He needed them. if Hitler won or survived in charge, he may have taken care of them later.
Aw, shucks, ma’am, just another smartass peckerwood from Waco.
elucidator:
Basically you can fly two ways with this. Either you prefer social theories that are logical, coherent, and rational, or you don’t.
I chose the first option. Sue me, I like Grand Theory. I like Marx, Weber, Polanyi, Durkheim, De Tocqville (he wasn’t a grand theorist, but he sure was logical, coherent, and rational); I dig the neo-Marxist analysis of colonialism (Dependency Theory) and I’m a big fan of Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory.
Now, I know all of these sociological models have their faults; they can explain some social phenomena well, and others not so well; and they all rest on assumptions that can’t be proven, or are approximations at best (like the rational actor of modern economics theory). So what? They do what they do pretty well, get you where you want to go at a realtively comfortable speed, cause you to rub yer brain cells together, and paint pretty good approximations of the issues they seek to explain.
In addition, what’s the alternative? Well, either you go po-mo (which is a no-no) or you simply declare all theory to be impossible, throw in the towel and skinny up another splif. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter option (lots wrong with po-mo, IMHO, on the other hand), but if yer gonna get into a discussion about whether or not fascism is really socialism, or if it’s a phenomena of the left or the right, yer gonna have a hard time discussing it without at least a fingernail grip on what the concepts of left, right, fascism, and socialism actually mean.
If you’re referring here to the problems of implementing Marxist theory in practice, then I agree; but if you mean that Marxism fails as an explanatory paradigm because it’s too rational, I don’t agree. Again, I like my explanations to be rational.
I don’t know about “hyper-rational”, but I do think a good social theory model ought to at least rational, even if it fails to fully account for everything in the purview of its focus. Lots of theories within socialpsychology, for example, provide rational explanations for irrational human behavior (Bob Altemeyer’s work on the “authoritarian personality”, for example), so the basic irrationality of human actors doesn’t in any sense preclude a rational theory about such actors. I mean, that’s all it is really; we try to make sense of things around that appear at first glance to be utterly irrational. That’s rational theory. Marx tried to explain the apparent senseless violence of the French Revolution as an example of class warfare. His explanation might not be 100% correct, but – there’s some validity to it, yes?
Of course, it’s always important to remember that a theory is just a map of the territory – it isn’t the territory itself.
If you’re referring to dialectical materialism, well, I’d at least agree that that particular idea wasn’t one of Marx’s better attempts. The only point I’m trying to make to mswas is that socialists aren’t a bunch of raving loons; that Marxist theory is actually pretty rational/logical.
I’ve got a better idea. Let’s define them, but agree that our definitions are provisional and subject to change as we gain knowledge. In fact, let’s have several very interesting and sometimes contradictory definitions of them and use these definitions to help us deepen our understanding of the terms.
Or would you rather just be a po-mo flake, and carry moonbeams home in jar?
EddyTeddyFreddy:
Partisan drivebys? Absolutely.
Feeble witicisms? luci’s witticisms are grade-A industrial strength witticisms, I’ll have you know.
Working towards weapons-grade, but thanks. I might respond more after I go buy more hats, these suddenly don’t fit any more…
Now, now, elucidator.
You know they don’t make bigger hats than the ones you already have.
I meant socialism.
Marx’s analysis has some credibility. He can be used to diagnose, but not prescribe.
As for your comment about conservatives hijacking the meaning of socialism. Do not Europeans use socialism to describe the systems they work under with the government’s basic provision of services?
Changes it to just both sides think the others are bad people?
mswas:
Not in my general experience, at least. For example, most of the people I know would claim (or complain, even) that Sweden is no longer a socialist country. The Swedish government went on a selling binge a few years ago, one that accelerated with the election of its current right-wing government. To my knowledege the State no longer owns any banks or major industries, with the possible exception of Systembolaget – which isn’t an industry, actually, but the State-run liquor store.
Ahh interesting. So Europe is travelling in the opposite direction.
I will offer an erudite and intelligent response as soon as I can stop sobbing and clutching my banky.
mswas:
Well, I don’t know about the rest of Europe, per se, but you can say that Sweden has swung to the right over the past three, four years. We had a general election about 3 years ago and for the first time in a decade (at least), a coalition of right wing parties won. It’s worth noting perhaps that there were some important factors that helped swing the vote:
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General fatigue with the Social Democrats and the previous prime minister, Göran Persson, who had been in power like forever;
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A conscious shift to the left on the part of Sweden’s most prominent right-wing party – the Moderates – in an attempt to peel off votes from the center;
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A charismatic and competent party leader in the form of Sweden’s current prime minister, Henrik Reinfeld.
It’s also worth noting an important fact: even the most right-wing parties in the Swedish parliment – Folk Party, Center, the Moderates, and the Christian Democrats – are rather to the left of US Democratic Party. So on the political scale, you can say that the extreme right side of the Swedish polity is left of the Democrats, and from there it moves leftward to the Swedish Social Democrats (the largest party currently, and very far left of the Dems), and then the Greens (who are a bit of an ideological smörgåsbord, and could in some instances also land comfortably on the right side), and then the Left Party, former communists. We have nothing whatsoever that corresponds to the Republicans here.
But again, do be careful generalizing from Sweden to the whole of Europe, because Sweden is in many ways a reverse mirror image of the mainland. The Danish government is also right-wing, especially in terms of immigration policy, but I’m not sure how things look down on the continent.
Of course.
Yeah, well, you guys are on the brink of collapse and civil war. Any day now. Been hearing that for about forty years, so it won’t be long now…
Interesting, and I understand.
As an aside, not to worry I won’t mistake Sweden for the rest of Europe. I generally bridle at any comparison to Sweden made when talking about a nation’s policy because to be honest, the city I live in is a more complex polity than Sweden. It has about the same number of people and a whole lot more who are directly tied to it economically in the surrounding area, the metro area has more people than Canada or Australia. Sweden is interesting, but I think it’s a mistake to assume that what happens in Sweden can be extrapolated to polities of hundreds of millions of people, which is something I see happen quite often on the left.
OK, so it would be a mistake to assume that. But then you must equally admit that, given certain circumstances, a system like Sweden’s is plausible, practical and beneficial. Because, well, there it is, isn’t it?
However, I am convinced. Next time I see one of my ilk wildly exaggerating the universal applicability of the Swedish system, I will offer a firm “tut-tut”, and remind that this remains unproven. That should cover my non-partisan *bona fides *for a year or so, I figure.
Absolutely.
Good for you, you get two open-minded points for the day!
No it doesn’t. The metropolitan population of New York is ~19 million. The population of Canada is ~33 million. The population of Australia is ~22 million.
You’re correct sir. Almost the population of Australia. I’ve heard 25m as an estimate and that’s the one that stuck with me.
No. Various parts of Europe are on the usual swings and roundabouts of healthy democratic politics while doing what they always do - decide pragmatically what is the most efficient mix of public and private provision needed to achieve the tasks at hand. Which is a moving target as things change.
Unfortunately it’s blind ideologues that get in the way with their obsessions with all private, no - all public bullshit.
No - don’t be bloody ridiculous. What’s wrong with you - do you actually read anything? Why the fuck don’t you just stop pontificating about stuff you don’t have the slightest degree of knowledge?
This is the single most stupid statement I’ve read all week. I mean. Sheesh.