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IMPress Polly
09-26-2012, 02:21 PM
What follows is material I wrote to someone via private message. It is part of a message I sent, but not quite all of it. I've removed irrelevant portions. I thought it worth posting as food for thought on the nature of Marxism and the basic shape of the contemporary world. It sums up a lot of the struggle that's been going on in my mind of late as to where I should fall politically in the future. (My worldview is perpetually a work in progress.)

I'm not even sure I'm really a communist anymore. A Marxist and a socialist certainly, but I'm not sure about communism anymore. The bottom line of why I continue to be persuaded of Marx's essential correctness lies in the dialectical way that I see politics, and indeed life in general, breaking down. For example, society really does seem to be organized essentially along class lines. The main partisan divides that you see in society are an expression of that. There may lots of different parties in any given country (any one with a competitive, multi-party system of course), but there always wind up being two main parties that dominate, with any third parties serving as simply kingmakers of sorts. And specifically, those two main parties in any given authentic democracy are always those of capital on the one hand (one that is essentially bought and paid for by capitalists) and of labor on the other (one that is essentially bought and paid for by unions). We can see this in any democracy. In this country those two parties are obviously the Democrats (most essentially a labor party) and the Republicans (most essentially a party of capital) respectively. The same could be said of Canada, where today the main political contest is between the New Democrats (labor) and the Conservatives (capital). We could say the same of the UK, where the main political divide is between the Labour Party (labor) and the Conservative Party (capital). Same in France: the Socialists for labor and the UMP for capital. Same in Greece: Syriza (labor) and the New Democrats (capital). We could say the same in Japan and Australia and everywhere that has anything resembling an honest democratic system. In less developed countries without highly developed capitalist and wage-working classes, political divides often break down along the lines of peasants versus landlords (which frequently takes the form of warfare because feudalistic arrangements leave little, if any, room for political conflicts to take a civil form), which is ultimately resolved by the intervention of capitalists. And so our political struggles boil down to being simply the governmental expression of class conflict, however civil or uncivil that gets at a particular juncture. The communist revolutions of the 20th century were largely characterized not by a workerist orientation, but by the mobilization of Third World peasants against landlords and foreign imperialists. In other words, it failed in my view most essentially because it was a premature attempt to make communist revolution; an attempt to do so in a context lacking the sufficient development of capitalist and wage-working forces. But history has shown through these processes that even organized workers (those organized into unions and political parties) don't tend to develop a communist consciousness. That's why I question communism as an idea nowadays. Engels wrote in 1847 that communism as a modern political theory was defined as "the doctrine of the liberation of the proletariat". I think Marxists need to get back to that definition. Siding with labor is the bottom line. This shouldn't be a matter of rigidly clinging to all our traditional ideas as to precisely what the liberation of the proletariat looks like. We need to be humble enough to accept whatever the proletariat's definition of its own liberation is at any given juncture, and it may not be communist. It may just be a variety of socialism, and perhaps one that's compatible with degrees and aspects of capitalism. 20th century Marxists, guided by Leninist thinking, adopted what essentially, at least in my mind, can be described as a form of modern Platonism: a view that says that communist intellectuals are special people with a special, administrative role to play in the emancipation of the proletariat. Such a view does not essentially differ from Plato's concept of philosopher-kings. Therein lies the problem of 20th century Marxism: it largely failed to retain its connection to the views of working class people, instead deciding that if working class people were no longer clinging to communist ideas, that was just because they were rendered ignorant of their own interests by imperial plunder or by some other device and needed to be educated as to what their interests really were by some outside group of dedicated communist intellectuals who, so long as they remained ideologically communists, were always right and always represented the true interests of the proletariat. Such a conviction is based on the elitist determination that communists can never be wrong, but instead the masses can be. 20th century Marxism did a better job of instead retaining its connection to working class people generally in developed, mature democracies, but of course those were not the main places where Marxists governed in the 20th century. All of this said, it continues to be the case that 85% of the world's wealth divide is attributable today simply to one's location. This implies that there continues to be an enormous divide in the developmental levels of different places on this globe. The 21st century will likely resolve most of that location-based wealth divide though, in one way or another, be it through the bankrupting of the current First World or through the ramifications of global warming. (I don't accept the the term "climate change" because it is a compromise term conceived of to make global warming sound more neutral than it is.) Class conflicts seem to become sharper amid such terrible crises, as we see in countries like Greece and Spain today.

In view of all this, I am pondering this question of whether to define Marxism as MOST fundamentally bound up with the idea of communism or MOST fundamentally bound up with workerism instead. What are your thoughts on this subject? Or does it matter? Or is my analysis of the dialectical shape and/or long-term trajectory of currents events way off?

URF8
09-26-2012, 02:42 PM
The problem with using class as the frame of reference in constructing a world view is that it ignores religion, race and ethno/nationalism. The latter is the most important force in the world today.

Larry Dickman
09-26-2012, 02:48 PM
Honestly, from what I have gathered by all people such as yourself, is that there is an attraction to a twisted romanticized image of "The People's Party". The Workers, vs the Man. Just the vernacular itself Proletariat, Marxism, etc., the heroes Marx, Trostsky, Lenin, etc., all these little underground "cool" trappings of the ideology that paint false pictures of a movement that is counter to all human nature. A movement whose very root is to take from those with ability and give to those without, supposedly. It's a lie, of course. In the retarded romance of left wing fascism, the serfs remain the serfs, they only give away their personal sovereignty to a state power, and then accept what the state will give them, with nowhere to go when liberty and justice are denied, but with a prison cell with their name on it just waiting to be occupied if they speak out too loudly.

I can sort of understand the draw to young people like you, but older people like your idiot Senator Sanders, they are loony. Either that, or they want to enslave you but tell you they will free you, because that is the nut of socialist/communist ideas. Most people eventually see that and perhaps you will someday as well. If not, no worries for us because the numbers of people who actually believe such a fucked pollyanna world are too few to matter.

Chris
09-26-2012, 03:03 PM
Marxism is failed socialism in theory, communism (nazism, fascism, etc) failed socialism in practice.

Workerism, first I've heard the term, sounds like the opposite of corporatism.

GrumpyDog
09-26-2012, 09:24 PM
All I want is a progressive tax policy that taxes people to fund the yearly Federal Budget in proportion to their percentage of yearly GDP.

So if 10% of the population has a yearly 10 Trillion of GDP, which is 2/3 of the total yearly GDP of 15 Trillion, then they should pay 2/3rds of the Federal Budget. If the yearly Federal Budget is 3 Trillion, then the upper 10% should pay 2 Trillion. The remaining 1 Trillion will be paid mostly by Middleclass, and a small percentage, about 100 Billion, paid by low income class.

Peter1469
09-26-2012, 09:45 PM
All I want is a progressive tax policy that taxes people to fund the yearly Federal Budget in proportion to their percentage of yearly GDP.

So if 10% of the population has a yearly 10 Trillion of GDP, which is 2/3 of the total yearly GDP of 15 Trillion, then they should pay 2/3rds of the Federal Budget. If the yearly Federal Budget is 3 Trillion, then the upper 10% should pay 2 Trillion. The remaining 1 Trillion will be paid mostly by Middleclass, and a small percentage, about 100 Billion, paid by low income class.

Are you talking about GDP or taxes?

IGetItAlready
09-26-2012, 10:10 PM
They're all branches of a collectivist ideology.
They've all been tried and in most cases have failed miserably. Where they've not failed they've led to widespread death and destruction.

It's disappointing to see an American who has apparently put so much thought into her political ideology and yet fails to ever mention Montesquieu, Cicero, Aristotle or Locke.
Who is responsible for your brain washing Polly?

IMPress Polly
09-29-2012, 09:33 AM
All:

First off, I'd just like to thank everyone for their thoughtful and measured responses. The comments here have been (unexpectedly) some pretty interesting ones. :smiley:

Okay, let's get into this:


URF8 wrote:
The problem with using class as the frame of reference in constructing a world view is that it ignores religion, race and ethno/nationalism. The latter is the most important force in the world today.

Although I gather what you're trying to say, personally I define social divides generally as class divides. For example, while "worker" is a class, so are "black", "Latino", and "woman" classes in my view. Nationality can also be an expression of class. Anything that affects your social mobility is an expression of class. One can belong to multiple classes in this sense. But the main divide that any given country or people experiences concerns their relationship to work. We can see that not only in the way that partisan divides break down (see the OP), but also in what people indicate when surveyed on the subject.

Now you have a point when you say that this doesn't fully account for the reality that location is the main expression of inequality in the world today. But when we're talking about global economic divides, we are often talking about divides between essentially capitalist and essential feudal countries and conditions. Those are two different social and economic systems, one of which is clearly outmoded. We are presently occupying Afghanistan, for example. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on Earth. It is also overwhelmingly agrarian and feudal. That is no coincidence. Any form of development would tend to significantly reduce the economic divide between countries like Afghanistan and the First World. Now these divides between systems have their political expressions as well. I suspect there are virtually no First Worlders, whether worker or capitalist, who support the Taliban, for example. That's because the Taliban's politics fall outside the framework of either capitalism (the perspective of capital) or socialism (the perspective of labor). The Taliban's politics correspond to strict feudal traditions. The Taliban is opposed to modernity itself. Anybody want to go back to the days of hardcore theocracy, feudal lords, and arranged marriages? Didn't think so. One might say that the distance between capitalism and socialism is shorter than the distance between feudalism and socialism.


Larry Dickman wrote:
Honestly, from what I have gathered by all people such as yourself, is that there is an attraction to a twisted romanticized image of "The People's Party". The Workers, vs the Man. Just the vernacular itself Proletariat, Marxism, etc., the heroes Marx, Trostsky, Lenin, etc., all these little underground "cool" trappings of the ideology that paint false pictures of a movement that is counter to all human nature. A movement whose very root is to take from those with ability and give to those without, supposedly. It's a lie, of course. In the retarded romance of left wing fascism, the serfs remain the serfs, they only give away their personal sovereignty to a state power, and then accept what the state will give them, with nowhere to go when liberty and justice are denied, but with a prison cell with their name on it just waiting to be occupied if they speak out too loudly.

I can sort of understand the draw to young people like you, but older people like your idiot Senator Sanders, they are loony. Either that, or they want to enslave you but tell you they will free you, because that is the nut of socialist/communist ideas. Most people eventually see that and perhaps you will someday as well. If not, no worries for us because the numbers of people who actually believe such a fucked pollyanna world are too few to matter.

I don't think I've commented on this yet, but it seems to me that a lot of older commentators talk down to those younger than themselves, using their age as an argument. While having more life experience may often yield wisdom, it doesn't just make you right.

Okay that said, you'll find that while I may be well to the left politically, I am not a terribly dogmatic person. I am NOT and HAVE NEVER BEEN someone who simply "adopts a set of politics" for style points.


A movement whose very root is to take from those with ability and give to those without, supposedly.

Incorrect. The expression you're alluding to goes "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". We all have needs, not just the sick and the disabled and the elderly and the children and laid off workers and all those others whose well-being you seem to believe undeserving of your consideration. The Marxist ethic contends that all people are deserving of provision by virtue of being human, even while those who can contribute to society's output should.


Chris wrote:
Workerism, first I've heard the term, sounds like the opposite of corporatism.

Corporatism is the belief that business corporations should directly run the government. It is a view most commonly held by fascists. The polar opposite of this would be the traditional Marxist notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat". Personally, I don't believe that either is a good idea.

Workerism though is not a definite political system. It simply refers to the idea of adhering to the political or cultural movements of labor rather than holding a separate political position that one tries to infuse into the labor movements. I don't think Marxists should necessarily be aiming to transform the labor movements into something else. Perhaps we should simply seek to be the most devoted fighters to the causes of labor (i.e. the causes organized workers broadly are willing to fight for), at least in essence. (I mean I think that Marxists should be populists in the broadest sense, not just in a strictly classist, identity politics type of way, but I also think there should yes be a disproportionate focus on the proletariat within that because it is the base of capitalist society in many senses. Yes I uphold the labor theory of value to an extent.)

Akula
09-29-2012, 09:53 AM
How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
Ronald Reagan

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ronaldreag183967.html)Political tags such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, etc...are never basic criteria.
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Robert Heinlein


It's a different outlook, and one that I understand. When you are a former member of the Warsaw Pact, when you have lived behind the Berlin Wall, when you have experienced the communist systems that existed in these countries, for them, the West represents hope.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jeanpierr254221.html)


"Communism is the graveyard of ambition"
–Daniel R. Bou Diab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_R._Bou_Diab)

"Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: 'No man should have so much.' The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: 'All men should have as much.' "
–Phelps Adams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phelps_Adams)

Chris
09-29-2012, 10:52 AM
All:

First off, I'd just like to thank everyone for their thoughtful and measured responses. The comments here have been (unexpectedly) some pretty interesting ones. :smiley:

Okay, let's get into this:

<snip>

Corporatism is the belief that business corporations should directly run the government. It is a view most commonly held by fascists. The polar opposite of this would be the traditional Marxist notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat". Personally, I don't believe that either is a good idea.

Workerism though is not a definite political system. It simply refers to the idea of adhering to the political or cultural movements of labor rather than holding a separate political position that one tries to infuse into the labor movements. I don't think Marxists should necessarily be aiming to transform the labor movements into something else. Perhaps we should simply seek to be the most devoted fighters to the causes of labor (i.e. the causes organized workers broadly are willing to fight for), at least in essence. (I mean I think that Marxists should be populists in the broadest sense, not just in a strictly classist, identity politics type of way, but I also think there should yes be a disproportionate focus on the proletariat within that because it is the base of capitalist society in many senses. Yes I uphold the labor theory of value to an extent.)


Workerism, first I've heard the term, sounds like the opposite of corporatism.


Corporatism is the belief that business corporations should directly run the government. It is a view most commonly held by fascists. The polar opposite of this would be the traditional Marxist notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat". Personally, I don't believe that either is a good idea.

In reality both corporatism and socialism, while ostensibly for the capitalists (conservative socialism) or the proletariat (liberal socialism), are examples of central planning where a few elites run the show, let us say dubiously, in the name of others. Without government you'd have neither. Now most cannot accept that, so let's settle for minimal government, minimal central planning, minimal corporatism and socialism--and greater liberty.


Workerism though is not a definite political system. It simply refers to the idea of adhering to the political or cultural movements of labor rather than holding a separate political position that one tries to infuse into the labor movements. I don't think Marxists should necessarily be aiming to transform the labor movements into something else. Perhaps we should simply seek to be the most devoted fighters to the causes of labor (i.e. the causes organized workers broadly are willing to fight for), at least in essence. (I mean I think that Marxists should be populists in the broadest sense, not just in a strictly classist, identity politics type of way, but I also think there should yes be a disproportionate focus on the proletariat within that because it is the base of capitalist society in many senses. Yes I uphold the labor theory of value to an extent.)

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending the side the fence you stand, Smith and Ricardo, from whom Marx took his labor theory of value, were wrong. You simply cannot measure value, by Marx's historicism or even Mills' utilitarianism; value is subjective. When people exchange goods and services, or money instead, they each do so based on what they value subjectively and thereby each gains, win-win, and wealth is generated.

Chris
09-29-2012, 11:02 AM
How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
Ronald Reagan

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ronaldreag183967.html)Political tags such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, etc...are never basic criteria.
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Robert Heinlein


It's a different outlook, and one that I understand. When you are a former member of the Warsaw Pact, when you have lived behind the Berlin Wall, when you have experienced the communist systems that existed in these countries, for them, the West represents hope.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jeanpierr254221.html)


"Communism is the graveyard of ambition"
–Daniel R. Bou Diab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_R._Bou_Diab)

"Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: 'No man should have so much.' The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: 'All men should have as much.' "
–Phelps Adams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phelps_Adams)


"Communism is the graveyard of ambition"
–Daniel R. Bou Diab

Like that. In my thinking, lately, there is socialism, a theory, an ambition if you will. It's doomed to failure if for no other reason, and there are many, than because people like Marx never explained how to attain it. Various people have the ambition, the anointed vision, of implementing it, but knowing not how, turn to various sorts of statism to coerce it--communism, fascism, naziism, social democracy, etc--the graveyards of their ambitious visions.

IMPress Polly
09-29-2012, 03:03 PM
Chris wrote:
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending the side the fence you stand, Smith and Ricardo, from whom Marx took his labor theory of value, were wrong. You simply cannot measure value, by Marx's historicism or even Mills' utilitarianism; value is subjective. When people exchange goods and services, or money instead, they each do so based on what they value subjectively and thereby each gains, win-win, and wealth is generated.

This is an interesting view that I've thought about myself before! However, I do think there is a certain degree of objectivity to the notion of value in that we can observe general rules and even absolute economic laws of history. To illustrate this point, we could highlight that countries that lose their manufacturing base decline as a result. That's true everywhere. Maybe that's partially bound up with how much we collectively value manual work (for example, United Nations has found that the vast majority of the work that gets done on this planet is service-type work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_collar) (most of which goes unpaid), which, accordingly, should probably be valued more highly than it is), but if we were to evaluate worth based on purely subjective criteria, then how would we explain the crash of 2008 and the Great Recession more generally, for instance? Marx had an explanation for such developments:

[To the possessor of money-capital] “the process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.” --From Capital

The crisis is explained by a failure of society to produce actual value in concert with expenditure. It was a financial crisis; "a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production". The corresponding housing bubble can thus be described as the creation of a bubble of fake value that had to be eliminated eventually. Do you see what I'm getting at? If value is indeed all perfectly subjective, then why couldn't we sustain the housing bubble forever? Why would it even be called a bubble? Why couldn't we just fabricate unlimited economic growth by wishing into being? Because that's divorced from on-the-ground realities of what production and distribution and so on is possible at a given point. In the end, you have to get back to on-the-ground realities, which are more objective than you think.

Granted there are holes in Marx's labor theory of value. Eduard Bernstein examined some of these over a century ago in his critique of Capital. For instance, Marx writes that human labor is the source of all value, including that value which gets produced by machines. Marx simply attributes the building of machines to human labor and argues that therefore human workers deserve the credit for machine output. Well that's kind of like saying that whereas you may have "made" children, you therefore deserve all the value they produce in their lives. No, Marx's formulation on that needs to account for the time difference between that of a machine being built on the one hand and a machine doing the building on the other. Machines do create value of their own and therefore not all surplus value is rooted in exploitation. But let me go a step further on this and point out that much of human society's product also results from exploiting and even destroying animals and the natural environment. Is it really correct to say that it's non-exploitative to force animals to produce for us? Further, is it really correct to say that nature gains value when it is altered and reused to suit human needs? Has there necessarily been a net increase in value when one must factor in things like ecological sustainability, or have we simply taken value from nature that we will ultimately have to pay back due to nature's objective limits? (i.e. Have we exploited nature itself?) There is a great deal of complexity that Marx didn't take into account. So I'm not saying that Marx's labor theory of value was totally correct by any stretch of the imagination. But I am saying that adopting a relativist outlook on the question of value is going way too far IMO.

Chris
09-29-2012, 03:35 PM
This is an interesting view that I've thought about myself before! However, I do think there is a certain degree of objectivity to the notion of value in that we can observe general rules and even absolute economic laws of history. To illustrate this point, we could highlight that countries that lose their manufacturing base decline as a result. That's true everywhere. Maybe that's partially bound up with how much we collectively value manual work (for example, United Nations has found that the vast majority of the work that gets done on this planet is service-type work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_collar) (most of which goes unpaid), which, accordingly, should probably be valued more highly than it is), but if we were to evaluate worth based on purely subjective criteria, then how would we explain the crash of 2008 and the Great Recession more generally, for instance? Marx had an explanation for such developments:

[To the possessor of money-capital] “the process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.” --From Capital

The crisis is explained by a failure of society to produce actual value in concert with expenditure. It was a financial crisis; "a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production". The corresponding housing bubble can thus be described as the creation of a bubble of fake value that had to be eliminated eventually. Do you see what I'm getting at? If value is indeed all perfectly subjective, then why couldn't we sustain the housing bubble forever? Why would it even be called a bubble? Why couldn't we just fabricate unlimited economic growth by wishing into being? Because that's divorced from on-the-ground realities of what production and distribution and so on is possible at a given point. In the end, you have to get back to on-the-ground realities, which are more objective than you think.

Granted there are holes in Marx's labor theory of value. Eduard Bernstein examined some of these over a century ago in his critique of Capital. For instance, Marx writes that human labor is the source of all value, including that value which gets produced by machines. Marx simply attributes the building of machines to human labor and argues that therefore human workers deserve the credit for machine output. Well that's kind of like saying that whereas you may have "made" children, you therefore deserve all the value they produce in their lives. No, Marx's formulation on that needs to account for the time difference between that of a machine being built on the one hand and a machine doing the building on the other. Machines do create value of their own and therefore not all surplus value is rooted in exploitation. But let me go a step further on this and point out that much of human society's product also results from exploiting and even destroying animals and the natural environment. Is it really correct to say that it's non-exploitative to force animals to produce for us? Further, is it really correct to say that nature gains value when it is melded and reused to suit human needs? Has there necessarily been a net increase in value when one must factor in things like ecological sustainability, or have we simply taken value from nature that we will ultimately have to pay back do to nature's objective limits? (i.e. Have we exploited nature itself?) There is a great deal of complexity that Marx didn't take into account. So I'm not saying that Marx's labor theory of value was totally correct by any stretch of the imagination. But I am saying that adopting a relativist outlook on the question of value is going way too far IMO.


I do think there is a certain degree of objectivity to the notion of value in that we can observe general rules and even absolute economic laws of history. To illustrate this point, we could highlight that countries....

Indeed as soon as you abstract away, whether by Marx's historicism or Mill's utilitarianism, from the individual to statistics about collectives, states, classes, groups, you can make such blanket statements. But to what or to whom do they apply? No thing and no one. Collectives, states, classes, groups, all social institutions, including economies, emerge from the interactions of individuals. Economically speaking collectives, states, classes, groups, etc do not exchange goods and services, only individuals do. It is their valuations that matter.


But I am saying that adopting a relativist outlook on the question of value is going way too far IMO.

Sorry I wasn't clear, when I say subjective I do not mean it in a relativistic sense, but simply in terms of each individual determining the value of goods and services, which includes labor producing or providing then, that he can provide in exchange for those he desires.


Marx was at best a moralist, but, misconstruing free-market capitalism, he sought to institute a coercive, centrally planned system, socialism, to replace of a voluntary and cooperative one, the free market.

Peter1469
09-29-2012, 04:40 PM
A question: can not socialism / communism work in a small community with like minded people who share a common goal (and no lazy people)? Once society gets too large and / or diverse, such communalism breaks down.

IMPress Polly
09-29-2012, 04:49 PM
Well socialism works period, at least as long as it remains in the form of a system of cooperatives. We know that from successful national-scale models applied at various points in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (in the 1920s). The only question is whether a more fully collectivist, planned system can work on a large scale. We know that it can on a small scale because we see successful communes even today in certain parts of China (like Nanjie) that are highly collectivized and in which the people enjoy a higher overall living standard than most of the country's population. But when this same model was applied on a national scale, it encountered huge problems, partially due to the bureaucratic approach thereto (i.e. economic decision-making was insufficiently democratic), but also simply due to the fact that production goals were impossible and hence demoralizing. So I think the more fully communistic economic approaches still have yet to be proven applicable to the modern world. There is no question though that if a planned system is to work on any sort of grand scale, it must be planned out in a democratic way, not by technocrats.

Larry Dickman
09-29-2012, 04:50 PM
I don't think I've commented on this yet, but it seems to me that a lot of older commentators talk down to those younger than themselves, using their age as an argument. While having more life experience may often yield wisdom, it doesn't just make you right.



Actually not talking down, but giving allowances for youthful ideals, which is why I also mentioned your idiot Senator as one who does not get a pass. The simple truth is that communist/socialist concepts are polar opposite of human nature. They cannot, nor do they ever work from a centralized governmental authority. The reason they don't work is because people are always looking to be on top of the dog pile, and in the case of any form of government, there will always be the Haves, versus the Have-nots. In a free market (or relatively free at least) at least there is the honesty and genuine opportunity. If you look at where American Capitalism has screwed the pooch, look to where the government is most involved.

Communes are a nice idea, but unless you are willing to work hard and watch others do nothing and just take from the producers, you won't be happy living in one.

Larry Dickman
09-29-2012, 04:52 PM
There is no question though that if a planned system is to work, it must be planned out in a democratic way, not by technocrats.

That's tyranny, young miss. Where the hell is the liberty in that Utopia?

Peter1469
09-29-2012, 05:06 PM
Well socialism works period, at least as long as it remains in the form of a system of cooperatives. We know that from successful national-scale models applied at various points in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (in the 1920s). The only question is whether a more fully collectivist, planned system can work on a large scale. We know that it can on a small scale because we see successful communes even today in certain parts of China (like Nanjie) that are highly collectivized and in which the people enjoy a higher overall living standard than most of the country's population. But when this same model was applied on a national scale, it encountered huge problems, partially due to the bureaucratic approach thereto (i.e. economic decision-making was insufficiently democratic), but also simply due to the fact that production goals were impossible and hence demoralizing. So I think the more fully communistic economic approaches still have yet to be proven applicable to the modern world. There is no question though that if a planned system is to work on any sort of grand scale, it must be planned out in a democratic way, not by technocrats.

Polly, so far as I know, the only real advances in the 1920s Soviet Union were attributed to electrification. What other examples do you have of socialism making the economy / society stronger. Don't move into the 1930s, because that is when Lenin starts killing tens of millions of his own citizens......

Peter1469
09-29-2012, 05:07 PM
Polly, so far as I know, the only real advances in the 1920s Soviet Union were attributed to electrification. What other examples do you have of socialism making the economy / society stronger. Don't move into the 1930s, because that is when Lenin starts killing tens of millions of his own citizens......

What I was talking about is really small groups- like 100-200 people. Everyone wants to work and get along. That is where these collectivist ideas can work.

IMPress Polly
09-29-2012, 05:13 PM
Peter wrote:
Polly, so far as I know, the only real advances in the 1920s Soviet Union were attributed to electrification. What other examples do you have of socialism making the economy / society stronger. Don't move into the 1930s, because that is when Lenin starts killing tens of millions of his own citizens......

Actually Lenin was dead after 1924. :wink: I know what you meant though (Stalin). And no, I'm not proposing a repetition of what's classically known as the Soviet economic model. It's much too technocratic.

But anyhow, the other large-scale example I could point to was Tito's Yugoslavia. There are smaller-scale success stories being played out right now in a number of countries based on the model of cooperatives.

Peter1469
09-29-2012, 05:24 PM
Actually Lenin was dead after 1924. :wink: I know what you meant though (Stalin). And no, I'm not proposing a repetition of what's classically known as the Soviet economic model. It's much too technocratic.

But anyhow, the other large-scale example I could point to was Tito's Yugoslavia. There are smaller-scale success stories being played out right now in a number of countries based on the model of cooperatives.

Oops, you are right. Stalin.

Chris
09-29-2012, 07:45 PM
A question: can not socialism / communism work in a small community with like minded people who share a common goal (and no lazy people)? Once society gets too large and / or diverse, such communalism breaks down.

But isn't that what society is? People cooperating, working together, sharing goals. Socialism is central planning by a few for the many.

Chris
09-29-2012, 07:52 PM
Well socialism works period, at least as long as it remains in the form of a system of cooperatives. We know that from successful national-scale models applied at various points in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (in the 1920s). The only question is whether a more fully collectivist, planned system can work on a large scale. We know that it can on a small scale because we see successful communes even today in certain parts of China (like Nanjie) that are highly collectivized and in which the people enjoy a higher overall living standard than most of the country's population. But when this same model was applied on a national scale, it encountered huge problems, partially due to the bureaucratic approach thereto (i.e. economic decision-making was insufficiently democratic), but also simply due to the fact that production goals were impossible and hence demoralizing. So I think the more fully communistic economic approaches still have yet to be proven applicable to the modern world. There is no question though that if a planned system is to work on any sort of grand scale, it must be planned out in a democratic way, not by technocrats.


Well socialism works period, at least as long as it remains in the form of a system of cooperatives.

That's not socialism, socialism is a politico-economic theory.

And there's nothing more cooperative than free-market capitalism.

I think we're having here a problem with semantics, meanings. If people you're coming across are feeding you this equivocating bunk, head for the hills, and don't look back!

Peter1469
09-29-2012, 08:13 PM
But isn't that what society is? People cooperating, working together, sharing goals. Socialism is central planning by a few for the many.

I guess you can say that 100 people living off by themselves in a commune, believing that they are working on communism are really anarcho capitalists.

Either way, and of these extremes only work with small groups of like minded people.

Akula
09-29-2012, 10:07 PM
Well socialism works period, at least as long as it remains in the form of a system of cooperatives. We know that from successful national-scale models applied at various points in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (in the 1920s). The only question is whether a more fully collectivist, planned system can work on a large scale. We know that it can on a small scale because we see successful communes even today in certain parts of China (like Nanjie) that are highly collectivized and in which the people enjoy a higher overall living standard than most of the country's population. But when this same model was applied on a national scale, it encountered huge problems, partially due to the bureaucratic approach thereto (i.e. economic decision-making was insufficiently democratic), but also simply due to the fact that production goals were impossible and hence demoralizing. So I think the more fully communistic economic approaches still have yet to be proven applicable to the modern world. There is no question though that if a planned system is to work on any sort of grand scale, it must be planned out in a democratic way, not by technocrats.

Russia in the '20's is not a place you'd like to have been.
The Bolshevik jews were in charge and they exterminated over 20 million people...including the Tsar and his entire family.

Communism is a failed system for idealists to dream about..but it doesn't work. It doesn't allow people to excel..it promotes mediocrity.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html
With the notable exception of Lenin (Vladimir Ulyanov), most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews. Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein) headed the Red Army and, for a time, was chief of Soviet foreign affairs. Yakov Sverdlov (Solomon) was both the Bolshevik party's executive secretary and -- as chairman of the Central Executive Committee -- head of the Soviet government. Grigori Zinoviev (Radomyslsky) headed the Communist International (Comintern), the central agency for spreading revolution in foreign countries. Other prominent Jews included press commissar Karl Radek (Sobelsohn), foreign affairs commissar Maxim Litvinov (Wallach), Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld) and Moisei Uritsky.6

Lenin himself was of mostly Russian and Kalmuck ancestry, but he was also one-quarter Jewish. His maternal grandfather, Israel (Alexander) Blank, was a Ukrainian Jew who was later baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church.7.

Summing up the situation at that time, Israeli historian Louis Rapoport writes:19

Immediately after the [Bolshevik] Revolution, many Jews were euphoric over their high representation in the new government. Lenin's first Politburo was dominated by men of Jewish origins

Under Lenin, Jews became involved in all aspects of the Revolution, including its dirtiest work. Despite the Communists' vows to eradicate anti-Semitism, it spread rapidly after the Revolution -- partly because of the prominence of so many Jews in the Soviet administration, as well as in the traumatic, inhuman Sovietization drives that followed. Historian Salo Baron has noted that an immensely disproportionate number of Jews joined the new Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka And many of those who fell afoul of the Cheka would be shot by Jewish investigators.

The collective leadership that emerged in Lenin's dying days was headed by the Jew Zinoviev, a loquacious, mean-spirited, curly-haired Adonis whose vanity knew no bounds.

"Anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka," wrote Jewish historian Leonard Schapiro, "stood a very good chance of finding himself confronted with, and possibly shot by, a Jewish investigator."20 In Ukraine, "Jews made up nearly 80 percent of the rank-and-file Cheka agents," reports W. Bruce Lincoln, an American professor of Russian history.21 (Beginning as the Cheka, or Vecheka) the Soviet secret police was later known as the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD and KGB.)

Robert Conquest, the distinguished specialist of Soviet history, recently summed up the grim record of Soviet "repression" of it own people:34

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the post-1934 death toll was well over ten million. To this should be added the victims of the 1930-1933 famine, the kulak deportations, and other anti-peasant campaigns, amounting to another ten million plus. The total is thus in the range of what the Russians now refer to as 'The Twenty Million'."

A few other scholars have given significantly higher estimates.35

IMPress Polly
09-30-2012, 08:59 AM
Chris wrote:
That's not socialism, socialism is a politico-economic theory.

Who is the socialist here? I'm not getting into another debate on the definition with you.


I think we're having here a problem with semantics, meanings. If people you're coming across are feeding you this equivocating bunk, head for the hills, and don't look back!

Technicalities are unimportant. When one uses the term "socialism", a general idea pops into their mind; the general idea of a significant amount of public ownership over the economy. How exactly one interprets that, whether in a good or a bad way, in a narrow or broad way, is a matter of the extent of their own prejudices. People who are hostile to a particular idea (like socialism or capitalism) tend to interpret it in unplausibly broad ways. For example, I know roughly 20 other Marxists and half of them consider even Cuba and North Korea to be essentially capitalist countries. The majority of this board's members, by contrast, consider even the United States to be a socialist country. Nothing real is ever good or pure enough to satisfy the true ideologue. I try to be as objective as possible these days. I define capitalism as a state of affairs in which most of the economy is privately owned and socialism as a state of affairs in which most of the economy is publicly owned. I'm not sure I even believe in the poles of these things though: laissez-faire capitalism (privatization of everything) and communism (collectivization of everything) respectively. They seem to be myths. All economies are mixed in reality. It's just a matter of which way they lean overall that defines them. This simple, dialectical assessment makes sense of the world to me.

Communism (absolute collectivism; common ownership of everything) in human society has existed for many tens of thousands of years before, if not more than 100,000. For that reason, it (the idea of leveling things out) has become a natural human impulse, I believe. It was necessary in primitive societies characterized by immense scarcity in order to maximize the survival rate. Equitable distribution always does just that. It works best when the basics of life are in short supply. That's why we always turn back to that principle whenever we're REALLY in a bind, like after a terrible natural disaster when food and clothing and shelter are in short supply. We call it rationing. It means the same thing. It ceased to be a necessary overall system though when accumulation finally became possible with the advent of agriculture. That's when private property came into being. Since that time, there has been no such thing as a purely communist system in human society. I have started to wonder then if communism (as distinguished from socialism) might be an intrinsically primitivist, rather than a progressive, notion on some level.

Anyhow, socialism and capitalism both appear to have their good aspects and shortcomings. Looking at life in this country before and after the New Deal, for example, it becomes clear that socialistic solutions still do a far better job of guaranteeing the basics of life. We still need them, clearly. Otherwise society would be characterized by far more poverty and hunger and homelessness and just all-around misery. But, particularly in non-competitive forms of socialism (like what's conventionally known as the Soviet model), we also find that socialistic solutions don't tend to provide for much in the way of surplus, of human luxuries, because guarantees, together with a lack of reward for distinguishment, do reduce initiative. Forms of more or less complete socialism (like communism; total socialism) only seem to be the best under conditions of scarcity vis-a-vis the basics. Now there has been an interesting exception developed of late. In the last couple of decades, technological advancements have ushered in an age of digital media available online. Online media can be infinitely duplicated for free. This, vis-a-vis media, resolves the problem that communism has in the modern world. It resolves the scarcity-of-surplus issue that tends to result from highly socialistic forms of economics by creating an unlimited supply of non-necessities: media. As a result, we see the free sharing of media emerging as a very successful approach today (e.g. the wanton proliferation today of free online video and music of all forms), even if, in the real world, it must generally be operated within a larger capitalist framework (e.g. private businesses like YouTube and BitTorrent that are subject to "intellectual property" laws). If we could do to all products what we've managed to do to our media -- create a medium that makes for an unlimited product supply -- then communism would be viable and widely preferred in a modern context, not only because it would make everything free, but also because people wouldn't have to work half as hard anymore. Capitalism as an idea would be truly and completely outmoded. Nobody would still want it. And yet, ironically, we may need the superior initiative that market competition tends to yield if we are ever to somehow invent such a medium. So in as far as we might want to adopt a form of socialism, a cooperative-based form MIGHT be best in the current world-historic context, as it would still leave space for market competition. That illustrates why I now say that some aspects of capitalism may not yet be historically outmoded after all (although I think most are). Worker-owned cooperatives are springing up in many different countries today. In this country, the United Steelworkers are among the forces leading the way. They have, in recent years, gone as far as to endorse the idea of setting them up as a parallel economic system within the current one (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/worker-ownership-99-united-steelworkers-mondragon-and-ohio-employee-ownership-center-announce-new-union-cooperative-model-reinse), believing it possibly the best solution to the decline of unions in modern America, as well as to the outsourcing of jobs (http://www.usw.org/our_union/co-ops) (second link includes video).

Chris
09-30-2012, 09:08 AM
I guess you can say that 100 people living off by themselves in a commune, believing that they are working on communism are really anarcho capitalists.

Either way, and of these extremes only work with small groups of like minded people.

I guess we could say anything we want.

March Hare: …Then you should say what you mean.
Alice: I do; at least - at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing, you know.
Hatter: Not the same thing a bit! Why, you might just as well say that, 'I see what I eat' is the same as 'I eat what I see'!
March Hare: You might just as well say, that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!
The Dormouse: You might just as well say, that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!

Should we call families communist tyrannies? Congregations? The local bridge club?

Chris
09-30-2012, 09:33 AM
Who is the socialist here? I'm not getting into another debate on the definition with you.



Technicalities are unimportant. When one uses the term "socialism", a general idea pops into their mind; the general idea of a significant amount of public ownership over the economy. How exactly one interprets that, whether in a good or a bad way, in a narrow or broad way, is a matter of the extent of their own prejudices. People who are hostile to a particular idea (like socialism or capitalism) tend to interpret it in unplausibly broad ways. For example, I know roughly 20 other Marxists and half of them consider even Cuba and North Korea to be essentially capitalist countries. The majority of this board's members, by contrast, consider even the United States to be a socialist country. Nothing real is ever good or pure enough to satisfy the true ideologue. I try to be as objective as possible these days. I define capitalism as a state of affairs in which most of the economy is privately owned and socialism as a state of affairs in which most of the economy is publicly owned. I'm not sure I even believe in the poles of these things though: laissez-faire capitalism (privatization of everything) and communism (collectivization of everything) respectively. They seem to be myths. All economies are mixed in reality. It's just a matter of which way they lean overall that defines them. This simple, dialectical assessment makes sense of the world to me.

Communism (absolute collectivism; common ownership of everything) in human society has existed for many tens of thousands of years before, if not more than 100,000. For that reason, it (the idea of leveling things out) has become a natural human impulse, I believe. It was necessary in primitive societies characterized by immense scarcity in order to maximize the survival rate. Equitable distribution always does just that. It works best when the basics of life are in short supply. That's why we always turn back to that principle whenever we're REALLY in a bind, like after a terrible natural disaster when food and clothing and shelter are in short supply. We call it rationing. It means the same thing. It ceased to be a necessary overall system though when accumulation finally became possible with the advent of agriculture. That's when private property came into being. Since that time, there has been no such thing as a purely communist system in human society. I have started to wonder then if communism (as distinguished from socialism) might be an intrinsically primitivist, rather than a progressive, notion on some level.

Anyhow, socialism and capitalism both appear to have their good aspects and shortcomings. Looking at life in this country before and after the New Deal, for example, it becomes clear that socialistic solutions still do a far better job of guaranteeing the basics of life. We still need them, clearly. Otherwise society would be characterized by far more poverty and hunger and homelessness and just all-around misery. But, particularly in non-competitive forms of socialism (like what's conventionally known as the Soviet model), we also find that socialistic solutions don't tend to provide for much in the way of surplus, of human luxuries, because guarantees, together with a lack of reward for distinguishment, do reduce initiative. Forms of more or less complete socialism (like communism; total socialism) only seem to be the best under conditions of scarcity vis-a-vis the basics. Now there has been an interesting exception developed of late. In the last decade, technological advancements have ushered in an age of digital media available online. Online media can be infinitely duplicated for free. This, vis-a-vis media, resolves the problem that communism has in the modern world. It resolves the scarcity-of-surplus issue that tends to result from highly socialistic forms of economics by creating an unlimited supply of non-necessities: media. As a result, we see the free sharing of media emerging as a very successful approach today (e.g. the wanton availability today of free online video and music of all forms), even if, in the real world, it must be generally be operated within a larger capitalist framework (e.g. private business like YouTube and BitTorrent that are subject to "intellectual property" laws). If we could do to all products what we managed to do to our media -- create a medium that makes for an unlimited product supply -- then communism would be viable and widely preferred in a modern context, not only because it would make everything free, but also because people wouldn't have to work half as hard anymore. Capitalism as an idea would be truly and completely outmoded. Nobody would still want it. And yet, ironically, we may need the superior initiative that market competition tends to yield if we are ever to somehow invent such a medium. So in as far as we might want to adopt a form of socialism, a cooperative-based form MIGHT be best in the current world-historic context, as it would still leave space for market competition. That illustrates why I now say that some aspects of capitalism may not yet be historically outmoded after all (although I think most are). Worker-owned cooperatives are springing up in many different countries today. In this country, the United Steelworkers are among the forces leading the way. They have, in recent years, gone as far as to endorse the idea of setting them up as a parallel economic system within the current one (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/worker-ownership-99-united-steelworkers-mondragon-and-ohio-employee-ownership-center-announce-new-union-cooperative-model-reinse), believing it possibly the best solution to the decline of unions in modern America, as well as to the outsourcing of jobs (http://www.usw.org/our_union/co-ops) (second link includes video).



I'm not getting into another debate on the definition with you.

But that is the OP question. In order to separate Marxism from Communism you have to start with what they mean.


Technicalities are unimportant.

Begs the OP question.


When one uses the term "socialism", a general idea pops into their mind...

So socialism is whatever you imagine it is? I'm not able to discuss your imagination.


People who are hostile to a particular idea (like socialism or capitalism) tend to interpret it in unplausibly broad ways.

Sorry, I don't get emotional about socialism, and I defined it quite narrowly, following common economic definition, socialism is defined by its key feature: central planning. Period. Consider your definition:


the general idea of a significant amount of public ownership over the economy

That is an "unplausibly broad" interpretation. Why? Simple. Under socialism only the central planners own (communism) or manage (social democracy) capital. Under capitalism, free-market capitalism, individuals, the actual public, owns capital.


Anyhow, socialism and capitalism both appear to have their good aspects and shortcomings.

Socialism, while perfect, in theory, fails in practice. Free-market capitalism, while imperfect, works.


socialistic solutions still do a far better job of guaranteeing the basics of life

In immoral ways, at the cost of liberty, they pave the road to hell.


Worker-owned cooperatives are springing up in many different countries today.

Not socialism, simply individuals cooperating.


the United Steelworkers are among the forces leading the way

One of the problems with socialism, and liberalism, for that matter, is it doesn't deal with reality very well, it ignores what is for what's envisioned by the anointed, but you can't get there if you don't know where here is.

Aren't the Steelworkers aware of global trends outside its force to control?

http://i.snag.gy/qKIXN.jpg

Source: Global steel — 2011 trends; 2012 outlook (http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Global_steel_2011_trends_2012_outlook/$FILE/Global_Steel_Jan_2012.pdf) (.PDF)

This is the essential problem with central planning, it's incapable of allocating resources efficiently and effectively, as demonstrated in the 30s by Mises' economic calculation problem and Hayek's problem of knowledge in society, and conceded by socialist economists in the 90s.