I think it is disingenuous to suggest that Soviet socialism was not socialist. It was--it was an attempt to build a centrally controlled economy, with the notion that individual experts and bureaucratic systems could effectively organize a productive economy. Public ownership, as in government ownership, is still socialism (though certainly the question of how a singular Party can be legitimately considered a representative of the people is important).
I think it's also disingenuous or propagandist to diminish the atrocities committed in the name of profit, colonization, expansion, accrual of wealth in the establishment of what are now contemporary capitalist regimes.
I also don't think there's a direct relationship between socialism and atrocity--but there is a relationship between atrocity and revolution, or massive instability, or political collapse and transition. I tire of people diverting the conversation from the mechanics of socialist systems to Soviet atrocities, but on the other hand it is important even for people far to the left to keep an ear open for people who seriously talk about purges, counter revolutionaries, eugenics, disenfranchisement, displacement, etc. (as it should be for people on the right...). Because they do exist.
This is honestly where i'm landing more than anything.
Maybe changing the prevailing philosophy of the globe is going to get messy no matter how it is changed.
Never been a clean change over before, don't see why the next change in philosophy would be any different.
Not to say a flash pan change that results in atrocities is the only way to go about the change, but that's seemingly the result of flash pan change no matter what systems you're transitioning between.
I think it is disingenuous to suggest that Soviet socialism was not socialist. It was--it was an attempt to build a centrally controlled economy, with the notion that individual experts and bureaucratic systems could effectively organize a productive economy. Public ownership, as in government ownership, is still socialism (though certainly the question of how a singular Party can be legitimately considered a representative of the people is important).
I think it's also disingenuous or propagandist to diminish the atrocities committed in the name of profit, colonization, expansion, accrual of wealth in the establishment of what are now contemporary capitalist regimes.
I also don't think there's a direct relationship between socialism and atrocity--but there is a relationship between atrocity and revolution, or massive instability, or political collapse and transition. I tire of people diverting the conversation from the mechanics of socialist systems to Soviet atrocities, but on the other hand it is important even for people far to the left to keep an ear open for people who seriously talk about purges, counter revolutionaries, eugenics, disenfranchisement, displacement, etc. (as it should be for people on the right...). Because they do exist.
I dont know that you can argue the soviet model constitutes a collectively held means of production when the government had no accountability to the public.
If the USSR had free and open elections maybe, but not as it was.
This leads us into one of the more notable changes in socialist activism over the last century, with an increased emphasis on healthy elections as a moral necessity for real socialism.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
Nobody's bothsidesing shit. You're the one jumping in and saying that one sides' atrocities are "objectively far worse,"* which is... just... like... honestly, an infantile conception of morality. As though the number of deaths properly captures the depths of one's evil. 6 million is not an accurate measure of Hitler's evil. It's a measure of his will, 20th century technology, German efficiency, and the speed at which the Allies ended him. Like if Allies had dallied another year, Hitler wouldn't have killed 7 million? Or 8? 6 million is not how evil he was. You think if the Axis had won WWII and Hitler had found 7 million Jews (and others), he'd be like, naaaaah, 6 million is as evil as I get?
There's a difference between 0 and 1. And there's a difference, usually, between say 1 and 10. But after a certain point, mass murder is just mass murder and the number stops mattering. If you're willing to kill 1 million, you're willing to kill 10 million. The only question is whether you're capable of doing it and whether there are 9 million more targets of your ire.
Like, the moral schema you're working with here is ridiculous. This whole thread could just derail into me picking it apart piece by piece here. Like, why does socialism have to answer for the 680 000 Soviet deaths, but liberal democracy doesn't have to answer for Hitler's 6 million? Why do you think we must never forget the 680 000 Soviet deaths, to the extent that socialism must be abandoned as a concept, when the Roman Republic killed 300 000 Carthaginians, but we can still establish an entire modern western order based on democracy/republicanism? Why is killing 680 000 people disqualifying for socialism, but enslaving millions upon millions of blacks not disqualifying for, I dunno, everything American ever? Is that just how it works in your mind, the immorality of 1 death > the immorality 100 slaves? Is this how you conceptualize morality, that it's numbers-based, that there's even "objective comparisons" to be made between numerically smaller evils and numerically larger evils? Like if you break the 2nd Commandment, how many times worse is that than breaking the 8th Commandment?
Your moral picture of the world is either incomplete, or you're being a hypocrite when you say that socialism must morally answer for 680 000 Soviet deaths while you absolve all these other political systems of all the evils they've caused.
* My point was simply that given enough time, human conceptions of history tend to erase scale. People don't remember how many Carthaginians died. They just remember that Carthage was sacked and salted, if that at all. People don't remember how many people the Romans killed and enslaved, just that the Romans had a vast empire. Both the evils and accomplishments of societies are abstracted, their corners rounded off, until they fit into neat little circular holes in our mental schemas, though it's a little more concerning when it's happening live before us about the society that we live in right now.
I just want to be clear here in saying that I'm not suggesting socialism should be abandoned, or that socialism must morally answer for Stalin's purge, or that the massacres perpetrated by 20th century communist regimes should invalidate socialism.
That is not what's happening here.
I'm saying that people should stop fucking defending the soviets, the Chinese communists, goddamn Pol Pot, and so on. Socialism supporters, whenever you find yourself starting to say something that mitigates or minimizes fuckin' Stalin... just, like stop.
The difference imo is episodes like the Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee were publicly litigated against and were always permissible to discuss in public discourse. This permitted the U.S. to slowly work towards improvement, indeed, Marshall's ruling in Worcester v. Georgia established the fundamental principle of tribal sovereignty. Jackson ignored the Court, but he could not undo the precedent Marshall set. Likewise, the Irish Famine was the subject of intense criticism in the British press from the outset which spurred policy changes.
Discussing the Holodomor in the USSR would send you to the Lubyanka. Pravda never mentioned it. No Soviet court ever heard a case against the grain quotas. Commissars who tried to report the famine up the chain of command were ignored. The Khrushchev Thaw ended the Terror but did not allow the sort of public or judicial criticism which gradually bettered the American Republic. When Perestroika finally permitted meaningful criticism, the system could not bear it and the USSR disintegrated.
That, at least, is why I contend the American system was always morally and practically superior to the Soviet or Chinese socialist system. It does not necessarily show that Socialism in general would be unable to adapt if a Socialist country had a free press, but it does signify that the liberal democratic framework is capable of correcting its most terrible mistakes in a way the Socialist cases we have before us were not.
I would like to point out to all those that try to denounce the Nordic Model with how Scandinavia has Oil and Natural gas, that only Norway has significant resources of either, and the Nordic Model predates the discovery of North Sea Oil by 40 years. It was started in Sweden in the Early 30s and oil in the Norwegian part of the North Sea was only found in 1968. Even then, it took over a decade to actually build it out enough to get the wealth ashore.
It should also be pointed out that for most of history past the Viking Age, the Nordic Countries where a backwater in European politics/economics. Want easy proof? Name one Nordic colony outside of the Danish Virgin Island(now the US Virgin Island) and Greenland(if it can called it that). When even Fucking Belgium had the Congo(and boy howdy is Fucking Belgium an appropriate name considering their behavior).
Finland was especially Turbofucked, what with being run like a subject duchy by Sweden and invaded by Russia on the regular.
The Nordic Model works and the fact that three of the nations are Monarchies is a non sequitur. The Monarchs have less power then President of Germany, which is not Angela Merkel by the way.
Wasn't Sweden one of the leading European powers in the 1700s? Or did Europa Universalis lead me wrong? Or was that not long enough to register against "most of history past the Viking Age?"
Games are not an accurate depiction of actual history. Sweden did have a period of expansion in the late 16th/early 17th, but it was more a case of the rest of Central Europe being fairly fucked over by among other things the 30 year war and Sweden exiting that war with a lot money and a quality army. It didn't last.
In fact any study of Nordic History from the 14th to the 18th century is one of pretty much continuous war between DenmarkNorway vs SwedenFinland, with any peace treaty being essentially a truce to rearm for the next war. I think Denmark and Sweden have fought more wars then England and France. Norway being a subject kingdom of Denmark and Finland being a subject nation of Sweden where more or less along for the ride.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
Nobody's bothsidesing shit. You're the one jumping in and saying that one sides' atrocities are "objectively far worse,"* which is... just... like... honestly, an infantile conception of morality. As though the number of deaths properly captures the depths of one's evil. 6 million is not an accurate measure of Hitler's evil. It's a measure of his will, 20th century technology, German efficiency, and the speed at which the Allies ended him. Like if Allies had dallied another year, Hitler wouldn't have killed 7 million? Or 8? 6 million is not how evil he was. You think if the Axis had won WWII and Hitler had found 7 million Jews (and others), he'd be like, naaaaah, 6 million is as evil as I get?
There's a difference between 0 and 1. And there's a difference, usually, between say 1 and 10. But after a certain point, mass murder is just mass murder and the number stops mattering. If you're willing to kill 1 million, you're willing to kill 10 million. The only question is whether you're capable of doing it and whether there are 9 million more targets of your ire.
Like, the moral schema you're working with here is ridiculous. This whole thread could just derail into me picking it apart piece by piece here. Like, why does socialism have to answer for the 680 000 Soviet deaths, but liberal democracy doesn't have to answer for Hitler's 6 million? Why do you think we must never forget the 680 000 Soviet deaths, to the extent that socialism must be abandoned as a concept, when the Roman Republic killed 300 000 Carthaginians, but we can still establish an entire modern western order based on democracy/republicanism? Why is killing 680 000 people disqualifying for socialism, but enslaving millions upon millions of blacks not disqualifying for, I dunno, everything American ever? Is that just how it works in your mind, the immorality of 1 death > the immorality 100 slaves? Is this how you conceptualize morality, that it's numbers-based, that there's even "objective comparisons" to be made between numerically smaller evils and numerically larger evils? Like if you break the 2nd Commandment, how many times worse is that than breaking the 8th Commandment?
Your moral picture of the world is either incomplete, or you're being a hypocrite when you say that socialism must morally answer for 680 000 Soviet deaths while you absolve all these other political systems of all the evils they've caused.
* My point was simply that given enough time, human conceptions of history tend to erase scale. People don't remember how many Carthaginians died. They just remember that Carthage was sacked and salted, if that at all. People don't remember how many people the Romans killed and enslaved, just that the Romans had a vast empire. Both the evils and accomplishments of societies are abstracted, their corners rounded off, until they fit into neat little circular holes in our mental schemas, though it's a little more concerning when it's happening live before us about the society that we live in right now.
I just want to be clear here in saying that I'm not suggesting socialism should be abandoned, or that socialism must morally answer for Stalin's purge, or that the massacres perpetrated by 20th century communist regimes should invalidate socialism.
That is not what's happening here.
I'm saying that people should stop fucking defending the soviets, the Chinese communists, goddamn Pol Pot, and so on. Socialism supporters, whenever you find yourself starting to say something that mitigates or minimizes fuckin' Stalin... just, like stop.
Or how about people should stop fucking imagining that people are fucking defending the Soviets?
Like, people are so not defending the Soviets, that you're accusing people of both-sides-ing here. That is to say, people are SO not defending the Soviets, instead focusing on "the other side" from that Soviets, that you perceive them to be talking too much about non-Soviets, that you think they are defending the Soviets by not talking about the Soviets, when actually nobody's talking about the Soviets simply because nobody has any interest in defending the Soviets.
"Sure Jackson ignored them and the natives were almost entirely wiped out but they got a court hearing and precedent" is such a hollow basis for moral superiority.
The difference imo is episodes like the Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee were publicly litigated against and were always permissible to discuss in public discourse. This permitted the U.S. to slowly work towards improvement, indeed, Marshall's ruling in Worcester v. Georgia established the fundamental principle of tribal sovereignty. Jackson ignored the Court, but he could not undo the precedent Marshall set. Likewise, the Irish Famine was the subject of intense criticism in the British press from the outset which spurred policy changes.
Discussing the Holodomor in the USSR would send you to the Lubyanka. Pravda never mentioned it. No Soviet court ever heard a case against the grain quotas. Commissars who tried to report the famine up the chain of command were ignored. The Khrushchev Thaw ended the Terror but did not allow the sort of public or judicial criticism which gradually bettered the American Republic. When Perestroika finally permitted meaningful criticism, the system could not bear it and the USSR disintegrated.
That, at least, is why I contend the American system was always morally and practically superior to the Soviet or Chinese socialist system. It does not necessarily show that Socialism in general would be unable to adapt if a Socialist country had a free press, but it does signify that the liberal democratic framework is capable of correcting its most terrible mistakes in a way the Socialist cases we have before us were not.
Okay, but, like, what do you think happened to anti-slavery activists in the South? How "responsive" were the southern US state governments to people who agitated for freeing the slaves? Did it not take almost a million dead to end slavery, never mind institutionalized racism?
The difference was that the pro-slavery faction only controlled half the US and Stalin controlled the entire USSR. If the North didn't exist or if the South had actually seceded, you don't think the same thing would have played out in the South? How many slaves suing for freedom in the courts of the South do you think it would have taken to free them?
Now maybe I'm crazy, but I think at the point where the thread is 100% dedicated to arguing about whose atrocities are bigger--and the argument is mostly driven by conservative posters who have zero interest in every maybe being socialists--that the thread has failed in whatever goals it started with.
Or answered the question posed through example.
You don't need to convince people that American slavery was worse than USSR gulags. Who gives a fuck?
No, the comparison for people you might actually convince is much closer to now: Why should we eschew a move to social democratic capitalist states, like Sweden, in favor of socialism? What practical benefits will we see with socialism, with current technology and populations?
If you want to argue that socialism of some form becomes inevitable after a few centuries of social and technological advancement, sure. I agree. But that's so far removed from modern concerns as to be irrelevant.
Why should I seek a socialist state or stateless socialism, in the face of the success of the capitalist Nordic model and the failures of every modern or historic socialist state?
To be clear, I understand that the failure of the USSR or Venezuela doesn't necessarily indicate a flaw in socialism, but the fact that they have been failures means we can only match up hypothetical superior socialist societies against the very real successes of the Nordic model. Maybe there are solutions for resource allocation and incentivization, maybe there are ways to structure society that will work.
But what exactly is the incentive for people in the centre-left/left headspace to take that gamble on maybe when we seem to have a definite success we could instead imitate?
I suppose there are arguments that a socialist society is a more moral arrangement of society, in theory? That's not worth much, though.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
e: also, does anyone here consider Marx and Engels' theories representative of their version of socialism?
The primary argument for socialism over social democracy is that so long as productive capacity remains privately held you've left fertile soil for oligarchy to return. Its less an argument that social democracy is bad, and more that its not reliably sustainable.
However, as I've mentioned in the thread before, most of us view social democracy as a route to socialism so when asked which we want our answer is yes.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
It should also be pointed out that for most of history past the Viking Age, the Nordic Countries where a backwater in European politics/economics. Want easy proof? Name one Nordic colony outside of the Danish Virgin Island(now the US Virgin Island) and Greenland(if it can called it that). When even Fucking Belgium had the Congo(and boy howdy is Fucking Belgium an appropriate name considering their behavior).
The Swedish Empire was kind of a big fucking deal for a couple hundred years
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
e: also, does anyone here consider Marx and Engels' theories representative of their version of socialism?
Market Socialism is a thing
You don’t need state socialism, particularly likenive noted before where it can risk, without stringent democratic safeguards, mutating into state capitalism
Also: Private Property is not the same thing as personal property, which in capitalism vs socialism discussions are usually conflated
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
I would like to point out to all those that try to denounce the Nordic Model with how Scandinavia has Oil and Natural gas, that only Norway has significant resources of either, and the Nordic Model predates the discovery of North Sea Oil by 40 years. It was started in Sweden in the Early 30s and oil in the Norwegian part of the North Sea was only found in 1968. Even then, it took over a decade to actually build it out enough to get the wealth ashore.
It should also be pointed out that for most of history past the Viking Age, the Nordic Countries where a backwater in European politics/economics. Want easy proof? Name one Nordic colony outside of the Danish Virgin Island(now the US Virgin Island) and Greenland(if it can called it that). When even Fucking Belgium had the Congo(and boy howdy is Fucking Belgium an appropriate name considering their behavior).
Finland was especially Turbofucked, what with being run like a subject duchy by Sweden and invaded by Russia on the regular.
The Nordic Model works and the fact that three of the nations are Monarchies is a non sequitur. The Monarchs have less power then President of Germany, which is not Angela Merkel by the way.
Wasn't Sweden one of the leading European powers in the 1700s? Or did Europa Universalis lead me wrong? Or was that not long enough to register against "most of history past the Viking Age?"
I don't know much about Sweden in the 1700s, but in the 1600s it was a major actor in the 30 Years War and also briefly(?) established an empire. Image spoilered for lots of pixels:
Yeah the whole "central government's don't plan economies well" is probably fair enough to be going with, but its only an argument against certain types of socialism.
Publicly held entities don't preclude profit motives, they just more naturally weigh those motives against public concern. Your local miner-owned company will continue to seek a profit in digging up ore, but it'll be vastly less inclined to ignore safety regs or poison their own water.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Personal property is stuff you physically possess in a meaningful way. Your clothes, your house, your car etc. Private property is the factory you "own" a thousand miles away you've never seen or the paper that says a certain idea is your IP.
Personal property survives almost every socialist model, and is in some ways improved. No banks coming to take your house etc. Private does not.
Its worth noting that neither is sacred in capitalism if you lack capital.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
All forms of private property are an intrinsic right. That doesn't mean you have to be given any one form of property. You have the right to acquire it and not have it expropriated. (yes, Kelo v. New London was fucking socialist garbage and should be overturned)
e:of course there are exigencies, such as war, where the state might reasonably be allowed to violate this principle, but these should be rare
Its worth noting a lot of early capitalists abhorred most notions of private as opposed to personal property as well! They understood what it could do to society.
Yeah the whole "central government's don't plan economies well" is probably fair enough to be going with, but its only an argument against certain types of socialism.
Publicly held entities don't preclude profit motives, they just more naturally weigh those motives against public concern. Your local miner-owned company will continue to seek a profit in digging up ore, but it'll be vastly less inclined to ignore safety regs or poison their own water.
Cooperatively owned enterprises are a way better example of what I think "socialism" should mean than state-run/owned/controlled systems like the USSR.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
You could certainly own land if you wanted - it's just all going to be in rural places where land is cheap.
Its worth noting a lot of early capitalists abhorred most notions of private as opposed to personal property as well! They understood what it could do to society.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
All forms of private property are an intrinsic right. That doesn't mean you have to be given any one form of property. You have the right to acquire it and not have it expropriated. (yes, Kelo v. New London was fucking socialist garbage and should be overturned)
Yeah the whole "central government's don't plan economies well" is probably fair enough to be going with, but its only an argument against certain types of socialism.
Publicly held entities don't preclude profit motives, they just more naturally weigh those motives against public concern. Your local miner-owned company will continue to seek a profit in digging up ore, but it'll be vastly less inclined to ignore safety regs or poison their own water.
Cooperatively owned enterprises are a way better example of what I think "socialism" should mean than state-run/owned/controlled systems like the USSR.
I mentioned it earlier in the thread but what I'd like is a mix of worker owned enterprise, publicly held business for large scale production and private held business for extremely local small scale stuff.
Its worth noting a lot of early capitalists abhorred most notions of private as opposed to personal property as well! They understood what it could do to society.
Can you name an example? Genuinely curious.
Smith was extremely skeptical of early notions of intellectual property rights.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Personal property is stuff you physically possess in a meaningful way. Your clothes, your house, your car etc. Private property is the factory you "own" a thousand miles away you've never seen or the paper that says a certain idea is your IP.
Personal property survives almost every socialist model, and is in some ways improved. No banks coming to take your house etc. Private does not.
Its worth noting that neither is sacred in capitalism if you lack capital.
Wait, so your House is personal property but not the land it is built on? How does that work
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
All forms of private property are an intrinsic right. That doesn't mean you have to be given any one form of property. You have the right to acquire it and not have it expropriated. (yes, Kelo v. New London was fucking socialist garbage and should be overturned)
e:of course there are exigencies, such as war, where the state might reasonably be allowed to violate this principle, but these should be rare
I don't get what you're doing here. You just said you want to discuss socialism, but now you're spouting off blanket statements about inalienable rights like you're trying to limit the terms of socialism and whatever might be discussed.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Personal property is stuff you physically possess in a meaningful way. Your clothes, your house, your car etc. Private property is the factory you "own" a thousand miles away you've never seen or the paper that says a certain idea is your IP.
Personal property survives almost every socialist model, and is in some ways improved. No banks coming to take your house etc. Private does not.
Its worth noting that neither is sacred in capitalism if you lack capital.
Wait, so your House is personal property but not the land it is built on? How does that work
I didn't say anything about land, that was your injection into the distinction between private and personal property.
Under socialism you can own the land your house is on that you physically possess in a meaningful way and use.
The primary argument for socialism over social democracy is that so long as productive capacity remains privately held you've left fertile soil for oligarchy to return. Its less an argument that social democracy is bad, and more that its not reliably sustainable.
However, as I've mentioned in the thread before, most of us view social democracy as a route to socialism so when asked which we want our answer is yes.
I'm not sure most forms of socialism offers less fertile soil. If the population of a society is failing to protect its rights, the question of whether the powers that be are sucking up power in the form of private property or state apparatuses/property becomes academic.
I'm not sure there's anything you can do to avoid problems if you mix a complacent or ignorant population with motivated bad actors.
Maybe anarchistic socialist societies, just because there's no apparatus for grabbing up a bunch of resources for yourself. But anarchistic societies only operate on the assumption that the people within them are sufficiently enlightened that bad actors won't clump back up and go conquer their neighbors, so I'm not sure they're relevant to the discussion of 'What if assholes try to steal everything again?'
The primary argument for socialism over social democracy is that so long as productive capacity remains privately held you've left fertile soil for oligarchy to return. Its less an argument that social democracy is bad, and more that its not reliably sustainable.
However, as I've mentioned in the thread before, most of us view social democracy as a route to socialism so when asked which we want our answer is yes.
I'm not sure most forms of socialism offers less fertile soil. If the population of a society is failing to protect its rights, the question of whether the powers that be are sucking up power in the form of private property or state apparatuses/property becomes academic.
I'm not sure there's anything you can do to avoid problems if you mix a complacent or ignorant population with motivated bad actors.
Maybe anarchistic socialist societies, just because there's no apparatus for grabbing up a bunch of resources for yourself. But anarchistic societies only operate on the assumption that the people within them are sufficiently enlightened that bad actors won't clump back up and go conquer their neighbors, so I'm not sure they're relevant to the discussion of 'What if assholes try to steal everything again?'
I agree that there's no system in which oligarchy can't ever return sans a massive restructuring of human nature. However, socialism, theoretically adds an extra level of security in that you have government protections against it plus the would be oligarch doesn't have control of production to lean on in his pursuit of power.
In other words, under well crafted socialism a would be tyrant has a lot more work to do.
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
All forms of private property are an intrinsic right. That doesn't mean you have to be given any one form of property. You have the right to acquire it and not have it expropriated. (yes, Kelo v. New London was fucking socialist garbage and should be overturned)
Why?
Why is your "ownership" sacred?
What if your ownership is causing harm to others?
Ownership is ingrained in us. It is so foundational a concept that most people cannot imagine a society without it, and find those isolated societies that don't maintain such a concept completely alien. With that stated, I think it falls to those wishing to change this to demonstrate exactly what should change, why it should change and what the proposed benefit is.
Its worth noting a lot of early capitalists abhorred most notions of private as opposed to personal property as well! They understood what it could do to society.
Can you name an example? Genuinely curious.
Smith was extremely skeptical of early notions of intellectual property rights.
I honestly didn't even think about IP rights when I said private property. I'm not sure whether I would consider them inalienable or not.
I think foundational understandings of rights in general might be getting a bit into the weeds and not particularly relevant as no one denies they should exist in some form.
Its just all a matter of "what do property rights encompass"
Like never forget our successful capitalist society is built on a beginning that was absolutely as cruel as the beginning of the Soviet union. We had slaves and we genocided the native population. The blood on our hands is just so old it dried.
See this is what I mean. In the late 1700s there were (estimates are very hard) maybe 600,000 natives remaining in what became the US. That's down from a population of anywhere between 2 and 18 million at the time of the first European explorers, a loss of life attributed almost entirely due to disease in North America. Central and South America is a different story as the Spanish were unbelievably bloody-minded. Anyhow, in a hundred years that population dropped to maybe around 200,000, also at least partly from disease, and continued to decline into the 30s when that trend reversed.
This is a horrible thing. American genocide of the native populations is a shameful and embarrassing blot on our national history, a disgrace that can never be fully made right.
It does not compare in either scope, time, or loss of life to the horrors of 20th century postwar communist/socialist massacres. It's not even close.
So, what, your rule is that mass murder is okay up to a certain number, and then past that number it's too horrendous and anything relating to that event can't be seriously discussed ever as a practical system, but below that number, it's a-okay totally cool let's establish our society around it?
Man, the sheer hypocrisy here as you vaguely shift around the standards here for what can and cannot be discussed "morally". What's that number, by the way? Can you spit it out for us? What is the exact number of deaths that is too much for spool32? What's the maximum number of deaths that's a-okay by spool32?
And I ain't even gotten around to asking you to justify how a capitalist, liberal democracy turned into the Third Reich yet, aw gee how come you haven't held democracy to answer for that? Or what about the First World War? 18 million dead? Aww gee, maybe we shouldn't ever talk about nation-states any more, obviously Westphalia was a terrible idea, and anybody who talks about Westphalian nation states is just secretly advocating for mindless slaughter on the battlefield.
Yes, when I say that something is a horrible, shameful disgrace, what I mean is that it's OK up to a certain number.
Come on dude. I'm very very comfortable denouncing slavery and native American genocide without qualification as the entry fee for a discussion of how we can use a capitalist system to make life better for people and drive progress as a species. I've already done it even! Just now!
It ought not create such consternation to suggest that socialists stop bothsidesing when Soviet, PRC, and KR atrocities are objectively far worse, and instead get comfortable shitting on those regimes as the price of admission.
This isn't a chicken and egg thing. Socialists have to point out that all of human history has been a garbage fire because every time we suggest notOligarchy and maybe dragging Larry Kudlow from his home in the dead of night we are supposed to answer for Mao.
We'd be perfectly happy to discuss socialism without having to constantly talk about how America is soaked in indigenous blood or how unappealing Siberia is.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Personal property is stuff you physically possess in a meaningful way. Your clothes, your house, your car etc. Private property is the factory you "own" a thousand miles away you've never seen or the paper that says a certain idea is your IP.
Personal property survives almost every socialist model, and is in some ways improved. No banks coming to take your house etc. Private does not.
Its worth noting that neither is sacred in capitalism if you lack capital.
Wait, so your House is personal property but not the land it is built on? How does that work
I'm also super unclear on this.
Why is your house your personal property, but your factory is not your personal property?
I don't think I understand some basic socialist tenets.
Posts
This is honestly where i'm landing more than anything.
Maybe changing the prevailing philosophy of the globe is going to get messy no matter how it is changed.
Never been a clean change over before, don't see why the next change in philosophy would be any different.
Not to say a flash pan change that results in atrocities is the only way to go about the change, but that's seemingly the result of flash pan change no matter what systems you're transitioning between.
I dont know that you can argue the soviet model constitutes a collectively held means of production when the government had no accountability to the public.
If the USSR had free and open elections maybe, but not as it was.
Seems more that it was state capitalism.
I just want to be clear here in saying that I'm not suggesting socialism should be abandoned, or that socialism must morally answer for Stalin's purge, or that the massacres perpetrated by 20th century communist regimes should invalidate socialism.
That is not what's happening here.
I'm saying that people should stop fucking defending the soviets, the Chinese communists, goddamn Pol Pot, and so on. Socialism supporters, whenever you find yourself starting to say something that mitigates or minimizes fuckin' Stalin... just, like stop.
Discussing the Holodomor in the USSR would send you to the Lubyanka. Pravda never mentioned it. No Soviet court ever heard a case against the grain quotas. Commissars who tried to report the famine up the chain of command were ignored. The Khrushchev Thaw ended the Terror but did not allow the sort of public or judicial criticism which gradually bettered the American Republic. When Perestroika finally permitted meaningful criticism, the system could not bear it and the USSR disintegrated.
That, at least, is why I contend the American system was always morally and practically superior to the Soviet or Chinese socialist system. It does not necessarily show that Socialism in general would be unable to adapt if a Socialist country had a free press, but it does signify that the liberal democratic framework is capable of correcting its most terrible mistakes in a way the Socialist cases we have before us were not.
Games are not an accurate depiction of actual history. Sweden did have a period of expansion in the late 16th/early 17th, but it was more a case of the rest of Central Europe being fairly fucked over by among other things the 30 year war and Sweden exiting that war with a lot money and a quality army. It didn't last.
In fact any study of Nordic History from the 14th to the 18th century is one of pretty much continuous war between DenmarkNorway vs SwedenFinland, with any peace treaty being essentially a truce to rearm for the next war. I think Denmark and Sweden have fought more wars then England and France. Norway being a subject kingdom of Denmark and Finland being a subject nation of Sweden where more or less along for the ride.
Or how about people should stop fucking imagining that people are fucking defending the Soviets?
Like, people are so not defending the Soviets, that you're accusing people of both-sides-ing here. That is to say, people are SO not defending the Soviets, instead focusing on "the other side" from that Soviets, that you perceive them to be talking too much about non-Soviets, that you think they are defending the Soviets by not talking about the Soviets, when actually nobody's talking about the Soviets simply because nobody has any interest in defending the Soviets.
Okay, but, like, what do you think happened to anti-slavery activists in the South? How "responsive" were the southern US state governments to people who agitated for freeing the slaves? Did it not take almost a million dead to end slavery, never mind institutionalized racism?
The difference was that the pro-slavery faction only controlled half the US and Stalin controlled the entire USSR. If the North didn't exist or if the South had actually seceded, you don't think the same thing would have played out in the South? How many slaves suing for freedom in the courts of the South do you think it would have taken to free them?
Or answered the question posed through example.
You don't need to convince people that American slavery was worse than USSR gulags. Who gives a fuck?
No, the comparison for people you might actually convince is much closer to now: Why should we eschew a move to social democratic capitalist states, like Sweden, in favor of socialism? What practical benefits will we see with socialism, with current technology and populations?
If you want to argue that socialism of some form becomes inevitable after a few centuries of social and technological advancement, sure. I agree. But that's so far removed from modern concerns as to be irrelevant.
Why should I seek a socialist state or stateless socialism, in the face of the success of the capitalist Nordic model and the failures of every modern or historic socialist state?
To be clear, I understand that the failure of the USSR or Venezuela doesn't necessarily indicate a flaw in socialism, but the fact that they have been failures means we can only match up hypothetical superior socialist societies against the very real successes of the Nordic model. Maybe there are solutions for resource allocation and incentivization, maybe there are ways to structure society that will work.
But what exactly is the incentive for people in the centre-left/left headspace to take that gamble on maybe when we seem to have a definite success we could instead imitate?
I suppose there are arguments that a socialist society is a more moral arrangement of society, in theory? That's not worth much, though.
Okay, let's discuss Socialism itself then. I am scared of the general concept of Socialism because:
-It gives the state authority to expropriate private property in general, whereas private property is a human right
-It relies on the state to allocate resources, which mainstream economists consider generally inefficient
I would like to know from the Socialists ITT what the main points of a proposed Democratic Socialist constitution would be, and what mechanisms would guard against state overreach - particularly assuming, as you have established, there are hostile reactionary powers trying to undermine the Socialist State.
I will try to refrain from pointing to historical cases, but I am also curious: leaving aside the political aspect, do you consider the USSR or any other notionally socialist country to be a valid example of a Socialist economy, in terms of centrally planned resource allocation?
e: also, does anyone here consider Marx and Engels' theories representative of their version of socialism?
However, as I've mentioned in the thread before, most of us view social democracy as a route to socialism so when asked which we want our answer is yes.
Are we making distinctions between private property and personal property here? Its an important point.
The Swedish Empire was kind of a big fucking deal for a couple hundred years
Market Socialism is a thing
You don’t need state socialism, particularly likenive noted before where it can risk, without stringent democratic safeguards, mutating into state capitalism
Also: Private Property is not the same thing as personal property, which in capitalism vs socialism discussions are usually conflated
You are welcome to draw a distinction, but I will argue the right to own land is inalienable
Publicly held entities don't preclude profit motives, they just more naturally weigh those motives against public concern. Your local miner-owned company will continue to seek a profit in digging up ore, but it'll be vastly less inclined to ignore safety regs or poison their own water.
Ha
I will, most likely, never own land. How can something be an intrinsic human right if only the rich are allowed it
Personal property is stuff you physically possess in a meaningful way. Your clothes, your house, your car etc. Private property is the factory you "own" a thousand miles away you've never seen or the paper that says a certain idea is your IP.
Personal property survives almost every socialist model, and is in some ways improved. No banks coming to take your house etc. Private does not.
Its worth noting that neither is sacred in capitalism if you lack capital.
All forms of private property are an intrinsic right. That doesn't mean you have to be given any one form of property. You have the right to acquire it and not have it expropriated. (yes, Kelo v. New London was fucking socialist garbage and should be overturned)
e:of course there are exigencies, such as war, where the state might reasonably be allowed to violate this principle, but these should be rare
You could certainly own land if you wanted - it's just all going to be in rural places where land is cheap.
Can you name an example? Genuinely curious.
Why?
Why is your "ownership" sacred?
What if your ownership is causing harm to others?
I mentioned it earlier in the thread but what I'd like is a mix of worker owned enterprise, publicly held business for large scale production and private held business for extremely local small scale stuff.
Smith was extremely skeptical of early notions of intellectual property rights.
Wait, so your House is personal property but not the land it is built on? How does that work
I don't get what you're doing here. You just said you want to discuss socialism, but now you're spouting off blanket statements about inalienable rights like you're trying to limit the terms of socialism and whatever might be discussed.
I don't even believe in intrinsic rights, all rights are granted by governments or agreed upon by people.
I didn't say anything about land, that was your injection into the distinction between private and personal property.
Under socialism you can own the land your house is on that you physically possess in a meaningful way and use.
I'm not sure most forms of socialism offers less fertile soil. If the population of a society is failing to protect its rights, the question of whether the powers that be are sucking up power in the form of private property or state apparatuses/property becomes academic.
I'm not sure there's anything you can do to avoid problems if you mix a complacent or ignorant population with motivated bad actors.
Maybe anarchistic socialist societies, just because there's no apparatus for grabbing up a bunch of resources for yourself. But anarchistic societies only operate on the assumption that the people within them are sufficiently enlightened that bad actors won't clump back up and go conquer their neighbors, so I'm not sure they're relevant to the discussion of 'What if assholes try to steal everything again?'
I agree that there's no system in which oligarchy can't ever return sans a massive restructuring of human nature. However, socialism, theoretically adds an extra level of security in that you have government protections against it plus the would be oligarch doesn't have control of production to lean on in his pursuit of power.
In other words, under well crafted socialism a would be tyrant has a lot more work to do.
Ownership is ingrained in us. It is so foundational a concept that most people cannot imagine a society without it, and find those isolated societies that don't maintain such a concept completely alien. With that stated, I think it falls to those wishing to change this to demonstrate exactly what should change, why it should change and what the proposed benefit is.
I honestly didn't even think about IP rights when I said private property. I'm not sure whether I would consider them inalienable or not.
Its just all a matter of "what do property rights encompass"
I'm also super unclear on this.
Why is your house your personal property, but your factory is not your personal property?
I don't think I understand some basic socialist tenets.
And that's why I'm scared of socialism