Suspending the Election

Trunkage

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I thought this was a discussion about the US election, not capitalism vs. socialism?

Meh, whatever.
I think your in the wrong forum if you want a thread to stay on topic


Remember Saelune? She used the term willy nilly.

I can think that "Nazi" is thrown around too much, while also being aware that Nazism isn't socialism.
How many people throw nazi around willy nilly? As a proportion of the total population? Why is everyone else getting punished for a few people's behaviour? Go attack them, not pretend the whole Left uses it every sentence
 
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tstorm823

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Sure it was. Let me quote Adolf Hiter:

Those are not the words of a socialist or someone who wants to tear down hierarchies.
Socialist =/= someone who wants to tear down hierarchies. Leftist = someone who wants to tear down hierarchies. Nazis aren't left. They are not left. They aren't left. Again, Nazis are to the right, not to the left. Not left.

Having established that, you can use socialism, the communal or state ownership and control of resources, to build up hierarchies just as much as to tear them down. Socialism need not be left wing. It's a weird idea that has bled into some definitions that socialism exists only to level wealth disparities.

Those are the words of a socialist, one who would use the whole nation's wealth to give those at the top power beyond what any wealth could give.

Of course, a lot of the problem is trying to reduce something as complex as an entire ideology to a sentence, at which point you're annihilating more meaning than you're explaining.
If you don't want to annihilate the meaning, then stop annihilating the meaning. Socialism is a broad category. Why deny it reaches broader than just communism?
 

Hawki

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Go attack them, not pretend the whole Left uses it every sentence
I never said the left did, or that most people did. But enough people do that it's noticable.
 

Agema

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If you don't want to annihilate the meaning, then stop annihilating the meaning. Socialism is a broad category. Why deny it reaches broader than just communism?
In order to understand socialism, it's perhaps useful to understand where it came from. Broadly, Western economies went from Feudalism through the sort of proto-capitalism of mercantilism to capitalism. These were deeply class-based systems where the bottom rung were disempowered, exploited and wasted. Effectively, serfdom was slavery in feudalism, and in capitalism wage slavery was barely any improvement; in both cases the elites - aristocrats then capitalists - ran the affairs of their state and took disproportionate quantities of economic production for themselves. An idea of capitalism was that it was supposed to enrich, develop and empower the poor. The realisation of the 19th century was that it didn't appear to do so, it just transferred power and wealth to different masters. Marx was around to see deskilling, where the average education and capabilities of the poor declined, because working in a factory doing menial tasks meant they no longer needed to do things like read or write so increasingly didn't even learn. Inherent to ideas of socialism were therefore to finally achieve the raising of the poor where capitalism had failed: things like egalitarianism, reduction and removal of class, to an extent freedom (of all, but particularly the poor) to exercise control over their own lives.

The aim of socialism is about seeing that the poor achieve economic security and opportunities - to develop, thrive, grow. Socialists reasoned that that could only be guaranteed when the workers owned the means of production, because otherwise the profits would always be taken by the small cliques who did own, and then marginalise the workers. And that's why socialism is generally termed as ownership of the means of production by the workers.

Taking this basic sort of idea, if we then look at Nazi Germany's economy, what did it do? Actually, it utterly disempowered the poor politically as they were ruled by a self-appointed party elite who had no particular interest in them. They couldn't even bargain with their bosses any more for instance: labour unions were scrapped and replaced by state labour organisations. The Nazi Party entrenched their class position, and uths the class advantages of the middle and elites. It ensured private ownership such that the profits of business still surged to the capitalist bosses, who were now firmly in cahoots with the ruling party.

We could contrast this with the USSR: whilst also run by a single party that was dictatorial and disconnected from the populace, that party was ideologically and - to a substantial extent still in practice - a party representing the workers, who worked their way up teh greasy pole. And the USSR really did hugely diminish class - the poorest could achieve and rise in ways they would struggle to do far more in the West, without the same barriers of wealth, status and snobbery in their way. For all the terrible flaws of either, you can really see where the USSR was aiming at in terms of socialist ideals, where Naziism couldn't have given a hoot. The Nazi Party just wanted enough bread and circuses to keep the working classes pacified: it didn't want them empowered, active, and seeking claims on economic production the Nazis didn't believe they deserved.

"Economic control" is thus not really meaningful in socialist terms if it doesn't serve the interests of the masses, and in Nazi Germany, it didn't. Nazi economic control served the objectives of the Nazi Party and their nationalist fantasies, and as a byproduct the economic elites who agreed to work as their partners, who still owned and reaped the profits.
 
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Trunkage

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Nazis weren't communists at all. Communism might be about that, socialism is just an economic system.
Do you think socialism is pro-employer? How do you explain the outcry at the response to th crises under Bush, Obama and Trump? They’re pointing out that these responses are ‘socialism for the rich but capitalism for the poor’, in particular as a statement that it’s NOT normal for socialism to do that. Isn’t Spcialism, generally, about helping the less fortunate?
 

Specter Von Baren

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It's an extremely broad term, but it's usually defined as an economic and political system that involves a high level of communal or worker control of industry (whether that be production in general, services, or utilities like rail, networking, infrastructure, mail etc). It also involves a commitment to flattening out wealth inequality as much as is practical, and providing a state-provided economic safety net (usually in the form of welfare).

So, quite a few democratic countries are run by socialist parties that have implemented some degree of the above. Communism is at the extreme end, and involves total communal control of the means of production (usually through the medium of the state... which usually doesn't do a very good job of acting in the communal interest in cases such as the USSR).

Uhrm, yes, in part it was formed in response to a perceived threat from socialist parties, and figures like Liebknecht & Luxemburg. It was violently opposed to them.

Yes, the SPD & KPD were socialist parties. What's your point, exactly? The violent opposition of the Nazis to the socialists demonstrates my point.

I actually already elaborated on this. Widespread nationalisation, widespread public-sector employment, progressive tax systems aimed at wealth redistribution, broad unionisation and collective-bargaining, and a developed welfare state.
So you described socialism as communal or worker control, yes? Nationalization is not worker control, it's government control, the public sector is also controlled by the government, tax systems are controlled by the government, unions also do not own the means of production, they lobby for the workers as a group to get concessions from businesses and legislation from the government, a welfare state is not run by the people it is controlled by the government. By your own defniition, these are not socialist systems you are describing.

This is all also without mentioning that they all have free market, capitalist economies. So explain to me this inconsistency with what you claim and what you describe.
 

Agema

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So you described socialism as communal or worker control, yes? Nationalization is not worker control, it's government control, the public sector is also controlled by the government, tax systems are controlled by the government, unions also do not own the means of production, they lobby for the workers as a group to get concessions from businesses and legislation from the government, a welfare state is not run by the people it is controlled by the government. By your own defniition, these are not socialist systems you are describing.
Depends who the government is serving, though.

Any community requires organisation and so some sort of management / decision-making / executive function. A nation is effectively a huge community, so consider the government as having that role. Therefore if the government is reasonably representing the populace (workers) and/or distributing the gains of production to the people (workers), it's consistent with socialism. Taxing (primarily the rich) and providing welfare and social services (primarily to the poor) is a socialistic practice.

Nationalising an industry for the purpose of general national benefit is likewise socialistic. Imagine, for instance, that the government can take the profits and add them to government revenue either for social distribution, or to reduce tax burden. Or that by not needing to make profits to give to shareholders, it can (theoretically) deliver a cheaper service for users.
 

Silvanus

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So you described socialism as communal or worker control, yes? Nationalization is not worker control, it's government control, the public sector is also controlled by the government, tax systems are controlled by the government, unions also do not own the means of production, they lobby for the workers as a group to get concessions from businesses and legislation from the government, a welfare state is not run by the people it is controlled by the government. By your own defniition, these are not socialist systems you are describing.
State control is seen as an approach to ensuring the industry serves the common good, and is under some level of common control.

Serving the common good, in that a state-controlled industry is not motivated by profit and isn't beholden to shareholders. Revenue is either reinvested in the service (thus improving the service for the people), or saved (thus saving the people money, since they ultimately pay for it through tax).

Under some level of common control, because every voter in the country has some say over what it does and how it performs through the democratic system.

This is all also without mentioning that they all have free market, capitalist economies. So explain to me this inconsistency with what you claim and what you describe.
It's not an inconsistency. A (regulated) market economy can exist alongside the milder forms of socialism; they're not mutually exclusive.
 

Thaluikhain

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While I disagree with Nazi Germany being socialist, I am please that nobody has felt the need to point out that it's in the name.

Show of hands, how many people were expecting to have to point out that NK's official name has "Democratic" in it or something?

*raises hands*
 

Trunkage

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While I disagree with Nazi Germany being socialist, I am please that nobody has felt the need to point out that it's in the name.

Show of hands, how many people were expecting to have to point out that NK's official name has "Democratic" in it or something?

*raises hands*
I don't think we have those sort of people here anymore
 

tstorm823

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In order to understand socialism, it's perhaps useful to understand where it came from. Broadly, Western economies went from Feudalism through the sort of proto-capitalism of mercantilism to capitalism. These were deeply class-based systems where the bottom rung were disempowered, exploited and wasted. Effectively, serfdom was slavery in feudalism, and in capitalism wage slavery was barely any improvement; in both cases the elites - aristocrats then capitalists - ran the affairs of their state and took disproportionate quantities of economic production for themselves. An idea of capitalism was that it was supposed to enrich, develop and empower the poor. The realisation of the 19th century was that it didn't appear to do so, it just transferred power and wealth to different masters. Marx was around to see deskilling, where the average education and capabilities of the poor declined, because working in a factory doing menial tasks meant they no longer needed to do things like read or write so increasingly didn't even learn. Inherent to ideas of socialism were therefore to finally achieve the raising of the poor where capitalism had failed: things like egalitarianism, reduction and removal of class, to an extent freedom (of all, but particularly the poor) to exercise control over their own lives.

The aim of socialism is about seeing that the poor achieve economic security and opportunities - to develop, thrive, grow. Socialists reasoned that that could only be guaranteed when the workers owned the means of production, because otherwise the profits would always be taken by the small cliques who did own, and then marginalise the workers. And that's why socialism is generally termed as ownership of the means of production by the workers.

Taking this basic sort of idea, if we then look at Nazi Germany's economy, what did it do? Actually, it utterly disempowered the poor politically as they were ruled by a self-appointed party elite who had no particular interest in them. They couldn't even bargain with their bosses any more for instance: labour unions were scrapped and replaced by state labour organisations. The Nazi Party entrenched their class position, and uths the class advantages of the middle and elites. It ensured private ownership such that the profits of business still surged to the capitalist bosses, who were now firmly in cahoots with the ruling party.

We could contrast this with the USSR: whilst also run by a single party that was dictatorial and disconnected from the populace, that party was ideologically and - to a substantial extent still in practice - a party representing the workers, who worked their way up teh greasy pole. And the USSR really did hugely diminish class - the poorest could achieve and rise in ways they would struggle to do far more in the West, without the same barriers of wealth, status and snobbery in their way. For all the terrible flaws of either, you can really see where the USSR was aiming at in terms of socialist ideals, where Naziism couldn't have given a hoot. The Nazi Party just wanted enough bread and circuses to keep the working classes pacified: it didn't want them empowered, active, and seeking claims on economic production the Nazis didn't believe they deserved.

"Economic control" is thus not really meaningful in socialist terms if it doesn't serve the interests of the masses, and in Nazi Germany, it didn't. Nazi economic control served the objectives of the Nazi Party and their nationalist fantasies, and as a byproduct the economic elites who agreed to work as their partners, who still owned and reaped the profits.
No, that's not where socialism came from. That's where one specific brand of socialism came from. You yourself identify socialist policies outside of that framework, because socialism isn't confined to just that perspective. People have, in fact, lived in groups with communal resources for millennia, that wasn't caused by capitalism or "wage slavery".

You're only talking about socialism in the terms of some inevitable transition to eventual communism. You're getting a broad economic system overly tied to one specific philosophy that advocates for it. There is nothing that says you can't socialize all the means of production and then have a completely different class framework than wealth. Do you not think nomadic tribes millennia ago, who shared their resources and hadn't invented money, were somehow magically devoid of hierarchy? Of course not.

Stop talking about socialism as though only 19th century theory counts.
Do you think socialism is pro-employer? How do you explain the outcry at the response to th crises under Bush, Obama and Trump? They’re pointing out that these responses are ‘socialism for the rich but capitalism for the poor’, in particular as a statement that it’s NOT normal for socialism to do that. Isn’t Spcialism, generally, about helping the less fortunate?
I don't think socialism is pro-anything. I think a society can pool the means of production for whatever aims they want. You can pool all your resources together and then distribute based on need. You can also pool all your resources together to develop an outrageous military power. The means do not determine the ends.
 

Trunkage

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I don't think socialism is pro-anything. I think a society can pool the means of production for whatever aims they want. You can pool all your resources together and then distribute based on need. You can also pool all your resources together to develop an outrageous military power. The means do not determine the ends.
I mean, that's every economic idea. The rhetoric doesn't usually met the reality
 
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Agema

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No, that's not where socialism came from.
Yes, it is. Socialism (and its subvarieties) is an ideology developed through the writings of a number of philosophers / political theorists etc. throughout the years whose texts are published, widely available, whose reasoning is there to see for anyone who cares to. I've supplied a reputable academic encyclopaedia article on it from people who have done so. You're free to read it and learn.

You're only talking about socialism in the terms of some inevitable transition to eventual communism.
It is unclear to me how you have come to that conclusion. My definition of socialism is sufficient to explain anarchism, communism, democratic socialism, and socialistic practices in a mixed economy. I have used communism in the USSR as an example.

Stop talking about socialism as though only 19th century theory counts.
It's appears to be a century's worth of theory more than you know about it.

I don't think socialism is pro-anything.
Which is because you don't know anything significant about it.

I think a society can pool the means of production for whatever aims they want. You can pool all your resources together and then distribute based on need. You can also pool all your resources together to develop an outrageous military power. The means do not determine the ends.
Okay, so you say socialism is pooling societal resources for any function. So let's take a state with ruler who has absolute power over everything. He organises the state by appointing deputies who oversee chunks of land, who together with the ruler comprise the government. The government collects money from society by making people work the land and handing over a chunk of their production. Societal production then pools in the hands of the government, so that they can spend it on castles, jousting tournaments and reconquering Jerusalem. Oh hang on, that's feudalism.

In other words, you've written a load of hot nonsense there.
 
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Specter Von Baren

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Okay, so you say socialism is pooling societal resources for any function. So let's take a state with ruler who has absolute power over everything. He organises the state by appointing deputies who oversee chunks of land, who together with the ruler comprise the government. The government collects money from society by making people work the land and handing over a chunk of their production. Societal production then pools in the hands of the government, so that they can spend it on castles, jousting tournaments and reconquering Jerusalem. Oh hang on, that's feudalism.


And this is why socialism always gets taken over by a dictator in modern day. It is not the people who are in control, it is a government and once that government is centralized enough and has enough power, it will tell the people to stuff it, leading to a closed group led by one person. Socialism is just 'The Road to Serfdom'. Thank you Agema!
 

Silvanus

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And this is why socialism always gets taken over by a dictator in modern day. It is not the people who are in control, it is a government and once that government is centralized enough and has enough power, it will tell the people to stuff it, leading to a closed group led by one person. Socialism is just 'The Road to Serfdom'. Thank you Agema!
Point well missed.

The point is that nobody in their right mind would describe feudalism as socialism. And the takeaway from that should be that pooled resources alone doesn't make something socialist-- that's never what socialism has meant.
 

Specter Von Baren

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Point well missed.

The point is that nobody in their right mind would describe feudalism as socialism. And the takeaway from that should be that pooled resources alone doesn't make something socialist-- that's never what socialism has meant.
Hunter gatherers are socialist societies that then become societies of farming and property that then must pool resources which leads to central control by a single figure that then turns into things like kingships which then turned into our current society of mutual cooperation but individual freedom from a single oppressive regime.

Your ideology does not work in large societies. It always enevetably leads to the same solution that the original socialist societies came to. Socialism is nothing more than a reset button that makes humanity have to go through the same process again.
 

Agema

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And this is why socialism always gets taken over by a dictator in modern day. It is not the people who are in control, it is a government and once that government is centralized enough and has enough power, it will tell the people to stuff it, leading to a closed group led by one person. Socialism is just 'The Road to Serfdom'. Thank you Agema!
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Either way, you've just reduced the IQs of everyone reading this thread.
 
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