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James the Other One
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Comments by "James the Other One" (@jamestheotherone742) on "RE: NS is Socialism | Responding to your counterarguments and Further Explanation" video.
See original video where when you decouple the economic theory from the political/social, the two become very similar. Both subordinate the individual and society to the State. How they went about that was different. The Bolsheviks destroyed the bourgeois and private sector, the Fascists incorporated them.
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That's why he said it was a "spectrum".
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The irony... All of you are conflating the separate characteristics of political and economic philosophy.
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Perhaps you should actually think about what I wrote. The answer to your question is contained within it.
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No, I was pretty specific. English not your first language?
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Or you didn't understand his point.
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When it fit the needs of the state (or at least the whim of whatever bureaucrat who was given the authority to decide whom was who). The Nazis weren't exclusive to Jews in their mania to eliminate, anyone else handy also went to extermination. Gays, the mentally ill, criminals, etc. I am sure that more than a few were "found" and marked for death because those that did so stood to gain, for the state or on the side for themselves. The Soviets (and later Chinese) did similarly, although the death tolls were as much incompetence as malice. And to be completely fair, the ol' capitalist West has its share of blood for profit on its hands too, Colonialism etc. Pretty much the most absolute power is life and death after all. And you know what they say power does.... Thats why I am always baffled that anyone who knows even the briefest of world history or understands human nature believes in Socialism. But perhaps such knowledge is rare.
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You should ask folks who have lived under socialism how great their social contract turned out in reality. That is and always will be the fatal problem with socialism, it can never live up to what is promised. You have to try very hard to pretend that there was a difference between the Soviet's Global Socialist Revolution and the Imperialism of the age before. Both were about accumulating power, the "All domestic policy serves foreign policy". But at least Imperialists and Capitalists are honest about it instead of selling a lie of rights and equality. When the reality is all the common people did was trade one master for another.
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Do you think Ivan in the GAZ factory really had a say as to what the factory was producing, how it was producing and how it was distributing it's products?
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Boy you guys sure have a high bar for who counts as "socialist". lol
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More like a historical political comparative analysis.
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""civilizing" the natives & spreading the Bible" Not really a lie. That is exactly what they did. Few except for the missionaires that rode along ever claimed they also weren't going for fame & fortune.
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Because they want to turn everyone else into socialists.
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Do you think that the workers in... any socialist state to date, were ever in control of The State and there fore had any practical ownership of the means of production?
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@sorzin2289 Completely wrong. First. Socialism by default compels the individual to subordinate themselves to the will of The State. How do you think that happens? It isn't by asking nicely. Capitalism is more or less voluntarily. Sometimes you are forced to volunteer because the options are shaped where you only have one choice and that means you are no long actually free market capitalism but into monopolistic or oligopolstic territory. Your guy with the bottling plant isn't/shouldn't be the only producer of bottle otherwise, guess what? You don't have capitalism. What Medicare 4 All is, is the worst of both worlds, where you are forced to participate which means the competitive efficiencies of free markets is short circuited and it guarantees that it is going to be infested with inefficiencies and corruption.
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@sorzin2289 You need to be more specific otherwise you are just jabbering. Your example only illustrate the failure of governmental regulation of capitalism not the economic system itself. But that's okay, its a common mistake. I hate to break it to you but water isn't a "human right" it is a resource and once entrained from the natural world, becomes a commodity. You have the right to access water, but you don't have the right to receive just because you are a human. If you don't believe that, then I'm gonna come over with my tanker truck and fill it from your taps leaving you with the water bill, because its my "human right".
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Whut?
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Demagogue "Anarchists are almost all socialists of some form, or otherwise allied with socialists. " That is even more far fetched than lumping nazis with socialists. Anarchism is the complete antithesis of socialism. Complete decentralization and diffusion of power vs. the subordination of the individual to the will of the collective and its corresponding control structures. The only reason anarchists are grouped with socialists is because they tend to be radicals and revolutionaries of the same stripe. Actually, they are more radical and have even more liberal views because anarchism is even less practical and realistic. And I say that as a libertarian (pragmatic anarchist). Fascism however falls right into goose-step with socialism quite easily.
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However I use the term in the contemporary American sense. Which in turn is based upon the original "revolutionary" ideas of limited government and the rights of the individual at the founding of the United States. Actually idiots who only have a vague idea of what they are doing fills the ranks of Antifa. Socialism always becomes authoritarian for the same reason it always fails. Human nature. Anarchism is anti-capitalist for the same reason it is anti-socialist, the opposition to the concentration of wealth and power. Anarchism would be compatible (synonymous?) with communism, but sadly, neither are practical beyond the small scale at our current level of social and technological evolution. Most of the people who want to give either a go, just want to break the current system with only vague naive notions about what comes after (lots of death and misery is usually what happens). Go look up the definition of "liberal" and "conservative". Not the parties, not the political connotations. Just the English definition of the words..
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You do understand the difference between communism and socialism right? Many (most) don't, thus why a self styled "anarchist" can think they are "socialist" at the same time. My "libertarianism" would have been mainstream American political thought until the 1960s. Well, probably a bit earlier, Wilson and FDR tilted the the US pretty far left. Johnson finished the deed of installing socialism in the US with the "Great Society". I'm not sure what the third paragraph is supposed to be but it comes across as vaguely racist.
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Cut back on the mayo its rotting your brain. Socialism's "social ownership" means it is ownership by the government which is controlled by its bureaucracy's management and (usually not elected) leaders, not the population ("the workers"). It is closer to oligarchy than to communism. It puts resources just as far beyond the actual grasp of the proletariat as the worst imperialist capitalist system. Socialism was intended as a stepping stone to transition from a stratified, class based society to communism, but neither Stalin or Mao, or any other notional revolutionary was ever going to let go of that position and power once they had wrestled it away from the old system because... human nature. You can't get there from here. And if you could get there, you would find that it would rapidly break down and fall apart (ie: back to totalitarian socialism or worse) because... human nature again. While American laissez-faire capitalism was allowing wealthy whyte men to get wealthier, it was also leaving everyone else alone to try (or fail) to become wealthy too. All the other social inequality issues were from the tangled mess of its history and/or contemporary to the times. Don't drink so much of the red koolaide. Try some of the blue stuff every once and a while.
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Nope. Its how it is/was in reality. Maybe this will help (try to keep your mayo down during this exercise); Imagine if all of America (or whatever nation-state you happen to be in) were owned by one giant corporation called "The State" and you were one of its "employees" and treated as such for everything your entire life. You get to vote on policies and rules etc. but you've only got one vote amongst the many multitudes and if you don't like it , too bad. You have to conform or disciplinary action will be taken against you. Oh and you can't quit either. That is the reality of socialism.
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Communes exist on the small scale, for small communities of people who voluntarily share resources. It doesn't work when it scales up. That is the reason why the Israelis abandoned kibbutzim.
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Ah.... no. No matter how much you wish for it, that is not true. Not true historically and not true philosophically. Last post on this thread to preserve "Egg Boi"s sanity. But please review this again and think about it.
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So... I guess you neither read nor thought about it. Pity.
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Except N. Korea IS democratic. The voters are just given only one candidate to choose from.
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But they tend to be.
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Liberal as in the adjective not the political party. Is "progressive" better for you? I have yet to meet a conservative (adjective or noun) socialist, although these days most people who say they are "consevative" believe pretty liberal (even socialist) things...
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Hans-Joachim Bierwirth You think socialists don't see people as commodities and resources? Racism (us vs. "them") is a facet of human nature not of any particular religion or political philosophy, nice straw man.
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Some Random Name: Socialism is the evolution of liberalism. Correlation is not causation.
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@ ajsimo222; Except that was not the mentality of that time period. There idea of what "benevolent" meant was VERY different from its meaning today. Look at the wording of the charters for the Conquistadors. Or the Muslim Conquest. Or the Mongol Invasion. Or the Roman Empire. Etc. Etc. Nazi Germany, "socialist" or not, was hardly an aberration in human history. There is always some a-hole who is willing to rape, pillage, and plunder in the name of whatever god or philosophy he believes in, esp, if he gets to do lots of the before mentioned rape, pillage, n' plunder.
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Karim Wilmotte "And so, Thyssen, Krup, Siemens... all of them were extreme collectivist..." As long as the Marks kept rolling in and the executives got to keep their wealth and privilege. They were rolled into Nazi Germany's flavor of totalitarian socialistic control over society. Just because Hitler''s addled feral variant didn't line up with Marx's vision (any more than Stalin's or Mao's did) does not mean it did not belong in the same category.
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Human beings have an amazing ability to rationalize almost anything, abhorrent or not. We have and continue to murder millions of unborn children as a matter of routine convenience for example.
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No because you are reading/judging their actions based upon your own morality and sensibilities. Not everyone, actually very few in the 19th century were missionaries. By the 1700s it was all business. Perhaps you are thinking of the the 16th or 17th centuries?
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That is naive. Ponder the other half of the post you just quoted from.
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If by "proletariat" you mean The State, which functions very much like a large corporation complete with hierarchies of power.
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@mario gutierrez "Socialism literally does not want a market, the soviets didnt have a market." Communism does not want/have markets. The Soivets weren't communists. The Soviets did have markets. They had bureaus and factories that competed to provide goods and services to the state.
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The bloody disaster came after Marxism.
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Practically and functionally "Pure Communism" is Oppressive Government because once you leave the small scale of the voluntary commune, tyranny is required to force individuals to act against their own self interests.
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Socialism still has to follow the rules of economic reality when its beyond the walls of academia. A market of one is still a market. Even if there is no profits or companies as we know them in capitalism. You still have factories and design bureaus which compete for State resources.
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What is sad is that he took the time to transcribe what everyone has already heard.
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@sorzin2289 "Portland Police Guard Grocery store dumpster" The reason they do that isn't because they are "heartless evul capitalist-dogs" its because its on their property and they have legal liability if any one those people gets injured or sick and sues (because they will). If you understood how the real world worked you would not have posted this poor example. Just because you are a loser doesn't mean the system is unfair, it just means you are a loser. But go ask anyone who has actually lived thru a socialist system if you want to know what unfair really is.
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@sorzin2289 Wow. Someone has filled your head with lot of simplistic BS. When you buy a bottle of water, you aren't buying the water, you are buying the container and convenience of not having to carry around your own container. Bottling companies do not "buy all the water" that is just stupid nonsense. Along with most of the rest of your ramblings I haven't the time or interest in debunking. Try some critical thinking instead of just believing what ever you read on activist web sites.
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@sorzin2289 Add reading comprehension to your list of things to try.
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@sorzin2289 I don't have to. You invalidated your own argument by not even paying attention to what I wrote.
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