My masters thesis!
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Either everyone just doesnât get your clear communication style orâŚ
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I was explaining to you how it works, not saying that I agreed with it;
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Independent is an actual political party. Itâs even been on the presidential ticket a few times. However, it is true that just because someone is an independent voter, that does not automatically mean they are a member of the Independent party, or want to vote for someone from that party.
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My bad! (Your bad what, exactly, Popobawa?) I had wrongly assumed that it was a generic catch-all label, as this is how I usually encounter it used.
Indeed! If anything, this makes it even more contentious.
In the UK, the Labour Party are considering bringing back Clause IV of their Constitution, which was the clause that said that they would aim to bring the means of production under collective ownership (In practice they used nationalisation)
We may start moving back to that definition of socialism, if Jeremy Corbyn isnât deposed by the Blairites.
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Agree with you on the definition. But I am, at the least, open to the idea that social democracy could transition into some form of socialism, probably a market socialism. The lower capital intensity environment of the knowledge economy would seem to help. However, Iâll admit I can never seem to get myself fully convinced on reformism. If itâs real, then it is certainly better than the alternative, which is violence. (duh. weâre all familiar with this debate, Iâm sure.)
Sanders is apparently about to give a big speech on the subject of what exactly he means by âdemocratic socialist.â Iâll be very interested to hear it. The state of our political discourse is poor, though, and I have my doubts about whether he will use the occasion to talk about genuine socialism. If he doesnât, it probably will encourage me to come around to your point of view. On the other hand, if he can make a reformist argument that is accessible to the average person on the left, that would really be something remarkable for our time.
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If Sanders doesnât get up, you might as well emigrate, cause youâll be in for more of the same.
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I do, all the time. But if the odds against Sanders are fifteen to one, then thereâs not a whole lot of hope for Trotsky.
I doubt whether itâs Bernieâs agenda to make capitalism palatable enough for the dominion to continue; if anyone is going to pave the way for a fairer future, I donât see any better choices than him available at this time.
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So why pretend that âthe ownership and control of the means of production by the workersâ is a Marxist concept? I didnât say anything about Marx, and I donât think his work is very relevant to the subject.
There are two popular misconceptions of socialism (as I define it). One is as Mr. Sanders misuses it â the Welfare state. The other is âthe government controls everythingâ. It take it as my duty to my fellow humans to reveal to them the idea which these misdefinitions obscured â âthe ownership and control of the means of production by the workers.â Each time I do this, there is a chance that someone will pick up on it who might otherwise have remained misled, and at least give the subject a little thought.
Of course, itâs a free country, and you can use words to mean anything you want. If you have a serious jones for âsocialism equals the Welfare stateâ, though, I need another word I can use for what I mean by socialism.
Because what you described is more more or less Marxist communism in a nutshell, but you referred it as socialism, which is its own thing.
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Iâm pretty sure he doesnât differentiate between the two.
I said cooperatives were examples of socialism. How is that like âMarxist communismâ?
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Well, these are all very complicated debates about tax rates and how taxes are spent, and boiling it down to simplistic things like âtake ALL their moneyâ is unfair (as are gifs of guillotines).
The very wealthy have much much more influence in government than the poor, even though the poor and middle class outnumber them by several magnitudes. So the other issue here is whether we really are all equal in the eyes of the government, or if some of us are more equal, as Orwell said. But back to taxes, taxes on the wealthy have been going down steadily for decades (thanks to their own influence in the government), and yet it hasnât helped anyone but them. Iâm not saying they need to be taxed out of existence, but if we could have a discussion about actual benefits and detriments of raising taxes on that 1% without hearing that itâs really just communism, that would be nice.
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Are we really still discussing this? Move along.
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I canât help it: this engages my math brain.
I think what you mean to say is that, on a log scale, the distribution is normal. Which doesnât actually imply any inequality. The variance could be zero, or very small.
The âMugabe Syndromeâ
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This may be nitpicking, but Dawkinsâ transforming idea was that genes acting in their own self-interest can give rise to unselfish behaviour at the next level, that of the whole organism. Itâs the very opposite of the idea that because genes act selfishly, we are also doomed to selfishness. The pop culture form, seemingly propagated by those who have read the title of his book and no more, is a bad idea, and a dumb one, contradicted by everyday experience.
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Margaret Heffernanâs A Bigger Price http://www.mheffernan.com/book-abp-summary.shtml has a number of examples of successful US co-operative businesses. If I remember correctly Ocean Spray is one of them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Spray_(cooperative). This I think is an other http://www.ctga.org/About
Might be helpful to highlight these more to help spurn peopleâs & Sanders imaginationâŚ
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No itâs not. The co-perative movement is different from communism especially the centralised kind.
Again Polanyiâs https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Great_Transformation.html?id=xHy8oKa4RikC, (which unfortunately has a pretty awful Wiki page) is key for discussing market fundamentalism and the nuances of how markets and thus supply and demand can be organised.
It really is not black or white, in spite the neo-liberal propaganda, that somehow the fall of totalitarian dictatorships (which alternatively claimed to be communist / socialist) has magically proven that the only viable democratic alternative is full blown market fundamentalism i.e. the market will sort it all for us, no need for ethical, value judgements.
Curiously enough, while whole heartedly and loudly rejecting all thing socialist (East Block by their own definition was socialist rather than communist e.g. USSR etc) the victorious neo-liberal crowd are over keen to adopt the highly effective totalitarian methods of the same failed states.
I assure you the totalitarian oversight of peopleâs private lives bugged the population far more than the inability to fully participate in some kind of consumer heaven.
And as an escapee from that Block the enthusiasm by which people are willing to embrace surveillance really puzzles and annoys me. How is having your every email collected / read, different from knowing that every letter, every call you make is monitored⌠But I digress.
The problem of the Eastern Block wasnât so much socialism as Dictatorship aided by an expensive and for the times highly sophisticated surveillance apparatus. I.e. the reason Germanâs are a bit more allergic / cautious re Google View and NSA
For all our sakes start disentangling the totalitarian bit from the socialism bit. Itâs not one and the same.
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