Socialism

POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Monday, August 26, 2024 16:07
VIEWED: 8502
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FUZION

Saturday, June 27, 2009 5:13 AM

well if it helps stir up any discussion I'd like to point out that I am a proponent of revolutionary socialism (specifically, Marxism-Leninism mixed with Maoism-Third Wordlism)

before, I was an anti-Stalinist, but over the past few years I've become increasingly aware that Stalin, despite his flaws, was a net positive in the world and that figures which suggest he killed tens of millions of people are grossly exaggerated

the criteria used to determine who was a victim of a particular economic system (in this case, communism) are inconsistent. if the same criteria were applied to capitalism we would find the death tolls are so vastly high so as to be nigh incomparable

SERGEANTX

Saturday, June 27, 2009 5:20 AM

Whatever. I'm tired of worrying so much about matters of principle. Justice, freedom, individual dignity - bah. Why fight fashion? It's especially silly in my case, 'cause I got nothing to lose. I'm unemployed with zip in the bank.

Let's get this party started. I say we start redistributin' tomorrow!

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

FUZION

Saturday, June 27, 2009 5:28 AM

Redistribution of wealth within First World countries is a mostly frivolous exercise. The vast majority of that wealth was not actually created IN the First World, so why is it only being redistributed there?

I do not consider workers in the First World to be exploited. On the contrary, just about everyone there is part of the upper class which lives off the labour of the global poor. Even people such as those who are unemployed reap the benefits of this labour through the liberal welfare state.

Consequently, I don't see people in the First World as agents for bringing about meaningful change. Nor do I see them as victims. The sort of socialism I advocate would, without a doubt, be detrimental to the living quality of these people. There is simply not enough resources in the world for everyone to live as they do in countries like the United States or Canada.

And as for "justice, freedom, and individual dignity". Most advocates of capitalism are certainly tired of them! They advocate justice, freedom, and dignity for a small minority while specifically denying those things to the vast majority.

Here is something fun to read,
http://www.naomiklein.org/files/resources/pdfs/budhoo.pdf

SERGEANTX

Saturday, June 27, 2009 5:32 AM

As long as I get a pony.
Or a mini-bike.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

SERGEANTX

Saturday, June 27, 2009 6:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fuzion:
before, I was an anti-Stalinist, but over the past few years I've become increasingly aware that Stalin, despite his flaws, was a net positive in the world and that figures which suggest he killed tens of millions of people are grossly exaggerated.

Ya know, I check up on this online, and you're totally right. No way he killed more than 4 or 5 million, and most of them had it comin'. He was really nice to kids too.

SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

FUZION

Saturday, June 27, 2009 6:34 AM

Yeah 4 or 5 million is pretty much the figure I would use. As to whether most of them had it coming- well, I would say that many of them did. You may not recognize most of what these people did as being criminal, but likewise I would not recognize much of what people in US prisons do as criminal! What is deemed necessary to land a person in prison, or work camp, varies depending upon context and certainly in many places counter-revolution was certainly considered a crime.

Despite the amount of deaths caused, communism in the USSR (as well as other places- namely the People's Republic of China) had numerous positive effects, including nearly doubling life expectancy. Not to mention that thing about stopping that one guy who wanted to do the citizens of the USSR what settlers did to the natives of the Americas. Think his name was Hitler.

As for whether he was really nice to kids. I don't know! Stalin was probably pretty damn insane and not a likeable person but that doesn't mean he did not do good things [as well as bad].

CITIZEN

Saturday, June 27, 2009 9:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Social justice is an integral part of Catholic doctrine, and Social Welfare is a form of Social justice. Hey, I'm making the same links you are!

Actually you aren't. You're straw manning my argument and using equivocation to make irrelevant links.

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
This whole process was illogical (social welfare isn't catholic by definition)

Yes, your progression was illogical, as is how you try to use it to dismiss my statements. I note for the record you've been unable to deal with what I said, and have instead gone off on an irreverent tangent, constructed a straw man and attacked that. Good job!

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
I was copying you and coming up with a contradictory result to show you that.

You're really not, no matter how often you repeat yourself, it doesn't make it true. You're making an illogical argument, and then just saying it's the same as what I am doing, but it isn't in the slightest.

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
You obviously missed what the logic was that I was referring to, go back to my first post that you knee-jerk dismissed and try to find it.

Actually you 'knee jerked dismissed' my statements, how about you read your first post and maybe you'll find it. You've obviously missed the logical progression behind what I'm saying, that's in turn completely missing from your own attempt. The fact is, I get where you're coming from, and why you think your example is the same thing, so I haven't missed anything. It just so happens you're wrong, you're the one missing something and your link is neither logical nor remotely relevant. Maybe if you bothered to read my posts and see why and how I got to where I did, rather than just immediately dismissing it because you don't want to accept it, you'd realise the logic of my position, and the illogic of your objection.

You're trying to say that, my argument is that Social Welfare is mentioned in Social Democracy, which is mentioned in Socialism, therefore Social Welfare is Socialist. That's the sort of progression you put up for Social Welfare programs being Catholic, that you say is exactly what I was doing. But it is not the logical progression I'm using in any way shape or form, and trying to pass that off as what I'm doing, is a straw man of my actual argument. Are you too pro-capitalist to accept that maybe good stuff can come from systems other than Capitalism, and we can incorporate them for a better society, without being completely socialist? Is this what a centrist gets for trying to talk to pro-capitalists and pro-socialists?

Because at the moment your terribly logical argument would dismiss that any nation has a capitalist economy, which pretty much lays the 'logic' of your argument open now doesn't it.

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
I suggested that socialism was a system for organising* production that was useless because its primary interest was achieving social justice, and not in making things productive. And that social justice could be achieved to a large extent another way, through social welfare, which is best funded by an economy whose businesses are capitalist, like Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France.

*Organising it by putting it in state/collective hands, essentially.

Yeah but other systems do all that as well, so you dismiss your own argument with your logic. So I ask again, what is 'Socialist'? Remembering, using your logic, it can't be socialist if it's mentioned or used anywhere outside of Socialism.

Your stand point is inherently illogical, I've shown quite clearly that Social Democracy is a form of Socialism, I've also shown quite clearly that the Social Welfare systems we're talking about are implemented by Social Democracies and Social Democratic thinking. In return you've tried to claim I'm making irreverent leaps, by making irreverent leaps yourself and erroneously saying "I'm just doing what you did". Your argument is asinine and has very little to do with what I

CITIZEN

Saturday, June 27, 2009 9:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Ya know, I check up on this online, and you're totally right. No way he killed more than 4 or 5 million, and most of them had it comin'. He was really nice to kids too.

Just 4-5 million? The estimates for 1926-1937 are about 8.5 Million alone.

I've seen predictions that show Russia should have a population of about 300 million, roughly analogous to the United States, if Stalin hadn't killed all them folk. Russia's actual population today is 140,702,096.

Fun fact about Stalin. He ordered a census to be taken in 1937, to find out the population or the Soviet Union. When the Census takers (censors?) came back, the figure was too low, because Stalin had killed so many people, so he had the Census takers shot. Then made up new figures to be published.

Great man, real fun guy at parties, apparently liked dancing, that is he liked other people to dance for his amusement and if they didn't he'd have them executed. Absolute life of the party, got the right mix of abject terror and dancing every time.

CITIZEN

Saturday, June 27, 2009 10:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fuzion:
The term "communism" is generally used to refer to an ideology which is a subset of socialism, or to refer to specific socialist societies which emerged in the 20th century. Either way, usage of the term "socialism" is correct.

I said that myself, and I also said (actually it may be in the other thread) that there's more to socialism than just communism, in which case equating Socialism and Communism in this way is decidedly incorrect. Fascism is a right wing ideology, it's not correct to say the Right wing is responsible for the holocaust.

Quote:

Um no, the modern welfare state has roots dating back to classical liberal thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and even Adam Smith. Specifically, people started realizing that certain factors prevent equality of opportunity from being evenly distributed and the more intellectually honest liberals began to notice that these factors are very prevalent in society and that someone should do something about them.

Um no, the modern welfare state comes from the Social Democracy movement, which is socialism that rejected certain ideas of Marx, such as Democracy being bad, and the necessity for state ownership of the means of production.

GEEZER

Saturday, June 27, 2009 2:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Your definition sounds more like Communism to me, and Communism is certainly a type of Socialism, but it's not all there is.

Not my definition, just a compilation of the overwhelming majority of what you get when you google "Socialism definition".

Quote:
What about Social Democracy?

The Social Democracy movement right after WWII was as close as Europe got to Socialism - exemplified by the Atlee government in England, as you noted. However, as also included in the Britannica article:

"With its ascendancy, social democracy changed gradually, most notably in West Germany. These changes generally reflected a moderation of the 19th-century socialist doctrine of wholesale nationalization of business and industry."

Thus they kept the Social Welfare component, but generally reneged on the economic component, i.e. government/cooperative ownership of the means of production.

Quote:
What's the essence of Social economics? Central Government control?

If you mean Socialist economics, I have to go back again the the classic consensus definition as noted above. Government/cooperative ownership of the means of production. Not regulation, not taxation - ownership.

Quote:
Wikipedia's entry on Socialism makes mention of the foundation of the NHS as well as other social programs under the "Social Democracy in Power" section:

Yep. As noted, Europe flirted with Socialism after WWII, but, from the same Wikipedia article:

"In the 1980s and 1990s, western European socialists were pressured to reconcile their socialist economic programmes with a free-market-based communal European economy. In the UK, the Labour Party struggled much; Neil Kinnock made a passionate and public attack against the Party's Militant Tendency at a Labour Party conference, and repudiated the demands of the defeated striking miners after a year-long strike against pit closures. In the 1990s, released from the Left's progressive pressure, the Labour Party, under Tony Blair, posited policies based upon the free market economy to deliver public services via private contractors."

So they left Socialist economic principles behind and became Social Democrats, or Democratic Socialists, with a platform that didn't even address economy.

"In 1989, at Stockholm, the 18th Congress of the Socialist International adopted a Declaration of Principles, saying that

Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice, and solidarity. Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents, and with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of society."

Quote:

From your google:
"The view that the government should own and control major industries using the dollars earned to provide benefits to citizens."
Doesn't that describe a socialised health industry?

Not really, since the NHS doesn't earn any dollars to use to provide benefits. Instead it's supported by tax revenue from privately-owned industries and the people they employ. Also "socialized" and "Socialist" aren't the same thing.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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