Comments by "Harry Stoddard" (@HarryS77) on "HasanAbi"
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@floopsiemcsoops6008 Framing is sort of irrelevant. What needs to be changed is the way people think. Changing a word won't do that, and most people aren't so stupid as to not notice the bait-and-switch. If you've talk to normal people about how work is organized, you'll find that many have deep-seated suspicions about "workplace democracy" and even their fellow workers (not unexpected in a heavily surveilled, restricted, and competitive society), that work can be productively carried out absent a managerial hierarchy, and that people will want to work without coercion. Opposition to socialism isn't built on a word which people associate with vague, negative connotations; it's built on a deep distrust of people and a faith in hierarchy.
Malatesta recognized the hollowness of the PR approach to the label anarchism:
"Nor is the phenomenon without parallel in the history of words. In times and in countries where the people believed in the need for government by one man (monarchy), the word republic, which is government by many, was in fact used in the sense of disorder and confusion — and this meaning is still to be found in the popular language of almost all countries.
"Change opinion, convince the public that government is not only unnecessary, but extremely harmful, and then the word anarchy, just because it means absence of government, will come to mean for everybody: natural order, unity of human needs and the interests of all, complete freedom within complete solidarity.
"Those who say therefore that the anarchists have badly chosen their name because it is wrongly interpreted by the masses and lends itself to wrong interpretations, are mistaken. The error does not come from the word but from the thing; and the difficulties anarchists face in their propaganda do not depend on the name they have taken, but on the fact that their concept clashes with all the public’s long established prejudices on the function of government, or the State as it is also called."
David Graeber also points out that even today, there's a prevailing distrust of democracy as something fragile, not to be trusted to certain groups, or liable to lapse into ochlocracy.
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@floopsiemcsoops6008 You can go ahead with "packaging" and branding and selling socialism, like it's another commodity. Good luck with that liberal wordgame.
You've had no substantive response to any criticism I've had except to reiterate that the left doesn't understand branding. For instance, if the problem is that "socialism" is a tainted word (despite a resurgence of popularity and interest), what prevents conservatives from associating whatever new term you introduce with socialism, and the next term, and the next? Look at how conservatives regard "postmodernism," "critical race theory," "nationalized medicine," "welfare,"and so on, some of which have only a marginal if any relation to socialism. You can't nullify the effects of ideology by changing a label—for reasons that I explained at length and to which you gave no reply.
The fact that you think socialism being conflated with communism is a problem (when the two had long been synonymous and are treated that way today among many socialists) speaks volumes, as does your fixation on appealing to a minority of reactionaries rather than unorganized people who could have more radical politics given enough exposure and conditions, not a mere name change.
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