My point was / is that Socialism is nor has it ever been contemporaneous with Marxism / Stalinism / Maoism or for obvious linguistic reasons with Communism (for starter there are different words for these things indicating that they are different things).
My second point is that post WW1 Europe was the hey day of the kind of liveable Socialism that is related to the ideology of Socialism as those of us who do not confuse it with Marxism / Leninism / Maoism / Stalinism … think of.
Lot’s of great things came out of that era. E.g. high quality housing for the working classes, municipal infrastructure, libraries, baths, trams (even in the US)–of course good old late stage capitalism is now using and abusing these public resources to enrich the few by selling off everything that is public…
The painful irony of the Boundary Estate in London (this is pre WW1) and every other high quality 20s & 30s housing estate in the UK being sold off to rouge landlords does turn my stomach and must make many a Socialist turn in their grave. But have to continuously listen / read historically illiterate drivel on the evils of Socialism adds insult to injury and really infuriates me.
How can any even remotely thinking being, go on and on about the evils of Socialism when Trump the monstrous embodiment of Capitalism in an orange manifestation of Protestant predestination is about to descend on the “free world”.
I agree with you, even if we might disagree on methods.
The reason I mentioned Marx is because in the section of the Communist Manifesto I linked to he seemed to predict Tony Blair 150 years before he happened to the Labour Party. I am not a Marxist, although I do work with them when we have common goals.
I’m on disability benefits. On Wednesday we just had George Osborne cut those benefits (again!) and give the money saved to the 0.01%. One of my fears is becoming homeless again, but my rent has increased by £300 in the last ten years and I don’t know how much longer I can manage to pay it. Housing benefit doesn’t pay for it all, I pay £200 out of my disability benefits towards it which isn’t what it is meant for. I can’t hold a job for any length of time, unless I could find one where they don’t mind if you take six months paid sick leave a year.
I have major problems. Conservatives, Blairite Labour, LibDem, Ukip, none of them have any solutions, some don’t even think there is a problem. None of them should complain that, after I looked for solutions myself, I became borderline anarcho-communist.
Housing is such a big part of this and watching the destruction of my inner London communities breaks my heart and at times it feels like my sanity, not sure how much longer we can last here as a family–and we are among the stronger / better resourced. I love my people, but we surely are under siege.
Community is key and housing and public facilities is its foundation. The systematic / premeditated destruction of all that BECAUSE Socialism is bad and evil and free markets (rigged for the benefit of the privileged) are innately human) is a logical fallacy that is biting all those who are falling for 0.0001%'s propaganda.
Like all those people in the UK who voted in a bunch of spoiled brats who are busy squandering what is left of the commons while telling everyone that the poor are the problem. Seriously, Zac Goldsmith as London Mayor (to keep him busy between divorces) or Boris Johnson juggling insignificant responsibilities as Mayor and MP in midst of his public-love-in-with-self? It seems @caze might be falling into that thought trap.
Therefore my attempt at throwing in a bit of historical fact for good measure.
Housing needs a solution and it will have to involve re-redistribution of property, returning the public space (and I mean physical real space, with real monetary value) that has been stolen under the citizens feet. I hope for my kids’ sake ,that the transfer process will not be too bloody. In the mean time keeping the thought alive that THERE ARE other ways to go about this business.
Hoping that you can hold on to your home and keep finding the time to squeeze in for the good work that needs to be done.
Hope, as always, is with the people, that enough of them care enough, beyond themselves, to make the whole matter more than its part.
J Corbyn is in so far good news as he understands the value of listening and compromise. He must be reassuringly tough to have survived the cesspit that is the UK Labour Party so there is hope, but we don’t need no saviour, just need enough breathing space to get on with making things better, small steps at a time–the whole Socialism is eeeeeevviiiiill and Capitalism the only way to govern BS is such a wasteful distraction.
Which is why I try to counter that pernicious propaganda with evidence @caze.
