I listened to Krista Tippet today featuring Sally Kohn speaking with Erick Erickson. It seemed reasonable. They spoke to each other with respect and tried, it seemed to find common ground. Having read through this exchange today I don’t know that anything has been accomplished. I greatly fear the right and the rise of fascism but I don’t know how those of us on the left will be able to communicate with those on the right. It more seems like a slamming of fact and hard held beliefs rather than an exchange of ideas. Sometimes I wonder if I waste my time trying to reply on line. I really wish there existed a more in person face to face way of exchanging ideas. I fear more walls are built than breached online but I perfectly open other thoughts on this.
Reading the article leaves little hope or inspiration when it seems we are well and truly fucked regardless of what happens.
Religion. I’m an atheist myself, but I know religion is a powerful motivator if you actually believe it. The reason the Hutterites hold their goods in common (the Mennonites don’t actually, although they do help each other out) is that they are modeling themselves after the early Christians described in the Acts of the Apostles and believe that God wants them to do that.
Soviet-style Communism was basically idealistic religious dogma, especially under Stalin. Its senior adherents had different priorities from or were more cynical than the Hutterites and Mennonites. Slapping “Jesus” on a collective farm doesn’t make it any less of a socialist enterprise.
And that’s the real difference – Mennonites and Hutterites are there voluntarily. The Russian and Ukrainian peasants had no other options. Which brings us back to that problematic phrase @mindysan33 brought up: “there is no alternative.” I could just as easily imagine Stalin saying that about an economic philosophy as I could Thatcher.
It also implies that socialism is fascism with pity. Which is Libertarian BS.
FTFY. Welcome to BoingBoing, comrade, where most of us are educated grown-ups who can value Marx’s role as a brilliant diagnostician without accepting all his prescriptions (or confusing him with a nihilist).
Cory asserts that capitalism is unable to deal with climate change, which is a reasonable but unproven talking point. Is there any evidence socialism would do any better?
No, Cory asserts that capitalism has exacerbated climate change, long after it was accepted as a problem (instead of being denied as such by very capitalist corporations) and long after the USSR (a horrible polluter) was dead and gone.
From TFA: "Capitalism was incapable of dealing with climate change, treating damage to human lives and the planet we share as “unpriced negative externalities” rather than evidence that a system whose tenet was the we would achieve optimal outcomes only if we “exploit and abuse one another, not hold each other close, mortal and frail things that [we] are.”
Denying something exists and continuing not to do anything about it = incapable of dealing with it properly. This is what capitalist corporations and their shills were doing long after the USSR collapsed.
Again, per Thatcher and her fans, there is no other system. Effectively there hasn’t been an economic philosophy other than some variation on neoliberalism with real influence and power in the world for the last 30 years.
I mean, are you saying that we can’t criticize the existing global system unless we have some perfect solution ready to go? Given the stakes (especially around issues like climate change and the role of the industrial revolution in that), isn’t that a bit myopic?
Also, do you really not see the problems of the capitalist system as it stands right now? Do you think that not talking about those problems will fix anything?
Can you be specific, given that there are few parts of the world not current involved in modern capitalist production in some capacity?
