (0) 69 25 616 14 76
E-Mail: info@deutsche-finanzagentur.de
The company is represented by:
Dr. Tammo Diemer (Managing Director)
Dr. Carsten Lehr (Managing Director)”””””
Ahh, back to this silly article: Banks are also “socialist” under your definition.
Why? Simple: Privatize earnings, socialize losses …
But the author just today stated himself that he is not interested in discussion the only truely interesting points.
@ blue: hanks for your post, only correction: Forget the so called “worldsocialistforum” and their Trotsky style contributors.
Go to real communists for a definition of socialism and for statements about the Soviet Union that look less like USAOligarchic Nazi propaganda.
I’m undecided about how well WSWS thinks about socialism, and about Trotsky vs Lenin vs Stal;in, etc. — too much history for me to get on top of it. Yet WSWS does have some good material from ‘some’ socialist POV.
The Marxist sites (.org s, . com. s, archives, etc. have much good material which includes original writing, videos, books, and all but are so massive that I find it hard to get through them or keep straight which is which. The people their seem to have spent many years reading this stuff. I try to get the essence which can be applied to systems and economics currently — more the theory and practice, without the extensive history which I won’t live long to make a dent in it.
As for state being profit making business it’s important to distinguish between the US federal government and the states, or the nations in the EU, the former being monetarily sovereign while the latter are not independent and constrained to balance the budgets at some point — being users of money rather than issuers. (The US can’t go bankrupt unless it chooses to, but Michigan or Greece can.) This is an important consideration regarding fiscal policy space, and thus socialist policies: FDR had to borrow money for the New Deal, but now after abandoning the gold standard and being tied to anything else the US government can issue as much money as it wants to invest in the economy and infrastructure.
That it created a bunch of money and gave it to the rich, who don’t use it to grow the economy, was dumb, but we had better hope they keep playing their financial games with it and don’t go out and buy up everything tangible with it or we might see devastating inflation. On the other hand, if the 1% keeps grabbing all the cash and sitting on we are looking at possible debt deflation, as liquidity and velocity dries up and the people can’t spend enough for decent aggravate demand, and incentive for production.
So now we have roads falling apart, schools being closed, police and fire protection cut back, high unemployment, and the rest of the infrastructure going to hell, not to mention socialist programs for the ‘general welfare’ of the people, because the federal government thinks that a deficit is a bad thing instead of it measuring the amount of money available to the private sector for production and living. We have plenty of materials and people who want to work, and to consume, but they don’t have money because it all goes to the wealthy and financial sector to play their silly games with. That’s idiocracy.
Regarding my post: Martin from Soviet East-Berlin on April 19, 2016 · at 12:52 pm UTC
I had typed my message above before breakfast (still half asleep) and need to correct a stupid error (typical for german speakers):
> state debts (almost 3 Billion USD)
What I meant was of course
state debts (almost 3 __Trillion__ USD)
German public debts:
http://www.staatsschuldenuhr.de/
Ok, at the current exchange rate that’s on the other hand not yet 3 Trillion USD but only 2.5 Trillions.
On the other hand again, the true State debts is probably way larger, depending on how you count.
government services as “socialist” defined as collectively organized activities
A collectively organized activity, like building a church, is voluntary. That is not remotely socialist.
Socialism is theft. Socialism, via democracy, is theft by the 51%. It is all coercive. Every time.
I don’t think anarchy needs complex computers, it needs small groups who are repulsed by one trying to lord over another. Socialism doesn’t begin to correct any of this.
@ third string plug on April 19, 2016 · at 1:06 pm UTC
“””””Socialism is theft.”””””
Nice try.
No! Socialism is giving back stolen Oligarchic wealth to its *right*ful owners: We, the People
Capitalism or however one can still call the modern day system – this is the largest scale ongoing robbery and mass-theft in history of humanity.
I don’t know what they all have stolen also from you.
Maybe also your lila glasses which could show you reality.
You chose the wrong pills in Matrix the movie.
The problem with the anti-socialist right wing ideological arguments is they are straw men: they define the words in incorrect ways and then argue that according to how they define them it doesn’t work. They actually hate democracy and people’s self determination — and most people who putatively support socialism don’t understand what it is or how it works, and are so closed minded that no one can explain it to them. They would sooner go down with the ship than steer away from the iceberg.
All true. How many times have we heard the term ” Goverment Business “. Of course if we just take a simple example of Americas socialized education , which is the most expensive in the world and then take a look at the results we get a clear picture of the true cost of socialism.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/08/england-young-people-league-table-basic-skills-oecd
You prefer theft by the 1%. Well, to each his own…
[Quote from Martin:] “Hitler called his movement “national-socialist” and chose a red color for his flag only to trick traditional KPD voters into electing him (communists had a massive followership in Germany at the time!) plus later to discredit Bolshevism because he hated it more than anything else [etc]”
^ I have to agree with Martin here.
The Nazis weren’t anymore Socialist (national or otherwise) than the Yank Democrats are supposed to represent ‘the left’ side of the political spectrum, or… Mussolini was supposed to be a compassionate humanitarian historical figure.
Let’s be honest here; even with Corbyn at the helm, who in here believes the UK ‘New’ Labour Party has anything to do with “Labour” or the proletarian as its name proclaims?!?!?
Nowadays, anybody that goes against the accepted consensus of ‘multiculturalism’ and/or mass immigration is libeled: far-right, or ultra-far-right.
Yet the ‘true’ far-right are always aligned with the oligarchs land owners, and with the slave owners… and with the industrialists…. and with the globalists – also the free-trade merchants [and so on].
But! Back to the Nazis: anybody ‘on the right’ you care to mention were supporting them one way or another; from Ford, Hugo Boss, IBM, General Motors, JP Morgan, Rockefellers, Rothchilds, the Bushes, the Windsors (to name a few). They were all on the Nazi camp at the time.
My question is… Since when any of them were “Socialists,” …. remind me?
….
Despite their duplicitous name, the Nazis, weren’t “National Socialists,” they were as far-right as they come! [if their sponsors are anything to go by…]
Hence; the reason why the term far-right has such bad connotations even to this very day.
Because…. I have yet to hear that the Nazis running around in Ukraine are supposed to be ‘far-left,’ – they’re always labeled far-right, as far as I know :/
Bottom line: this is what happens when people can’t tell their left from their right. Let alone true far-right, from true Socialism.
But here, blue, closes the point for me:
“Nazism — ‘National Socialism’ — was not socialism. They just said that for political purposes and killed off the socialists as soon as they could”
Thank you, blue!
-TL2Q
Found these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-XcAiswY4
Noam Chomsky – The Soviet Union vs. Socialism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_jRd59qy0A
Noam Chomsky – Marxism vs. Leninism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2925355403&feature=iv&src_vid=06-XcAiswY4&v=ZBXUBYYEHhk
Noam Chomsky on Socialism
There are others, but it shows Chomsky supporting what I said regarding what socialism is and that the USSR wasn’t.
Chomsky is a Trotsky fanboy and that’s why I only respect his mathematical/CS achievements.
He is a false prophet.
I know many people criticize Trotsky, but I haven’t figured out just what was so terrible about him — maybe it depends on the time frame.
Now, I am anti-authoritarian and fairly anarchistic, tend to support pre-figurative, horizontally organized, politics, and from what I gather that puts me closer to the Mensheviks than Bolsheviks. What Chomsky says generally makes sense to me (although not always, especially on the toipc of Israel where I think he is too zionist).
I have heard Trotsky was rather ‘Alanticist’ and that would be problematic, But none of them seemed to have a real good handle on everything or without their faults, even given the very difficult times and pressures they were under — and not having the advantage of hindsight, of course.
Preifgurative, horizontal — it’s a tough policy, and may not be possible when under fierce attack, and yet trying to have some kind of authoritarian vanguard virtually guarantees loss of real socialism and democracy and instead yields power struggles and tyranny. But again, what the time frame of some particular policy or writing is makes a difference since none of them seemed to be all that consistent over the decades (neither have I been — I’ve learned a lot over the years).
But I don’t put Chomsky down as any sort of prophet — he doesn’t prophesize — just reads history and such and tells what has happened according to his position, and is one of the better sources to consider.
I also hear Michael Parenti ( http://www.globalresearch.ca/left-anticommunism-the-unkindest-cut/5502859 , and https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/1w0dtm/michael_parenti_another_view_of_chomsky/ look interesting although I haven’t read them yet — just found them). And many of the questions are still not settled, even philosophically and politically: there is uncertainty, and I haven’t, and never can, read even a fraction of all that’s been written. I haven’t even been able to read all of Marx yet (and am too poor to buy the books so I’m reduced to what is online). I’m still constantly learning, and often enough refining my thinking, or sometimes changing it in significant ways. But I’m pretty firm in supporting economic democracy (socialism/communism), and against capitalism (theft and exploitation of the workers who produce the wealth). That much Chomsky seems to support, but I don’t think like this because of what Chomsky, Trotsky, Marx, or anyone else but because of experience dealing with people and my own ‘inner’ self.