Did I run away? I didn’t think I did. I will admit to taking time out to work and read some other threads. (Of course, I didn’t think I was ignorant either, but I’m not real objective about this kind of thing.)
Am I a former Maoist because I read the Little Red Book? Just wondering…
And no, I’m not a deep thinker. I’m just deep in my own excrement. (I’m sure you would agree with me on this.)
And, on the subject of the thread, how exactly do you propose trying to convince a nation where two-thirds of the people are property owners (they own their own homes, and another substantial chunk (mostly the same people) own stock somewhere in some form) that giving up their property is a good thing? You are talking to people who have a two hundred twenty five year history of self-rule, and who have prospered mightily because they guaranteed to themselves, under their own volition, these essential economic rights: the right to make as much as they can from their labor, a right which includes the right to organize into voluntary self-help labor organizations known as unions, the right to keep what they earn, and the right to pass those earnings on to their children. Even if you allow the first two, no socialist government could ever allow the third, but this kills any incentive a person has to work for a long term project. You work not just for yourself but for your children, to give them a better life. If you can’t personally guarantee them a better life under the government you’re a citizen of, you’ll do everything you can to subvert it so you can.
All of these rights, by the way, flow from the uniquely American doctrine that the government does only what the people allow it to do, not the other way around.
All this, AND you have to convince them it’ll work, against all the evidence to the contrary.
That’s the nut of the problem with being a socialist in America.
I’ll be cringing in the corner waiting for your reply, should you feel like gracing me with one.
Should you reply, be aware that my mother in law is coming to spend the next month, so you may not get a reply any time soon. Don’t be insulted, it’s just I’ll be mentally & physically exhausted. I will take the time to read whatever you post, though.
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Hey that’s ok. For a while it was slow at work, and I was posting quite a bit. I’m busy with other stuff again, so I can only post infrequently (4 days since my last post).
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From Capital
“It is the negation of the negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisitions of the capitalist era; i.e., on co-operation of free labourers and the possession in common of the land and the means of production.
The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialised property”
bolding mine*
This means social ownership extends to the land and means of production and private ownership to the articles produced (toothbrushes, houses, and the like).
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Well, I wouldn’t call 20% of American children being raised under the poverty level (which is seriously out of date, have you looked at it recently) prospering mightily. I wouldn’t call the longest work weeks of any industrialized country prospering mightily. I wouldn’t call the highest prison population in the industrialized world prospering mightily. As for passing on wealth to children. Having your children grow up in a Socialist country where they don’t have to worry about starving, being denied medical care, getting a shitty education, war, massive crime rates, and so on seems a pretty good incentive to me. And considering that just recently many Americans didn’t think their children would have a better life than them seems a good argument for Socialism. And the fact that they didn’t do everything they could to subvert the government pretty much invalidates your argument.
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I wouldn’t call it uniquely American. And it’s not exactly new. The government has always acted as servant to the ruling class. Under King Louis the 14th’s rule the government did only what the nobles allowed it to do. Under capitalism it performs for the bourgeoise.
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All I really have to convince them is that going forward towards socialism is better than going back to capitalism. The American founding fathers didn’t have to convince everyone that capitalist democracy would work, they only had to convince people that it was better than going back. And let’s not forget there were plenty of examples where that democracy failed and was replaced by dictatorship. Yet, future generations didn’t let fears of a Napolean keep them from fighting for democracy, something that has benfited us all.
Good luck with her.