Fear of socialism

[bigron]

Fear of socialism 


29/12/2008 02:02:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=196939


 
 A true era of globalization would be a “progressive” era, one that would deny U.S. military occupation of countries.


By Jim Miles

Two recent events have prompted the ideas behind this article – in truth, the whole history of recent events have prompted the following comments, but it is two in particular that gave the push to write them down.


The first event, unknown to most of the world, was a tempest in a teapot when the opposition parties in Canada made a legal political manoeuvre under our representational parliamentary system to take over the administration of the government. Stephen Harper, Canada’s answer to George Bush, has made several critical mistakes recently, the first was an election call before his own mandated four year date, an election during which he argued that the economy was fine and they would not run a deficit budget, and then having received a minority government, proceeded to act as if he had a majority (when in reality he only had 38 per cent of the popular vote) and introduced a budget outline that was at best lousy.

That budget paper incurred the wrath of the opposition parties and brought about the announcement of a coalition to defeat the government. Harper’s immature rant in response included the good old US fear factor of socialism, with Harper and cronies warning everyone about the socialist hordes in the opposition (who combined held - obviously - the majority of the votes).


My immediate response to those in our government who fear socialism is to ask them to renounce their inclusion in their very generous pension plans (voted on by themselves of course, no conflict of interest there), their participation in the universal health care that Canada provides, the safety net of Canada pension, old age security and social assistance that assist other members of their families who are not intelligent enough to get in on the government dole. Those are the two big items, pensions and health care, that you will not likely see these devout right-wingers give up easily, even if they were given the opportunity to opt out.


The Canadian “fear of socialism” as with most things under the Harper government, is one of the few legitimate trickle down effects of living with the U.S. as our one and only immediate neighbour. One is also left wondering how many Republican campaigners were assisting Harper’s “war room” during the recent election as most of his sloganeering seemed to parallel the U.S. manner of campaigning, Republican in particular. But that is in conjectural territory and I only submit it as a teaser. The real hangover from the U.S. is its seemingly deep-seated fear of socialism.


U.S. progressives

I’ll return to that deep-seated fear in a moment, after introducing the second item that prompted this, an article by Rob Kall of OpEd News asking, “Which of these progressive positions is extreme left?”[1] Kall leads the reader through a series of questions asking about the “progressive” position, all questions asking if the positions given are positions of the extreme left. Many ideas are introduced, ideas that to most minds would simply seem to be common sense: health care, racial equality, cleaner environment, fair workers rights, a safe food supply, and on. Most of these items would, one would hope, fall under the rubric of “common sense” before any other political label could be applied to them.


Rob Kall has applied the word “progressive”, and only uses the word “socialist” in one phrase, “There are greens and others further left, even socialists (like Senator Bernie Sanders) and communists who deserve at least an occasional voice on mainstream media.” Yet most of his ideas, most of these progressive ideas readily fall under the rubric of socialism. So even Rob Kall, a very progressive proponent of very common sense causes, avoids the word socialism as if it denotes some radical left wing position.

I would have to guess that growing up in a country that fully and violently opposed socialism of any degree, and that has denounced it with the support of the media throughout his lifetime, that the word socialism still represents something a bit risky and shady.


U.S. fear of socialists

What is the U.S. fear of socialism? What is it based on? It is based on the corporate desire to control the economy and politics of the masses without having those unruly masses having any say, other than a somewhat meaningless vote every four years, in how the wealth of the country is to be distributed. This can be seen with the Federalist Papers that argued against “factions” that might oppose the ideas of the propertied leaders of the country at the time.

It can be seen in the many violent actions taken by political leaders and corporate leaders (generally one and the same, as today) when they called in the armed Pinkerton squads, local militias, up to the military, to squash any workers' demonstrations for better working conditions, for better wages, essentially for a better life. It was seen in the hysteria of the McCarthy era, and its fear of communist infiltrators hiding everywhere, a projection of fear that supported the excesses of the corporate, political and military leaders of the day.

It can be seen in the many governments that opposed U.S. interests in one way or another, thus incurring the wrathful label of socialists or communists, the enabling rhetoric of fear that then excused the violent invasion, infiltration, and overthrow of many truly democratic governments that had the legitimate support of the people of that country[2].


These artificially concocted fears of socialism (without addressing the unrealistic fears of communism during the Cold War, nor how the definitions of communism or capitalism ever accurately reflect what they both really are) are inculcated into the U.S. mindset throughout all facets of life from the educational system, through the media, and through the political system (the latter not much different from the media system). The underlying fear is from the corporate owners and their political supporters fearing that the unruly masses of people might not like what they are doing and try to put halters on their corporate activities.


The images and rhetoric of U.S./Canadian freedom and democracy are all very nice until they come up against the reality of invaded and occupied countries, an environment heading towards global changes that could affect our very survival, and finally, the current economic collapse that endangers many livelihoods, all based on the consumption of materials and the massive debt loads of an artificial finance capitalism that serves the underlying purpose of enriching the wealth and power of those already in control. With these three (occupations/war, environmental decline, financial collapse) all looming at the same time, the government’s response (U.S. and their Canadian imitators) has been to support the corporations without any apparent concerns about transparency and openness that is required for other nations negotiating within the Washington consensus guidelines.

It is obviously not free market capitalism as the markets are being avoided and/or controlled; nor is it socialism, as socialism, under its purest definition is that “the community as a whole should own and control the means of production, distribution, and exchange,” a concept the current bail-outs are loath to approach even though it is the taxpayers money that is being used. Your choice becomes some other “-ism” but not capitalism or socialism.


Back to being progressive

Hmm, who would have thought, “the community as a whole….” Sounds quite progressive to me, with a lot of common sense, that the community should want universal health care, worker protections of various sorts, retirement benefits universally guaranteed and applied, an egalitarian distribution of educational and medical services, equal rights for all (in deed as well as in law), international laws that are upheld et al.


The problem of course is not the ideas, as they are – or should be – a matter of common sense for anyone with a touch of true humanitarian interests, but with the label. Rob Kall lives in a country so imbued with “fear of socialism” that he is wise to avoid its use and thus keep his arguments open for acceptance to a wider audience. As I have no fear of socialism, and advocate it quite strongly, I have been labelled as being part of the extreme left. So be it. But all the positions taken by Kall are ones that I support, as would anyone with a gram of humanitarian compassion towards others in society.


There are many other nuances to the arguments of what comprises socialism, capitalism, communism, fascism, with at times overlapping features. But in support of US initiatives as represented in Rob Kall’s article, the word “progressive” fits well, as does the phrase “common sense.”


Community of the whole

For all the talk of globalization, there is little talk of community, the “global village” of the sixties having been swept aside by the rise (and now fall…?) of corporate interests seeking to gather wealth from abroad through financial empires supported by the hidden fist of the military empire.


A true era of globalization would be a “progressive” era, one in which all the people of the world had access to what is described above as being progressive interests. It would deny U.S. military occupation of countries or bases through which the material gains of the corporate sector could be enriched. It would deny the ability to harvest and capture the wealth of another country.

It would enable the freedoms of other people as is so often not the case today. It would enable a world where globalization meant equality for all, fair trade for all, environmental protection, health care, education, workers equality, women’s equality – all beyond the rhetoric and spin of any label and be an actuality based on progressive actions throughout the world.


-- Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

Notes:

[1] OpEd News, December 20, 2008. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Which-of-These-Progressive-by-Rob-Kall-081220-249.html


[2] I refer readers to the many sources that support these positions at www.jim.secretcove.ca/index.Publications.html and www.palestinechronicle.com.



-- AJP

 

[kingp43]

Thanks for the article, it was interesting to me, as some friends and I were just discussing socialism and it's various counterparts.  A few of my friends were praising socialism and saying how much it was needed, and I countered by arguing that one of the most known socialists (to me) was Hitler.  Then of course the conversation got ugly fast, and they started suggesting I had no idea what I was talking about, while I suggested that Nazism was literally - National Socialism.


Now of course, I know very little about the different "-isms" and their talking points, but I would like very much to know more, because while I'm trying to spread the word about what is happening these days, I can get a bit lost without accurately knowing what I'm talking about.

Could someone recommend sites, books, or other sources of info that I could garner more knowledge about these political ideologies, so I can help supply my friends with a more informed version of my "truths"?   please.


Sometimes I feel rather clueless in some of these important discussions I have with my friends.  and you know we all have this desire to be "right" very often, lol, whether that is good or bad..... is another subject, heh.

[Freeski]

Thanks Bigron - I love the stench of socialism in the afternoon! Not.

What garbage. A load of misinformed propaganda.

First of all, whether universal health care, fair trade, protection of the environment - or whatever - is a good thing or a bad thing is not what's up for debate. The question is "How do we achieve those things?" but the socialists only know of one way to get them: to force the rest of society to support it (this is referred to as the 'tyranny of good intentions'). The other way to get them, if it's what the people truly want, is to leave the people to their own wealth, innovation and charity and let nature decide if they want it or not, and to what degree.

Read this to strengthen your understanding of how people (which includes business operators) can and will regulate themselves if just left alone by the controlling monster state. The Invisible Hand is a Gentle Hand (The Advocates for Self Government)
http://www.theadvocates.org/library/gentle-hand.html

Those are the two big items, pensions and health care, that you will not likely see these devout right-wingers give up easily, even if they were given the opportunity to opt out.

This just drives me nuts. First of all, if the writer was informed, he'd know that the left-right political paradigm is a crock, but assuming he thinks of ardent supporters of a free market and society as "devout right-wingers", then he assumes too quickly. Well, here's one devout believer in liberty who would take him up on the offer - in a heartbeat - to end state involvement in pensions and health care. Of course, my socialist friends, that also means my wallet gets replenished with what you took in the first place.

"Progressives"? That's the most annoying and orwellianingly-coopted word around. Calling one side of the debate 'progressive' implies the other side is not, which is self-serving nonesensical propaganda.

Progressive (from dictionary.com): favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters: a progressive mayor. It's a good definition but they had to toss in the newspeak reference at the end.

I ask you: what rightminded businessperson (devout right-winger or other) wouldn't advocate progress and improvement in his quest for greater profit?

The socialist mindset thinks that "progress" comes from imposing other societies' great collectivist ideals and best-practices at the barrel of a gun. First, they'll manipulate you into believing it's a good idea - and never will they ask themselves the question: "is this morally justified in a free society?" - so they can ram their 'progressive' schemes down the throats of the people.

[chris jones]

The trick to uptoia is who runs the show.

Communism in theory appealed to the masses, in reality, only the few had the power. The party members, etc.

There must be ledership, their must be police to insure the leaders ideas are caried out.

God help the free thinkers, and those who depend on a government to think for them. The reality is that in the end, there will be those few who will rule.

I am a beleiver in the constitution, had our rulers kept within constitituonal bounds, the USA would be in good shape financialy, we would not be chasing wars, as though 2 is not enough, we would not be forcing citizens to take injections, gun rights would remain, no one could touch the the peoples money, our taxes would be about 5% to the Gov., Homeland security would not exist and many other alghabet organizations. The president and political appointees would be answerable to the people, toruture would be forbidden, Habeus Corpus would never be eliminated,  our current regime would be impeached, jailed, and all moneys and property confiscated along with all the war other profiteers, the fake Federal reserve would not exist and we would be on a silver backed financial system.  Citizens would not be spyed upon, freedom of the press would exist, freedom of spech, protests, I could go on , but whats the use.
We all seek utopia, there is none, as long as human nature exists in its evil form any type of government can be run by theifs and liars.
 True socialistic communitys were developed many years ago, each failed, just as communism failed.

The old quote, evil exists because good men do nothing says it all. In this country, had the american people stood united against the invasion of Iraq, demanded a calling according to our constitution, we would not be in the position we are now. Unfortunelty, those in POWER understand the nature of man much better than the masses.
These freaks of nature thrive of the antics of human nature, feed into it and manipulate it. Just a a prolecturiat would.

The welfare system was a product of socialism, refered to at the time as a socialistic net.
This net, if we can call it that has become for the many, a way of life, the degregation of the human spirit and will of man. A need and dependence of government. refered to by many receivers as the WELY Game.

When the American majority gave its will and its faith to the regimes, they lost their abiltiy of free thought and disregarded their conscience, leaving their nations desicions to the freaks who conned them. For the people and by the people, TODAY, are simply words.

[Geolibertarian]

Where most modern day "progressives" tend to go wrong is in wanting to use the force of government to treat a particular symptom while ignoring the underlying governmental policy or government-granted privilege that created that symptom to begin with. (Or made it worse.)

The following quote of Albert Jay Nock (all emphasis his) illustrates what I mean:

-----------------------------------

"This imperfect policy of non-intervention, or laissez-faire, led straight to a most hideous and dreadful economic exploitation; starvation wages, slum dwelling, killing hours, pauperism, coffin-ships, child-labour -- nothing like it had ever been seen in modern times....People began to say, perhaps naturally, if this is what state absentation comes to, let us have some State intervention.

"But the State had intervened; that was the whole trouble. The State had established one monopoly, -- the landlord's monopoly of economic rent, -- thereby shutting off great hordes of people from free access to the only source of human subsistence, and driving them into the factories to work for whatever Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bottles chose to give them. The land of England, while by no means nearly all actually occupied, was all legally occupied; and this State-created monopoly enabled landlords to satisfy their needs and desires with little exertion or none, but it also removed the land from competition with industry in the labour market, thus creating a huge, constant and exigent labour-surplus."

-- Albert Jay Nock, Free Speech and Plain Language, pp. 320-1

-----------------------------------


In view of the causative connection that Nock rightly pointed out between (a) the government-enforced "monopoly of economic rent" and (b) the "hideous and dreadful" economic conditions he spoke of, those conditions would have been eliminated (or at least greatly alleviated) if the Single Tax had simply been implemented. But by the end of World War I, the Progressive Movement had all but abandoned its Georgist roots, and so chose instead to advocate all sorts of bureaucracy-expanding "reforms" that, while perhaps well-intentioned, were at best only marginally effective because they merely treated the symptom while leaving the root cause firmly intact.

Hence the following observation by Max Hirsch:


-----------------------------------

"Social injustice, therefore, prevails, not on account, nor in spite, of Individualism, but through the absence of Individualism, through the active and passive disregard of equal individual freedom by the State. The removal of social injustice, therefore, is not to be obtained by still further interference with equal individual freedom, and still less by the abolition of individual freedom which Socialism contemplates; it can be obtained only by the removal of all interferences with individual freedom which exceeds that necessary for the maintenance of equal freedom for all.

"This conclusion is not invalidated by the admission that remedial measures involving further restrictions of individual freedoms...may have had beneficial results. For if State limitations of individual and equal freedom have deprived the majority of the people of independence and power to resist capitalistic oppression, as they have done and are still doing, restrictions placed upon the oppressors, otherwise unnecessary, may to some extent alleviate the oppression. Nevertheless, it is clear that such consequential interferences would be unnecessary if, through the removal of the original interferences, the balance of power were restored. At their best, moreover, they are merely attempts to alleviate symptoms without touching the cause of social disease." [Emphasis added]

-- Max Hirsch, Democracy Versus Socialism, pp. 254-5

-----------------------------------


For one reason or another, most of today's so-called "progressives" are literally obsessed with ignoring the "original interferences" to which Hirsch refers, since that's the only way they can justify imposing all sorts of additional interferences.

For instance, they routinely complain about wages being too low, yet rather than call for a lower tax on wages, they call instead for a job-destroying hike in the minimum wage.

They routinely complain about unemployment being too high, particularly in poor neighborhoods, yet rather than call for a dramatic reduction in occupational licensing barriers (which effectively criminalize the very sort of grassroots entrepreneurialship that would allow poor communities to produce their way out of poverty), they call instead for an expansion of government entitlements -- even though much of the tax money that goes to pay for them gets wasted on bureaucratic paper-shuffling -- or for some sort of tax-funded boondoggle -- even though these boondoggles invariably have far more to do with enriching politically-connected contractors and land speculators than they do with improving the lives of the poor and the unemployed.

They complain about the high price of health care, yet refuse to acknowledge the various ways -- some direct, some indirect -- in which the government made it that high in the first place, since doing so would mean having to acknowledge the dramatic extent to which costs could be lowered by (horror of horrors!) reducing government involvement instead of expanding it.

They complain about the state of our so-called "education" system, yet refuse to acknowledge how this system is producing the very pathetic results it was designed to produce, since that again would mean having to admit that the solution lies in reducing government power, not expanding it.

And last but certainly not least, they complain about the ongoing fiancial crisis and the devastating effect it's having on our economy, yet refuse to acknowledge the underlying cause of that crisis -- namely, our debt-based money system (which is parasitic by its very design) -- since doing so would mean drawing unwanted attention to the obvious solution to this crisis.


The bottom line is: at least the corporate whores on the so-called "Right" are honest about their all-too-cozy relationship with the "haves and have mores." Not so with the corporate whores on the so-called "Left" who laughingly call themselves "progressives."

And therein lies the only real difference between the two: one group screws you with big government while laughably insisting all the while they're doing the opposite, the other sweet talks you while screwing you with big government -- explaining in a seductive tone why it's "for your own good," and that they're only doing this to "for" you because they "wuv" you so much. 

[Freeski]

That's good stuff!

[able]

their is two kinds of socialism....

the nice sounding dream of freedom for all and equal rights to all.....

and the reality.... Bolshevik (zog) Hitlarian run nightmare that promotes jewish supremacy and kills 30 million Christians....

ideals are thrown on like a new suit by the same old bankers.... kind of like change you can believe in....

we in Australia have free (almost free) health care and i can vouch for that.... my daughter went through two years of treatment for a brain tumor and i payed next to nothing for the whole two years...

but that is just getting your tax money back, world socialism is the hijacking of what should be and the installing or what they want... end of story.       

[Freeski]

Able,

Great story but "almost free" health care bugs me. Here in Canada, they take more than half of what you make, most of which is used for healthcare. Give me my money back and let me buy private insurance.

[able]

im talking less the $50 for the two years... creams and pills at reduced prices for the times we actually got to take her home, all in hospital medication was all free.

 

[vladimir]

The trick to uptoia is who runs the show.
 
Communism in theory appealed to the masses, in reality, only the few had the power. The party members, etc.
 
There must be ledership, their must be police to insure the leaders ideas are caried out.

 
Chris,
Marxism, the only thorough scientific theory of socialism (and referred to by Marx and Engels as "Scientific Socialism"), deals uppermost with who rules society. The theory is not to give the power over to a privileged caste, as was done by the renegade Stalin; but to educate the only oppressed class with the social power to emancipate society - the proletariat (Orwell's "proles") - by giving the working class the political knowledge to see their oppression, realize their potential, and organize in their own name and for their own class interests to lead all the oppressed classes in overthrowing the rule of the capitalist class. In his State and Revolution, Friedrich Engels characterized all governments as institutions created by a dominant class to rule over subject classes. In this sense, said Engels, all governments are dictatorships (in accordance with many statements by Marx). The police and military are standing bodies of men, according to Engels, tasked with defending the class rule of the dominant class. Since the working class has no interest, by its very nature, in dominating and exploiting other classes; a "dictatorship of the proletariat" must quickly "wither away". Once declassed and driven into the ranks of the proletariat - something the Bourgeois ruling class commonly does with its sons and daughters, anyway - the "standing bodies of men" will no longer be available to defend Bourgeois rule. It's the only theory that solves the problem of a class coming to power and setting itself up as a new exploiting class.
 
Marxist communism failed in Russia because the revolution was quickly isolated and besieged by the powers that carried out the wholesale slaughter of the first world war - including Germany. The Russian communists expected the German working class to take power and come to the aid of the fledgling workers' and peasants' republic in Russia. Thanks to the triumph of the Fabian Socialists in Germany and other European countries, the German workers' revolution was savagely defeated - eventually bringing Hitler, who was nurtured to power by the official wing of the German Social-Democratic Party, to power. Thousands of real German socialists died, in Germany in the revolutionary uprisings of 1918 and 1923, and in Spain defending the Spanish Republic against Franco's fascists. Hitler's first major speech as Chancellor was made in front of a huge banner proclaiming: "Marxism must die so that Germany can live!"  Adolf Hitler was the anti-socialist par excellence; only using the word "socialist" to deceive the masses and appeal to the Fabian Socialists - many of whom began to flock to him. His rise to power was helped in no small measure by Stalin, who thought he could use him as an ally against European socialism. Webster Tarpley did a pretty good job of detailing this history in this video (although, to be fair to him, he's not a Marxist): http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=77268.msg429795;topicseen
 
Stalin stood on the Russian working class and the proletarian revolution as his base of power; and, because of this, he could not establish a new ruling class in Russia. What he did do was create a ruling and exploitative caste, whose interest was in maintaining their social privileges and undermining revolution throughout the world (since a healthy proletarian revolution would expose the Russian bureaucrats for the counterrevolutionaries they were). 
 

"Progressives"? That's the most annoying and orwellianingly-coopted word around. Calling one side of the debate 'progressive' implies the other side is not, which is self-serving nonesensical propaganda.
...
The socialist mindset thinks that "progress" comes from imposing other societies' great collectivist ideals and best-practices at the barrel of a gun. First, they'll manipulate you into believing it's a good idea - and never will they ask themselves the question: "is this morally justified in a free society?" - so they can ram their 'progressive' schemes down the throats of the people.

 
Freeski,
While not wanting to disparage them for maintaining the notion that our best ideas and our best models for society lie in the past, I would point out that conservatives are by their nature opposed to the idea that society can "progress" to a higher evolutionary stage. In this sense, they are anti-progressive. On the other hand, social progressivism has a long tradition in sociology: most of it not strictly socialist and very little of it revolutionary socialist. This is not to say that conservatives cannot be revolutionaries: the word 'revolution' contains in itself the notion of returning (literally, turning back) to better times in the past: thus, Protestantism in its revolutionary period looked both backward to primitive (true) Christianity and forward to a Church freed from the grip of the popes (looking simultaneously backward and forward is a dialectical notion, by the way).

Marx was familiar with the progressivist ideas of his time - Benthamism and the rest - and rejected them on the basis that they were grounded in either philosophically idealist or mechanical-materialist (vulgar materialist) philosophy. Marx did an extensive investigation of the philosophical ideas of his time and based his theories on dialectical materialism - actually a Classical philosophy which he revived after millenia of suppression by the philosophical idealists of the official universities and Constantinian "Christianity". Progress, for Marx, was not latching on to some clever idea and promoting it; but a merciless analysis of social reality: of the contradictions at play and the forces shaping society already. While honest enough to admit that he and Engels were "Bourgeois thinkers", captive to the modes of thought they received from their predecessors, they were not mere philosophers who stood to one side as dispassionate observers. Wishing to play a role in the emancipation of the oppressed classes, they offered their services to the International Workingmen's Association, ordinary workers of many nations from whom they received monetary support and encouragement. The Communist Manifesto (containing social theory held in common by revolutionary workers of the time) was commissioned by this organization to be their founding document. Corresponding parties to the International Workingmen's Association commonly styled themselves as "social-democratic" parties, although the term "communist" was chosen for the Manifesto because Marx and Engels pointed out that the most revolutionary organizations of his time styled themselves "communists" (after the French communards - "commune" being the name used for the workingmen's neighborhoods of revolutionary Paris) rather than "socialist".

Fabian Socialism began in England as a utopian socialist theory opposed to revolutionary change and spread to France and Germany. Utopianism is a form of idealism. Dialectical materialism was a philosophical basis for social theory that gave revolutionary socialists the intellectual advantage over their Fabian adversaries. Fabian socialists, who maintained that society could evolve gradually under Bourgeois rule and that revolution was always counterproductive, were thenceforth discredited for all time among honest proletarian intellectuals. Stalin, with his theory of two-stage revolution, was a Fabian.
 
Here is how Marxism differs from Hegelianism from another post of mine:

... Marx was a keen student of Epicurean materialism. Marx had studied Hegel's logic but, being a moral man, he was not satisfied with Hegel's use of his logic to justify totalitarian "Christianity" (Lutherism) and the Prussian absolutist state. So Marx went about "turning Hegel on his head". In other words, he perverted Hegel's philosophy and made his logic serve human emancipation by putting reality prior to thought - but with the same logical instrument. If thought is prior to reality, the "divine right of kings" makes perfect sense. After Marx's perversion of Hegel, kings (even little kings like industrial magnates and big bankers) could never be safe again because everyone who didn't worry about his doxia (opinion) being orthos (correct) realized that Marx had made the notion of emancipation from slavery - including wageslavery - logically unassailable.

 

[vladimir]

Addenda

Many apologies, brothers and sisters, but I was having trouble with my computer as the time to modify my post slipped away.

(1) When I used the term "Bourgeois", I should have added this: The term "bourgeois" is nothing more than the French equivalent of the American term "burgess". Most of the Founding Fathers were Burgesses (as in "House of Burgess"), but that was at a time when the Bourgeoisie (Burgess) class was a revolutionary class.

(2) The true interests of the petty bourgeoisie (the class of small, independent entrepreneurs and artisans) and the independent farmers lie with the proletariat - although they are often enticed by deception, as are many proletarians, into siding politically and ideologically with the ruling Bourgeoisie. When reading the original post, many people who identify with these classes must surely have thrown up their hands and exclaimed in horror, "The Marxists want to have us all working in factories!"
 
And judging by the forced collectivism of agriculture that was a prominent feature of Stalinist Russia, you would have good reason. But forced collectivism is anathema to revolutionary Marxism. Both Lenin and Trotsky fought against it tooth and nail. Their policy was to encourage co-operatives among the peasantry by establishing model co-operative farms. In Poland - even under a Stalinist dictatorship - small, independent farming was protected and encouraged: but the failure to encourage co-operative farming meant that the traditional base of the Roman Catholic Church was left untouched, and as a consequence isolated farming communities preserved the backward ideas of anti-semitism and reactionary conservatism. This was Marx's point in the Manifesto, when he talked about the "idiocy of rural life".
 
Marx admitted to being a Bourgeois intellect, as I stated above. Today, Marx and Lenin would not be so enthusiastic about large-scale, industrial farming. Lenin wanted Russia to repeat the success of large-scale farming in the U.S., but he might have had second thoughts had he seen how ruinous it has been for the topsoil and for the quality of the food supply. The social distance between rural and metropolitan areas has been narrowed, too, by the Internet and other technological advances. We can readily see how much the class interests of small, independent farmers has in common with the industrial working class when we see the financial and industrial corporations eating up the small farms, and how corporations such as Monsanto are poisoning the food supply for all of us. The case for artisans and small, independent entrepreneurs is much the same. All other oppressed classes are being forced into the proletariat by the ruling Bourgeoisie, if not into the marginal semi-employed and unemployed Lumpenproletariat (German socialist term for such persons who have been declassed and "lumped" in with the urban proletariat).  This has taken place under capitalism as Marx foresaw, but to a ruinous degree he never would have expected before revolution had toppled the entire class system. As Trotsky remarked, "The pre-conditions for revolution are over-ripe and are becoming rotten; the failure is in the lack of leadership."
 

[crutley]

The fear of socialism isn’t the fear of its morals (which seem great on the surface) but the fear of the tyranny that it and any other form of collectivism generates.

Look to Star Trek the Next Generation for the ultimate form of socialism - The Borg.

"You will be assimilated."

Socialism is another way of saying 'hive mind' with everyone loosing their independence and freedom of not only action, but speech and thought, which then attracts the dominating control freak tyrants such as Stalin, Hitler and Mao - who have already shown this great flaw in socialism or any other form of collectivism, in the form of all the people that they killed in its name.

The only way to truly preserve the best interests of the masses is to preserve the rights and privileges of the individual - and that can only be done through the type of TRUE revelation of the people that you had in the US (not the fake private central banking created communism, socialism and fascism of the last century).

To believe in socialism is to believe that everyone is as well intentioned as you and that evil isn't attracted to the power and dominance that it creates. To believe in a true republic of the people is to believe in equal rights (which also includes equal rights to force) - thus, balance is achieved and freedom is maintained, even though the tree of liberty has to be constantly watered with the blood of patriots (around 10,000 deaths from gun crimes a year).

I see those 10,000 deaths, tragic through they are, as the main reason that we are not already living in a Brave New World THX1138 / 1984 nightmare. Your ‘equal rights to force’ have ensured that the tyrants and control freaks haven’t been able to take control of the US (Yet!).

[Geolibertarian]

 
Chris,
Marxism, the only thorough scientific theory of socialism (and referred to by Marx and Engels as "Scientific Socialism"), deals uppermost with who rules society. The theory is not to give the power over to a privileged caste, as was done by the renegade Stalin; but to educate the only oppressed class with the social power to emancipate society - the proletariat (Orwell's "proles") - by giving the working class the political knowledge to see their oppression, realize their potential, and organize in their own name and for their own class interests to lead all the oppressed classes in overthrowing the rule of the capitalist class.

But in accordance with what rights and principles is the working class compelled by this "education" into "overthrowing the rule of the capitalist class"?
 
It is by failing to ask that very question (or failing to demand a satisfactory from those who'd rather not answer it honestly) that well-meaning "proles" have been duped over and over again throughout history into replacing one tyranny with another -- i.e., a tyranny of overprivileged, power-obsessed landlords with a tyranny of overprivileged, power-obsessed politicians and bureaucrats.

For if they had asked that question (or demanded a non-evasive answer to it), they would have reached the same conclusions that Max Hirsch reached in his masterwork, Democracy Versus Socialism, and realized that the "cure" they were being offered was at least as bad, if not worse, than the "disease."

Here are some excerpts from Hirsch's book:

--------------------------------------------

"The conception which Socialism has formed with regard to the relations existing between individuals and the social entity to which they belong, is totally opposed to that formed by [classical] Liberalism and Democratic Radicalism....It consists in the denial of the existence of abstract or natural human rights, and its converse, the assertion that all individual rights are derived from the State, as well as in the logical deduction from these premises, that any and all such rights may justly be cancelled by the State, if the latter is of opinion that its interests will be served thereby....This denial of individual rights within the Society and independent of that Society, naturally has, as correlative, the conception, that the State does not exist for the benefit of the individuals composing it, at any given time; that it is an independent organism, possessing an entity and purpose of its own, and that therefore the will, not only of any one individual, but of all individuals, is subordinate to the will of the State" (pp. 33-35).

"To the labourer belongs the fruit of his toil, is generally regarded as the only ethical standard of economic justice. Socialism utterly denies the truth of this proposition, and teaches that the fruits of individual labour belong, not to the labourer, but to the society of which he forms part, to be used by it in such manner as may, in its opinion, promise the best social results" (p. 36).

"The ultimate social and political outcome of Socialism, therefore, must be an all-pervading despotism on the part of the rulers, and a degree of slavery on the part of the ruled masses" (p. 316).

"Instead of raising the material condition of this unfortunate minority, Socialism must lower to their level the material condition of all. A monotonous equality in unavoidable poverty will be the condition of the whole people in the socialised State" (p. 326).

"The members of the socialised State, becoming mentally and morally adapted to this State, become unadapted for any other. Instead of honesty, truthfulness, chastity, unselfishness, a high sense of justice and of independence, being regarded as the highest attributes, implicit obedience, faith in and submission to authority, must come to be regarded as supreme virtues; and injustice, unchastity, selfishness, untruthfulness, and dishonesty will provoke no censure and no repulsion" (p. 342).

--------------------------------------------

(Note: In case anyone's wondering, by "chastity," Hirsch wasn't referring to sexual conduct, but rather to social conduct -- i.e., to the definition of that term having to do with being pure in "thought and act" in one's dealings with others. You know, the anti-politician.)

Hirsch's book, which I highly recommend, is available for free (in digital form) at:

          http://books.google.com/books?id=D5QWAAAAYAAJ

[Sane]

Fear of socialism?


Must just be unfounded paranoia if you ask me...

[larsonstdoc]

The members of the socialised State, becoming mentally and morally adapted to this State, become unadapted for any other. Instead of honesty, truthfulness, chastity, unselfishness, a high sense of justice and of independence, being regarded as the highest attributes, implicit obedience, faith in and submission to authority, must come to be regarded as supreme virtues; and injustice, unchastity, selfishness, untruthfulness, and dishonesty will provoke no censure and no repulsion" (p. 342).

--------------------------------------------

(Note: In case anyone's wondering, by "chastity," Hirsch wasn't referring to sexual conduct, but rather to social conduct -- i.e., to the definition of that term having to do with being pure in "thought and act" in one's dealings with others. You know, the anti-politician.)

Great job Geo,  I would like to read Hirsh's book but I have other's that are on the list right now.  Our society in the western world is nearing the end of that paragraph above--injustice, unchastity, selfishness and dishonesty...etc. 

The other politicians hate Ron Paul because he is the ultimate anti-politician.  He tries to be pure in "thought and act".  Dr.Paul, had he were born back then, would have fit in with most of the Founding Fathers.

[241727]

It should be fear of any "isim", because you'll find that anything tagged with an "isim" is just another invention of those cursed Widows Sons, the FreeMasons...

Commun-isim
Social-ism
Conservat-ivism
Liberal-isim

In truth we dont know what real politics would look like, because we have been fed false choices for millenia. I doubt political parties will exist in a post-freemason society, people are more likely to vote on individual issues than false parties.

Please note, political parties are there invention, they use it to destroy peoples thinking.

[Geolibertarian]

It should be fear of any "isim", because you'll find that anything tagged with an "isim" is just another invention of those cursed Widows Sons, the FreeMasons...

I don't know if the Freemasons are deserving of that much credit, but I agree that people tend to spend far too much time obsessing over labels instead of on the far more important question of first principles, which is why they are so often duped into limiting themselves to the "false choices" you mentioned.

The most obvious case in point is how people are routinely offered a false choice between Marxist socialism, on the one hand, and Austrian School capitalism, on the other.

To someone like me, that's like saying: take your pick -- slavery or indentured servitude.

[241727]

I don't know if the Freemasons are deserving of that much credit, but I agree that people tend to spend far too much time obsessing over labels instead of on the far more important question of first principles, which is why they are so often duped into limiting themselves to the "false choices" you mentioned.

The most obvious case in point is how people are routinely offered a false choice between Marxist socialism, on the one hand, and Austrian School capitalism, on the other.

To someone like me, that's like saying: take your pick -- slavery or indentured servitude.

I understand and agree.

I think political parties are the worst thing we could possibly have. Nobody ever seems to start from the point of view

"what is the best and most appropiate solution for our problem in this particular case ?"

Instead the deduce the solution to a problem based upon a party political dogma. It should be obvious that the solution for one community is not neccessarliy appropiate or correct for another community. Take the laws of alcohol as a trivial example, they work quiet well in France, but would obviously be a disaster if implemented in America. Can you imagine what would happen if anyone over the age of 12 could order a drink in any cafe in america tomorrow morning ?

The example might seem silly, but it should illustrate that you can not use a one size fits all solution. Yet political parites insist that if you just apply their one size fits all dogma to all problems perfect government would be assured. It is a system set and desgined to fail, and it is deliberate manipulation into political tribes.