Thread: The problems facing modern Socialists

I rather like capitalism, its allowed me to enjoy some of lifes little luxuries. If I'd wanted those under socialism I'd have to have become a party member or corrupt state official. Can you imagine the company you'd have to keep just to maintain a decent standard of living?

Let's face it people cooperate for purely selfish reasons (as per the selfish gene arguement).

This gets extended to immediate family/tribe to ensure that the individual gets care when they are no longer able to care for themselves, either through old age or sickness.

This has been extended to larger bodies, but at this point when no close family ties get direct benefit, corruption (which is the ultimate expression of a selfish gene) starts to creep in and oversight and management is needed to keep people reasonably honest.

Some people are driven to be more altruistic than others, and some to be more selfish than others. Most live in the middle ground.

This is nature in operation. We might believe we are higher beings than a pack of lions, or a herd of cattle, but we are just different, and invent clever ways to avoid just being who we would naturally tend to be.

Socialism, capitalism and authoritarianism are just names for selfish gene behaviour, and varying ends of the spectrum.

The mass of us will tend to live in the middle, helping the greater good where we can, but still wanting more for ourselves.

A truely socialist society would create allsorts of unnatural problems, and we are heading in this direction now. One example of this is our inability to properly train the behaviour of our young. Due to socialist (everyone to be treated the same) legislation our we have crippled out ability to properly discipline our young, in all ways that might work. This includes physical. We are now reaping the rewards of this, in the form of ferral youths, and generations of families not working because they don't have to.

Anyway amateur sociology hour has now ended, and I await incoming!

Forgive this long paste, but it’s a rather excellent paper on the subject:

“The loss of belief in socialism is comparable to the "death of God" to the many secular intellectuals for whom it had often served for a century and a half as a surrogate for religious beliefs. It was seen in the words of Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher as "a brand-new society which was to be the absolute negation of everything that had existed, the total transcendenceo f the modern world." In the absence of faith in this ultimate utopian destination, politics now assumes for old socialists a flat one-dimensional character…

“I had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to be exposed way back in the 1950s to the forceful arguments of a number of young followers of Milton Friedman before his views became so influential among so-called "conservatives."Those of us who more or less took for granted the enlightenment of the social democratic intervention by the state that prevailed in the wake of the Depression and the immediate post-war era of reform, the Keynesian-welfares tate consensus as it has been called, were taken aback by the near-anarchism of Friedmanite readiness to assign nearly all social tasks to the market. We spluttered with indignation at the very idea that Algonquin Park (this was in Canada) should be carved up and sold to private cottagers, and rhetorically queried "how reactionary can you get?" to the suggestion of reliance on "condottieri" by contracting national defense out to mercenaries. Little did we think that such views would become as resonant as they have in recent decades…

“The old Sombart question "Why is there no socialism in the United States?" no longer has much relevance, though I feel I have been listening to efforts to answer it for most of my life and to suggestions as to how the conditions described in the answer might be overcome. The question never seemed to me to have the significance it was widely thought to have had in focusing on the absence in the United States of a nominally "socialist" major political party drawing its support primarily from the working class. The American system of government based on an obsolete but idealized eighteenth-century constitution seemed to me a much greater obstacle to the achievement of a European-stylew elfares tate, let alone "socialism"a s a new alternative society, than whether or not there was a political party unambiguously espousing such goals. Even if there had been, if Debs's Socialist party had supplanted the Democratic party in the 1920s as Labour did the Liberals in Britain, I doubt that it would have made much difference in practical politics. Yet anti-statism as a deeply ingrained American attitude remains a staple of the party representing the relative benefi-ciaries of inequality and has received a new breath of life from the difficulties plaguing the welfare state, difficulties that are not confined to the United States and are independent of the collapse of Commu-nism and the end of the Cold War. Perhaps a more important question than Sombart's would be "why is there no strong tradition of Tory or Bismarckian paternalism in the United States?" The need to overcome the current difficulties and, most of all, to modify the political outlook that wins supporters by exaggerating them, is certainly the main obstacle faced today by liberals or "progressives"in the Democratic party who do not want to abandon the heritage of the New Deal and the Great Society…

“Management of the economy has become the major content of politi-cal contestation in the capitalist democracies, the more conservative party often winning support by claiming to promote greater economic growth: The notion that economic growth is the key to alleviating inequality, because in the cliche "a rising tide raises all boats," is subject to challenge on the grounds that present economic circum-stances are quite different from those of the 1950s and 1960s when growth rates unlikely to ever be matched were achieved. Not only is such economic growth improbable, a strong case can be made that it would be undesirable. Do we really want ceaseless economic growth? The case made for it is usually that it would create jobs at good wages and dissolve the unemployed underclass and the insecurities of the employed working and middle classes. But this is putting the cart of jobs before the horse of the consumer demand the jobs presumably serve. That modern hi-tech technology does not necessarily sustain a full employment economy is a prospect we are going to have to face: in the long-run,d ependenceo n what is now stigmatizeda s "welfare"m ay be the future for most of us in modern societies. But that prospect is still remote, especially with mass attitudes still valuing work over dependence and leisure. In the meantime, there is ample opportunity for the state to become the "employero f last resort"a nd plentyo f work for idle hands in rebuilding the country's decaying material infra-structure, a revival of New Deal programs like WPA, CCC, and TVA. Alas, the prospect of this looks in the present political climate almost as remote and utopian as abolition of the need for gainful employment. Predictions of a massive left populist revolt have been around since the 1970s without materializing. For the forseeable future, the tension between state and market is likely to remain the central content of politics along with the left-right divi-sion of the "body politic" that gives rise to most issues and to the parties and movements promoting them. The most credible case I have seen for what he calls the "reinvention of politics" has been made by Ulrich Beck, envisaging permanent demilitarization with the end of the Cold War, an end to high economic growth as a result of the crisis of the environment, the dissolution of classes combined with the per-sistence of considerable inequality (something I discerned as a trend way back in 1964),8 the decline of the nation-state under economic and cultural globalization, and the emergence of a politics "beyond left and right," as these poles have traditionally been understood. Anthony Giddens has speculated along the same lines in several recent books. Beck also, however, takes note of the end of the Cold War permitting a revival of what he calls, inappropriately I think, forces of "counter-modernization": the resurgence of ethnic, nationalist, and religious fundamentalist movements and fratricidal conflicts among them.9 But he thinks these will prove transitory. We shall see. In the meantime, a politics based on dispute over the boundaries between state and market remains central, if many of the terms in which it has been fought out in the past now seem obsolete…


Reflections on the Death of Socialism: Changing Perceptions of the State/Society Line Author(s): Dennis H. Wrong Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 175-185 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3108568 Accessed: 06/07/2009 09:38

I was looking up some stuff on t'interweb earlier today and stumbled upon the article (from 2003) below. It is entitled "Capitalism explained". It is a concise explanation of how capitalism stifles mankind's abilities, skills, hopes and aspirations and how we can make some inroads into rectifying this tragic state of affairs. I found it to be an interesting read, in that (in one simple article) it reminds one of the salient points. There are a few typing errors at the start of the article, but do not be put off.

I'm not after starting an argument, but just posting the link in case any of the more open-minded among you fancies a read:

http://www.urban75.org/mayday/capitalism.html

Originally Posted by bovvy

I was looking up some stuff on t'interweb earlier today and stumbled upon the article (from 2003) below. It is entitled "Capitalism explained". It is a concise explanation of how capitalism stifles mankind's abilities, skills, hopes and aspirations and how we can make some inroads into rectifying this tragic state of affairs. I found it to be an interesting read, in that (in one simple article) it reminds one of the salient points. There are a few typing errors at the start of the article, but do not be put off.

I'm not after starting an argument, but just posting the link in case any of the more open-minded among you fancies a read:

http://www.urban75.org/mayday/capitalism.html

In the demands section: "All the bosses and owners and landlords do is clean off the profits, and all the politicians do is make more laws to keep us in our place. We can run things ourselves much better."

Ok, so do it better then. There is nothing stopping you running a factory or large company as a cooperative and sharing the profits equally. If you lead then the rest will follow.

I also liked the part about how capitalism is causing a problem with democracy. This seems odd given that it is hard to concieve of a socialist state which does not have much more state control to keep people in check.

It's really quite simple:

Those that Can be arrsed are Capitalists. Whilst those that Can't be arrsed are Socialists.

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Ok, so do it better then. There is nothing stopping you running a factory or large company as a cooperative and sharing the profits equally. If you lead then the rest will follow.

Strange isn't it how when people are given the choice to run a company/business along socialist or capitalist principals, they normally always chose capitalist.

Originally Posted by stacker1

Originally Posted by jew_unit

Ok, so do it better then. There is nothing stopping you running a factory or large company as a cooperative and sharing the profits equally. If you lead then the rest will follow.

Strange isn't it how when people are given the choice to run a company/business along socialist or capitalist principals, they normally always chose capitalist.

Yes, or when leaders try to set up a socialist state it always descends into an unequal society with them at the top? Always remember, Guevara died wearing a Rolex.

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
"Not very long," answered the Mexican.
"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs...I have a full life."
The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise."
"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.
"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.
"And after that?"
"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?"
"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!"

Originally Posted by bovvy

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
"Not very long," answered the Mexican.
"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs...I have a full life."
The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise."
"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.
"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.
"And after that?"
"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?"
"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!"

Did the fictitious Mexican say what would happen if his kid was ill and needed money for an operation? Or if the drug cartels moved into his village who would pay for the extra police? Or if his area was hit by a hurricane who would pay to redevelope his village? Etc Etc

Originally Posted by stacker1

Originally Posted by bovvy

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
"Not very long," answered the Mexican.
"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs...I have a full life."
The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise."
"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.
"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.
"And after that?"
"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?"
"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!"

Did the fictitious Mexican say what would happen if his kid was ill and needed money for an operation? Or if the drug cartels moved into his village who would pay for the extra police? Or if his area was hit by a hurricane who would pay to redevelope his village? Etc Etc

:D

Socialism is proven to be excrement.