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My problem with it is the ideology not the end game. To me the weakness in the system is in the “planners”. A collectivist planned economy means there must be central planners. And the only way that will work is if there is total commitment to the “plan”. And how does that exactly work in a society of free people. What do you do with the dissenters or those who disagree? Who will choose the planners and what plans take priority when there are competing legitimate interests? Who will make these decisions. And those dissenters cannot get in the way if the system is to work. Would there be debate or would that be looked upon as subversion? Would dissenters be eliminated? (not an entirely shocking expectation) Somewhere I read that collectivism and individualism are political oil and water.
Actually, none of the above is true. Real socialism is localized planning. Community planning. It’s decentralized planning. Capitalism is centralized out of necessity, and government must be huge in order to sustain it. A socialist economy is fully democratic, democratized from the workplace on up, so the decisions are made by the people actually affected, not by “bureaucrats” far away, as is the way under capitalism.
I’m guessing WV has posted this already, but Chomsky, in roughly four minutes, debunks the idea that “socialism” is that centralized planning monstrosity too many think it is.
I suppose when it comes to politics and religion we all become “dogmatic”. Nevertheless, I genuinely believe that those on the “left” and those on the “right” tend to follow what has been called a process of “group think”. Meaning there is a far greater consensus on political issues than one might find in a group of so called centrists. At it’s worst there can be the “let me know what my group thinks of this so I can be consistent and won’t ruffle the feathers of those I know”. By definition a “moderate” or “centrist” does not have a “group” to measure his views on issues. I suspect when it comes to abortion rights, affirmative action, gun control, etc there is far more divergence among moderates than you would find on the “left” and the “right”, especially as one approaches the polar ends of both these bodies.
As far as “socialism” goes-your right it’s far more complicated than what we give it. Growing up in the 50s words like “communism”, “socialism” were dirty words that few of us knew anything about other than these were the bad guys. Today with globalization we see bits and pieces of socialism everywhere including here in the U.S. The word doesn’t carry with it the stigma it once did-although talking to some of my friends my age you wouldn’t know that.
My problem with it is the ideology not the end game. To me the weakness in the system is in the “planners”. A collectivist planned economy means there must be central planners. And the only way that will work is if there is total commitment to the “plan”. And how does that exactly work in a society of free people. What do you do with the dissenters or those who disagree? Who will choose the planners and what plans take priority when there are competing legitimate interests? Who will make these decisions. And those dissenters cannot get in the way if the system is to work. Would there be debate or would that be looked upon as subversion? Would dissenters be eliminated? (not an entirely shocking expectation) Somewhere I read that collectivism and individualism are political oil and water.==============
Agreed. Preachin to the choir comrad
w
vI don’t agree at all, particularly with the first paragraph, but I’m not going to argue it.
W,
Also: Actual socialism’s core tenets make it next to impossible for it to be what you describe. Because the people own the means of production, literally, directly, not through proxies, the entire economy is democratized, society itself is democratized. The real thing breaks down hierarchies of power, wealth and privilege. It breaks down concentrations of power, wealth and privilege. If it follows its own internal logic, it gets rid of the class system itself, over time, and paves the way for actual “communism,” which means the absence of the state.
So, contrary to the myths about both socialism and communism, there is actually far less government in the former, and none in the latter. Capitalism, OTOH, requires a massive state to support its imperative to Grow or Die and forever unify markets. Socialism seeks the opposite. To go back to local, independent, autonomous, cooperative economies, federated with one another, democratically.
Back for more punishment.
I think what your describing is a system designed to preserve human liberties while forcing everyone into communal economic arrangements. The key is to have “the people” collectively make all important economic decisions. Well your faith in the people to make decisions for the betterment of all is much stronger than mine. All I need to do is look at the Trump movement. Besides how does your system handle dissenters since economic decisions by necessity are made collectively. To me it’s like a gang of wolves sitting down with a few sheep to decide who to invite over for dinner. Venezuela was an oil fueled economy when in 1999 the voters installed the “democratic socialist” administration of Hugo Chavez. In the name of equality the “wolves” looted the nations wealth and confiscated entire industries while at the same time muzzling the press. Today there is rampant inflation, social unrest, and clear signs of an economic calamity. The wolves have eaten their dinner guests.
And Billy-you won’t get any argument from me that our present system of governing is a panacea. It has been over run by corporate interests to the detriment of many. What I see in the future is an attempt to blend some of the ideas and values of socialism within our present system. But we will never have a system of governance in this country that resembles what you have described.
I think what your describing is a system designed to preserve human liberties while forcing everyone into communal economic arrangements. The key is to have “the people” collectively make all important economic decisions. Well your faith in the people to make decisions for the betterment of all is much stronger than mine. All I need to do is look at the Trump movement.
W, I’ll break down your comment into halves or thirds and go from there:
As mentioned, people are forced into collectivist economic arrangements now, under capitalism. If they are not independently wealthy — and only a tiny, tiny fraction is — they have no choice but to sell their labor to others, to be dependent upon capitalists whose every incentive is to pay them as little as possible. Capitalists gain their wealth through the mass collectivization of unpaid labor. They make their fortunes by the grotesque suppression of wages. If they ever paid value for value, they’d never make that fortune. It is literally mathematically impossible.
As for faith in the people. I have far more faith that democratic decisions made by workers on the shop room floor, and communities themselves, will be far more beneficial to “the people” than ANY decision made by capitalists. If fact, why do YOU have faith in our current system, which concentrates vast power, wealth and privilege in the hands of the few, who then decide for everyone else. Seriously, why on earth would you support that and feel comfortable with that, but not with turning things over to EVERYONE to decide? And I mean literally everyone in the community. No political party. No group from Animal Farm, lording it over everyone else. I’m saying, direct, participatory democracy, where everyone has an equal say, equal voice and everyone is co-owner.
The comment about Trump baffles me, so I’ll wait for your elaboration.
WV,
I haven’t really either, to any close degree, other than noting how the crash of oil prices has really hurt them. And by noting the usual way these things go. Leftist comes into power in Latin America. Capitalists freak out. Capitalists call Daddy on phone to get help. Daddy answers in ways subtle and overt. Forcing capital flight, capital boycotts, gets the IMF to call in loans, sets up sanctions, embargoes, may try a quiet coup or two or three. Hires street thugs to start protests. Gets capitalist media in on the deal.
Eventually, leftist is toppled, blamed for everything that happened to nation, and everyone starts the counter for economic catastrophe on the leftist’s watch, forgetting about all previous decades of right-wing governance and poverty, inequality, hyper-inflation on their watch, not to mention all the “disappearing.”
Not saying said leftists are always innocent and pure. They have their skeletons too. They can sometimes match the right for brutality and cruelty while in office. But, I think most of that is due to being under siege from U.S. and capitalism itself from day one. If U.S and the forces of globalized capitalism ever just left these attempts at alternatives alone or, goddess forbid, tried to help them? . . . . . I think we’d see a huge difference in the way they conduct themselves. As in, far more open, far more democratic, and far more successful. That would have been the case with Russia in 1917, especially.
So, basically, W, I’m just not getting your objections. In every case, the system I describe would do infinitely better than our current one . . . on all scores. Everyone would have a voice. Everyone would get to hash out their objections, put in their two cents, should we do this, should we do that, let’s try this or that. That’s NOT the case under capitalism. Which means you’re not going to have a bunch of wolves killing the sheep. You’re going to have town meetings, workplace meetings, with everyone having an equal say, all voices heard, and then votes. No bosses. No political parties. The lowest levels of hierarchy possible — closing in on none. Rotating facilitators. No permanent power structures. No elections. Lotteries for civil service and workplace facilitators instead.
In capitalism, you have a few wolves eating up all the sheep. You have a few wolves deciding EVERYTHING for all the sheep. No dissent is allowed. It’s the boss’s way or the highway. No chance for democratic processes, debate, resolving conflicts using that process. You do what he or she says, or you don’t keep your job — and the bosses receive the lion’s share, even though they never do the lion’s share of work. And, as consumers, you get to buy what they tell you to buy, while making you believe you have “choice,” though you don’t. And most of that “choice” is the same old same old thing, cuz Capitalism encourages sameness, cuz mass production reduces costs, etc.
Again, not getting your objections.
Your knowledge of the intricacies of socialism is far greater than mine-so maybe I should stop arguing with you here. I understand your philosophy of the subject and the clear end game. I just don’t ever see that happening in this country. For better or for worse we are a country of wolves-at least in the economic sense. It is the price we pay for what we perceive as “freedom”. Unfortunately, that price is often devastating to the disadvantaged. No system of governance has perfected a way to prevent the wolves from eating the sheep or even their young.
I do bow to your critical analysis and expressive thought. I just don’t want to go on.
How’s your health BTW? I would ask you that in a private mail but can’t find the email add.
W,
It’s fine, all things considered. A year and a half now without any chemo. Knock on the proverbial wood. Thanks for asking.
No worries about ending the conversation on the topic. Not a lot of people like talking about this stuff.
But I hope you’d at least consider this, about those wolves. From my reading and observations of real life, I don’t see most people as wolves. I see a very tiny minority in that light. Most people just want to get along, eat, drink, be merry, make love and so on — and are surprisingly selfless**. They’re actually very few Napoleons among us, though the capitalist system gives them wings. I’d rather have a system that doesn’t encourage them, promote them, protect them and bail them out when they fail. I’d rather have a system that has social justice baked in from the start, and doesn’t empower sociopaths (wolves).
Happy for you Billy. My wife, son, and I have all addressed cancer but certainly not on the same order as you. He had stage 3 melanoma on his lip from all the years of ski instruction and racing while in college. With surgery and radiation he appears to have won the battle-but needs constant monitoring because the margins were very close and the surgery could only go so far without a total disfigurement. My wife has the protein that is consistent with Multiple Myeloma that requires periodic visits to Stanford to check on any eruption that would cause the blood cancer to be addressed, etc.Mine is only a sliver of a cell found in my prostate gland that needs periodic monitoring.
Now on to a more fun topic: Doesn’t the 5th Amendment to the Constitution’s ensure private property rights to citizens ? I’m no constitutional scholar but I believe it does. Private property ownership allows individuals to do what they want with their goods. That ownership allows and enables a citizen to use his property to start a business or provide a service. How would that work under the system you described? Do we just can the Constitution? -The U.S. was founded on certain principals embedded in the Constitution. To get where you want do we just abandon the Constitution and simply start all over? I assume you would agree that is not in the works. If not then what do we do? My answer is we do the best we can to keep the wolves at bay. I mean what else can we do?
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