All I could come up with is “The Christ Monster Smites You”.
But anyways, I’ll bite: What do Socialists have to say about art?
Ack this is what I get for not checking the board for a day. Ah well. First the easy one.
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Ok. Maybe this isn’t the easy one.
It would help if you wanted to do some digging and actually read Marx. Most of his writing is online. To start with I would recomend The German Ideology. The sections on the illusin of the epoch and the real basis or ideology are probably the most usefull for our discusion.
Also as I stated earlier I’m not going to try and get into a detailed discusion of what the future state would look like, for a small example, the civil war in france is a good read. Specificly this chapter.
Back on to the question. It’s not a contradiction. Why? Well the state must be overthrown. I mean absolutely destroyed. Get rid of it. We can’t just reduce it’s power. The state acts a nesecary function of society, it is at this time needed. It is needed to provide services to people, (solving interpersonal disputes), but it is in the control of the ruling class of the time (at this moment it happens to be the bourgeoisie. Every law, every descision of the state reflects this. Now, this is oversimplied. Please remember that most everything I bring up is oversimplified. If you need me to I will go into greater detail on an issue, but time constraints prevent me from doing so ROTB.
When I talk of eliminating the state, I’m speaking specificly of that element of the state that functions as a repressive element. Under a socialist governmnet we would most likely keep schools and so forth. If medicine was socialized it would stay that way. Read the link to the paris commune for more info on what socialists see as existing after a state.
People can only accomplish the revolution as a collective mass, there is no point in fighting to give power to individualism and ego. By joining together and demanding socialized healthcare people are indeed fighting together. They are making demands of the government. They are pushing it to do something that it does not want to do. They are wrenching victories from it’s jaws. If people can do that, they can do other things.
This is a world apart from people mobilizing and asking government to step in and increse the penalties on sexual offenders.
With that example you have people basicly saying, we can’t do it ourselves, we need the government to step in and increse the penalties on these people. It is a defeatist stand, and doesn’t look at the causes of sexual abuse.
With arguing for socialized health care people, while increasing the power of the government per se, are accomlishing quite a bit more which is beneficial to socialism.
Again what socialism is about is bringing “democracy” to ever aspect of life. Having “the people” control everything.
For a quick answer to FreakFreely, no reliion would not be outlawed. Personal choices would have no laws against them. You want to go and marry 15 people at once? Go for it. You want to worship Cthulu? Go for it. You like going out on the weekend and dosing up on acid? Go for it.
And as for campaign finance reform? Against it. Why? All it does is obscure who really pulls the strings in America. Campaign reform or not, the government will not change. Let the companies dump millions into the coffers of the parties, it simply makes it more obvious who is controlling the show.
OF course this doesn’t prevent me from criticising the system of campaign finance. I just point out that “reforming” it would have no effect.
As for the government being of the people that is a complete joke. Again, read the German ideology as it will give us a good ground on debating. I’ll get to some more points in a minute.
And olentzero, if you want there is no reason you can’t come and join in. Just refrain from defending yourself against stupid comments. I myself am making a point of ignoring Major Feelgud.
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Uhoh, tradesilicon thinks I agree with him. Let’s see what I can do to shatter that. Not nesecarily less government control and regulation. But, the fact that the government wouldn’t need to control and regulate people’s behavior any more.
Example, if chickens were beign produced for consumption and not for profit, would we really need to worry about inspectors? No.
I don’t want to get into a discussion of how socialism will work. The revolution, that’s not a problem. Let’s just leave it right now with this; once you get rid of the profit motive, a lot of government problems will cease.
As for the ideal revolution? Well, as little violence as possible would be nice. That means getting as much support as possible before hand, especially from the millitary.
Oldscratch, there’s no such thing as a good revolution. At least, there hasn’t been one yet.
Really Freak.
Ok. How about the French revolution, the American revolution, the english revolution, the revolution of african countries against the imperialists, the revolutions in latin america that overthrew corrupt dictatorships. Yes, you can look through a jaundiced eye at how things are and say revlutions are bad. But doing so is ahistorical. Go and read some books on popular revolutions. One’s that actually accomplished something. I can’t believe that you would insist that a monarchy or imperialist government is better than democratic self rule. You know what? That stuff doesn’t come easy, it take a little sweat and blood.
Well the christ monster smites you is wrong. But, clever guess. What the hell just this once.
That cracks my shit up.
Art is a good question. There is actually quite a bit of argument among anarchsits and socialists about art. For example. is art that glorifies our cause good art? Regardless if it’s bad.
I’ll address this more tomorrow, I’m headed out for the night but, I’ve always liked Trotsky’s interpretation of art.
All art must be looked at through the eyes of it’s intended viewer.
Ummmm…why? Ahhh…I get it! All we have to do is implant a loyalty chip that reprograms the human brain so that they will be altruistic instead of selfish! Well, yes. Of course, then socialism will work, once we’ve changed human nature.
Oldscratch. Please. You’re just spouting off socialist/communist cant here. You can’t really think this? Can you?
Why is it bad for me to raise chickens and sell them? If I raise chickens do I have to give them away for free? Why is it wrong for me to charge money for them?
Arg. Fine, you think our system sucks, the constitution is meaningless. Let me ask this. Who are the “bourgeoisie” you marxists always talk about? You’re not talking about the “rich”. You mean something different. When you say bourgeoisie, do you mean middle class? Thats what most people mean…middle class professionals, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, teachers, professors.
But let’s look at this: “Once you get rid of the profit motive”.
What’s going to happen to me in your ideal socialist society if I try to sell something to my neighbor for more than I paid for it? Or will there be money? Let’s say I offer to trade some of my chickens for some of his potatoes. I’m happy, he’s happy. Have I commited some kind of crime? Is it only a crime if I get lots of potatoes? How many potatoes would I have to get in return for a chicken before you come and arrest me for making a profit?
Money just makes it possible to keep track of things, it doesn’t change the essential nature of exchanging goods and services. If I sell a chicken for $5.00 and buy a sack of potatoes for $5.00, it’s morally equivalent to barter, right? So why should it matter how much I paid for chicken feed, how many hours I worked? All that matters is how much my neighbor wants the chicken, and how much I want the chicken. If he wants the chicken enough, he’ll pay me money for the chicken, right. Supply and demand, you’ve heard of it, right?
How would your socialist state decide how many shoes to produce? What kinds of shoes would it produce? How many, and what style, and how often would people recieve shoes? What if I want better shoes? Is it wrong for me to make better shoes for myself? What if I make great shoes, and trade them to other people for some of their stuff? Would that make me a criminal?
Oldscratch. You’ve started from illogical premises. Your premise that the profit motive is the root of the problem is ludicrous. How do you eliminate human nature? Why is making a profit inherently wrong?
And you claim that the state is actually controlled by the ruling class, and that we are merely slaves. Suppose this is true, and that all ruling classes enslave everyone else (looking around, I don’t feel enslaved). How is your utopian socialist state going to avoid oppressing the people? As far as I can tell, you simply define the actions of a socialist state as “good”. Therefore, any actions it takes cannot be oppressive, by definition.
If I seem contemptuous, maybe it’s because I can’t believe that in the year 2000 anyone would still be advocating socialism/marxism. Haven’t we learned from the 20th century at all?
I’m still waiting to learn how socialism will set prices.
OldScratch has assured me he will research Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit and his Theory of Spontaneous Order, and get back to me. I think we should be patient for his response.
Yeah lib. I’m going to start a new thread as soon as I get around to reading that book. Hopefully I’ll go pick up a copy this weekend.
And since I’m reading that you should read Capital by
Marx. It will give us a good starting point for debate. You can find all three volumes here. http://18.85.21.90/archive/marx/works/index.htm
I think that volume three might be most apropriate to our debate. Although the first two are quite usefull also.
As for this comment from Lemur466 (the only one I’l;l comment on since it’s the only one that followed the rules of this discussion)
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Allow me to answer, forgive me if I seem somewhat contemptuous, but I have very little patience for people who can’t follow and read links.
The bourgeoisie is indeed the rich. They are those who control the means of production or have a serious vested interest in the existing state. The “upper classes” as it where. For simplicity’s sake you could probably refer to the “rich” instead. That isn’t entirely acurate though.
Teachers are working class.
Shopkeepers are petite bourgeoisie.
oldscratch,
Reliable, I like that oldscratch!
[quoute]Not nesecarily less government control and regulation.
[/quote]
Hang on, I missed this one. We will no longer inspect them because, what, if there is no profit motive the chickens will always be healthy and raised on proper conditions? Wha? I think this is the wrong example. But I get your drift.
Here we can find some common ground, and another major disagreement. I think the Government should stay out of our business (personal and business lives), but the problems of goverment should be safety, securty, even public awereness perhaps. None of this will go away once the profit motive is gone. Assholes will still be assholes, and no system of government can change this - it can only keep them in check. So if you have the revolution tomorrow, you still need that part of Government, agreed? If so, that’s the only part I want in the first place, so we are talking about the same government services. But why take the economy to the no profit model? Why not reward individuals for their effots? This evades me.
Another sticking point. Do socialists truly want what’s best for the working class? Let’s say the socialist revolution does not get support from 51% of the workers (even those you consider workers), what then? Do you still go on? I am very curious about the thinking on this - will 30% be enough? If the other 70% decide to oppose, fiersly, do you still continue? Even if much of the working class end up being sacrificed?
It depends on what Oldscratch means by a socialist revolution. Modern European socialism(high taxes, cradle-to-grave safety net) could be ushered in simply by voting in a socialist government, although that would be hard to do here since we don’t have the parliamentary sys-
tem.
Does he mean Marxist revolution, followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat? Workers would fare badly, judging by the
record left us by Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, and Pol Pot, none of whom, BTW, were ever members of the proletariat themselves.
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I aim to please.
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You’re right that was a bad example, but you get my drift so my mission is accomplished. Why spend the time makig good analogies when you can dash off a bad one and still have peole understand you.
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Ok. This is where you reading the German Idealogy will come in handy. Also, in terms of what would happen to security and stuff that chapter on the Paris Commune is good. during the Commune, they went and made all police officers elected and responsible to the people. You don’t like what the cops are doing? Vote em out.
And why take the economy to the no profit model? Well, that’s a good question. I don’t want to get into polemicising (god, is that even a word?), or witnessing too much. But, I kinda have to to explain this point. It has to do with the theory on why the state exists and how it exists. The state, currently, exists to further the interests of the bourgeoisie. Those interests are the interestes of a minority. They frequently run counter to the best interests of the human race. The state, as formulated by Marx, can not be controlled by the majority of the population. It is too ingrained, it must be destroyed and built anew. Same thing that happened with capitalism. The old states couldn’t be used to the advantage of the capitalsits. They had to smash it and build a new one in their interests.
This might also help you to understand my view. Looking at history, you see a progression of ideas, of inventions, of cultures, of stypes of government. Usually it progresses along at a nice pace with the occasional fall back. Feudalism was an improvement over slave labor, capitalism was a big improvement over feudalism (as such it was definetly progressive in it’s time), but like feudalsim capitalism is mearly a stage. People can progress past it. That progress is communism. Is there something after communism? Might be. Who am I to tell. That would be like asking a roman citizen what our world would look like. So I see capitalism as something that was usefull, but whose time is past.
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In short yes. Now when I refer to socialists, I’m refering to myself. There are many currents of socialism out there. There are some who would call themselves socialist who most definetely don’t want what’s best for the working class.
If a revolution did not have the support, it couldn’t happen in the first place. Socialists do not make a revolution. It must be made by the working class. Socialists can merely be their to provide leadership. A good example is the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. There is an event known as the July days. It happened in, surprise surprise, July. Basicly (and my facts might be a little mixed up but the basic point stands) the workers of petrograd were growing impatient with the course of the revolution. They wanted to overthrow the government. The bolsheviks at the time argueed “no, we can’t do it yet, we don’t have enough support.” They lost the argument and there was indeed a period of repression. If the Bolsheviks had more support in the working class at the time, that unpleasentness could have been avoided.
In short it’s not just a revolutionaries job to spring forward, they must also know when to fall back.
Oldscratch, I appreciate you and Olentzero answering those questions I had in his thread from a few weeks ago. For now, no questions, just an observation. I’ve been thinking about your thread title, and based on what I usually read in these threads, it looks like:
Not many people understand what your philosophy actually involves, or have read anything by its founders or other major writers. However, they have no trouble criticizing their image of what they think it is.
People say your ideas would never work in the real world. The main reason is because of “human nature.”
People will bring up historical examples, which you recognize aren’t examples of socialism.
You find yourself in agreement with people you never expected to, and it surprises both of you.
Maybe it’s just me, but all this seems similar to a certain other political philosophy that gets a lot of time on this board.
What about Kerensky and the Mensheviks? They were the ones who led the initial revolution, and they played Girondists to the Bolsheviks/Jacobins.(Yes, I’m making an analogy between the French and Russian Revolutions) If Kerensky had made a separate peace with the Germans as Lenin later did, Russia would have had a mild, Sweden-like socialist government instead of the Red reign of terror.
A worker’s regime sounds great, but, inevitably, either it becomes a corrupt kleptocracy(Peron) or falls to more ruthless members of its own group(Trotsky).
One problem I have with socialists is that they are usually students or petit bourgeoisie themselves, and they talk about the injustices visited on the workers without being workers themselves. Usually, the intellectuals who run these revolutions end up with contempt for the very people they claim to represent.
Oldscratch, how would your party get the American blue-collar worker aware of the issues and how would they be represented in your new government?
That is tough to comprehend, the government being “the people.” Sure, congress is not a bunch of gas station attendants, but they are voted on. One person, one vote, don’t ya know. I don’t think that the government, as a whole, can “want” something. certain parts of the gov’t, including the Pres. want universal health care; others pols don’t.
no, it is exaclty the same as people getting together and saying “we can’t get healthcare ourselves. The gov’t MUST do it for us!” the differ3nce is that while sexual offenders get punished for violating the rights of someone else, those with money are punished for the failure of others to procure health care. But the people are still giving government greater control over themselves and their money.
so, increasing the power of government is not antithetical to socialism at all, is it?
I assume that “the people” will control everything through what administrative body? THe government perhaps?
And why would I want others to control "every aspect of life? Am I too stupid, incompetent, greedy,evil to exercise free will? Should my life be controlled by others?
That is tough to comprehend, the government being “the people.” Sure, congress is not a bunch of gas station attendants, but they are voted on. One person, one vote, don’t ya know. I don’t think that the government, as a whole, can “want” something. certain parts of the gov’t, including the Pres. want universal health care; others pols don’t.
no, it is exaclty the same as people getting together and saying “we can’t get healthcare ourselves. The gov’t MUST do it for us!” the differ3nce is that while sexual offenders get punished for violating the rights of someone else, those with money are punished for the failure of others to procure health care. But the people are still giving government greater control over themselves and their money.
so, increasing the power of government is not antithetical to socialism at all, is it?
I assume that “the people” will control everything through what administrative body? THe government perhaps?
And why would I want others to control “every aspect of life”? Am I too stupid, incompetent, greedy,evil to exercise free will? Should my life be controlled by others?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mr.Zambezi *
Well there is a difference, a big one, between “the state” and “the government” when you using Marxian terms.
AS for others controling every aspect of your life, that’s not it at all. You are going to be free to exercise much more free will. Desicions are made collectively, that means you’re a part of them. I don’t think that you are incompetent, greedy, evil or stupid. I share that belief about the majority of humanity. Sure, our environments force us to act that way to get ahead. But, individually? no.
Again go and read at least the chapter on the paris commune, that should answer most of your questions.
In fact here is a small quote from it that should warm your conservative cockles.
OK, I think the distinction between “rich” and “bourgeois” is that you can be a rich aristocrat and not be bourgeois. An aristocrat’s wealth and power comes from military force…knights, feudalism, etc, etc, even if he’s currently as inbred and sickly as a Shar-Pei. The wealth of the bourgeois comes from trade.
OK, it’s a reasonable distinction.
So are computer programmers bourgeois, or working class? Are they only bourgeois if they get stock options? How much stock does it take to lift you out of the working class and into the bourgeois? I assume we’re talking three classes here: working class/proletariat/peasants, bourgeois, and aristocrats. The aristos are extinct, or kept in zoos, so forget them.
My wife made money on her stock options at the last company she worked at as a technical writer. I was working making tofu in a factory at the time. Is our family evil bourgeois that must be crushed in the revolution, or heroic proletarians?
Your distinction between the two classes is ludicrous. Anyone talented can start their own company. Anyone can go to college. Anyone can get an education. It has never been easier to join the “bourgeoisie”.
How is your socialist revolution going to be possible when every talented proletarian is made a member of the bourgeois? Look at you. You’re sitting there, with your own computer, hooked up to the internet, trying to foment socialist ideals. But 99% of the people on the internet are libertarian leaning, pro-capitalist kinds of people.
Why crush capitalism when it benefits everyone?
And you still haven’t answered my question about how a socialist government would rationally set prices. Or what the difference is between barter (where I get lots of potatoes for my chicken) and cash (where I make a profit from selling my chicken). Is there a difference or not?
Trade, commerce, the voluntary exchange of goods…is responsible for everything that’s good in this world. The most heroic person of all is the merchant, who provides for his fellow man. Never mind that he provides for his fellow man because he expects cold hard cash. He still provides you with clothing, housing, food, computers, fancy software, sanrio plush toys, cars, refridgerator magnets. But the cool thing is…if you don’t want any of that stuff you don’t have to get it! You can buy whatever you want! Sell whatever you want!
Capitalism is not only economic freedom, it creates personal freedom and political freedom. Yay, Capitalism!
The huge problem with marxist theory is that it supposes that capitalism will impoverish and enslave the proletariat. Revolution is inevitable because they will be ground so far into the dirt that they will literally have nothing to lose but their chains. But, is that how capitalism really works? No. In this country, working class people have cars, they have TVs, they have houses, their kids go to school, they work 40 hour weeks, they vote, they have freedom of speech, religion, etc. Sure, a factory worker doesn’t have as much power as Bill Gates. But he is not enslaved, or ground into the dirt.
Revolution is not inevitable because the impoverishment of the working classes is not inevitable. Sure, some people are impoverished, some countries are impoverished. But capitalism doesn’t cause systemic impoverishment, in fact it creates systemic wealth. Bill Gates benifits more than I do, but we both benefit.
Now, I’m going away for the weekend, so you’ve got plenty of time to think about your answers. Bye, kids!
with all due respect, scratch, I think you are doing a semantic shuffle. Call it what you want, but the people choose the people to run the social programs that they support. Unless you are talking about an anarchist society populated my small groups of self governing units.
No thanks. I don’t want to have my neighbors vote if I can buy a car.