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I swore I'd stay out of this thread because I'm still suffering PTSD from Hume, Kant, Camus, and their cronies... but...
CJ (and TheWhiteknife, by vague association) - It feels to me as though you're still mistaking Socialism for a form of Government, and not seeing it as a form of Economics. You're absolutely correct - those wikipedia entries are accurate representations of the forms of Government of each of the countries listed. However, completely independent of their form of government, those nations use a socialist model to handle the higher levels of their economies and governmental services. I need point you no further than the Great Horned Devil of the current political climate of the United States as proof: Universal, Socialized, Health Care.
Every last nation I mentioned has it, along with state pensions (I'd have to check on Canada for that one), universal welfare, and many other things that the extremists (I speak of both sides) in the US consider either "Nation Killers" or "Nation Builders."
Socialism and Capitalism are not mutually exclusive - Japan is the prime example of this. The Diet is a Parliamentary Democracy (with a CRAZY amount of fisticuffs!), the various ministers and representatives do the duties they're elected to, and the income of the government is managed in a manner consistent with the economic theory of Socialism. That money is gained through aggressive (Some would say "pure") consumerist Capitalism.
I'd go so far as to say that the flowchart breakdown would look like this:
Japanese Production (Mercantile Capitalist) -> Japanese Public (Consumerist Capitalist) -> Japanese Tax Structure (Socialist Distribution)
That's just a quick and dirty, because, seriously, I really didn't want to get into this, but it helps illustrate my point... I hope.
TheWhiteknife - Yeah, you're on to what I was after - It's not a matter of government that I'm attempting to clarify, it's a matter of economic practice. Socialism has long been...
Oh and I am not trying to ignore you. yes, I understand the difference betwixt a Government formed on Socialistic principles and a Market socialism which is an economic practice.
Capitals or no, Anklebiter? I NEED TO KNOW!
Kortz,
And why do we have to have a meteor hit and take us back to the 1700's to want to end our involvement in silly wars that in no way protect security? You know who gets killed in them? Its not the rich, I'll tell you that. Why is it misfit fantasy thinking to want to end the massive failure that is the War on Drugs and recognize that we own our own bodies? You know who gets hard time for possession? Here's a hint, its not the rich. Why is it so loony to want to protect the first, second, and fourth amendments from the attacks on both sides of the congressional aisle? You want to know who is victimized by the police state? It aint the rich.
jemstone,
The only problems I have with the so-called "Obamacare" bill are thus: I dont like how quickly it was passed without thouroughly considering the unintended consequences. Any bill that large is going to contain alot of wording that creates some really wonky situations. I feel that we arent going to find out about these situations until we are knee deep in them. (kind of like how corn subsidies+ Nafta= illegal immigration) The second problem I have is the precedent set by the "Mandate". I feel like if they were going to nationalize healthcare, they should have went all in with a single payer system. Instead we are getting a mish mash with a side of government can dictate that you must buy stuff.
Comrade,
I never knew socialists liked the easy sex, drugs, and rock n roll as much as the liberts! bff's?
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Kortz,
And why do we have to have a meteor hit and take us back to the 1700's to want to end our involvement in silly wars that in no way protect security? You know who gets killed in them? Its not the rich, I'll tell you that. Why is it misfit fantasy thinking to want to end the massive failure that is the War on Drugs and recognize that we own our own bodies? You know who gets hard time for possession? Here's a hint, its not the rich. Why is it so loony to want to protect the first, second, and fourth amendments from the attacks on both sides of the congressional aisle? You want to know who is victimized by the police state? It aint the rich.
I didn't mean to imply that so-called Libertarians aren't right about anything, and it's the things they are right about that probably attracts a lot of people in the first place. But the ideology as a whole is grounded in an idealization of the past and seems escapist to me. (And I would say the same about some of the far Left.) A lot of ideological thinking is fantasy thinking, but I find Libertarian ideological thinking particularly atavistic, misanthropic, and deluded.
We'd be better off all standing in the middle, taking a pragmatic stance, and figuring out what works and what doesn't instead of seeing everything through the lens of this or that ideology.
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Revolutionary socialism is way cool!
If you don't like it, you're a stooge of the plutocracy!
[Leans back in chair and reads The Warlods of Mars while waiting for visitors to arrive.]
It is interesting ... I have used many of the social and economic systems that exist in reality as fodder for societies or to generate campaign themes in my RPGs, but I have actually never used communism ... hmmmmm ... Oh wait! That is because it doesn't make any sense. *LOL*
In service,
Rich
Member of the Plutocryptocracy
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You oldthinkers will all be swept away! You are broken! Your system is broken! Rise of little kruelies and throw off your chains!
Malevoloence! CHarity! Pizza!
Pizza?
Hawaiian style, with pineapples and ham/spam, is dangerously socialist... everyone knows that.
WE WILL SMURFBERRY YOU!!!
Ask Nikita Smurfchev, I don't smurf Russian!
WE WILL SMURFBERRY YOU!!!
"Papa Khrushchev said 'We will smurfberry you.'
I don't subscribe to this point of view.It'd be such a flammable thing to do,
If the Paizonians love their children too." - Comrade G. Sumner
Edit: Ninja'd by the LeperKahn
Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.
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Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.
{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}
Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}
But weez on a silvah standud. Nyuck nyuck!
But weez on a silvah standud. Nyuck nyuck!Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}
{takes Bear's pic-a-nik basket and gives him a voucher for two turnips, a roll of toilet paper, and 1/6th of a small goat}
I am not that much of an extremist.Was it your intention to imply that gay rights activists are after things so horrible that it requires Fred Phelps to make them seem halfway decent?J. McCarthy = F. Phelps
They make the other side look acceptable.
Could you expand on what you did mean?
{takes Bear's pic-a-nik basket and gives him a voucher for two turnips, a roll of toilet paper, and 1/6th of a small goat}But weez on a silvah standud. Nyuck nyuck!Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}
*eats Ambrosia Slaad*
You all saw it! She tried to give me more food, after I ate everything in that basket!
I think the best response to libertarianism is "The Bitcoin."
*eats Ambrosia Slaad*
You at least need to buy me dinner and a movie first, Fozzie. ;)
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Could you expand on what you did mean?I am not that much of an extremist.Was it your intention to imply that gay rights activists are after things so horrible that it requires Fred Phelps to make them seem halfway decent?J. McCarthy = F. Phelps
They make the other side look acceptable.
I don't smurfing feel very Dennis Miller tonight.
QUOTE="Comrade Anklebiter"]
I'm not sure what the whole thing about the end of history means. Marx did argue that main mechanism of all previous societies had been the class struggle and he further argued that by overthrowing capitalism and building socialism, the proletariat would dissolve all humanity into one class and, therefore, do away with class division and hence class struggle. I guess that sounds a lot like a secular Millenarianism, but I don't care.
EPIC STRANGER DUDE said
"The fallacy of imagining history as having a definitive end is the major flaw that Camus points to in both
Hegelianism and Marxism.
But the link between Christianity and Marxism goes even farther than that. Socialism, by placing the values men
seek at the end of a historical process which man will achieve, eliminates the need for God by replacing Him with
a Utopia."
I mean, whether you care or not, that's just what's it is.
The means run the gamut from impossible to implement effectively to utterly indefensible, and the ends are a promise of rapture, of heaven on earth.
Maybe these absurd heroes, in trying to justify with such impossible ends using such means which could possibly be considered comical if not for the fact that they oftentimes ended up causing abject hell on earth, should have just found another rock to roll up the hill.
*eats Ambrosia Slaad*You at least need to buy me dinner and a movie first, Fozzie. ;)
I'm cheap, so I'll just go wakka wakka... O_o
Edit: and I had dinner... in the basket.
I'm not ready for Camus yet.
Communism is not Socialism and never will be and my GODS, people, stop mixing the two up! Socialism is strictly an economic system. Communism seeks to be a mixture of both economic and political system. One is not incompatible with the Capitalist system, the other is viewed (rightly or not) as the eventual evolution of the Marxist ideal.
But they're not the same. Many great, First World nations, are Socialist.
Comrades!
I can understand your frustration with the outside world where every ignorant American yokel thinks that the French Socialist Party is the same as Stalin's gulags. Although, DSK running the IMF is pretty f#+~ed up, you have to admit.
Anyway, I understand your frustrations, but, please, this is Comrade Anklebiter's Fun-Timey Revolutionary Socialism Thread and, in here, they DO mean the same thing.
In CAF-TRST, commmunism is socialism is Marxism, while Communism usually means Stalinism, and all that Labo(u)r party ca-ca is reactionary social-democratic capitalism.
I'm sure I'm not helping you guys out, but hey, I want to overthrow you, too.
Viva la revolution!
EDIT: Oh, and Comrade Jemstone: The Crimson Jester, reactionary stooge of the plutocracy that he is, has been putting up with my commie shenanigans for awhile now and knew that I meant them to be the same thing, so don't blame him.
We're not communists..... we're.....uh.....democratic worker....dudes.....who work....
we got nuttn to do with them U.S.S.R. dingbats!
this is "NEW." We blieve "NEW" stuff.I frankly uh.....am insulted. Yeah. By da inference.
Oh, this uh......Che Guevara shirt? This is ME mocking YOU for thinking I'm some kinda commie.
Get off my back, McCarthy!!!
That better not be directed at me, Spanky.
I don't wear Che t-shirts, I wear ones with V.I. Lenin on them!
Although I am a worker and a dude.
Can I just go back to calling Comrade Anklebiter a Pinko Bastard again?
Yes, of course.
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I thought you were against capitalization? Oh, capitalism. My bad.
On a serious note, I was really hoping that you were going to do that stuff that was being thrown around in the folly thread. You got me checking counterpunch.com every day. ( after reason.com, of course)Edit: Do I have to bring my own drugs and porn or are they provided?
First, Comrade Knife, that's a terrible pun. I was thinking of having you sent to a gulag for it, but I decided against it.
Second, the fact that you are reading Counterpunch and Bitter Thorn linked one of their article is proof positive that I have achieved some good by spending all my free time pretending to be a goblin paladin from Galt. Communist subversion: mission accomplished! I'm sure my old comrades would be proud.
I would be happy to expose all of my misfit fantasy-prone thoughts to public ridicule, but it's going to have to be piecemeal. Right now, I'm locked in mortal struggle with Albert frickin' Camus. What would you like me to pontificate about next?
And finally, [bubble bubble bubble] is free as the air, but I don't share my porn!
Comrade,
I never knew socialists liked the easy sex, drugs, and rock n roll as much as the liberts!
Well, I can't speak for all the comrades, but I certainly do.
What else are we going to do after the end of history? Other than play some D&D, of course.
jemstone,
The only problems I have with the so-called "Obamacare" bill are thus: I dont like how quickly it was passed without thouroughly considering the unintended consequences. Any bill that large is going to contain alot of wording that creates some really wonky situations. I feel that we arent going to find out about these situations until we are knee deep in them. (kind of like how corn subsidies+ Nafta= illegal immigration) The second problem I have is the precedent set by the "Mandate". I feel like if they were going to nationalize healthcare, they should have went all in with a single payer system. Instead we are getting a mish mash with a side of government can dictate that you must buy stuff.
I, too, have many problems with the Obamacare bill. Mostly, I can't understand how anyone thinks that a bill whose main beneficiaries are the HMOs and the insurance companies is a progressive idea.
When they started talking about how they were going to tax my benefits to fund it, I almost freaked.
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Kortz,
And why do we have to have a meteor hit and take us back to the 1700's to want to end our involvement in silly wars that in no way protect security? You know who gets killed in them? Its not the rich, I'll tell you that. Why is it misfit fantasy thinking to want to end the massive failure that is the War on Drugs and recognize that we own our own bodies? You know who gets hard time for possession? Here's a hint, its not the rich. Why is it so loony to want to protect the first, second, and fourth amendments from the attacks on both sides of the congressional aisle? You want to know who is victimized by the police state? It aint the rich.I didn't mean to imply that so-called Libertarians aren't right about anything, and it's the things they are right about that probably attracts a lot of people in the first place. But the ideology as a whole is grounded in an idealization of the past and seems escapist to me. (And I would say the same about some of the far Left.) A lot of ideological thinking is fantasy thinking, but I find Libertarian ideological thinking particularly atavistic, misanthropic, and deluded.
We'd be better off all standing in the middle, taking a pragmatic stance, and figuring out what works and what doesn't instead of seeing everything through the lens of this or that ideology.
Get out of here!
Who needs your mild-mannered, aw-shucks common-sense mumbo-jumbo?
Not me!
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Revolutionary socialism is way cool!
If you don't like it, you're a stooge of the plutocracy!
[Leans back in chair and reads The Warlods of Mars while waiting for visitors to arrive.]
It is interesting ... I have used many of the social and economic systems that exist in reality as fodder for societies or to generate campaign themes in my RPGs, but I have actually never used communism ... hmmmmm ... Oh wait! That is because it doesn't make any sense. *LOL*
In service,
Rich
Member of the Plutocryptocracy
You are very funny, stooge of the plutocryptocracy, but unfair. It makes at least as much sense as a land ruled by a dragon pretending to be a king and you know it.
Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}
Good work, Comrade Slaad!
{takes Bear's pic-a-nik basket and gives him a voucher for two turnips, a roll of toilet paper, and 1/6th of a small goat}But weez on a silvah standud. Nyuck nyuck!Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}
Very good work, Comrade Slaad!
{takes Bear's pic-a-nik basket and gives him a voucher for two turnips, a roll of toilet paper, and 1/6th of a small goat}But weez on a silvah standud. Nyuck nyuck!Everything from "We will Smurfberry you" on down is pure comedy gold.{The United Socialist Smurfistanian Republic immediately nationalizes all reserves of Comedy Gold}*eats Ambrosia Slaad*
You all saw it! She tried to give me more food, after I ate everything in that basket!
Counterrevolutionary!
Skipping the Second Part for now of Comrade Anklebiter Vs. Albert Camus and Proceeding Directly to the Epilogue
I mean, whether you care or not, that's just what's it is.
The means run the gamut from impossible to implement effectively to utterly indefensible, and the ends are a promise of rapture, of heaven on earth.Maybe these absurd heroes, in trying to justify with such impossible ends using such means which could possibly be considered comical if not for the fact that they oftentimes ended up causing abject hell on earth, should have just found another rock to roll up the hill.
Except, that I would argue that these "absurd heroes" caused an abject hell by ignoring, betraying and perverting every goal of socialism and used means that were not justified by socialism, because they didn't lead to socialism.
Some examples:
The Moscow Trials--Did the Stalinists imprison, torture, break and then expose the Old Guard of the 1917 revolution because they were trying to build socialism or because they were trying to silence any criticism of their policies?
The Forced Collectivization of Agriculture--Although there may seem to be more justification in Marxist texts for this, it was tragically idiotic and murderous--as Trotsky argued at the time. Furthermore, instead of building the road to socialism, it was about nothing more than tightening the bureacracy's control over society.
The Great Leap Forward--I know it must be true, but I find it hard to believe that Mao Zedong ever read a word of Marx if his idea of building socialism was to make every village have its own steel plant. I find it difficult to hang the blame for the mass starvation and death that ensued on Marx when it contravened his entire argument.
The Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution--Kind of like the Holy Roman Empire, it was none of those things. An intrabureaucratic fight that caused much unnecessary death and grief and had nothing to do with building socialism.
As for the rapture and heaven on earth thing, sure, maybe the bowlderization of Marx penned by Stalinist hacks gave Camus the idea that Marxism promises a utopia, but I don't think many serious Marxists have ever believed that. Isaac Deutscher, a famed Marxist scholar in the 60s, for example argued that man was beset by three great problems: hunger, sex and death. Hunger was the problem that the socialist movement addressed, but even socialist man would be beset by the other two.
A musical interlude brought to you by Albert Camus. And, no, it's not The Cure.
[QUOTE="TheWhiteknife"
jemstone,
The only problems I have with the so-called "Obamacare" bill are thus: I dont like how quickly it was passed without thouroughly considering the unintended consequences. Any bill that large is going to contain alot of wording that creates some really wonky situations. I feel that we arent going to find out about these situations until we are knee deep in them. (kind of like how corn subsidies+ Nafta= illegal immigration) The second problem I have is the precedent set by the "Mandate". I feel like if they were going to nationalize healthcare, they should have went all in with a single payer system. Instead we are getting a mish mash with a side of government can dictate that you must buy stuff.
Seriously, how quickly it was passed? Don't you remember we spent most of 2009 and into 2010 debating healthcare? Should we have waited another election cycle and started over again?
You're right that any bill that large is going to have unintended (or at least unannounced) consequences. More debate wouldn't have changed that, since the details of the bill would have kept changing.I agree, I'd certainly rather have passed a single payer system, or at least proposed, analyzed and debated one, but that wasn't going to happen with the Congress we had.
Yes I meant how quickly it was passed. I know they debated for 2 years about healthcare. But I guarantee you no one in the capitol building fully read and understood the ramifications of the final bill when it was passed. I would have rather that they waited one more year and made sure that it was completely right, just to be safe. I dont understand why anyone would have a problem with that view.
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I wonder...
Yellow Dingo, Yellow Dingo, Yellow Dingo!
Sorry CJ didnt notice you there...failed my perception check.
Maybe if I can interject. Socialism is fundamentally flawed like all governments where one governs another. So instead of getting on the tyranny bandwagon might I brainwash you all into standing as independants at the Mayoral level on a Commonwealth Platform of Consensus where by you support the elimination of Democracy and the establishment of a process of Government where by every act of government requires the direct and regular approval of every citizen. This will ensure that no one may govern the freedoms of another.
It will require the approval of every citizen to validate the employment of every government official, A consenus vote of recognition of every law, indeed even religions and corporations which take part of what is ultimately a portion of resources owned by every citizen equally to function would require the approval of every citizen to do so.
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Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
"Except, that I would argue that these "absurd heroes" caused an abject hell by ignoring, betraying and perverting every goal of socialism and used means that were not justified by socialism, because they didn't lead to socialism."
To which I would add,.......of course they didn't lead to socialism, because the Utopia is a pipe dream. It's impossible. Won't work. The problem is too big.
You can't fix the broken pipe with masking tape. Sorry......
What they ended up leading to is pretty much all that could be hoped for......a monumental clusterf&#%, to end with "Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!!!"
The only thing that scares me now, is possibly enough people seem to be unable to look at this big clusterf+$+ and say "whelp......THAT didn't work."
I was told that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. What I WASN'T told, which has been dawning on me the last few years, is that......people who ACTUALLY KNOW HISTORY might be doomed to repeat it.
I was told that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. What I WASN'T told, which has been dawning on me the last few years, is that......people who ACTUALLY KNOW HISTORY might be doomed to repeat it.
I believe that the actual quote is: "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
S+#*, maybe now I actually understand the quote.
Found this;
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) statement, "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
then this;
QUOTATION: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
ATTRIBUTION: George Santayana (1863?1952), U.S. philosopher, poet.