Comments by "Aidan B" (@aidanb58) on "George Orwell's "What is Fascism?"" video.
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@TheImperatorKnight Oh, so you're doing that thing again that I had pointed out, where, like a religious zealot, you claim to know more about a group of people than they themselves know. Brilliant. I think they know what they're calling for, as they are literally calling for it. And argument can be made (and failed) that they won't get it, but it is literally what they're calling for. So yes, they are. What you seem to not have realized is that of all the self-labeled capitalists, or the widely recognized capitalist systems, a hilariously tiny amount of them use your definitions. What you call capitalism isn't what most people call capitalism. What you call socialist isn't what... well, anyone besides you calls socialism. Look, I know you'll brush this off as egotistically as ever by stating you know better than 99% of the world, but maybe consider for half a second why people think that way. And no, blaming "leftist academia" isn't going to get you out of this either, we both know what Eco said about that. The problem with your definition is that what qualifies as a state, as a society, as socialist, is so broad that words must still be made up within your broad categorizations (even if we were to commit the fallacy of using your definitions) which of course means the newspeak you were going for it's invalidated automatically. Because what socialists actually want is different from what you say they want, so they will pick terms that accurately describe their ideology. Same with capitalists. The problem is, a group of people is not a state, buddy. And when you start calling a group of people a state, you're only doing so in an attempted association fallacy, to associate back to the real meaning of what a state even is. Without even getting into your absolute failure to actually use the definitions you yourself point out, which of course you try to substantiate by re-defining other words at the same time, your argument has already fallen into fallacy, and makes no sense.
And again, this is all just your attempt at association fallacy. Because according to you, there is no difference in a community of workers owning a factory, and a totalitarian dictator owning all the land in the country. Because that's what you're going for, after all. When you say socialism is state control, you don't mean by your definition of the state, you mean by the traditional one. However, as this is obviously not the case, you have to create a new definition of the state, which you then only use to relate back to the old definition. If their actions always result in "state control" but that "state" is a collection of three workers, then the association you are trying to draw makes no sense. And of course, you know this. So i'm sorry to say, it does matter what socialists believe and say, especially people like libertarian socialists that tear your whole argument apart. Because, by any sane definition, your association fallacy doesn't work and we can easily recognize that what you call a state, just isn't. I mean hell mate, according to you, anarchism is a statist ideology. The only ideology without a state apparently is solipsism. So you can redefine the terms all you want, but it only proves that you cannot justify your absurd worldview using correct definitions, which of course only proves to any onlookers that this is the best argument they can look forward to from your side. A semantic argument based on the stretching of terms and association fallacy to misrepresent the actual desire of the people professing the ideology, all out of a malicious and egotistical desire to paint everything you don't like as the problem of one system. And of course, you seem willing to go down with the ship there, internal contradictions and all.
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@projectnemesi5950 No, society is not the state. That's the real fringe position mate. Like seriously,how deluded do you need to be to devalue the terms "state," collective," and "socialist," so much that by your definition, any group of more than one person is somehow socialist, and somehow a state. The state often does not represent collective society. I,for example, don't like anything about the current american state, or even it's existence. Am I represented in that collective? Are hundreds of thousands of independent voters represented in a two-party system? It's telling that of this response you posed, only one line is actually dedicated to your "point" (another baseless assertion) and the rest is dedicated to ad hominem attacks, which as well as being generally weak, show a clear amount of projection on your end. But trust me, I do love the implication of "If you don't agree to my redefinitions, you're on the fringe and I just can't talk to you."
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@projectnemesi5950 And yet, your definition is entirely incorrect, and you are attempting to redefine history. The first socialists fought against a system where the economy was wholly controlled by the state, monarchism. Many socialists after that would use their position to decry the power the state had in crushing the workers. Your definition makes Hoppe, a famous capitalist, less socialist than Proudhon, a famous socialist. Socialism, from the first second it was formed, had everything to do with class. Saying class can be removed from socialism is like saying women can be removed from feminism. Socialism IS based on class. Marx, when he was alive, shifted that class analysis to things like the petite bourgeoisie and the middle class that was forming, but he never made up that historical lens, only reused it. Point out to me one famous socialist thinker that was foundational to the idea that said socialism was just when the economy was controlled by the state. Literally just one. Don't assert, prove. The oldest definition of socialism is literally that it's stateless, so according to you, it's the oldest (and thus the most correct) definition, and provides the ground work for those other theories. Your definition, on the other hand, provides the ground work for no socialist theories, which is readily apparent. If you have such an issue with redefining words, why do you continue to do it?
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@projectnemesi5950 Communism is a classless society, mate. The idea of a socialism as a tool to get to communism was Marx's, but the ideas of both socialism and communism predate him by quite a bit. Saying I have it backwards, and then literally repeating the opposite of the truth, is ironic. Let me remind you, again, the first self-labeled socialists like Proudhon didn't even want a state. However, they agreed with statist socialists later, on the point that they wanted the workers in charge of the means of production, not the state. That is, after all, what makes them socialist. The collective is not the same as the state, the two terms are not interchangeable. The collective can be represented by the state, but only if the make-up of that state is actually representative of the views of the population, which means either a direct or representative democracy. The state itself owning the means of production with no input or fair representation from the workers is in no way socialist, again, the monarchists were already doing this. You then assert that there was little concept of economics, which is hilarious, because the idea of markets and trade stretches to the beginning of human civilization,and since then people have been trying to quantify and come up with terms for different systems. Hell, capitalism was already a system by the time self-labeled socialists began to prop up, and mercantilism had been going on for centuries. It's like you think that somehow saying more stupid things will distract from your lack of evidence. As I said last time,give me some quotes from an actual foundational socialist figure that assert that socialism is only the state control of the means of production.
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@projectnemesi5950 Yes, you said it. You have yet to give me a figure who theorized as much, a quote from a prominent, foundational socialist saying as much, or really any citation at all. You've only been saying it over and over, as if that'll suddenly make it true. You'll find no contradictions in my work (unlike yours) because i'm actually telling the truth, and i'm not afraid to give you names and ideological positions to show it. Socialism is not, and never has been, the idea of the state owning the economy. Socialism, from it's birth, has been inextricably linked with class. The roots of socialism, in France (such as with Proudhon, as I keep mentioning) were the roots of a stateless socialism, which is a direct example of you contradicting your own words. I'm begging to think you actually have no idea what you're talking about, and your next sentence only confirms it. Socialism is about class. That's it. Just like feminism, if you take away that defining characteristic (women/class) it's an entirely different thing. Communism as well is not just "classless socialism." It is a post-scarcity stateless, moneyless, classless society in which the means of productions are perfectly distributed. And that's just the short definition. For a person who seems to think "any socialist scholar would agree with this fact" (which sadly isn't a fact) you seem wholly unwilling to actually cite any such figure.
I would agree,there is political bias at work, and TIK is in the center of it.You notice how he never actually rebuts any points in the comments, just complains that people didn't watch the video, and then calls them postmodernists and marxists? Or that part where he literally defined socialism as anything other than a perfect individual, so that any system that does have a state, or even an organization, is socialist? Did you know he called private companies socialist inventions, called the act of society itself socialist, but then said that socialism doesn't work and the nordic model isn't socialist, despite how that contradicts his previous points? That's mental gymnastics. Because by TIK's (and a to a lesser extent your) definition, all of human history is socialist. That'show much you have to devalue the word to even consider the nazis socialist. It's telling that you're holidng up TIK as proof of a man somehow moving past the bias, when this whole thing was born out of his own extreme bias. So yes, i'm sorry to say, but nazi ideology, fascist ideology, and traditionalist/social darwinist ideology is not socialist. And so far, your redefinition of socialist and inability to cite said socialists is only cementing that point.
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@projectnemesi5950 Again, I have to remind you, your assertions do not count as facts. Three times now i've asked for any sort of citation for you, even as minor as giving me a name, or a political movement, that might disprove the objective truths i've given to you. And, oddly enough, i've seen nothing from you. I wonder why that is...? I'm sorry, but just calling these objectively true facts "fringe" over and over, is nothing but your own opinionated ad hominem attack. I did give you evidence to the contrary, the existence of a political movement, and even a specific figure within it, that were socialists and yet advocated for the direct opposite of what you claim socialism is. That's not fringe at all, that's called history. Yes, societal collective ownership is not the state, and i'm afraid it's on you currently to actually prove me wrong, and not just complain over and over that you don't agree with me. This is not my opinion, it's the modern day etymological understanding of these words, and if you have any non-biased sources that prove otherwise, that prove themselves to be mainstream and undisputed... well, hand them over. For a person who brings up "scholarly work" a lot you seem to be unwilling to actually cite any. And I think I can guess why. Because you know that any definition such as the one you're proposing is so stretched, that no rational person would use it. When your definition encompasses nearly ever facet of life and 99% of all economic systems and policies in human history... your definition just doesn't work.
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@projectnemesi5950 The politics of collective society is not the state, i'm sorry to say. That's why, in many cases, the people are not represented by the current political atmosphere or the state, which is a point i've already made, that you've entirely deflected from. Your definition is in no way standard, and you have not even begun to prove otherwise. Society is not synonymous with community, as I can exist in the same society as someone, but in none of their communities, physical or ideological. The correct spelling is "You're" and i'm doing what's called "not putting up with your ideological nonsense." By the way, still waiting on that citation. For a person who supposedly wouldn't be able to converse with the "fringe" if they didn't put up with your nonsense, you seem to still be doing a lot of posting.
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@destubae3271
But that is the case, like it or not.
You're trying to redefine the whole of socialist theory as a "Strictly marxist practice," while ignoring that these ideas were advocated for long before marx, after marx, and in opposition to him.
And how are any of those examples a contradiction? Do you not understand the difference between a regime that attempts to create a nation or praise their own, and a regime that believes in inherent national superiority that is foundational to the ideology in question? You don't appear to know the basics.
Even if one decides to ignore all history and declare that all to be true, which is most certainly isn't, none of that has to do with socialism. Nationalistic expansionism and class collaborationism aren't socialism, and in fact, are held as key values by anti-socialists. The nazi state threw millions of germans into horrible conditions, prisons, and even death camps. The term "socialized" is not at all used correctly in your assertion there, and the term "race class" is a nonsense oxymoron. All you're doing is describing the typical right wing, hyper-nationalistic authoritarian nation, and this is somehow supposed to relate back to socialism? Since when were socialists traditionalists? You can't be this dumb.
Critical theory isn't a "socialist ideology," and isn't about "gender and victimhood." Funny, I see a hell of a lot of neo-nazis repeating the same thing.
Well hey, at least you admit it, your responses are just straight up denial.
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@destubae3271
Oh, boy. Ok, a few things you clearly need to learn about marx and the section you quoted. For one, the man did not differentiate between communism and socialism as ideological practices, beyond explaining them as different terms used by different group for the same core ideology. What, then, do you think he's describing here? Well, if you actually bothered to learn about Marx, what he's describing here is the transition from capitalism to socialism, a brief period of proletarian-state control which itself would fade into a less statist socialism. What's also worth mentioning is that he later took back this section, and noted that the transition between capitalism and socialism would be conducted far better in a more decentralized, less statist method.
See here -
"However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Association, 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated."
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@TheImperatorKnight In case you cannot see my responses, youtube has taken to deleting them. I posted it hours ago, assuming it stuck, and came back only to find it had vanished. I tried to post a screenshot of them, through the sites of flikr and imgur, but it seems, as least from my end, that youtube is deleting those as well. If not, and it has worked - sorry for the spam. If it has not worked, and you wish to see them, go to imgur, then /a/G2L9pEh, or Flikr/p/2jpA2zx. In any case, it's just wonderful to see how youtube as a massive corporation is working out. Wouldn't it be amazing if they didn't have the profit incentive to censor people so their site would look squeaky clean for investors and potential advertisers? Hm. What a world that would be, eh?
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