Comments by "BlackFlagsNRoses" (@blackflagsnroses6013) on "Secular Talk"
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:
“I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” – Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952.
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…” – Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” – Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” – Speech to SCLC Board, March 30, 1967.
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.
“[W]e are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism…. There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.
“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” – Speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ in support of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on March 18th, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated.
Civil Rights and racial issues they can accept. But come after the Capitalist establishment and ruling class you’ll be an enemy of the State. Dr. King may have been more a Democratic Socialist than a Social Democrat. Either way he knew the truth and fought for the classes and masses, not just his downtrodden people. He was a true patriot and American.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:
“I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” – Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952.
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…” – Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” – Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” – Speech to SCLC Board, March 30, 1967.
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.
“[W]e are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism…. There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.
“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” – Speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ in support of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on March 18th, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated.
Nothing has changed. We let it happen.
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I leave these quotes every MLK Day to remember what he truly stood for.
“ I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic
in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” – Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952.
“In a sense, you could say we’re involved in the class struggle.” – Quote to New York Times reporter, José Igelsias, 1968.
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…” – Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
“Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.” – Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” – Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” – Speech to SCLC Board, March 30, 1967.
“I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective – the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed matter: the guaranteed income… The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” – Where do We Go from Here?, 1967.
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.
“[W]e are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism…. There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.
“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” – Speech at Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ in support of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on March 18th, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated.
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@edwuncleriii1922 no actually MLK was Democratic Socialist. And Malcolm X was a black nationalist turned socialist.
Shortly before his death Malcolm said plainly that his struggle was not “a racial conflict of black against white, or... a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter”.
“I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing... but I don’t think it will be based upon the colour of the skin, as Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad had taught it.”
Anyone who uses Malcolm X as authority for narrow black nationalist politics is being disloyal.
In his last year Malcolm became willing to work with the (liberal-led) mass civil rights movement.
He called for a struggle of both black and white people, not black people alone. “When the day comes when the whites who are really fed-up — I don’t mean these jive whites who pose as liberals... — learn how to establish the proper type of communication with those uptown [in Harlem] who are fed-up, and they get some co-ordinated action going, you’ll get some changes... And it will take both.”
He dumped the Black Muslims’ vague talk of a “black state”: “No. I believe in a society in which people can live like human beings on the basis of equality.” Immediately after quitting the Black Muslims, he summed up his philosophy as “black nationalism” — but by January 1965 he had rejected that: “I haven’t been using the expression for several months.”
He dropped the Black Muslims’ line of promoting black capitalism, in a way which Breitman shows must have been deliberate and considered — though he never openly argued against it, and never came out clearly with an alternative.
He denounced capitalism: “You can’t have capitalism without racism... You can’t operate a capitalistic system unless you are vulturistic; you have to have someone else’s blood to suck to be a capitalist...” He told Breitman’s comrade Harry Ring that he “felt it necessary for his people to consider socialist solutions to their problem. But as the leader of the movement, he said, it was necessary to present this concept in a way that would be understandable to his people and would not isolate him from them”.
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@derek9783 In Luke 12:33, Jesus commands his disciples to sell what they have and give alms, and in Luke 14:33 says that no one can be his disciple who has not forsaken all his possessions. Historians generally confirm the view that a form of communism was taught by Jesus and practised by the apostles.
"All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ... Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need."
— Acts 2:44–45, Acts 4:32–35
While I don’t think Christianity and Communism or general Socialism can truly be comparisons as one is materialist and secular, the other spiritual and religious (faithful), they may share some communal or communitarian values. Look up figures like Dorathy Day or Leo Tolstoy among others. Regardless the New Testament shows that the earliest Christian sects, direct disciples of Jesus and their followers organized proto-communistic societies based in common ownership. Usury and interest were long seen as sinful by many religions, including Jesus and his followers. Christianity and other faiths have a long history of opposing such capitalist institutions, and many other material interests. That said you can’t say socialism/communism are 100% supplementary but they can be complementary and often people may find socialist values in their religious doctrine. However they wouldn’t be as secular and materialist as the political doctrines of socialism and communism originate from.
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Ironically Goldwater was the last genuine conservative intellectual and warned of what the Republican Party is today.
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
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Erik Merrill The American economy was built on slavery and a nationalist philosophy opposed to free trade. Hamiltonian economics is the bedrock of the American economic growth. The tenets of protectionism, government subsidies towards infrastructure, and incentivizing advancements in tech and science. Henry Clay proudly distinguished it as the American System, in opposition to British free trade doctrine of Adam Smith. These same economic policies were found to be involved in the economic growth of South Korea and Japan. The American School of Economics was the economic policy of nationalists from the Federalists, to the Whigs, to the early Republicans. Free trade prosperity is a myth, and governments always protected economic interests.
Since the time of Thomas Hodgskin, when capitalism, at the time defined as a construed political system built on privileges for the owners of capital; capitalism has been criticized as an exploitative socioeconomic system. Exploitation of labor by capital. Liberals like David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill supported the labor theory of value, and industrial democracy of worker’s cooperatives in a free society, over the classism of industrial capitalism. What is capitalism if not the rule, or dominance, of capital. Hence why industrial capitalism was pushed back in the time of farmers and artisans who owned their labor, and tried to halt the expansion of wage slavery.
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.
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djangogeek It‘s not Communist because supposedly though their goal is to reach a Communist society they aren’t there yet.
China is Marxist-Leninist and Maoist. Doctrinally they believe in order to achieve the association of producers, they must first protect the revolution by centralized Statist means. Therefore the Leninist government.
So much like the USSR Communist China functions as a State Capitalist enterprise. The State is the premier capitalist, but there are private enterprises as well. China, if they are still about Communism, believes it’s in a transitional stage of Socialism where the Party Bureaucracy rules and represents the working class. That’s debatable of course.
So Communist China started as another Marxist-Leninist Revolution. This means they have State Capitalism, as Lenin called it, as a state of affairs but they also incorporated what they call social market enterprise, a mixture of State and private owned enterprise, though of course the Party is the ultimate authority.
China is not Communist because well they haven’t achieved the free association of producers in a stateless, classless, moneyless society. China is State Capitalist and does anti-socialist things like participate in global capitalism, exploit labor, and of course their market practices have hollowed out the American middle class and strengthened theirs. Growing a middle class is not adhering to socialist class struggle and classless society.
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Big Hatter I didn’t make your case for anything. Capitalism is an oligarchic system that functions as a market economy.
In right-"libertarian" and "anarcho"-capitalist ideology, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, "the libertarian defines the concept of 'freedom' or 'liberty'. . .[as a] condition in which a person's ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand."
This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another's property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual's only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-"libertarians" themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. Yet this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether capitalists are actually interested in freedom at all.
The Capitalists class supported the undemocratic Fascists in Europe, and American government supports dictators so long as they are opened to markets. As they did with Pinochet. The Anarchists and Socialists in Spain fought in alliance with the liberal Republicans against Fascist Franco. The Capitalists supported Franco, they supported Nazis who’s economic policy coined the word “privatization” to describe it, and they supported Mussolini. Capitalism is for the bourgeois ruling class and while they were classical liberals they held the idea of liberal Republics in mind as a society that would be ruled by the Capitalist owning class free from the old aristocratic rule of nobility. It was one step towards freedom but the struggle continues.
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real progressive how about Market Socialism. Where workers own the firms and the worker’s associations commercialize within a market system. See capitalism isn’t trading, its private property owners accumulating capital off the backs of a working underclass of wage earners. Liberal capitalism involves a market economy, yet Fascist corporate capitalism involved corporate orders of private capitalists. Quit talking like you know anything.
"And, inasmuch [as] most good things are produced by labour, it follows that [all] such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume I, "Fragments of a Tariff Discussion" (December 1, 1847)
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G. H It differs. The Social Democrats and progressives seem content with a government large enough to maintain social safety nets, competition of small businesses, and providing more equal opportunity measures. They’re pretty good on civic rights unless they let SJWs come in with authoritarian measures.
The conservatives are content with having a government large enough to arm a military for special interests and perpetual conflict, and interfering in the personal lives and civic rights of minorities, as well as nationalistic tendencies, so much for individualism. Mean while little interference upon private power of corporations and concentrated wealth and influence to do as they please.
See the problem that both share is Capitalism that leads to Corporatism. Corruption and Oligarchy. Social Liberalism is the result of the disparities and social ills the Capitalist economy makes. Conservatism clings to little interference upon the Capitalist economy thinking it is the best for freedom, but want people or society to behave in their own “moral” principles which ultimately seems phony.
If I’d pick one that would actually provide opportunities for individuals to live well enough in a Capitalist economy it would be the progressives and Social Democrats as the Nordic model provides more social mobility and fairer competition. Conservatives are only concerned for concentrated wealth, power, prestige, and social traditions. Capitalism only works with the State, interference, keeping property rights, maintaining monopolies in check etc... You want freedom look beyond a system of classes and concentration of wealth.
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Andres Rojas they force capitalism on sovereign nations to maintain hegemony and markets. The West forces capitalist markets on underdeveloped countries where labor is bought for cents an hour. Please STFU you don’t know what you’re talking about. Plutocracy did a hell of job convincing useful idiots that it is freedom. Real freedom isn’t capitalism or state socialism, it’s libertarian socialism (Anarchism) or liberal socialism if you insist on a minimal state. It is Market Socialism and decentralized planning. The rule of wealth, labor exploitation, and social stratification is exactly the kind of crap system that hinders freedom and liberty. Keep cheering for American imperialism while you can, but feel free to to wear a uniform, arm yourself, and go get that oil yourself if you value intervention. The future is anti-Statist. Go ask survivors of Pinochet’s Chile, or Iranians who lost their democratically elected leader for an American/UK puppet dictator, what they thought about western capitalist markets being forced on them as inequality and poverty grew for the wealth of a few. Who defends Venezuela? No one fuck the State, my support is with the people. Maduro is a half assed leader, in a country relying on one nationalized commodity and over 70% privatized industry. But their sovereignty doesn’t involve having foreign powers intervening in their politics.
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Barry Goldwater, probably the last prominent genuine conservative, agreed.
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
--Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
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This is erroneous and misinformed. Marxism as it stands is a politics theory and social critique of capitalist society based in a material dialectic theory of history. Socialists, not just Marx, were a profound influence and innovators of what today is called sociology. Social science as it was known then was the scientific method given to social relations, institutions, and systems. The critique of political economy under capitalism was hence called socialism. These social scientists influenced the social sciences (sociology, economics, anthropology, psychology etc…)
What you refer to as race Marxism doesn’t exist, as what you are referring to is a theory of Sociology inspired by Marxist dialectic called Conflict Theory. In which society is analyzed as a relation of perpetual conflict among groups and their interests. This was inspired by Marx’s observance of class conflict in every era of human development. However post-colonialism the Conflict Theorists recognized class aren’t the only groups in conflict. They saw that in the post-colonial world, and it’s social construct of race, racial groups were in conflict with each other. They focus on this niche of social relations and study it to better understand one of the aspects of modern society ie racial relations.
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Swae Ocean Libertarian (Anarchist) Socialist is exactly what I am. Socialism is a socioeconomic system not a form of government idiot. The Anarcho-Syndicalists of Catalonia developed such a Socialist economy. A completely decentralized organization of Unions. Your dumbass is indoctrinated by a system you were born into without questions.
Funny that figures like Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Dr. King, etc... were Socialists. Cause these were educated figures who thought for themselves. If only you knew. The Libertarian Left of Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists are the legacy of Classical Liberals. Those who fought to dismantle structures of concentrated power, wealth, and prestige. The Founders of the USA might have been Socialists and Anarchists had they lived to see post-Industrial Capitalism and mega-Corporations. Indeed they left behind a government begrudgingly, as they viewed it as a necessary evil. If only they knew social organization was possible without government or hierarchies. If only they had lived to see the works of the Libertarians of the far left wing. Anyone who isn’t interested in decentralizing and dismantling of all forms of concentrated power has failed the ideals of Liberalism, of which Libertarianism (Anarchism, Socialism, Communism) followed. Not the Chicago School laissez faire “Libertarians” of the right. Capitalism is exploitation of workers and oppression. Ask third world workers. It is a system of masters and servants. Fuck that shit. The Paris Commune, Catalonia, Ukraine and others proved free societies are possible. Keep licking your bourgeois master’s boots. Knowledge is power, which you don’t have. Now go and keep supporting the status quo of Capitalists and Government maintaining wealth and power and undermining your “Republic.” Kneeling idiot.
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It’s time we all moved on towards post-Capitalist Socialism. And no Socialism isn’t the government getting involved. It’s the working class taking over the factors of production, withering away the class system, and moving on from wage labor. So many rich Socialist models to implement. From markets to worker planned economies. It’s time we live up to the ideals of Classical Liberalism and liberty, equality, and solidarity.
"It is not needed, nor fitting here (message to Congress in re the civil war) that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” —Lincoln
“It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.” — Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln, like any good Classical Liberal knew wage labor was just as bad as slavery, sans the racial discrimination and cruelty. He believed wage labor was only better than chattel slavery because the condition wasn’t permanent. Yet the post-industrial world and multinational Corporative era shows that wage labor is perpetually undermining freedom.
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ES 2020 you’re right. Actual real conservative intellectuals like Norman Orstein are no where to be seen. Conservative political scientist Orstein has said: "the Republican Party today is a 'radical insurgency that doesn’t care about fact, doesn’t care about argument, doesn’t want to participate in politics, and is simply off the spectrum.'"
And even though in his time maintaining segregation was a conservative issue so he opposed Civil Rights legislation under legitimate State Rights concerns, and by our standards was a Ayn Randian character, Barry Goldwater was a prominent American conservative ideologue. He had this to say:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”
― Barry Goldwater (5 time Republican senator from Arizona; candidate for president in 1964) quoted in a Washington Post interview, 1994.
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@jaysonfalsonusa2892 Dude you're just a dumbass and proved yourself to be an idiot. You moron Hitler hated Marxists and Socialists. DO you think North Korea is a People's Republic cause they named it that? Nazis persecuted socialists and communists. Socialism is left wing, State control, Totalitarianism, and Fascism are right wing. You have no clue what the fuck you're talking about cause like all other idiots you think what Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez, and Castro all did is socialism or even communism. By definition they are not. Those left wing ideas are about social ownership of the means of production, democratic decision making, assemblies, workers collectives, abolishing private property and the State. None of those totalitarian states and command economies are real socialism, it's why they are rejected by those circles and intellectuals. The education you received must be so right wing biased you think Bernie Sanders, a politician who is considered moderate center-left by European standards is a communist. He's more a social democrat and guess what shit for brains? They still have free market. People like you think Clinton was far left lol! Venezuela still had capitalism moron. The only things "socialized," but really nationalized were the oil industry which they relied to heavily on. They still had capitalists and private industry. They're failure was allowing Chavez to undermine their constitution eliminating the democratic polity, relying too much on their oil for the economy, and the nations that put sanctions on them for nationalizing their oil making it hurt America's and others interests. The same happened with Iran's oil when they elected their president and since America couldn't have that they created a coup to replace the elected leader for an American sympathetic puppet, after which the Iranians rebelled and placed a theocratic government ever since. Nationalization and socialization aren't the same. Nationalization means putting something under public control and administered by the government, by basically co opting monopolies. Socialization is something more left wing than that. The idea is founded on putting the workers directly in charge of the companies they own. Imagine if Wal-Mart was owned and run by its employees. That's socialization. Socialization combines employee ownership, wealth and production seizure, workplace democracy, company wide workers councils, and public ownership all in one without necessarily putting it under the control of President Trump like NASA and the EPA. Get information from actual reliable sources and not right wing biased commentators and sources.
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Machine Algorithm Alpha When arguing that modern-day fascists should be met with physical force, the response is often something along the lines of ‘who gets to decide who’s a fascist?’, pulling out a line from Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language’:
The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”.
The implication being that anti-fascists just call anyone they don’t like ‘fascists’ and, by extension, that the people being called ‘fascists’ are actually ‘patriots’ who believe in ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ who don’t deserve physical opposition.
Conveniently, these people don’t mention the next sentence which reads: “The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another” and that “Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.” The point, part of a section titled ‘Meaningless Words’, is that political buzzwords are used to conceal real meanings.
One example Orwell gives: “Marshal Pétain was a true patriot”. Marshal Pétain was a Nazi collaborator who led German-occupied France during World War Two. Orwell’s point is therefore as much that fascists like to conceal themselves behind words like ‘patriot’ as it is that the word ‘fascist’ is sometimes misused.
Interestingly, while these types like to pull out the ‘fascism has no meaning’ quote, they rarely mention the following one from chapter five of Homage to Catalonia:
When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist — after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct
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Sheepy2055 There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction - to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power - that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. — Adolf Hitler
"Granted that the 19th century was the century of marxism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of marxism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the Right, a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State." — Benito Mussolini
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Ecléctico Iconoclasta I was talking about Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalist Catalonia, not the modern independence movement.
Socialism has always at the core been about worker’s ownership of the means of production. Then the Marxist strain introduced more Statist approach.
The Anarchists (Libertarians) have always been the Stateless strain of Socialism.
Proudhon indeed called himself Socialist, and created the Market Socialism of Mutualism. When saying he was against Communism he was against Statism as it was coming to be known. And I suppose he would disagree with the common ownership of production itself as well.
Social Anarchists would develop collectivist, Communist, and Syndicalist movements.
Marxists would develop Democratic Socialism, Marxist-Leninism and various other Statist Socialisms.
I already said I’m agreeable to Anarcho-Communism which does have it’s differences from Marxist Communism. Such as abolition of the State instead of transitional period. But Anarchism would be free associations of many autonomous communities be they Communist, Mutualist, Collectivist, Individualist etc... All without a transitionary State period, which was what Anarchists had against Marxism as seen when they broke off from the Worker’s International.
There is also Libertarian Marxism such as direct worker’s councils, developed by a more anti-Statist strain of Marxists.
Socialism existed before Marx and Engels, and it continues to exist in many schools of Statist or Libertarian forms.
Those democratic socialists parties you describe aren’t Socialists. Socialism is not compatible with Capitalism. Nearly all Socialists agree that private property, as in private ownership of the means of production, must be abolished. But all Socialists have respect for personal possessions/property. The few Socialists that would allow some private ownership of the means of production would only do so as long as the private owners recompense the community in some way. Just to be clear private property and personal property are two distinct things for Socialists. It’s private ownership of the means we are all pretty much against.
Social Democrats aren’t Socialists, they do not wish to go beyond Capitalism. True Democratic-Socialists such as some in the DSA, maintain their Marxist roots and wish to end Capitalism for Socialism. They express that Capitalism is not compatible with Democracy. They would use the Democratic process to take the government and through reforms transition towards Socialism, and yes eventually Communism is the end goal for Marxists. If you’re not post-Capitalist you aren’t Socialist. You can be for Markets or not, but if you do not want to be rid of Capitalism (wage labor, private ownership, commodity production) you aren’t Socialist. Just State Capitalist.
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@Pat Orsban If your resentment is directed downward against the “underclass” and recipients of welfare-for-the-poor, it’s most definitely misdirected.
First, let’s look at the little picture, and consider the net effects of state policy on the actual recipients of welfare. Consider how state policies on behalf of land owners and real estate investors, like the enforcement of absentee title to vacant and unimproved land, drives up rents and closes off access to cheap living space. Consider how licensing schemes and “anti-jitney” laws, zoning laws against operating businesses out of one’s home or out of pushcarts, and regulations that impose needless capital outlays and entry barriers or overhead costs, close off opportunities for self-employment. And consider how zoning restrictions on mixed-use development and other government promotions of sprawl and the car culture increase the basic cost of subsistence. You think the money spent on welfare for the poor equals that drain on the resources of the underclass?
Next, look at the big picture. Consider the total rents extracted from society as a whole by the dominant economic classes: The inflation of land rent and mortgages by the above-mentioned absentee titles to unimproved land; the usurious interest rates resulting from legal tender laws and restraints on competition in the supply of credit; the enormous markups over actual production cost that result from copyrights, patents and trademarks; the oligopoly markup (once estimated by the Nader Group at around 20% of retail price in industries dominated by a handful of firms) in industries cartelized by government regulations and entry barriers …
Now consider, out of this vast ocean of rents extracted by state-connected parasites, the miniscule fraction that trickles back to the most destitute of the destitute, in the form of welfare and food stamps, in just barely large enough quantities to prevent homelessness and starvation from reaching high enough levels to destabilize the political system and threaten the ruling classes’ ability to extract rents from all of us. The state-allied landlords, capitalists and rentiers rob us all with a front-end loader, and then the state — THEIR state — uses a teaspoon to relieve those hardest hit.
Every time in history the state has provided a dole to the poorest of the poor — the distribution of free grain and oil to the proletariat of Rome, the Poor Laws in England, AFDC and TANF since the 1960s — it has occurred against a background of large-scale robbery of the poor by the rich. The Roman proletariat received a dole to prevent bloody revolt after the common lands of the Republic had been engrossed by the nobility and turned into slave-farms. The Poor Laws of England were passed after the landed classes enclosed much of the Open Fields for sheep pasture. The urban American blacks who received AFDC in the 1960s were southern sharecroppers, or their children, who had been tractored off their land (or land that should have been theirs, if they had received the land that was rightfully theirs after Emancipation) after WWII.
The state — which is largely controlled by and mainly serves the interest of the propertied classes — only steps in to provide welfare to the poor when it’s necessary to prevent social destabilization. When it does so, it usually provides the bare minimum necessary. And in the process, it uses the power conferred by distributing the public assistance to enforce a maximum in social discipline on the recipients (as anyone who’s dealt with the humiliation of a human services office, or a visit from a case-worker, can testify).
So don’t resent the folks who get welfare and food stamps. Your real enemies — the ones the state really serves — are above, not below.
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MarshallJukov Lenin coined State Capitalism to describe the Soviet economy. And it’s as bad as private liberal capitalism. You just replace private owners with the State. Instead of emancipation of the workers, you replace the boss. Look at China with their shitty wages and worker’s committing suicide in sweatshops. If State Capitalism were so great why was Glasnost and Perestroika allowed to happen? I though the Marxist-Leninists got rid of capitalist influences? Nope just made it State controlled. I mean under Marxist-Leninists the nation was still involved in the global economy and traded with capitalist nations. Stalin made an alliance with the Nazis even. Here’s what Marx himself had to say:
“You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries—such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland—where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must someday appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.”
At the time of the Anti-Socialist Laws beginning to be drafted but not yet published in 1878, Marx spoke of the possibilities of legislative reforms by an elected government composed of working-class legislative members, but also of the willingness to use force should force be used against the working class:
“If in England, for instance, or the United States, the working class were to gain a majority in Parliament or Congress, they could, by lawful means, rid themselves of such laws and institutions as impeded their development, though they could only do insofar as society had reached a sufficiently mature development. However, the "peaceful" movement might be transformed into a "forcible" one by resistance on the part of those interested in restoring the former state of affairs; if (as in the American Civil War and French Revolution) they are put down by force, it is as rebels against "lawful" force.”
And he called the Democratic Socialist Paris Commune “The form achieved” as in the prime example of a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Well look at that Marx supported Democratic Socialism in liberal democracies and republics.
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@destinal_in_reality a republic is just a form of rule that is anti-monarchist, a single ruler. Democracy went from having negative connotations of mob rule to meaning generally representative democracy. In America Republicanism has always been synonymous with representative democracy, and mostly is what people refer to when they simply say democracy these days. The “minority” framers of the Constitution like James Madison referred to was property owners. They feared the redistribution of wealth. In many ways the Federalists, which would be the forerunner of Whigs, Lincoln Republicans, and Modern Democrats; were a counterrevolutionary group that sought to contain the fervor of democracy, and institute a Republic with lesser democracy and greater checks on the political power of the people. The anti-Federalists like Jefferson were the left wing of their time and opposed to the right wing centralists of the Federalists. Jefferson was a radical liberal ideologue and had a greater faith in the common man to govern themselves. Second only to Thomas Paine, the figure synonymous with liberal Republicanism in his age. It was his description of a radical liberal democratic republic that sparked the flames of revolution. Paine was a dissident of what became of the American Republic, and was shunned by the other founders for being too “radical”. No question because Paine had a socioeconomic analysis to freedom and called for egalitarian land distribution, social welfare programs, and a UBI. Modern Republicans have become apologia for the corporate hegemony, and only share social conservatism with their Democratic predecessors. They’ve fully embraced ideals of unfettered capitalism. An oligarchy of business elites. Both parties have embraced aspects of the Federalists, ensuring a full Hamiltonian America.
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Abbadon380 compare a Statist country like all capitalist countries to the Anarcho-Syndicalists of Catalonia who had abolished the government and lived in the most libertarian society in modern history.
Socialism has many schools. From authoritarian Marxist-Leninist, which is what you really hate, to Anarchism and Democratic Socialism.
Socialism has roots in liberalism, such as advocated by the ideas of figures like Thomas Hodgskin, John Stuart Mill, Rousseau, David Ricardo etc... The biggest lie they sell you fools is that there haven’t been decentralized Socialism, or that Capitalism is synonymous with Market Economy. Market socialists prove that not all socialism is against a market economy. All socialists are anti-capitalism, not anti-markets. According to free market socialists capitalism is a distortion of free market economy, as the majority of society is regulated to an underclass of laborers being exploited by the capitalist proprietor class. What happened to fair trade and the laborer being in control of their produce?
Thinking all Socialism is Statist Marxist-Leninism ignores it’s history as the emancipation of the working class, and is hypocritical. What if people dismissed liberal capitalism because of corporate capitalism of Fascist States, or capitalist dictators like Pinochet? Quit bending over for the rule of capital, spewing outdated Cold War scare propaganda.
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whyamimrpink78 Norman Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute, a right wing think tank, is the political commentator and analyst in question.
You are showing your political illiteracy for miles. First there is nothing moderate about modern Republicans. The Democrats of today used to be called moderate Republicans, even Obama confessed that is what he is. They’re neoliberals, as in the economic agenda of conservatives like Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. A liberal economics ideology influenced by Milton Friedman of the Chicago School of Economics.
The Democratic establishment is center-right Third Way neoliberalism, the Republicans are more social conservative, and even more right wing laissez faire (and Corporatist like Democrats).
One clear example of Republicans being political hacks with no intent of participating in political discourse and ideological consistency is their behavior towards Obamacare.
The Affordable Care Act was originally a program founded by the right wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, which is Mitt Romney’s. It was his policy of enforcing private insurance. Yet when the self proclaimed “moderate Republican” Obama implemented the same rebranded ACA/Obamacare, which coincides with his center-right ideology, the Republicans turned on that conservative policy and smeared it as “Socialism” and “Communist.” Explain that political hackery.
The so called “progressives” and “far left extremists” in the US are fairly left of center. They are Social Liberals/Social Democrats. While Social Liberalism took root in the rest of the developed world, soon after the New Deal in America it was subsequently abandoned for Corporatism and neoliberalism. These Social Liberals are very much the moderate in the rest of the developed world, where even conservative factions would be hard pressed to reject to an extent such programs as single payer healthcare, subsidized college, progressive tax reforms etc...
The moderate positions of Americans are overwhelmingly for such “progressive” policies as it’s right at the center of what majority of Americans support. The fact that you honestly believe Social Liberalism is far left is showing of your ignorance, and uneducated political hackery.
As an actual “far lefty” I laugh at your uneducated drivel, and recommend you read more or take political science courses in any form. You have exposed yourself as ignorant of politics.
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@Xpistos510 socialism is the end of political government, for industrial administration, and autonomy of people. The reason I don’t support welfare capitalism, or social democracy is simple, it is state corporatism in it’s sincerest sense. Mussolini said it himself: “"Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud."
Now sure modern liberalism is better than unfettered capitalism, but it is only a band aid based on the state and the scraps of the capitalists, and not on the people, the working class, the social revolution.
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@therussiantrollnetwork7464 that’s Jewish religion. There are also ethnic Jews. Judaism is a culture, religion, and ethnicity. Race itself is a bullshit social construct. There are literally three races White, Black, Asian. And the basis of them are pseudoscience from the imperial ages. Anyway the point is moot. Nazi ideology was based in eugenics and racism. Hitler claimed the Jews were the most mixed ethnicity, therefore devoid of culture, roots, and nationality. Hence we say it was anti-semitism or racism. Honestly the whole concept of race should be contextualized and thrown to the trash bin. It’s not a good categorization of the human species. Ethnography is an actual scientific classification of species. Regardless people need to stop acting like Goldberg had anything intelligent to say, or gave any good analysis. Within context the Nazis were racist, cause they believed in racist pseudoscience and based their political ideology on the very concept of race (roots). Therefore in context the Nazis believed Jews had no race, and were a threat to pure bloodlines and eugenics.
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Sheepy2055 In a right-libertarian or "anarcho"-capitalist society, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, "the libertarian defines the concept of 'freedom' or 'liberty'. . .[as a] condition in which a person's ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand."
This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another's property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual's only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-libertarians themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. However, this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether "anarcho"-capitalists or right “libertarians” are actually interested in freedom.
And Anarchist societies aren’t mob rules. There is no archaic beliefs in race, sex, ethnicities etc... No minorities to discriminate against. It’s a society of workers solidarity. A free society of free individuals.
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Eric Jorgensen no it was the result of the new ruling class asserting their liberty. After ending the rule of Aristocrats and noble blood, the bourgeois became the ruling class. Were they interested in Liberalism and Republicanism, yes! Did they also have liberal economics and their wealth and property in mind also, yes! And so Capitalism became the economic model by which the bourgeois capitalists became the new social elite.
If I were a classical liberal back then I’d be a capitalist too. But this mode of production and economy soon after would become another system of classification, disparities, and inequalities. Hence the social critics and socialists put this system under critical lens and developed alternatives.
Take the French Revolution. A liberal revolution in which a Republic was eventually formed and capitalism took root. Yet somewhere in that long road towards freedom the worker’s took control of Paris and developed a different society for the worker’s whereby they are not under the boots of capitalist masters. This was the Paris Commune. Inhabited by Anarchists and Marxists (all Socialists) they started the organization of a new society based on worker’s ownership of the means of production and Democratized industry, workers councils, self-management, delegates subject to recall etc... for once the common man in control of their lives and destinies. Of course Paris was soon taken back by the monarchy but the impact was not insignificant. And so the struggle for liberty, equality, and solidarity continues.
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Machine Algorithm Alpha .... Homage to Catalonia was Orwell’s account of the anarchist communist society of Catalonia. It was the point where he was full on libertarian socialist. He wrote Animal Farm and 1984 after his experiences in Spain.
Orwell detested Soviet-style Communism – a belief strengthened when he ended up fighting Soviet-backed Communists during the Spanish civil war – Orwell went to Spain to fight against Fascism and for the Republican movement. As a member of the ILP, he joined a fraternal Spanish party – POUM – a small Marxist / Anarchist / Socialist grouping who had strong utopian Socialist ideals. Orwell loved their utopian Socialism.
“Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before.”
George Orwell, ‘Homage to Catalonia’
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@nickjohnson1424 do you have anything what left-right dichotomy means? You sound confused. Historically left wing is political, social, and economic positions of braking apart traditional hierarchies for more egalitarianism and less authority. Right wing meaning support of traditional hierarchies and authority. Since the French National Assembly this is what left/right dichotomy is. Since the radical liberals and revolutionaries sat on the left wing of the assembly, and on the right wing sat the monarchists, nobility, and clergy.
The USA is very center-right to further right. It’s support of neoliberal world order, which started with the Reagan-Thatcher governments implementation of neoliberal Chicago school economic policy. Left-right has nothing to do with social issues, other than support of lesser hierarchies or more on social traditions. For example, countries you would call Communist left have very conservative social positions. If you are socially progressive or conservative you’re left wing if you’re a civic libertarian or liberal; but if you have progressive or conservative social views and wish to impose them by authority on society you are socially right wing. The basis of being left or right is in the breaking down of hierarchic orders. There’s a reason the most extreme left position is anarchism aka libertarian socialism, it’s the most anti-hierarchy and anti-authoritarian position there can be. In todays political landscape capitalism is a right wing position for it’s support of the hierarchy of property owners and laboring underclasses. There are leftist positions that support free markets and are anti-capitalist. Capitalism isn’t synonymous with markets, and conveniently enough market socialism is seldom discussed.
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Katakuri Shārotto Capitalism was always Statist. It began when the State coerced peasants off their lands for private ownership. Those peasants moved into to urban industrial areas to be wage slaves. Capitalism has always been Statist. There’s a reason the first person to call himself Anarchist was a libertarian socialist and anti-capitalist.
"Capital" [...] in the political field is analogous to "government". [...] The economic idea of capitalism, the politics of government or of authority, and the theological idea of the Church are three identical ideas, linked in various ways. To attack one of them is equivalent to attacking all of them. [...] What capital does to labour, and the State to liberty, the Church does to the spirit. This trinity of absolutism is as baneful in practice as it is in philosophy. The most effective means for oppressing the people would be simultaneously to enslave its body, its will and its reason.” — Mutualist Pierre J Proudhon
Or how about what Benjamin Tucker, Free Market Anarchist said
“The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.
This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable. However this may be, Marx’s presentation of the ideas was in so many respects peculiarly his own that he is fairly entitled to the credit of originality. That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American,—a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article. Of the purest revolutionary blood, too, this Warren, for he descended from the Warren who fell at Bunker Hill.
From Smith’s principle that labor is the true measure of price—or, as Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price—these three men made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income (leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally takes one of three forms,—interest, rent, and profit; that these three constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.”
Whether supportive of communism or free market socialism, anarchists are anti-capitalists, because they are anti-hierarchy.
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Daniel Paul cause I’m an anti-statist libertarian socialist.... I lean anarcho-syndicalist but know that in a libertarian society communities would be free to develop their own anarchist social systems.
You on the other hand seem to be confused about “anarcho capitalism” which is a right wing ideology developed in the 20th century. And Mutualism which was developed by Proudhon, the first figure to call himself anarchist. Mutualism was his system of free market socialism. It was the root of free market anarchism and anarchist collectivism, communism and syndicalism. In case you don’t know socialists aren’t against markets, but against capitalism, which constitutes wage labor and private ownership of commons and the means of production. Now a communist looks forward to society without even markets, where distribution is made by needs and free to the commune for all. However this is because they believe communism would be superior system for a free society rather than distribution by market. Every socialist from Proudhon to Marx made a distinction that capitalism is the private ownership and wage labor, not markets. Most anarchists, myself included, are for society without markets, even socialist markets, but because we believe communism is better overall. We don’t conflate market economy with capitalism. Capitalism is a system of production. Markets can exist under socialism, as they have under feudal and slave societies. Markets are not synonymous with capitalism.
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Raymond Flores Adam Smith? Several Classical Liberals were anti-capitalist. Since Thomas Hodgskin’s “Labor Defended From the Claims of Capital” and David Ricardo expanding the labor theory of value. This is what Individualist Free Market Anarchist Benjamin Tucker has to say about Smith:
“The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.
This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable. However this may be, Marx’s presentation of the ideas was in so many respects peculiarly his own that he is fairly entitled to the credit of originality. That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American,—a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article. Of the purest revolutionary blood, too, this Warren, for he descended from the Warren who fell at Bunker Hill.
From Smith’s principle that labor is the true measure of price—or, as Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price—these three men made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income (leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally takes one of three forms,—interest, rent, and profit; that these three constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.”
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@blazetooth1 Most Americans see nothing wrong with inequality of income so long as it comes with plenty of social mobility: it is simply the price paid for a dynamic economy. But the new rise in inequality does not seem to have come with a commensurate rise in mobility. There may even have been a fall.
The most vivid evidence of social sclerosis comes from politics. A country where every child is supposed to be able to dream of becoming president is beginning to produce a self-perpetuating political elite. George Bush is the son of a president, the grandson of a senator, and the sprig of America's business aristocracy. John Kerry, thanks to a rich wife, is the richest man in a Senate full of plutocrats. He is also a Boston brahmin, educated at St Paul's, a posh private school, and Yale—where, like the Bushes, he belonged to the ultra-select Skull and Bones society.
Mr Kerry's predecessor as the Democrats' presidential nominee, Al Gore, was the son of a senator. Mr Gore, too, was educated at a posh private school, St Albans, and then at Harvard. And Mr Kerry's main challenger from the left of his party? Howard Brush Dean was the product of the same blue-blooded world of private schools and unchanging middle names as Mr Bush (one of Mr Bush's grandmothers was even a bridesmaid to one of Mr Dean's). Mr Dean grew up in the Hamptons and on New York's Park Avenue.
The most remarkable feature of the continuing power of America's elite—and its growing grip on the political system—is how little comment it arouses. Britain would be in high dudgeon if its party leaders all came from Eton and Harrow. Perhaps one reason why the rise of caste politics raises so little comment is that something similar is happening throughout American society. Everywhere you look in modern America—in the Hollywood Hills or the canyons of Wall Street, in the Nashville recording studios or the clapboard houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts—you see elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves. America is increasingly looking like imperial Britain, with dynastic ties proliferating, social circles interlocking, mechanisms of social exclusion strengthening and a gap widening between the people who make the decisions and shape the culture and the vast majority of ordinary working stiffs.
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Derek Hitt you don’t understand Fascism, no one here does apparently. Fascism isn’t just authoritarianism, there are many forms of authoritarianism, fascism being one of them. Actual Fascism is a political doctrine calling for a Corporate State. That doesn’t mean control by business corporations either. Corporatism is when there is an institutional infrastructure of collective bargaining in all aspects of social, economic, and political life. It’s a Nationalist Syndicalism where business owners and workers collectively bargain and form “corporations” to express their interests. Fascism is basically interests groups collectively bargaining at a national level with government oversight. It’s also nationalist and supports the nation-state as the ultimate organism that expresses collective will of the nation.
Trump isn’t a Fascist, he’s a neoliberal authoritarian with right wing populist rhetoric. He’s a kakistocrat and a kleptocrat. He’s part of the ruling class, the property owners and wealthy capitalists. He’s part of the horrendous NYC elites for goodness sake. The wealthy elites agree with Trump’s standard Republican legislation of tax cuts, deregulation, and supply side economics. He’s one of them, the only thing they don’t like is his personality cult and how he causes social unrest which hurts their bottom line. If he behaved they’d like him more, but he causes economic instability so they’re going to push him out.
As a free market anarchist, Trump is not an ally to liberty, he’s a problem and an ally to power concentration and the neoliberal world order. He’s just too stupid to be respected by his peers.
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Ecléctico Iconoclasta Socialism is the transition towards Communism. I think you’re having a difficulty distinguishing Libertarian/Anarchist Socialism from Statist Marxist Socialism. Communism isn’t defined by State ownership. That’s Marxist-Leninism. The Paris Commune was far more Libertarian than Marxist-Leninist States and Marx applauded the efforts of the Parisian’s taking controls of the means of production. You’re defining Communism as solely Marxist-Leninist Statism. Socialism existed before Marx and it will exist after. The left wing Anarchist strands support worker’s collectives, councils, democratized workplaces and federal decentralized organization. Libertarianism is synonymous with Anarchist Socialism. No Anarchist supports Capitalism or the State. The strands of Socialism/Communism are Libertarian and Statist. There are Communists who oppose the State. Cold War propaganda may have people believing all Socialism is State ownership of industry, but that is a half ass definition that undermines the history of Socialism. Worker’s, social, community ownership all essentially mean the same thing. It’s Marxist-Leninists who believe in the party dictatorship on behalf of a ruling working class. But that is debatable as being true social ownership. Bakunin was an Anarchist that opposed Marxism. He advocated Socialism of the Libertarian variety. This century’s definition of Socialism is essentially government subsidies, welfare, and nationalization. This does not address Socialism’s focus on class struggle, opposition to private property, wage labor, classless society, and social ownership such as in worker coops, and post-Capitalism. At some point State Capitalism became synonymous with Socialism, which even Lenin would disagree with. This assault on language and terminology was something George Orwell warned about. Socialism and Communism has been stripped of true clear meaning as people have described anything they oppose as Socialist or Communist. Ultimately Socialism is a post-Capitalist socioeconomic system in which the means of production are socially owned by workers as opposed to private ownership. And Communism is a Stateless, moneyless, and classless socioeconomic organization or society, in which property and the means are commonly or collectively owned by the workers.
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michael lovullo I mean none of that has happened though. The side of the aisle you’re talking about is collegiate social liberals, literally middle class scholars. Leftists are working class promoters of socialism, and at the most radical anarchism, the abolishment of the State for free and voluntary associations. Also the liberation of the underdeveloped world from corporate imperialism. Literally why so many global south nations are socialist. Take it from George Orwell
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
George Orwell, “Why I write” p. 394
“And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a socialist party.”
– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”
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Daniel Austrian economics is economic retardation. The neoliberal age inspired by those shmucks is hated by everyone except the rich. The wealth inequality is ever widening and as you can see around the globe people are looking to change that world order. Austrian and Chicago School were the elites wet dream. They have you believing a system of inequality, coercion, and hierarchy has anything to do with freedom. No wonder the Capitalists historically allied with Fascists, you morons who defend the wealthy make it too easy. There is enough resource in the world to end world hunger and shelter the homeless, yet under an economy motivated by self interest and profit you see more disparities, poverty, and social ills.
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society." - Albert Einstein
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@uncomfortabletruth3831 as a matter of fact not all socialist schools rationalize anti-market sentiments. In fact the most radical free market advocates I know were libertarian socialists. If you’re interested in the US there was an Individualist Anarchist school which advocated stateless free markets, and to form a more rational and scientific economy based on economic and social science studies. Benjamin Tucker is the big name of this movement among others. He said: “The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his “Wealth of Nations,” – namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.”
And the first philosopher to identify as an Anarchist said this of Socialism: “Under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality. [...] We are socialists [...] under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership. [...] We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies, joined together in the common bond of the democratic and social Republic.” - Proudhon
Imagine Socialism if you will as a technocracy, an industrial republic instead of government, where worker’s self-management and economic associations form social relations, and the State have been abolished. If you’re curious of what such a society may look like I recommend George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” if you can get a copy of it. It’s his account of experience in Revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Anarchist-Syndicalism was the predominant movement of Socialism at the time rivaling Marxism. I’d also recommend a glance on the Wikipedia page on Syndicalist or Revolutionary Catalonia. Mahknoschivna might also be of interest. Or if you’re looking for more modern examples the EZLN (Zapatistas) in Mexico or Rojava in Syria are modern examples of libertarian/anarchist social revolutions going on now.
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Silverdeathgamer290 Before we can say whether an anarchist future is possible, we should start by saying what exactly anarchism is. Emma Goldman, the great American anarchist, defined it in 1910 as “the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law.” Anarchists believe that all forms of government—be it a liberal democracy or a socialist state—are based on violence and coercion. To sum it up: government equals tyranny.
Many of you might agree with that basic idea that state power is necessarily coercive, yet wonder if there really is an alternative. Perhaps we must suffer some degree of tyranny at the hands of government in order to guarantee certain public goods, like education, health care, and infrastructure. And don’t we need the state to ensure law and order? Who would protect us, if we didn’t have police and a judicial system?
In light of the many stories in the news these days about police racism and brutality, and the lack of accountability for such abuses of power, some of you are probably scoffing at the thought that police are there to protect and serve. And given the astounding number of people incarcerated in US prisons, many of which are run by private companies for profit, it’s a little difficult to take seriously the idea that the criminal justice system is working for the good of (all) the people.
But we should be careful not to damn all government over the particular failures of one. There may be deep injustices in the US criminal justice system, but perhaps those are best tackled by reform, not by abolishing state power completely.
Let’s set aside criminal justice for a moment and think about civil justice. Without the coercive power of the state, how do we enforce agreements and protect people’s legitimate interests? For example, let’s say you and I make an agreement with one another, and I pay you to do a particular job, like painting my house. Let’s say I pay you the full amount, but you rip me off by not completing the job. Under an anarchist social order, how can I protect my interests when there can be no legal sanctions or deterrents? What kind of recourse would I have, if there are no laws and no state authority to enforce them? What's to stop everyone from cheating one another?
Under any social order, be it liberal democracy or anarchy, cheating customers just seems like a bad business model. You would never get repeat business and surely word would spread about your shady practices, and you’d have difficulty building your livelihood in this way. Yet, despite this, people do cheat one another all the time. Obviously, then, our current system does not prevent that from happening, so the mere existence of the state is not itself a deterrent for cheaters. Moreover, you’d have to have a very dim (and, I’d say, unrealistic) view of humanity if you think an honest, hard-working person would suddenly become a scoundrel and a thief because the state is not controlling everything anymore.
Moreover, an anarchist might argue, if people had more autonomy—if they were able to decide for themselves what kind of lives they wanted to lead, what kind of work they wanted to do, and how to spend their time—maybe then there would actually be less cheating.
Is anarchy the only way to give everyone greater autonomy in their lives? The anarchist thinks so—the mere existence of the state and its arbitrary coercive power undermines personal autonomy because we never explicitly consented to live under its authority. Sure, some of us get to vote for representatives at different levels of government from federal to state and local, but once elected, these so-called “representatives” make their own decisions that may or may not be what their constituents want or need. And so often the choice we are given is between Tweedledum or Tweedledee, with one just about as bad as the other. It’s hard to see how that is that anything but arbitrary.
While I find this line of thought persuasive, again, I think it’s important to distinguish between how things happen to go in the US, and how things must go in any liberal democracy. The two certainly come apart, which begs the question: what’s the best way to tackle these problems—reform the state or abolish it? For example, if the US had a multi-party system elected by proportional representation, like they do Denmark (which is often touted as the best example of a functioning liberal democracy), would this give us the kind of personal autonomy the anarchist wants? Or, do even the Danes need to be freed from the tyranny of the state?
In the end, it all comes down to one issue. Do we give up some of our autonomy because we get some things that only the state can provide? The anarchist might say we suffer from a lack of imagination, that we can achieve many great things working together without any hierarchical coercive structures in place.
The Church and Aristocrats also spoke ill of Liberalism. Decried it as radical nonsense that wasn’t plausible. Each progress towards liberation has been treated by the establishment as fantastical and impossible. That won’t stop humanity from seeking more liberty, equality, and solidarity.
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whyamimrpink78 No dipshit, you are a capitalist if you own capital, the factors of production, property. What are you dense? Learn some actual history and reality. The Capitalist system while functioning within a market economy, is not synonymous with market economy, nor the only mode of production a market oriented economy can have. It is also a distortion of free market and liberal principles in being a system of a ruling capitalist socioeconomic elite, devoid of the labor theory of value supported by liberal economists. The value of capital over labor is not adhering to liberal ideals. Socialists and liberals, like John Stuart Mill, are the ones who hold the labor theory of value.
“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” — Abraham Lincoln State of the Union Address 1861
“And, inasmuch [as] most good things are produced by labour, it follows that [all] such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Fragments of a Tariff Discussion"
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whyamimrpink78 So the term capitalist existed first as a pejorative by liberals to mock the merchants who are favored by states and form an elite business class, the very system Adam Smith criticized.
Capitalism is the system of private proprietors accumulating wealth and capital (land, machines, tools, factories, buildings, money etc...) for profit, using commodity production produced by a working class exploited out of the value of their labor. And they also become big business elites as they receive State favors. Moron no one who labors their entire life becomes exceedingly wealthy, they exploit the labor of others to do so. How are dolts like you still believing Capitalism is anything like what Classical liberals supported? The very term Capitalism implies the dominance of capital, of capitalists, of the owner class, in society.
economic privilege is a real and pervasive social problem, but that the problem is not a problem of private property, competition, or profits per se. It is not a problem of the market form but of markets deformed – deformed by the long shadow of historical injustices and the ongoing, continuous exercise of legal privilege on behalf of capital.
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Pedro Tavarez Lol Capitalism is good at creating and concentrating wealth into the hands of a privileged minority alright, hence why back when Americans were self-employed, family farmhands, artisans etc... they pushed back against industrial capitalism, where they sell their labor to proprietors, get paid a wage not at all the value of their labor, and work under conditions of the wealthy.
Dumbass in a socialist market dominated by worker’s self management and cooperatives, worker’s associations the actual markets liberals dreamed of will come true. Just end the capitalist system sustained by the State, and remove the government from giving capitalists privileges and favors.
Socialism is a socioeconomic system that pushes for classless society and worker’s ownership moron. I don’t think you’d know more than Socialist figures like John Stuart Mill, Rousseau, Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Oscar Wilde, Proudhon, Albert Einstein, Dr. King, George Orwell, David Henry Thoreau etc....
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Majin Troll In a right-libertarian or “anarcho”-capitalist society, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, “the libertarian defines the concept of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’. . .[as a] condition in which a person’s ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand.”
This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another’s property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual’s only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-libertarians themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. However, this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether “anarcho”-capitalists are actually interested in freedom.
Looking at Rothbard’s definition of “liberty” quoted above, we can see that freedom is actually no longer considered to be a fundamental, independent concept. Instead, freedom is a derivative of something more fundamental, namely the “legitimate rights” of an individual, which are identified as property rights. In other words, given that “anarcho”-capitalists and right libertarians in general consider the right to property as “absolute,” it follows that freedom and property become one and the same. This suggests an alternative name for the right Libertarian, namely “Propertarian.” And, needless to say, if we do not accept the right-libertarians’ view of what constitutes “legitimate” “rights,” then their claim to be defenders of liberty is weak.
Another important implication of this “liberty as property” concept is that it produces a strangely alienated concept of freedom. Liberty, as noted, is no longer considered absolute, but a derivative of property — which has the important consequence that you can “sell” your liberty and still be considered free by the ideology. This concept of liberty (namely “liberty as property”) is usually termed “self-ownership.” But, to state the obvious, I do not “own” myself, as if were an object somehow separable from my subjectivity — I am myself. However, the concept of “self-ownership” is handy for justifying various forms of domination and oppression — for by agreeing (usually under the force of circumstances, we must note) to certain contracts, an individual can “sell” (or rent out) themselves to others (for example, when workers sell their labour power to capitalists on the “free market”). In effect, “self-ownership” becomes the means of justifying treating people as objects — ironically, the very thing the concept was created to stop! As L. Susan Brown notes, “at the moment an individual ‘sells’ labour power to another, he/she loses self-determination and instead is treated as a subjectless instrument for the fulfilment of another’s will.” [The Politics of Individualism]
Ironically, the rights of property (which are said to flow from an individual’s self-ownership of themselves) becomes the means, under capitalism, by which self-ownership of non-property owners is denied. The foundational right (self-ownership) becomes denied by the derivative right (ownership of things). Under capitalism, a lack of property can be just as oppressive as a lack of legal rights because of the relationships of domination and subjection this situation creates.
You lack understanding of the history of Socialism as a broad ideology. From Libertarian Anarchist forms to Statist and Marxist forms. From Socialist Markets of Proudhon, Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker informed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo of the Enlightenment, to the mutual aid economies of Kropotkin, and Bakunin.
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@christiangonzalez6945 your argument is based on nothing of substance. Though I agree no one knows what fascism is. Antifa is literally the polar opposite, it’s anarchists, far leftists. Antifa is critical of state, hierarchy, and capitalism. Again it’s based in anarchist direct action.
Fascism is a political doctrine that advocates a Corporate State, basically a nationalist syndicalism where every special interest of business and labor sectors collectively bargain under government oversight.
Antifa is opposed to corporate hegemony, Democrats, Republicans, Statists etc.... It has adherents in Europe, Latin America, North America, Oceania, Africa etc....
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Scott Ferguson as free as you think you are in a capitalist economy you aren’t. Capitalism depends on the owners of capital being the ruling interest of the State. They get legislative favors that prevents full fledged competition but enables the usuries of profit, rent, and interest.
The classical liberals that advocated free markets did not support capitalism. Adam Smith thought of landowners and rentiers parasites getting income off of no industry. David Ricardo further developed labor theory from Adam Smith. John Stuart Mill rejected the capitalist relationship and asserted the socialist worker co-op as the industrial model best suited for a free society. Thomas Hodgskin also was critical of capitalism as it was developing in his time. He defended labor and was one of the early liberals to develop class analysis. “Labor Defended From the Claims of Capital” was his work focused on capitalists taking from labor. There is a direct line form classical liberalism to socialism. And from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism. In the early 19th century the term “capitalist” was a negative term used by liberals to attack those merchants and commercial men that succeeded off of favors and privileges from State rule. The term “capitalism” was later created by socialists to call the economic system of labor exploitation they opposed. It wasn’t until the split from classical liberalism to neoliberalism in the 20th century that capitalist economists started to call the capitalist system as old free market enterprise. Those economists that followed classical liberal economists developed many various socialist economics and especially market socialism. As Free Market Socialist, Benjamin Tucker put it:
“The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.”
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@libertybell5796 you think Founding Fathers was just the usual suspects? That’s an epithet they give to every important figure of the revolution and transition towards the American Republic. Including Crispus Attucks who didn’t do much but was seen as the first casualty of the struggle towards independence. It’s well known that at first the Americans wanted fair representation, and voice in parliament. They didn’t resort to independence until it was seen as the only measure to get their ideal social order. Even then the public wasn’t exactly up in arms. That is until the man synonymous with radical liberalism and republicanism, Thomas Paine, penned Common Sense and radicalized the colonialists towards a vision of a radical liberal democratic republic. Of course the Federalists ruined his vision and Paine spent the rest of his life criticizing what became of the Republic, and the loss of the revolution. Paine’s was shunned by the more famous “founding fathers” for being “too radical” and died in obscurity. They couldn’t handle his proposals of fair land distribution, of the first social welfare programs (SS and UBI), and anti-slavery. Thomas Paine unlike the rest wasn’t part of the ruling elite that were concerned for property and financial interests.
“When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its government.” — Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
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Fortnite Elite USA That’s not Marxism. Marxism is a critical ideology of the Capitalist system. It focuses on Class Struggle, or Conflict. It advocates the working class becoming the ruling class by taking the State. And then ideally they transition into a Stateless, classless socioeconomic situation.
While Marx did stress Social Justice, that is not unique to Marxism. It can be found in many ideologies and religions.
These capitalists do not want Communism. They’ll lose all their privilege and wealth if the working class were to revolt.
The right has this misunderstanding. Ideals like feminism, multiculturalism, social sciences aren’t inherent of Marxism. Social Liberalism shares these schools of thoughts, as it promotes the old classical liberal ideals of liberty, equality, and solidarity. Also Marxism isn’t political correctness. Marx would have the working class armed and ready to throw down to break their chains. His Social Justice focused on the emancipation of the worker’s across racial and class lines.
Not to mention the media aren’t left wing. They’re center-right. If they were Social Liberals Bernie Sanders would be their number 1 politician. They don’t advocate for universal healthcare coverage, or tax reforms. They aren’t biased to the left, they’re biased towards the establishment. They are just a little to the left of conservatives. They’re center-right neoliberals.
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George Orwell was a fascinating figure and brilliant writer. He was an idealist, who is best known for his work in warning of the dangers of totalitarianism (whatever its political form) This can be seen in the two classics 1984, and Animal Farm. Orwell was also a committed socialist who sought to promote a more egalitarian and fairer society.
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
George Orwell, “Why I write” p. 394
Firstly, George Orwell was definitely a democratic socialist. He stated this consistently throughout his life – from the mid-1920s to his death in 1950. It is true that he wrote a compelling account warning of the dangers of a totalitarian state. But, Orwell always maintained that just because you severely criticised Soviet-style Communism didn’t make you any less a socialist. In fact, socialism as Orwell understood it, stood for all the values – democracy, liberty, equality – that Soviet Communism rejected. Orwell believed that only a truly democratic Socialist regime would support liberty.
“And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a socialist party.”
– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”
Homage to Catalonia
Orwell detested Soviet-style Communism – a belief strengthened when he ended up fighting Soviet-backed Communists during the Spanish civil war – Orwell went to Spain to fight against Fascism and for the Republican movement. As a member of the ILP, he joined a fraternal Spanish party – POUM – a small Marxist / Anarchist / Socialist grouping who had strong utopian Socialist ideals. Orwell loved their utopian Socialism.
“Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before.”
George Orwell, ‘Homage to Catalonia’
But, Stalin wanted to crush all left-wing parties who were not the Communist party; this led to a civil war amongst the Republican movement in Spain. Orwell got caught up in this and it made him really disgusted with Stalin and the Communist party.
“the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme right. In reality this should come as no surprise, because the tactics of the Communist parties elsewhere.”
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
This experience of fighting alongside socialist idealists and against Stalinist backed Communist party, only strengthened his belief in democratic socialism.
Down and out in Paris and London
Orwell had a privileged upbringing – he studied at Eton College, along with many future members of the British establishment. After school, he got a job in the Burmese civil service. But he came to reject his class privileges and also grew to detest the British Empire. In Down and out in Paris and London and Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell wanted to experience the difficult life that working class people experienced. These experiences in Paris, London and Wigan made Orwell very sympathetic to the cause of the working class, and Orwell believed it was socialism that was the fairest way to help create a more equal society.
“For perhaps ten years past I have had some grasp of the real nature of capitalist society. I have seen British imperialism at work in Burma, and I have seen something of the effects of poverty and unemployment in Britain…. One has got to be actively a Socialist, not merely sympathetic to Socialism, or one plays into the hands of our always active enemies.”
– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegory on revolutions which fail their ideals. It is clearly an indictment of the Russian Revolution. Orwell made no secret of the fact that he detested what Stalin was doing in Russia. Orwell was scathing of left-wing intellectuals (like George Bernard Shaw) who thought Soviet Russia was a Socialist paradise. Orwell lamented that Communists in Britain were too liable to excuse Stalin’s crimes and paint a picture of Russia which was not reality.
To Orwell, Soviet Russia was a failing of democratic Socialist ideals. Stalin had merely replaced one dictatorship (old Tsars) with another more murderous dictatorship.
Independent Labour Party
George Orwell was a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). The ILP was one of the founding forces of the British Socialist and Labour movement. Their roots were strongly influenced by Christian Socialism and the Fabian movement. Key figures in the party included John Keir Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald and James Maxton.
To give a flavour of the ILP 1928, the ILP developed a “Socialism in Our Time” platform, embodied in the programme:
The Living Wage, incompletely applied.
A substantial increase of the Unemployment Allowance
The nationalisation of banking, incompletely applied
The bulk purchase of raw materials
The bulk purchase of foodstuffs
The nationalisation of power
The nationalisation of transport
The nationalisation of land
Conclusion
Unfortunately, many in America equate Socialism with Soviet Communism. They are unaware that Socialist ideals have nothing to do with Stalin’s policies. Orwell saw Stalin and Hitler as pursuing essentially the same aim of creating a totalitarian state. Orwell wrote against totalitarianism and passionately for a democratic and fair Socialist society in Britain.
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@BiggusDiggusable well the political allegory of the poem has been long discussed. Paradise Lost can be read as a political allegory, character and events can be aligned with aspects of the political context of the poem's creation. Milton infuses his political thinking using Heaven as metaphor of the greatest Kingdom. Hell represents a republic, God the powerful monarch, and Satan is the protagonist of his ideas. In Book I Satan says, " Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heav'n / Did first create your leader, next, free choice,[...] Established in a safe unenvied throne / Yielded with full consent,". In the quote Satan argues that in Heaven God rules without the consent of his subjects, shoving the hard work and sacrifice off the others, and explains that he being chosen as leader would be quite the opposite. Through the speeches of Satan in Hell, Milton illustrates the way he believed true leaders should act, and how they should be selected. Likewise, Satan's attempts to rouse the fallen angels are reminiscent of Milton's desire to rally support for the Cromwellian government. For example, as the poem expresses in Book I, "Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n" and adds, "Here we may reign secure, and my choice / To reign is worth ambition, Though in Hell; / Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n." . Satan delivers his heroic speech challenging God, and tells the other rebels that they can change the world, there is nothing that is fixed, Hell can be the Heaven, and vice versa. Satan is trying to encourage them to continue challenging God. As Mary Ann Radzinowicz puts it in The Politics of Paradise Lost "Milton […] deposits in Satan's 'democratic, antipatriarchal, irreligious views' his own pre-Restoration republicanism.".
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@libertybell5796 it’s called the political realignment. As the Democratic Party became more labor based in the New Deal era, their politics shifted towards the working class interests. Come the mid 20th century the civil rights movement became an issue of support for the Democratic Party. Early one the parties were still mixed social and economic interests post WW2. But with the rise of the civil rights movement and activism came the reactionary neo-confederate movement among the Southern States with Jim Crow laws. The KKK became a prominent hate group and started using confederacy symbols. As it became official that the Democratic Party was now a party for civil rights, and labor unions, the Southern Republicans took the opportunity to transforms the Republican Party into the party of anti-civil rights, confederate symbols, and opposition towards the Democratic platform. No matter whether they were Republican or Democrat, politicians in the South were pro segregation. Now the Republican Party was of Lincoln’s Northern urbanism, but of the rural South and descendants of Confederates. Neo-Confederacy groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy took to spreading propaganda across institutions in the South that supports “Lost Cause” myth, the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and trying to build a Confederates states sense of nationalism. While that happened the southern Republican politicians now used what is called “Southern Strategy” in garnering support among the coalition of southern neo-confederate enthusiasts. Infamously the Republican political strategist Lee Atwater was caught on tape discussing the Southern Strategy in using dog whistles and confederate nostalgia for getting support of southern whites enthralled by the heroic mythological spin on the Confederates as freedom fighting rebels.
Funnily enough I’m a libertarian socialist. The only good thing Lincoln did was end slavery, but was the harbinger of American capitalism and wage slavery. And the Confederates were social and cultural tyrants that followed the bidding of a landed slave owing aristocracy to divide to poor whites from solidarity with poor non-whites. The only records found in the Civil War era that wasn’t so full of Confederate racist shit, and Union federal centralizing shit, were the anarchists of the day who called both sides out on their bullshit.
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Daniel Paul I mean social democracy in the actual Marxist Democratic Socialist sense. What Marx and Engels argues as the “political action” necessary to make the revolution happen. The use of a labor socialist party to take the bourgeois state and implement socialism. Today social democracy is not seen as socialist, because those parties descended into welfare states. It’s so bad social democracy is a word no longer accepted by even Marxists.
So there is one aspect of the Commune that was uniquely Marxist, namely the participation of socialists in the elections to the municipal council and the subsequent municipal government. As noted, since the 1840s Marx and Engels had urged workers to support (and, where necessary, fight for) the creation of a bourgeois republic and to use “political action” (namely, standing in elections) within it.
Unsurprisingly, then, for Marx the Communal Council would “serve as a lever for uprooting the economic foundations upon which rests the existence of classes.” This repeats the vision expounded in the Communist Manifesto which argued that "the first step in the revolution by the working class" is the "raising the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." The proletariat "will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeois, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class."
It is only in this sense that it is correct to state that “the insurgents had no prior experiences of a successful anti-capitalist movement to draw upon. They were truly pioneering and cut a new path for others.” Sadly, that “new path” was social democracy and the domination of Marxism within the international socialist movement. As Engels put it in 1884, the Commune was “the grave of the old, specifically French socialism, while being the cradle of the international communism, which is new for France.”
In this "new path", the Commune was relegated to an inspiration because there had been a democratically elected “workers’ government” and used as a warning of what would happen if a rising happened before the party was ready to secure power nationally. By 1895, Engels was praising the legal successes of social democracy in elections and mentioned the Commune only as an example of “only one means by which the steady rise of the socialist fighting forces in Germany could be temporarily halted, and even thrown back for some time: a clash with the military, a blood-letting like that of 1871 in Paris.” Now it was a case of the “successful utilisation of universal suffrage” which had now (quoting Marx's word) been “transformed by them from a means of deception . . . into an instrument of emancipation.” While insurrection was not totally dismissed, it was clear that Engels final article was a vindication of social democracy's peaceful tactics, tactics that provoked the "revisionism" debates after his death (i.e., the attempt by its right-wing to bring the party's rhetoric into line with its actual practice).
Thankfully, Engels comments proved premature. With the obvious descent of social democracy into opportunism, bureaucracy and reformism radical workers looked again to the federalist traditions in the First International which were kept alive by the anarchist movement and turned to syndicalism and industrial unionism. Only with the Russian Revolution (with the help of Fascism) did Marxism (in its Leninist form) became the predominant tendency in the revolutionary left. The path of federalism from below, as was predicted and developed by anarchists like Proudhon and Bakunin, lost ground before social democracy (in part, due to errors by anarchists themselves).
Be that as it may, for anarchists, the commune does present issues. After all, a key argument of anarchism is abstaining from “political action” as being irrelevant to creating socialism and opening up the possibility of reformism within the labour movement. Yet, here, surely is an example of “political action” which did produce a revolution (even one so limited in its initial acts as the Commune). Libertarian members of the International, such as Varlin, did successfully stand for election. Does this mean, as Marx and Engels argued, that the general anarchist position of standing in and abstaining from elections is wrong? If the Internationalists had abstained from participating in the elections would the Paris Commune have been different?
Clearly, the circumstances of the Commune’s elections are atypical and were conducted in a revolutionary situation (unlike the social-democratic strategy). However, given the limited nature of the reforms the Commune implemented and the lack of dynamism of the Commune’s Council, Kropotkin concluded that any such “revolutionary government” should be avoided. While supporting the initial revolution, anarchists should have encouraged the creation of popular self-organisation in the community and workplace rather than seeking to focus the struggle onto electing a few leaders to act on behalf of the working class. The problem was its representative nature, that “the people was not governing itself.”
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@billystanton1522 really? Cause that sounds like you projecting your ideas on a dead man. And considering what he wrote I doubt he would have been fine with capitalism continuing considering the ongoing consolidation of corporations, the degradation of environment, the military adventurism, and the corruption of “democratic” governments. In fact this passage alone from Orwell made clear what to him is the socialist vision he would support.
“Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before.”
George Orwell, ‘Homage to Catalonia’
As you can see Orwell could not abide a social democracy full of social class hierarchies.
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@Evirthewarrior “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
George Orwell, “Why I write” p. 394
Firstly, George Orwell was definitely a democratic socialist. He stated this consistently throughout his life – from the mid-1920s to his death in 1950. It is true that he wrote a compelling account warning of the dangers of a totalitarian state. But, Orwell always maintained that just because you severely criticised Soviet-style Communism didn’t make you any less a socialist. In fact, socialism as Orwell understood it, stood for all the values – democracy, liberty, equality – that Soviet Communism rejected. Orwell believed that only a truly democratic Socialist regime would support liberty.
“And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a socialist party.”
– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”
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A. Q. Where that’s the Statist Marxist-Leninist branch of Socialist Revolutionaries. Stalinism was a totalitarian state and no where in those states were the workers ever in charge. There wasn’t common ownership, just State control and ownership. That’s a method the Libertarian left condemns as a departure from ideals of freedom and liberty that Socialists and it’s founders also desired.
George Orwell who wrote the cautionary tales of Totalitarianism and State power hated the Soviet Union. He wrote Animal Farm and 1984, yeah that guy guess what? He was a true Democratic-Socialist and fought for Anarcho-Syndicalist Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. He also wrote Homage to Catalonia where he expresses his love and admiration for the Anarchist and Socialists of Catalonia where he spent much time during it’s period.
I think you’re failing to realize Socialism isn’t a form of government, it’s a socio-economic organization. Just democratization of the work place, and industry being collectively owned not in the hands of private capitalists. In America that could mean industries and businesses collectively owned by the workers that work in them, and that’s it. No need to mess with the government or Republic. Just the economy having different ownership from private ownership to worker’s co-ops or ownership.
And while the Nordic model has workers protection, strong unionization, social welfare etc... they are implementing reforms that allows Capitalism to use wealth to aid society and salve social ills. It is not Socialist, it is Social Democracy, no Socialist society has privatized industry.
And true many of the Nordic policies tax the people but they have established a different view in which they believe people’s taxation should be implemented to the benefit of society. Even that I find preferable to what the US does. Takes citizens taxes to cut taxes for the wealthiest, to fund unnecessary wars, and to give corporations welfare or bailouts instead of helping the working and middle classes. Nope what you see in America is forsaking the workers in favor of the corporate class. If I’m being taxed I’d rather it go to society rather than the wealthy and wars I don’t agree to. It’s a matter of beliefs. But hey we wouldn’t need to have such programs if it weren’t for the Capitalist system where the motivation is profit and creating large inequalities of wealth and prosperity. Whereas a socialist economy would be motivated by need and the community. You work the few hours today’s technology allows, go home and have recreational and personal time to study, relax, participate in activities whatever it is to the individual that makes a more fulfilling life than being a laborer.
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@bravecaucasian no actually. Leftism is anarchism and libertarian socialism... doesn’t get anymore anti-government than that. In fact the first person to call himself anarchist was the socialist Proudhon who said about government: “To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”
Real Leftists find natural alliance with true classical liberals that actually want limited government. That’s what American conservatism should be about. But since the Federalists there’s been a faction of conservative efforts to undermine and subdue the liberal revolutionary principles of the Republic. Today’s conservative movement is about cultural tyranny, religious fanaticism, State bootlicking looking at law enforcement like they’re the Jedi, and worst of all not republicanism but nationalism. Barry Goldwater tries to warn us: "The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
--Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
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Julian Price back in action ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in
36 I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.’
37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink?
38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?
39 When did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’
40 And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
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@ultramaga813 yeah it tells me the modern Republicans are the legacy of the southern political tradition (once the Democrats). Considering the Republicans of Lincoln descended from the Federalists and favored anti-liberal American school economics, government infrastructure and strengthening American manufacturing through tariffs, were Federal over State, and were the political coalition of urban States, Yankees, and the capitalists and bankers I’d say history tells us the modern Democrats are the political coalition of urban States, government intervention, and national government. Where as the modern Republicans…. well they wave around Confederate paraphernalia so that should hint you as to who are the legacy of those that opposed the Union and Lincoln.
The Party of Slavery: well that’s the legacy of the southern political coalitions, the change of name didn’t mean change of politics. They had to be brought kicking and screaming towards progress from slavery and segregation.
Infanticide: well the liberal urban states are more in support of the choice of abortion.
Violence: well the Northern states did force the South into a Union they didn’t want. I’d say that was wrong, authority and coercion shouldn’t be the answer in free societies. Shame the Confederates didn’t extend that principle to black Americans. But the Civil War proved that there is no federation, but an empire of Federal government ruling over States. Indeed the South were correct on a Confederate structure, wrong in everything else.
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Soul Prestigio lol. Then why did the internet and computers come from decades of government-military R&D public financed research. Only after all the risks and developments in college campuses were individuals able to privatize the tech. And the public has the privilege of purchasing PC’s from these billion dollar worth companies. Shame the computer scientists that developed the innovations in tech never saw the rewards of the Jobs and Gates of the world. Same thing happening within campuses in the medical field today.
Profit doesn’t motivate innovation, just motivates profit. Innovation is driven by proper allocation of resources towards people with talents and abilities in their fields. People having the freedom to follow their skills and passions, and having proper resources that’s how you innovate. Given that innovations have occurred in every period in history. Competition for profits motivates efficiency and cheaper methods, not leaps in the sciences.
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?, 1949
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Oh I see you believe in the horse shoe theory. Gotcha. I don't believe that BS. Generally the further left the less government. Left of Liberalism is Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism. Anarcho-Capitalism is rejected by any real anarchist as it is full capitalism promoting hierarchical structures, hence not anarchism, opposed to leadership. It's just a market economy feudal state, which Anarchists also oppose any state.
The idea of liberalism and social democracy requires the social contract. It is not opposed to government, so long as the people agree to it's organization, limitations, and powers. For example we believe in a representative democracy the government should have the people's interests at heart. Hence why such social programs are not seen as some oppressive institution, so long as it is the will of the people. And in other areas we don't want big government such as military, privacy invasion, drug wars etc... Essentially the good government can do for it's governed by consent. Furthermore the more left you stand the less dependence on a government body for a society in favor of collective interests, most notably the workers where they distribute the goods and needs in workers collectives, or syndicates etc... There's a reason the most left position is Anarchism and the most right Totalitarianism. The general spectrum of political ideologies relies on government bodies and state influence upon the governed. There is the general spectrum where left = less government and right = more government. Then there is the more regional or national spectrums where left = progressive and right = conservative.
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Derek Hitt exposing that private property and profit is the problem. Free market anarchists have been exposing capitalism for the statist system it is since the 19th century. The biggest misconception is that socialism is anti-free markets. No. Socialism in particular libertarian socialism, is about anarchist communism and free market socialism. Free market anarchists were straight out of the classical tradition and they were fare greater radical free marketeers than the capitalists. It’s why they were anti-capitalists and against the State monopolies of land, money, tariff, and patents that prop up the ruling capitalist class. Pierre J Proudhon, Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Voltarine DeCleyre, William B Greene etc... All anti-capitalists, libertarian socialists, and radical free enterprise enthusiasts that exposed capitalism as statist. Free markets belong on the Left, it’s part of socialist tradition despite what the modern capitalist state has you believing. Even classical liberal economists were anti-capitalists like Thomas Hodgskin and John Stuart Mill, or David Ricardo. Free markets are socialist. Another libertarian socialist market strain is rising and soon the right capitalists can no longer claim they believe in free markets as we agains expose them for the Statists they are.
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Monique Lestine The NRA’s main mission is to fight any possible restriction on guns, the solution to every instance of gun violence is to arm more people, anyone who says anything else is part of a global conspiracy to disarm everyone, nothing else matters very much and, oh, by the way, they need your money.
The NRA, once “the premier firearms education organization in the world” is not performing its traditional educational role of elevating the discussion and advancing the interests of all gun owners. Despite solid social science and opinion research on everything from how guns should be sold, owned, stored and carried to how and when convicted felons should have their rights restored, the NRA has but one answer to every debate on gun ownership — more of it, with no restrictions.
And then there are their answers to every incident of gun violence: Send thoughts and prayers, plus this wouldn’t have happened if the victims had been properly armed — but let’s not let those who question unlimited gun ownership politicize a tragedy. Furthermore, the NRA has abandoned its traditional role of representing all kinds of gun owners on all sorts of issues involving gun ownership. Where the organization was once bipartisan, bringing together a large coalition of Republicans and Democrats to protect and advance the interests of all gun owners, their advocacy today is almost entirely limited to helping Republicans. In the 2018 election, 99 percent of NRA support went to GOP candidates, making the NRA a de facto wing of the Republican Party.
In a stark contrast to its current bloodthirsty propagandizing, the NRA was once a firm proponent of gun control, and was a key component of the passage of 1934’s National Firearms Act, which imposed restrictions on machine guns. That began to change in the 1960s; the NRA continued to support gun control, but its members — who had begun buying guns more for protection than for hunting — started to protest. The shift crystallized in 1977 with the ascent of Harlon Carter, a former immigration agent who’d killed a Mexican teenager in his youth and went on to shape what still fraudulently insists on referring to itself as “the oldest civil rights organization in the country” in his racist image.
Now the NRA’s insistence that it fights for the civil rights of legal gun owners rings hollow. Lest we forget, Philando Castile — a legal gun owner — was still killed by cops, inches from his partner and child. He’d informed them that he was carrying, and it proved to be a death sentence.
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@NewNormalWorldOrder it’s not a double standard considering Conservatism has been replaced by Regressivism and reactionary extremists. The Republicans are not upholding the principles of Classical Conservatism, nationalism and religious fundamentalism isn’t Conservatism. Classical Conservatism stems from Burkean political philosophy and American Traditionalism in particular stems from Federalism (Hamilton-Adams). Real Conservatives are lamenting their alliance with social conservatives, as they have replaced genuine Traditionalism for their regressive zealotry. Barry Goldwater aka Mr. Conservative warned the country of what would happen if these extremist regressives were to take control of the Republican Party.
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
--Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
"The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it."
"Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it."
“Gays and lesbians are a part of every American family. They should not be shortchanged in their efforts to better their lives and serve their communities. As President Clinton likes to say, ‘If you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded’ and not with a pink slip just for being gay.”
"What I was talking about[Gay rights, Abortion]was more or less 'conservative,' " Goldwater recalls, saying he was smeared by the people around President Johnson – "the most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency." Goldwater continues: "The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."
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Leo D That was such a sad and half assed argument. Who equates a child’s lemon stand to private property in the Capitalist understanding. They aren’t employing anyone nor are they in actual possession of land.
Anarchists define “private property” (or just “property,” for short) as state-protected monopolies of certain objects or privileges which are used to control and exploit others. “Possession,” on the other hand, is ownership of things that are not used to exploit others (e.g. a car, a refrigerator, a toothbrush, etc.). Thus many things can be considered as either property or possessions depending on how they are used.
To summarise, anarchists are in favour of the kind of property which “cannot be used to exploit another — those kinds of personal possessions which we accumulate from childhood and which become part of our lives.” We are opposed to the kind of property “which can be used only to exploit people — land and buildings, instruments of production and distribution, raw materials and manufactured articles, money and capital.” [Nicholas Walter, About Anarchism, p. 40] As a rule of thumb, anarchists oppose those forms of property which are owned by a few people but which are used by others. This leads to the former controlling the latter and using them to produce a surplus for them (either directly, as in the case of a employee, or indirectly, in the case of a tenant).
The key is that “possession” is rooted in the concept of “use rights” or “usufruct” while “private property” is rooted in a divorce between the users and ownership. For example, a house that one lives in is a possession, whereas if one rents it to someone else at a profit it becomes property. Similarly, if one uses a saw to make a living as a self-employed carpenter, the saw is a possession; whereas if one employs others at wages to use the saw for one’s own profit, it is property. Needless to say, a capitalist workplace, where the workers are ordered about by a boss, is an example of “property” while a co-operative, where the workers manage their own work, is an example of “possession.”
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Eric Duprey First off I’m not saying Anarchists would coerce Capitalist communities to end it. We just don’t accept and never have accepted Capitalism as Anarchist. Anarchy is without rulers, the dismantling of all unjustified hierarchies or vertical relations. It’s not just no State or government. It’s self-autonomy and horizontal structures.
If you’re for a free market that’s possible in any anarchist society that wants free exchange. But Capitalism isn’t synonymous with a Market Economy. It’s one form of a market economy. One that relies of wage labor (an underclass), private ownership, and commodity production for profit. These factors have made Anarchists anti-Capitalist, not anti-markets. It’s not like we would fight you for being Capitalist, we just won’t accept any Capitalist community as being Anarchist. Having a boss in the workplace is not compatible with the “no masters” principle of Anarchism, either is class distinctions. Again had worker’s the chance they’d be their own boss in the workplace, and want all the rewards they deserve for their labor not just a minimal wage and the rest accumulated by the boss.
And yes Anarchy is about self-organization, autonomy, and free associations. So long as relations are horizontal, decentralized, and not coercive. As an Anarcho-Syndicalist we organize in Syndicates in decentralized networks and federal for larger areas.
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X-Files A
According to your beloved Judeo- Christian ethics and moral tradition:
Old Testament:
“You shall not oppress or exploit your neighbor... love your neighbor as yourself” Leviticus 19:13, 18
“[God] enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants... “ Deuteronomy 10:17-19
“Don’t take advantage of poor or needy workers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities.” Deuteronomy 24:14
“Give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalms 82:3-4
New Testament:
“All who believed were together and had all things in common, and they sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all men, as every man had need.” Acts 2:44-45
“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.” Acts 4:32
“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you posses and give to the poor.” Matthew 19:21
“When you give a feast, invite the poor, maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” Luke 14:13-14
“Distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.” Acts 4:35
Oh well look at that it seems God and Jesus are not opposed to socialist communities. If you’re to take your scriptures literally I mean...
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No actually you can’t. Capitalism wasn’t defined as a free market economy. Socialists coined the term “capitalism” to call the system of capital monopolies, and land owner monopolies, industrial feudalism. Hence why many of the original libertarian socialists were free market radicals. They saw that free markets leads to socialism, as influenced by the classical liberals.
“The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.” — Free Market Anarchist, Benjamin Tucker
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Professor Eggplant All you described are staples of State Socialism and Marxist-Leninism. You should learn more about the history of socialism, which began in liberal circles. Thomas Hogdskin, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo etc... provided socialist development. It also ha it’s start in ideas of industrial technocracy.
Apart from authoritarian State Socialism like Marxist-Leninism there is:
Liberal Socialism such as true Democratic Socialism, evolutionary Marxism. Which is socialism supported by liberal sociopolitical institutions. Democratic system and government. George Orwell is a famous Democratic Socialist.
Then there is Libertarian Socialism aka Anarchism. Yes despite the propaganda against socialism, the ideology gave rise to Anarchism, which is the anti-authority and anti-Statist strain of socialism. This includes Individualist Free Market Anarchists like Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner; Mutualism founded by Proudhon and Social Anarchists like Anarcho-Communists and Syndicalists like Bakunin, and Kropotkin.
Then there is the school of Marxism which could be liberal and libertarian depending on the interpreters; such as Luxemburg Council Communism or authoritative and Statist such as Leninism. To left wing socialists the Leninists were a right wing deviation who took to authoritarianism. During the conflict the Leninist Bolsheviks has a crackdown on left wing socialists like the Anarchists, Democratic Socialists, and Mensheviks. Lenin called them “infants of the left.” There’s been criticism of them since the Russian Revolution, and beforehand against Marx’s more authoritarian ideals. In caused a split in the IWW against the libertarians and the Marxists.
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marianmgm spoken like the kind of ignorant shmuck who thinks Socialism is the government doing things.
Socialism is social/collective ownership of the factors of production. This can manifest itself as public ownership (State controlled), direct worker’s control (worker’s cooperatives), or common ownership (common owned production and distribution).
Marxist-Leninism was but one strain of State controlled Socialism. And it became the dominant strain for political revolutions but it is not the only school of Socialism, or Marxism for that matter.
The Paris Commune was a bold experimental revolution that unfortunately had many factors against it as the Monarchy was still around. But it is the most significant moment of the revolution as it was for the worker’s and for once no elite group or class would raise themselves higher than the rest of society.
Revolutionary Catalonia was the next big Socialist revolution. As Anarchists created a social order of highly decentralized, Stateless, federation of worker owned syndicates. George Orwell wrote of his experiences there and with conviction wrote of Catalonia as the most liberated society there has been. After the Fascists with the aid of Soviets did away with the Revolutionary Anarchists, Orwell would be a staunch opposer to authoritarianism and supporter of Democratic Socialism.
These Anarchist and bottom-top organized Socialist societies being short lived have nothing to do with the system itself. Parties involved had reason to quickly put down the revolts that did away with class society and strived for the freedom of all not just a privileged few. Still today historians and economists marvel at what the Anarcho-Syndicalists accomplished. It worked, people thrived, and it was a completely decentralized hierarchy-less social organization. If anything Anarchists proved social organization is possible in voluntary free associations and horizontal structures.
Your understanding of Socialism is indoctrinated propaganda. You wouldn’t know that Capitalism is not synonymous to market economy, that Socialism also allows for markets that forego the Capitalist mode of production. Adam Smith, David Ricardo influenced many a Socialist who came to the correct conclusion that bourgeois Capitalism is not the free economy Classical Liberals had in mind. Indeed such Liberals as Rousseau and John Stuart Mill advocated a Socialist market economy in which the worker’s were in charge and labor was rewarded what it’s owed, and advocated worker’s cooperatives over Capitalist businesses hierarchy.
“No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred, by the accident of birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing. Is it a necessary evil? They are told so by, those who do not feel it---by those who have gained the prizes in the lottery of life. But it was also said that slavery, that despotism, that all the privileges of oligarchy, were necessary.”
—John Stuart Mill
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@kalebaldwin5398 Biden is old enough in politics to be all kinds of conservative. The guy just goes for what’s politically beneficial career wise. He worked with segregationists to prevent busing (Dixiecrats). He supported “law and order” tough on crime bills in the Clinton era. And he is entrenched in the Democratic establishment post-Obama. As Obama said his own politics would once have been called moderate conservative/Republican. What I’m getting at is Biden is a moderate conservative. Incrementalist. Many people confuse conservatism with regressivism. Conservatives do not oppose change, the political scientific definition is a stance of incrementalist change to preserve traditional institutions and maintain a sense of continuity in social order. Whereas regressives want no change unless it’s a return to an old antiquated system or way of life.
Biden isn’t socially liberal. Another term American politics distorts. To be socially liberal means to advocate individual rights and liberties. To promote a liberal culture of limited government involvement in social life. Social progressivism is the pursuit of transcending social norms, mores, and attitudes. And social conservatism is conserving traditional social norms, mores, and attitudes. Biden is socially progressive on some things, but conservative in others. People tend to be okay with certain things but not with others. I myself am socially progressive and libertarian and am fine with polygamy, prostitution (so long as it’s a proper occupation and not extorted and exploitative), free love, sexual orientations, no marriage etc.... A social liberal and progressive would support gay rights, but not government infringing on rights or liberties. So if an establishment owner wished to refuse service to lgbtq+ potential clientele a social liberal would not advocate government making that owner serve against his wishes. Same in impeding government from telling people who they’re allowed to marry, or what constitutes marriage. A social progressive would disagree with the owner’s position on non normative sexual orientations, but as a social liberal defend individual liberties of both the owner and the lgbtq+ community. Hence a social liberal advocates limited or no government social interference. Something a libertarian socialist like me can support. The thing about us libertarians is we support free association. We are opposed to either social progressives or conservatives social engineering society via laws and regulations. In the American experience such legislation has done as much to hurt the progress of minority communities as was intended to help them. Minority like all communities are better off associating freely for their own interests, having leaders of their own, and running their own towns or cities on their own. The same coercion of progressive laws are easily used for more conservative motives. A more liberal/libertarian society would respect greater freedoms and natural social interactions. At least this is what us anarchists call freedom of association.
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Luis Alejandro fool the 2nd amendment was not for law abiding citizens, it’s for the arming of civilians to be insurrectionary and break the laws should liberty be threatened or invasions occur. Part of arming civilians was to be prepared for foreign invasion, they just dealt with a Revolutionary War. Others were putting down slave revolts, which no longer exists, and to put down Indigenous attacks. Like it or not it came in handy when ethnically cleansing Natives for Manifest Destiny.
Today we have State police that is a armed law protecting branch of governments. So today militias are to be well trained insurrectionary civilian forces prepared for battle. It is the single purpose left for arming civilians, to be outlaws. Should the government prove breaking with Social Contract these civilians would be traitors and will go against the tyrannical government that they would declare them terrorists, traitors, and criminals. And you fight back with well trained and organized militia, not here’s a gun now you’re ready to fight against the most professional and powerful military the world has ever seen. Arming and training minority civilians and citizens is a must for true adherents of the 2nd amendment, for they are always the first in danger when it comes to tyranny. Therefore insurrectionary militias train them, several groups around the country do this. You know gun nuts from 2nd amendment advocates when you see their reactions to arming and training minority citizens.
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@John-gi6yh but do you know what libertarian socialism is? Do you know the history of classical American libertarianism and figures like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker? Or do you just have the States boot down your throat? As Benjamin Tucker said: “The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his “Wealth of Nations,” — namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.”
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@thepolishlatinofromphilly9709 I just feel like it's ignoring the historical context of the term and it's usage. Libertarians were Marxists, Socialists, and Anarchists that continued the far left tradition and wed anarchism with socialism.
While Liberalism is the principle of dismantling centralized State power, the Anarchists and Socialists sought in the same tradition decentralization of economic and Capitalist power upon the individual, a step further in a post-Capitalist world.
Left libertarianism stems from the classical liberal tradition, further liberating the individual from coercive institutions that threaten their liberty.
Anarcho-Socialism = libertarianism, it;s the same thing. Liberalism DOES NOT equal Anarchism or even Socilaism. Libertarianism is the Black and Red united, and is distinct from classical Liberalism.
But if it's the doctrine of free will we're talking about I see your point that Libertarianism is the larger umbrella under which all such ideologies fall.
Libertarianism (from Latin: libertas, meaning "freedom") is a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and individual judgment. Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power, but they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing political and economic systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions.
Traditionally, libertarianism was a term for a form of left-wing politics; such left-libertarian ideologies seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property as a barrier to freedom and liberty] Classical libertarian ideologies include, but are not limited to, anarcho-communism (and anarcho-syndicalism), mutualism, egoism, and anti-paternalist, and the New Left schools of thought such as economic egalitarianism. In the United States, modern right-libertarian ideologies, such as minarchism and anarcho-capitalism, co-opted the term in the mid-20th century to instead advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights, such as in land, infrastructure, and natural resources. [Wikipedia]
You are right in that respect I suppose. I've always made a distinction based on the term's origins but if the boot fits.
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@NewNormalWorldOrder not everything on a screen is bull. You see there’s a conspiracy that the powers that be control everything, nots just not true, it’s impossible. They certainly try, but a State can only control the masses so much, there’s too much individual diversity and people. Giving them that much power, which they don’t have, is a ridiculous fallacy. They don’t control the weather, nor minds, nor nature etc… The apparatus of controls is meant to keep order and authority, but they know they can’t control everything as a hive mind. The conspiracists who give them that much power only deny themselves, and make excuses to not do anything if the situation were that dire. The reason the State is in constant defensive mode is because it knows control is a loose thread ready to unravel by any measure. If they controlled everything we would have a decent economy, knowing that it’s necessary for stability. Control is a measure made by a desperate elite to maintain their privileges, and they are in constant fear of losing it, because they can never assume complete control, only maintain the illusion of it and compromise.
That said, your instincts aren’t wrong. Be wary of mainstream media, and social media platforms
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@theywouldnthavetocensormei9231 I count myself among the defenders of private gun ownership, because I am an anarchist and I see utility in having a population that can challenge the state monopoly on violence if needed. Despite this, I am highly critical of right wing gun culture and it’s simple manichean narratives that cast those who support private ownership as the defenders of liberty and those who oppose private ownership as mad tyrants. Guns are tools. They’re not magic wands, and they don’t inherently signify anything about one’s feelings towards liberty.
The idea that mass private ownership of fire arms could potentially be a bulwark against tyranny is valid, but not without some caveats. It’s easy enough to understand the simple logic of “if the people are well armed then they can fight off tyrants.” I often think of anarchist resistance to Franco in the Spanish Civil War and how a well armed peasantry and proletariat might have been a deciding factor in the struggle. Spanish peasants and workers often didn’t have access to private firearms. They had to break into state armories to aquire weapons, and these weapons were often old, out dated, and poorly maintained. What if they had been as well armed as the North American population is today albeit with weapons of the time? Perhaps they wouldn’t have had to rely as much on weapons from Stalin, and maybe his goons wouldn’t have been in a position to stab them in the back as a result. We’ll never know.
The flip side that people need to consider is that private fire arms can also be used to establish tyranny. What if a majority of gun owners support a mad man hell bent on personal dictatorship? What if the majority of gun owners in Spain were supporters of Franco? What if the rich are the only people who can afford decent weapons? Sadly this was the case. The rich fascists were indeed the most likely group to be well armed in Spain, because they were on average the most wealthy and well connected. This is the dark side of private fire arms that not many of us want to broach.
Now, to be clear, I am not making an argument against private ownership. I am in favor. However, we all need to understand the duality of an armed population if we are going to be an armed population. Education is the first bulwark against tyranny. If people understand how to spot a tyrant they will be less likely to follow one. Social equality is the second. If everyone is taken care of, we won’t have a desperate mass willing to sacrifice their freedom for bread. A culture of non domination is the third. If people are socialized to have an anti authoritarian bias they will find authority repugnant. Horizontal institutions are the fourth. If we have federalism, direct democracy and free association then there won’t be a central node of power which can be used to subordinate the masses. The abolition of the state is a must if we truly want to avoid tyranny. Guns, however, are dead last. Guns are for when everything else has failed.
Unfortunately, “the people” are not always the good guys. The people could be progressive working class libertarian socialists, or they could be reactionaries, racists, and totalitarians. Unfortunately, I think we’re trending towards the latter rather than the former these days. A big factor is a simple formula people run through their minds. The formula goes like this;
Pro gun = anti tyranny, anti gun = pro tyranny, therefore the most pro gun voice is the most anti tyranny voice.
From this point of view anyone can be conned into following an authoritarian, while paradoxically believing they are on the side of liberty.
This logic is baked into the American consciousness. The narrative goes that “we’re a revolutionary country and we used our private rifle stockpiles to fight off the tyrannical monarchy.” So, anyone who wants to overthrow the government is just doing 1776 all over again, right? But if guns can be used to knock down authoritarian regimes, can they not also be used to set them up? What if that pro gun leader you’re following has you fooled? What if the obnoxious anti gun liberal is in other ways, more libertarian even if not on that one issue? After all, Mao famously said; power comes at the barrel of a gun. This was not an anti gun quote either, as some have bizarrely claimed. Mao was a guerrilla warlord who established a totalitarian state, and he did it by convincing legions of peasants to follow him by promising land and liberty. Of course after they used their guns to defeat the enemy, they then used their guns to establish a monopoly on violence.
White supremacists have a similar formula for taking power;
Step one- talk about using the gun to protect freedom.
Step two- trick people into using the gun to establish a dictatorship.
The famous white supremacist novel “The Turner Diaries” depicts a “revolution” which is kicked off by a liberal seizure of guns. In the book, the white supremacists use terrorism in order to goad the liberal state into confiscating assault rifles. The white supremacist revolutionaries then lead a revolution. What does their revolution look like? Well, they hang every black person, jew, and liberal from a street post. Not very much on the side of liberty were they? But they sure did love their guns! In this book they used the foolishness of white American gun culture to initiate their totalitarian race war. Today this book forms the basic blue print for the strategy of every right wing mass shooter in America.
The thing is, one’s position on gun ownership is not really a good litmus test for detecting be tyrants. A tyrant might very well at least initially be very supportive of private firearm ownership before they have consolidated power. Especially if they are attempting to subvert a democracy. This is because they can use their followers as a private army. Meanwhile, perhaps the democrat railing about the evil of guns might be a better friend of liberty, even if they are extremely misguided on this one subject.
Consider a boiler plate liberal president. They ban assault rifles, but nominally support unions, gay marriage, the legalization of Marijuana, separation of church and state, easy emigration/immigration, and abortion. Now consider a theocratic president that was a proponent of private fire arms and told his followers to destroy democracy with their fire arms. After doing so, this hypothetical leader then bans abortion, bans emigration and immigration (trapping you there), institutes the death penalty for the sale of Marijuana, and jails union organizers, outlaws homo sexuality of any kind, establishes Christianity as the official state religion. Which scenario gives the individual greater autonomy? It should be obvious.
To be clear, I do not support the prohibition of assault rifles, or private ownership. I do not support the democratic party either. I am merely debunking the idea that anyone who supports the prohibition must be a tyrant, and that anyone who is against is on the side of liberty. This is a simple narrative that has led many astray. Authoritarianism is a spectrum. A person can be an authoritarian in one way, and a libertarian in another. This is the case for most people. For instance, people will often support the legalization of weed, while simultaneously believing we should shoot every heroin dealer in the head without a trial. Or they might be highly critical of state violence committed by ICE, but totally fine with police using violence against tenants on a regular basis. Humans are complex and paradoxical, we are not always the rational animals we believe ourselves to be.
Next time your leader asks you to break out your rifle. Ask them, why? Look deeper than this one issue. Part of being a gun owner is respecting and acknowledging the potential misuse of weapons. Part of being a libertarian of any kind is thinking critically about how any institution can be used to affect individual autonomy in both positive and negative ways. We don’t want to inadvertently get sucked into doing the bidding of a statist, especially not when we’re doing it at the end of a gun.
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Erik Merrill maybe brush up on American history...
The American System was an economic plan that played an important role in American policy during the first half of the 19th century. Rooted in the "American School" ideas of Alexander Hamilton, the plan "consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other 'internal improvements' to develop profitable markets for agriculture". Congressman Henry Clay was the plan's foremost proponent and the first to refer to it as the "American System".
Henry Clay's "American System," devised in the burst of nationalism that followed the War of 1812, remains one of the most historically significant examples of a government-sponsored program to harmonize and balance the nation's agriculture, commerce, and industry. This "System" consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture. Funds for these subsidies would be obtained from tariffs and sales of public lands. Clay argued that a vigorously maintained system of sectional economic interdependence would eliminate the chance of renewed subservience to the free-trade, laissez-faire "British System."
— United States Senate website
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whyamimrpink78 congratulations your point of argument is posting a link to someone who equates Socialism with Marxism-Leninism and Statism. Clearly there can’t be other schools. Nope the strawmans and played out right wing talking points are great arguments. But meanwhile American history says about free trade economic policy?
Henry C. Carey, a leading American economist and adviser to Abraham Lincoln, in his book Harmony of Interests, displays two additional points of this American School economic philosophy that distinguishes it from the systems of Adam Smith or Karl Marx:
Government support for the development of science and public education through a public 'common' school system and investments in creative research through grants and subsidies.
Rejection of class struggle, in favor of the "Harmony of Interests" between: owners and workers, farmer and manufacturers, the wealthy class and the working class.
In a passage from his book, The Harmony of Interests, Carey wrote concerning the difference between the American System and British System of economics:
Two systems are before the world; ... One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.
And I’m not even a nationalist economy guy, I’m a libertarian socialist. Just pointing out that free trade creating prosperity is a myth, and all countries that built economic wealth has their governments protect national economic interests. Since Hamilton your free trade BS was shot down. Keep exploiting labor, that’ll be beneficial to a “free” society.
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whyamimrpink78 more uneducated drivel. The establishment media isn’t liberal asshole, they’re just pro corporate establishment. Republicans only serve corporations, how the fuck is that moderate?! Even Eisenhower who supported New Deal, and living wage would be considered a far left liberal to today’s right wing hacks like yourself.
When progressives say they want more Nordic model you right wingers scream it’s Socialism. When they say they want Socialism ala Nordic countries you say they’re capitalists with social safety nets, no shit! Which one is with you people. And by developed nation I refer to all industrialized nations which have these Social Liberal standards.
Progressives who are Democrats aren’t the establishment, which fight those progressive policies like H4A, Free college, and GND. That’s cause they’re right wing Third Way neoliberals idiot, how the fuck are neoliberals left wing when that’s what Reagan and Thatcher were. You really are an idiot,
Romneycare/Obamacare isn’t moderate fool. The moderate would be Canada’s public financing of private institutions. Individual Mandate ala Heritage Foundation would be a compromise between center-right and right positions, how is that leftist? Put down the biased conservative articles where Sanders is a commie and read about actual politics idiot.
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@thepolishlatinofromphilly9709 You need to study liberal history a little more. "Laissez faire" was a battle cry of the radical liberals in France. Liberalism is a philosophy born out of the enlightenment. How is laissez faire right wing when it literally is no government or State intervention? Capitalism is right wing as it's predicated on hierarchic business and socioeconomic structures. Liberalism is the precursor to Libertarianism, that is to say Anarchism which is Socialist. Liberalism was simply the ideal that people were free to commerce in markets without the heavy hand of government getting in the way of people's work and commerce. And in those days the majority of people were farmers, artisans, and merchants... people worked for themselves mostly and owned their labor, though there was still some employment. It was classical liberals who developed the labor theory of value, which socialists believe in. It was when capitalism spread in the mid 19th century that socialism in it's notable ideological form grew out of liberal circles, as seen in the French Revolution, in response to the bourgeoisie ruling class and owners of capital implementing a rigid socioeconomic system of haves and have nots. Thus the liberal roots of Socialism.
The problem with the left or moderate left today is they look towards government to restrain capitalism. In my opinion that's the influence of Statist forms of Marxism. However the problem isn't just capitalism, it's the State and government as well. Even with nice social democratic reforms the exploitative capitalist system is maintained, and society is till stratified in classes. The actual Leftist solution is Socialism and Libertarianism. Post-capitalism. Instead of trying to enlarge government to put band aids on capitalism, revolutionize into a Socialist system. There's room for much social experimentation. We need to look towards Free Market Socialism, and Decentralized Planning. That is leftism.
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@The Polish Latino from Philly Where the hell did you learn politics? Left wing means less hierarchies and more egalitarianism and liberty. Right wing means more hierarchies and inequalities and authority. The most far left extreme is Anarchism/Libertarianism, the most far right extreme is Fascism/Totalitarianism.
Laissez faire as an economic doctrine is government staying out of business that is literally a left position, usually a liberal one which isn't as far left as libertarianism, but it's a left position nonetheless.
You're conflating capitalism, a right wing socioeconomic system, with all of liberal economics which is ridiculous as Socialism was born out of liberalism. Just look at David Ricardo’s development of the labor theory of value, or Thomas Hodgskin’s “Labor Defended Against the Claims of Capital” Maybe this Benjamin Tucker quote can explain better:
"The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy."
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Doctor Lemon lol just what I expect from an ignorant kneeler. Hey by the way did you know the most liberated civilization was the Anarcho-Syndicalist Catalonia where they abolished State and worker’s took over industry in worker’s syndicates and decentralized associations? Of course not. As George Orwell said :
“Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before.”
George Orwell, ‘Homage to Catalonia’
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John Doe this comment was ignorance. Neoliberalism refers to the economic ideology of neo classical liberal economics (Capitalism). Trade deals without borders, free flow of Capital, and global economy. That’s neoliberalism. It was influenced by the Chicago School of Economics and implemented by the conservative administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The neoliberal age we live in was the end of Keynesianism that started in the FDR administration and focuses on government fiscal policy and demand side economics.
Barack Obama is not left wing of anything. The Democratic establishment abandoned Modern Liberal Keynesianism for neoliberalism and Corporative influence. They are now Third Way moderate right wingers. Socially they are liberal, but it is undermined by their economic blunders and servitude to corporate donors. Essentially they pay social liberal lip service to gain votes, but ultimately do nothing for the working class and general public.
Progressives being Social Democrats are akin to Modern Liberalism of the FDR era. They would implement a Welfare State and stay within the framework of a Capitalist economy. As well implement Keynesian economic policy.
The center-right neoliberal coalition aren’t the Modern Liberals that believe Liberalism is preserved in the modern era by ensuring equality of opportunity, civil rights and liberties, and socioeconomic mobility to ensure individual achievement.
Those that call themselves liberal today in America aren’t those, they call themselves such for being moderately socially liberal yet do not implement the policy necessary to affirm that they are socially liberal. They are center-right, similar to the conservative groups in Europe. The establishment is neoliberal, and center right. Whereas historically those who have been progressive are called so because they go against the status quo. This was Roosevelt, FDR who began to re-contextualize what is Liberalism in the modern post-industrial Capitalist age, and today’s Social Democrats who believe in social safety nets and decentralization of wealth and such reforms and regulations.
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“Under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality. [...] We are socialists [...] under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership. [...] We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies, joined together in the common bond of the democratic and social Republic.” - Pierre J Proudhon
“The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.” - John Stuart Mill
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4th Dimension I am enlightened by Marx’s criticism of the capitalist system, but do not agree with the solutions. Wage labor itself does not promote freedom, and it’s a dull world of soul sucking jobs where the worker is a cog in a machine not able to enjoy fruits of labor other than a paycheck to consume and purchase goods and services. But to say that capitalism or free markets isn’t beneficial is disingenuous. Entrepreneurship and profits inspires new age technologies, methods, and innovations. The problem is Socialism seen as a boogie man. Truth is socialism does well under democratic regulation to creating levels of equal opportunities amongst a society. Social safety nets to aid the lower classes, regulation of public utilities, limiting poverty, social welfare, infrastructure, public schools, collegiate education, etc.. all stand to benefit and improve our society through socialist methods. But I still think capitalism has a place for innovation and individual entrepreneurship. Hence I lean social democrat. Weed out what is beneficial for the society and for the individual, as of yet I don’t see how hardcore pure socialism is more beneficial than no capitalism. I want socialism to prevent the exploitative nature of capitalism to workers, but I wouldn’t go as far left as to eliminate private properties, or free markets, what is true socialism untethered by free enterprise. One thing for sure, saying socialism is bad is bullshit nonsense, as much as saying pure laissez-faire is the perfect economy without problems and truly creates freedom, it doesn’t.
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Evan Loginov no I’m not either a State Socialist or a Marxist-Leninist. I’m a Libertarian Socialist, though agreeable to liberal socialism. I advocate Market Socialism, and libertarian communism to whatever community agrees to it. State Socialism is a right wing authoritarian deviation of original liberal socialist ideals originating in the French Revolution.
Don’t mistake the market economy with capitalism. Markets are one thing, capitalism is a socioeconomic system based on particular property rights and privileges, wage work, and exploitation of labor. As Benjamin Tucker said:
“The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.
From Smith’s principle that labor is the true measure of price—or, as Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price—these three men made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income (leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally takes one of three forms,—interest, rent, and profit; that these three constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.”
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Jibo Da Grey what a bunch of nonsense. If you conflate capitalism with market economy then you already have no idea, and are indoctrinated to believe capitalism is synonymous with freedom and free markets.
Yet classical liberals like David Ricardo, Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill supported Socialist Worker Coops. Not a single liberal economist claimed to believe in Capitalism, the private ownership of factors of production, accumulation of wealth and capital, and wage labor, all for profit self-interest. Classical Liberals believed in the labor theory of value. Capitalism was a result of affluent industrialist bourgeoisie extending State privileges and favors to being the plutocratic elite class.
Before the mid-20th century, when American libertarians entangled themselves in conservative coalitions against the New Deal and Soviet Communism, “free market” thinkers largely saw themselves as liberals or radicals, not as conservatives. Libertarian writers, from Smith to Bastiat to Spencer, had little interest in tailoring their politics to conservative or “pro-business” measurements. They frequently identified capitalists, and their protectionist policies, as among the most dangerous enemies of free exchange and property rights. The most radical among them were the mutualists and individualist Anarchists, among them Benjamin Tucker, Dyer Lum, Victor Yarros, and Voltairine de Cleyre. Tucker, the individualist editor of Liberty, wrote in 1888 that his Anarchism called for “Absolute Free Trade... laissez faire the universal rule;” but all the while he described this doctrine of complete laissez faire and free competition a form of “Anarchistic socialism.” For Tucker, of course, “socialism” could not mean government ownership of the means of production (that was “State Socialism,” which Tucker opposed root and branch); what he meant, rather, was workers’ control over the conditions of their labor – opposition to actually existing economic inequalities, capitalist labor relations, and the exploitative practices of big businesses supported by state privilege. For Tucker, the surest way to dismantle capitalist privilege was to knock through the political privileges which shield it, and to expose it, unprotected, to the full range of competing enterprises – including mutualistic enterprise of, for, and by freed workers – that genuinely freed exchange would allow. Another term for Anarchism is Libertarian Socialism. Libertarianism has historically been socialist, the American right wing pro-Capitalists are neither libertarian nor anarchists. They simply took the term cause Liberal was taken.
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Lee A In a right-libertarian or “anarcho”-capitalist society, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, “the libertarian defines the concept of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’. . .[as a] condition in which a person’s ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand.”
This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another’s property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual’s only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-libertarians themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. However, this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether “anarcho”-capitalists are actually interested in freedom.
Given that workers are paid to obey, you really have to wonder which planet Murray Rothbard is on when he argues that a person’s “labour service is alienable, but his will is not” and that he “cannot alienate his will, more particularly his control over his own mind and body.” [The Ethics of Liberty] He contrasts private property and self-ownership by arguing that “all physical property owned by a person is alienable . . . I can give away or sell to another person my shoes, my house, my car, my money, etc. But there are certain vital things which, in natural fact and in the nature of man, are inalienable . . . his will and control over his own person are inalienable.”
But “labour services” are unlike the private possessions Rothbard lists as being alienable. A person’s “labour services” and “will” cannot be divided — if you sell your labour services, you also have to give control of your body and mind to another person! If a worker does not obey the commands of her employer, she is fired. That Rothbard denies this indicates a total lack of common-sense. Perhaps Rothbard will argue that as the worker can quit at any time she does not alienate their will (this seems to be his case against slave contracts). But this ignores the fact that between the signing and breaking of the contract and during work hours (and perhaps outside work hours, if the boss has mandatory drug testing or will fire workers who attend union meetings or those who have an “unnatural” sexuality and so on) the worker does alienate his will and body. In the words of Rudolf Rocker, “under the realities of the capitalist economic form . . . there can be no talk of a ‘right over one’s own person,’ for that ends when one is compelled to submit to the economic dictation of another if he does not want to starve.” [Anarcho-Syndicalism]
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The Awoken and Broken Matt Hardy well the Conservative party definitely isn’t classical liberals. They’re more “Christian fundamentalist” and corporatists. Libertarian right are classical liberals.
Modern liberals are Social Liberals, with focus on equality of opportunity. Libertarian left are far left socialists and anarchists.
On the general spectrum it goes
Anarchism - Communism/Socialism - Liberalism - moderation - Conservatism - Fascism - Authoritarianism/Totalitarianism
It’s a complicated matter and there are many overlapping and in-betweens but the standard political left-right spectrum is a model to simplify a complex reality.
Classical Liberalism is liberalism, today a more conservative view on what is liberty, but it falls under the Liberal category nonetheless. The libertarian right are exactly this, concerned for limited government, civic rights and liberties, as well as advocating a liberal economy, or free market and enterprise (Capitalism).
Modern Liberalism is social liberalism, concerned on equality of opportunity, reform, and addressing systemic hindrances upon marginalized and minority groups. As well as concern for general social welfare.
It’s all complicated and nuanced, but the way I make sense of the political spectrum is the further left the less State coercion upon the individual, the further right the more State coercion upon the individual. As well as more progressive stances (left) vs more conservative stances (right) of social and economic organization.
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Nihilism has a very left wing history. The idea that there is no universal abstract or objective morality and ethics. It’s all social constructs. Since there isn’t such things, we make the world we want to, there are no limitations other than material conditions. Nihilism drive the Russian Narodnik movement, a socialist rebellion. Max Stirner’s Egoist philosophy influential to libertarian socialists. Alexander Herzen’s philosophy of radical populist socialism. There is no guarantees, no natural evolution that leads to a just an equitable society, you make the world you want in real time, and act on it today. Progress comes from action, actions people take towards progress in their day, and maybe it isn’t a forgone conclusion. Nihilists don’t believe socialism is inevitable, you have to make it a reality. What if human experience and progress results from real decisions made; not by some cosmic morality that there is no evidence of. The nihilist reality is the natural conclusion of philosophical rationalist and materialist movement, which are the philosophical underpinnings of left wing thought. From liberalism, to socialism, to anarchism etc…
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Tumslover27 Bernie is not a Socialist. All Socialism shares the core principle of common/social/worker’s ownership of the means of production. Bernie is not for collectivizing the means of production. He’s for reforms, regulations, and redistribution. He’s not looking for a post Capitalist system. He wants more social mobility, a strong middle class, and more opportunity. He hasn’t even mentioned incentivizing a worker’s coops sector of industry. He’s a Social Liberal/Social Democrat plain and simple. Socialism IS the abolition of class struggle and private property. Private property is not the same as personal property, as in your vehicle, tv, home, or as you say coat. Private property the Socialist refers to is private ownership of the means of production, what we call private property. You got the right concept, but are missing some important points.
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To add to my first response critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. It argues that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.
Critical Theory also refers specifically to a school of thought practiced by the Frankfurt School theoreticians Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them." Although a product of modernism, and although many of the progenitors of Critical Theory were skeptical of postmodernism, Critical Theory is one of the major components of both modern and postmodern thought, and is widely applied in the humanities and social sciences today.
This is the tradition of the social sciences, the early socialists were the first social scientists, social critics, and social reformers. Socialism is economic and industrial critique, sociology is study of society and it’s critiques of social power structures.
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Social conservatism is the lowest form of conservatism. Just driven by reaction and regression, keeping social behaviors just because. Absolutely nothing to do with classical conservative political philosophy (Burkeanism) and the pragmatic conservative approach of American figures like John Adams. Not even the small government liberal conservatisms of Barry Goldwater, or the traditionalist philosophy of William F Buckley Jr. What do social conservatives got? Pat Buchanan, Stalwell, Limbaugh, Shapiro, Crowder, Peterson, Alex Jones etc…. Time for a new right wing coalition to save Conservatives from the illiberal authoritarian nationalism and theocratic tendencies of social l regressives. It’s up to you conservatives, if you want to be a viable political bloc, you best deal with the trash. Fun fact: by American standards, tradition is liberalism and republicanism.
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Sheepy2055 In a right-libertarian or "anarcho"-capitalist society, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, "the libertarian defines the concept of 'freedom' or 'liberty'. . .[as a] condition in which a person's ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand."
Given that workers are paid to obey, you really have to wonder which planet Murray Rothbard is on when he argues that a person's "labour service is alienable, but his will is not" and that “he cannot alienate his will, more particularly his control over his own mind and body." He contrasts private property and self-ownership by arguing that "all physical property owned by a person is alienable . . . I can give away or sell to another person my shoes, my house, my car, my money, etc. But there are certain vital things which, in natural fact and in the nature of man, are inalienable . . . [his] will and control over his own person are inalienable."
Ironically, the rights of property (which are said to flow from an individual's self-ownership of themselves) becomes the means, under capitalism, by which self-ownership of non-property owners is denied. The foundational right (self-ownership) becomes denied by the derivative right (ownership of things). Under capitalism, a lack of property can be just as oppressive as a lack of legal rights because of the relationships of domination and subjection this situation creates.
So Rothbard's argument (as well as being contradictory) misses the point (and the reality of capitalism). Yes, if we define freedom as "the absence of coercion" then the idea that wage labour does not restrict liberty is unavoidable, but such a definition is useless. This is because it hides structures of power and relations of domination and subordination. As Carole Pateman argues, "the contract in which the worker allegedly sells his labour power is a contract in which, since he cannot be separated from his capacities, he sells command over the use of his body and himself. . . To sell command over the use of oneself for a specified period . . . is to be an unfree labourer."
In other words, contracts about property in the person inevitably create subordination. "Anarcho"-capitalism defines this source of unfreedom away, but it still exists and has a major impact on people's liberty. Therefore freedom is better described as "self-government" or "self-management" -- to be able to govern ones own actions (if alone) or to participate in the determination of join activity (if part of a group). Freedom, to put it another way, is not an abstract legal concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all their powers, capacities, and talents which nature has endowed them. A key aspect of this is to govern one own actions when within associations (self-management). If we look at freedom this way, we see that coercion is condemned but so is hierarchy (and so is capitalism for during working hours, people are not free to make their own plans and have a say in what affects them. They are order takers, not free individuals).
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LwrC 1984? Orwell was a true post-Capitalist Democratic Socialist you dumbass.
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
George Orwell, “Why I write” p. 394
“And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a socialist party.”
– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”
“Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before.”
George Orwell, ‘Homage to Catalonia’
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@Pat Orsban what are you an idiot? My point comes from an actual free market place. Libertarian socialism has a strain of free markets. Socialism means worker ownership. Like I said Republicans believe as much about free markets as Alexander Hamilton did. This country has never had liberal economics. It was either American School which was nationalist economics, and the South had slavery which was a plantation system without any liberal sense.
Study our own history. The only people I know that actually advocate free markets are libertarian socialists. One of the most influential was Benjamin Tucker and this is what he said: “The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.
This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable. However this may be, Marx’s presentation of the ideas was in so many respects peculiarly his own that he is fairly entitled to the credit of originality. That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American,—a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article. Of the purest revolutionary blood, too, this Warren, for he descended from the Warren who fell at Bunker Hill.
From Smith’s principle that labor is the true measure of price—or, as Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price—these three men made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income (leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally takes one of three forms,—interest, rent, and profit; that these three constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.”
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@Pat Orsban According to a GAO report, about a quarter of the largest American corporations paid no corporate income tax in 2005. It hasn’t really changed since.
But that’s really just the way the system is set up. If you think about it, the corporate income tax really isn’t all that progressive. Just about all the tax loopholes and other tricks for avoiding taxation tend to favor the big boys at the expense of everyone else. Perhaps the single best way to avoid taxes is for transnationals to shuffle income to subsidiaries in the lowest-taxed jurisdictions, so transnationals already have a leg up on the smaller companies that operate primarily in the United States. And if you look at the largest tax deductions and tax credits, they go overwhelmingly to companies that are capital-intensive (the writeoff for depreciation), high tech (the R&D tax credit), or heavily involved in mergers and acquisitions (the deduction for interest on corporate debt).
What’s more, the largest corporations are least likely to suffer for whatever corporate income taxes they do pay, because they tend to be in oligopoly industries that practice tacit pricing collusion through the “price leader” system. This doesn’t require any conspiracies or secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms. When three, four or five large firms control more than half the market in a given industry, they tend to follow the pricing practices of the dominant firm. So prices in an oligopoly market are “stickier.” The practical effect is that the big firms in an oligopoly industry are able to use administered pricing based on a markup from their costs — including the corporate income tax — and pass them on to the customers. That’s essentially the same thing a regulated public utility does.
So the largest corporations are more likely to be able to just pass their taxes on to the consumer as a markup, and set themselves an after-tax profit over and above those expenses. Smaller corporations in the competitive sector, on the other hand, are price-takers rather than price-makers. This means that the corporate income tax on the large companies is mostly paid by the customer as part of the markup, whereas the smaller firms take more of a hit on their profits.
In other words, the “progressive” agenda of closing corporate income tax loopholes and raising rates on the big boys will have the unintended consequence of raising prices on the consumer without affecting corporate profits.
So what’s the solution? Instead of taxing their profits higher, we should be eliminating all the interventions by which the state makes their profits so large in the first place.
That means abolishing copyrights and patents, state-enforced monopolies which are the single biggest source of profit in the transnational corporate economy. The biggest source of profit is royalties on information and entertainment whose marginal cost of production is zero. If it wasn’t for “intellectual property,” Microsoft Office would cost about as much as my Open Office CD (I got it for ten bucks). What’s more, trademarks and patents are the main legal support for what Naomi Klein calls the “Nike model,” by which all actual manufacturing is outsourced to independent job shops in the Third World and the corporate headquarters simply retains control of production through its control of IP, finance and marketing. Patents and trademarks are the reason for the brand-name markup of hundreds or thousands of percent between the actual cost of making those sneakers in the Chinese sweatshop, and the $200 or so the Western consumer pays at Target.
It also means abolishing government subsidies and regulatory cartels of all kinds. Regulatory cartels, in particular, have played a huge role in the formation of stable oligopoly markets and the 25% or so markup the Nader Group found in industries with the smallest number of firms.
So once again, this illustrates the same general principle that we keep coming back to: Instead of regulating and taxing the effects of government-enforced monopoly, we instead need to just get rid of the monopoly.
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@Pat Orsban you’re arguing against a radical libertarian free market anarchist. Too bad the conservative “liberal” takes Cold War propaganda created by the government’s agencies, FBI and CIA. COINTELPRO rings a bell? Project MOCKINGBIRD? The FBI’s manipulation of media and attack on civil rights and liberties against dissenters of the State? The murder of civil rights leaders? The persecution of anarchists, socialists, and Marxists? I myself don’t like Marxists, but they still persecuted people for their political ideals. I thought you were a liberal, then stop drinking the State Kool Aid and actually learn about libertarian socialism. Even George Orwell was a democratic socialist with libertarian influences.
If conservatives were “liberals” they would have a history of being on the wrong authoritarian side. Slavery, forced segregation, religious zealots, attacks on Enlightenment ideals like rationalism, secularism, the scientific revolution. Today’s conservatism is one the religious right (social tyrants), corporate oligarchs, and police boot lickers. That’s real “liberal”. Don’t take it from me, let’s see what Barry Goldwater had to say:
On the Religious Right
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
--Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."
--Said in July 1981 in response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned." Time Magazine, (20 July, 1981)
On Gay Rights
"The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it."
"Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it."
“Gays and lesbians are a part of every American family. They should not be shortchanged in their efforts to better their lives and serve their communities. As President Clinton likes to say, ‘If you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded’ and not with a pink slip just for being gay.”
On True Conservatism
"What I was talking about[Gay rights, Abortion]was more or less 'conservative,' " Goldwater recalls, saying he was smeared by the people around President Johnson – "the most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency." Goldwater continues: "The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."
Bill and Hillary Clinton
"On Hillary Clinton, who was an ardent Goldwater supporter in 1964: 'If he'd let his wife run business, I think he'd be better off. ... I just like the way she acts. I've never met her, but I sent her a bag of chili, and she invited me to come to the White House some night and said she'd cook chili for me. Someday, maybe.' "
--"Barry Goldwater's Turn", Washington Post
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@Pat Orsban The modern conservative coalition is one of religious fanatics with no respect for secularism, and rights “libertarians” that aren’t critical of the monopolies or State interference in the economy. No they’re all for Corporatocracy. As you can see from Barry Goldwater’s comments the modern Democrats are the true traditionalist conservatives. They come from a line fo traditional conservatism following the Federalists—Whigs—Lincoln Republicans—Modern Democrats. Modern Democrats are traditionalists that support traditional political institutions, neoliberalism, and even liberal values by degrees. Literally the party of urban liberal industrialists, like Lincoln’s party was. Last I checked the Democrats were the Federalists.
Only morons believe social conservatism is the only kind of conservatism. You also have economic conservatives, cultural conservatives, and traditionalist conservatives which the Democrats of today are. They’re incrementalists and status quo, which is why I hate the Democratic Party
I agree that American conservatism should be liberal and constitutionalist, too bad modern conservatives don’t believe so. They’re religious tyrants trying to make everyone else live by their morals, they don’t actually support free markets, they don’t believe in liberal society, they want the Church to have more influence, they don’t support the Constitution (probably never read it), and they practically follow their politicians words like gospel. If they were actually liberals the Republican Party wouldn’t allow so many monopolies to exist. They support patent monopolies so don’t ever talk about conservatives being liberals again. I know real classical liberals, we get along. They are Georgists, actual classical economics, and actually want to limit government. None of them are Republicans
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Daniel Paul oh I see. Your problem is being a Marxist or a Leninist. Last time I checked social democracy was an utter failure and deteriorated to capitalist reformism. And Leninism degrades to State Capitalism.
As G.D.H. Cole puts it, the French Internationalists, including Varlin, were “strongly hostile to centralisation. They were federalists, intent on building up working-class organisations on a local basis and them federating the local federations. The free France they looked forward was to be a country made up of locally autonomous communes, freely federated for common purposes which required action over larger areas . . . In this sense they were Anarchists.” Varlin “had at bottom a great deal more in common with Proudhon than with Marx” and had a “Syndicalist outlook.”
“Varlin and the French Bakuninists,” George Woodcock notes, “had also [like the syndicalists] recognised before the Paris Commune the role of the trade unions in social struggle, and the general strike.” To quote Varlin himself, unions have “the enormous advantage of making people accustomed to group life and thus preparing them for a more extended social organisation. They accustom people not only to get along with one another and to understand one another, but also to organise themselves, to discuss, and to reason from a collective perspective.” Moreover, as well as mitigating capitalist exploitation and oppression in the here and now, the unions also “form the natural elements of the social edifice of the future; it is they who can be easily transformed into producers associations; it is they who can make the social ingredients and the organisation of production work.”
The Anarchist critique of the Commune was that it retained a government, inefficient, and unable to administer a social revolution of a mass of people. Marx praised the Commune and thought that in it all his ideals come to fruition. Except the Commune was exceptionally anarchist, federalist, and based in Proudhon’s mutualism. The working associations and clubs side stepped the city government and organized themselves in spite of the “revolutionary government.”
You need to read more.
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Daniel Paul Ultimately, this is the key ideological flaw in Marxism. While claiming to base itself on mass participation, direct democracy and so forth (“socialism from below”) it advocates a form of social organisation, centralisation, which is designed to exclude it. Despite themselves, they end up advocating party rule (“socialism from above”) and ensure the defeat of the revolution from within if not from without.
“the form at last discovered…”?
For Marx, the Commune was “the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour.” He praised such aspects of the experiment as the Communal Council being made up of delegates who would could be recalled “bound by the mandat imperatif (formal instructions) of his constituents,” that it was a “working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time” and that “the standing army was to be replaced by a national militia.” Marx is paraphrased: “What made the Parisian democratic structure so different?” Its representatives which “were 'at all times revocable' so delegates could not stray from the mandate of their electors.” The creation of a militia is also praised.
Yet this was not entirely true. While the Communards had applied these forms it is false to say that they had come entirely out of the blue. In fact, the Paris Commune applied ideas which anarchists had been discussing for some time. Proudhon, for example, raised the idea of binding mandates and assemblies of elected representatives being executive and legislative during the 1848 revolution:
“It is up to the National Assembly, through organisation of its committees, to exercise executive power, just the way it exercises legislative power . . . Besides universal suffrage and as a consequence of universal suffrage, we want implementation of the binding mandate. Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their eyes, the people, in electing representatives, do not appoint mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty! That is assuredly not socialism: it is not even democracy.”
The vision of a free society being a federation of communes was discussed by Proudhon in his 1863 book “The Principle of Federation” (which drew on ideas he had expressed previously – and even earlier, from the Great French Revolution). Bakunin repeated the same vision of a federal system of communes based on mandated and revocable delegates in the 1860s:
“the Alliance of all labour associations . . . will constitute the Commune . . . there will be a standing federation of the barricades and a Revolutionary Communal Council . . . [made up of] delegates . . . invested with binding mandates and accountable and revocable at all times . . . all provinces, communes and associations . . . [will] delegate deputies to an agreed place of assembly (all . . . invested with binding mandated and accountable and subject to recall), in order to found the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces . . . and to organise a revolutionary force with the capacity of defeating the reaction . . . it is through the very act of extrapolation and organisation of the Revolution with an eye to the mutual defences of insurgent areas that the universality of the Revolution . . . will emerge triumphant.”
What of abolishing the army and replacing it with a militia. For Gluckstein, the idea of a militia “owed nothing to . . . Proudhon's anarchist rejection of the state . . . The federation wanted to replace the permanent army with a workers' militia . . . That completely subverted the idea of the state as something imposing its will upon society from above.” This is not entirely true, as Proudhon did raise the notion that “police, judiciary, administration, everywhere committed to the hands of the workers.” However, as a reformist Proudhon did not address the issue of defence of a revolution. This was something which Bakunin raised in a striking prediction of what happened in 1871: “Immediately after established governments have been overthrown, communes will have to reorganise themselves along revolutionary lines . . . In order to defend the revolution, their volunteers will at the same time form a communal militia. But no commune can defend itself in isolation. So it will be necessary to radiate revolution outward, to raise all of its neighbouring communes in revolt . . . and to federate with them for common defence.”
So the awkward fact is that anarchists had been advocating these forms since Proudhon in the 1840s and they were developed by Bakunin in the 1860s. It is true, however, that nothing similar can be found in Marx until after the Commune which suggests, as Anarchist K.J. Kenafick states, “that the programme [the Commune] set out is . . . the system of Federalism, which Bakunin had been advocating for years, and which had first been enunciated by Proudhon. The Proudhonists . . . exercised considerable influence in the Commune. This 'political form' was therefore not 'at last' discovered; it had been discovered years ago; and now it was proven to be correct by the very fact that in the crisis the Paris workers adopted it almost automatically, under the pressure of circumstance, rather than as the result of theory, as being the form most suitable to express working class aspirations.”
So, clearly, the major influence in terms of “political vision” of the Commune was anarchism. The “rough sketch of national organisation which the Commune had no time to develop” which Marx praises but does not quote was written by a follower of Proudhon. It expounded a clearly federalist and “bottom-up” organisational structure. Based on this libertarian revolt, it is unsurprising that Marx's defence of it took on a libertarian twist. As noted by Bakunin, who argued that its “general effect was so striking that the Marxists themselves, who saw their ideas upset by the uprising, found themselves compelled to take their hats off to it. They went further, and proclaimed that its programme and purpose where their own, in face of the simplest logic . . . This was a truly farcical change of costume, but they were bound to make it, for fear of being overtaken and left behind in the wave of feeling which the rising produced throughout the world.”
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Daniel Paul see this is your misconception. Markets aren’t inherently Statist. Literally free markets require no state something capitalists know nothing about. There is a direct line from classical liberalism to socialism. Classical liberals were developing the labor theory of value that socialists believe in. From Adam Smith, to David Ricardo, to Thomas Hodgskin, to John Stuart Mill etc.... the lie of capitalism, classical liberals believed in labor theory, and were against capitalism. Hodgskin wrote “Labor Defended Against the Claims of Capital” Mill supported worker cooperatives over capitalist firms. All markets are is commercial exchange, transactions. Don’t need the state for markets, for Trade. And I’m a Syndicalist. I think markers are ultimately better left ended.
The central fallacy of the argument that support for markets equals support for capitalism is that many self-proclaimed socialists are not opposed to the market. Indeed, some of the earliest socialists were market socialists (people like Thomas Hodgskin and William Thompson, although the former ended up rejecting socialism and the latter became a communal-socialist). Proudhon, as noted, was a well known supporter of market exchange. German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer expounded a similar vision to Proudhon and called himself a “liberal socialist” as he favoured a free market but recognised that capitalism was a system of exploitation. [“Introduction”, The State, p. vii] Today, market socialists like David Schweickart (see his Against Capitalism and After Capitalism) and David Miller (see his Market, State, and community: theoretical foundations of market socialism) are expounding a similar vision to Proudhon’s, namely of a market economy based on co-operatives (albeit one which retains a state). Unfortunately, they rarely, if ever, acknowledge their debt to Proudhon (needless to say, their Leninist opponents do as, from their perspective, it damns the market socialists as not being real socialists).
It could, possibly, be argued that these self-proclaimed socialists did not, in fact, understand what socialism “really meant.” For this to be the case, other, more obviously socialist, writers and thinkers would dismiss them as not being socialists. This, however, is not the case. Thus we find Karl Marx, for example, writing of “the socialism of Proudhon.” [Capital, vol. 1, p. 161f] Engels talked about Proudhon being “the Socialist of the small peasant and master-craftsman” and of “the Proudhon school of Socialism.” [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 254 and p. 255] Bakunin talked about Proudhon’s “socialism, based on individual and collective liberty and upon the spontaneous action of free associations.” He considered his own ideas as “Proudhonism widely developed and pushed right to these, its final consequences” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 100 and p. 198] For Kropotkin, while Godwin was “first theoriser of Socialism without government — that is to say, of Anarchism” Proudhon was the second as he, “without knowing Godwin’s work, laid anew the foundations of Anarchism.” He lamented that “many modern Socialists” supported “centralisation and the cult of authority” and so “have not yet reached the level of their two predecessors, Godwin and Proudhon.” [Evolution and Environment, pp. 26–7] These renown socialists did not consider Proudhon’s position to be in any way anti-socialist (although, of course, being critical of whether it would work and its desirability if it did). Tucker, it should be noted, called Proudhon “the father of the Anarchistic school of Socialism.” [Instead of a Book, p. 381] Little wonder, then, that the likes of Tucker considered themselves socialists and stated numerous times that they were.
Looking at Tucker and the Individualist anarchists we discover that other socialists considered them socialists. Rudolf Rocker stated that “it is not difficult to discover certain fundamental principles which are common to all of them and which divide them from all other varieties of socialism. They all agree on the point that man be given the full reward of his labour and recognise in this right the economic basis of all personal liberty. They all regard the free competition of individual and social forces as something inherent in human nature ... They answered the socialists of other schools who saw in free competition one of the destructive elements of capitalist society that the evil lies in the fact we have too little rather than too much competition, since the power of monopoly has made competition impossible.” [Pioneers of American Freedom, p. 160] Malatesta, likewise, saw many schools of socialism, including “anarchist or authoritarian, mutualist or individualist.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 95]
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@billystanton1522 Orwell wasn’t a Marxist, his influence was anarchists. You could only speculate but Orwell saw in socialism, specifically the original anti-authoritarian socialism before the Bolsheviks became dominant, as the cure and foundations for the most libertarian society in the world.
Fun Fact: Libertarianism comes from socialism. The early anti-authoritarian and anti-statists were anarchist-communists and free market anti-capitalist socialists. For example as the Free Market Socialist Benjamin Tucker said: “The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his Wealth of Nations,—namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.”
Anarchists are socialists, the most libertarian tendencies are socialist, and this was Orwell’s influence. You’re conflating capitalism with market economy, which is historical error. There are many market socialists. What socialists like Orwell called capitalism is the monopolist system of capitalists and landowners, preventing a free economy. Since only through the socialization of the land and means of production does the State become unnecessary. Or again as Tucker said:
“From Smith’s principle that labor is the true measure of price—or, as Warren phrased it, that cost is the proper limit of price—these three men (Warren, Proudhon, Marx) made the following deductions: that the natural wage of labor is its product; that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income (leaving out, of course, gift, inheritance, etc.); that all who derive income from any other source abstract it directly or indirectly from the natural and just wage of labor; that this abstracting process generally takes one of three forms,—interest, rent, and profit; that these three constitute the trinity of usury, and are simply different methods of levying tribute for the use of capital; that, capital being simply stored-up labor which has already received its pay in full, its use ought to be gratuitous, on the principle that labor is the only basis of price; that the lender of capital is entitled to its return intact, and nothing more; that the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labor lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure labor the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage, is to strike down monopoly.”
Whether you think classless society is utopian or not doesn’t matter, Orwell witnessed it in Catalonia, and wished to see such a social revolution spread and liberate. The old Anarchist notion of no authoritarian hierarchies, but free association and voluntary cooperation. In case you don’t know libertarian socialism comes from classical liberalism. Capitalism comes from feudalism and mercantilism. Classical liberals were the predecessors of socialists, or as John Stuart Mill said: “The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.”
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Titan Decentralized and democratized workplaces or industry. The Syndicates deal with each other in Federalist systems. Each Syndicate or Union is worked in a Federalist way, or democratically where any elected officials or managers are subject to direct recall. That’s some of the economic and industrial aspects. It’s worker controlled and owned.
Anarchists believe in the core concept of dismantling all unjustified hierarchical structures, or institutions in society. No one should have a coercive agent telling them what to do, unless it is justified, which often you’ll find unsatisfactory justifications.
There are several historical communes of such societies, the first being the Paris Commune, the most significant being Anarcho-Syndicalist or Revolutionary Catalonia. You can give these a quick search on YouTube or internet in general.
Libertarian Socialism is in other words Anarchist Socialism. Socialism is a socioeconomic system of organization, not a form of government. The doctrines or beliefs of Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists are based on the continuing doctrines of liberty and equality of Liberalism. Just as Liberals dismantled structures of power, wealth, and prestige so does the Libertarian Left/Far Left who are basically an offshoot of or continuing branch of those ideals of Liberalism.
Socialism, Communism, and Marxism isn’t all the Cold War propaganda tells you. Marxist-Leninists are another branch inspired by Marxism but went a complete political Totalitarian route. And they achieved neither Socialism nor Communism for their troubles. Just State Capitalism, and an Authoritarian regime ran by a few leaders of the political party instead of giving workers direct ownership of the means of production or democratizing. They failed the workers and the core beliefs of Socialism of Far Leftism ultimately.
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Titan They supposedly established the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ which is the Marxist agenda of workers taking control of the State apparatus, essentially the government. When the workers are in control of government they ease the transition to a Socialist economy and finally Communism.
This means workers will control the means of production, get rid of private property (not personal property), and establish a post-Capitalist economy. The goal is eventually the State will wither away and the Communist society free of class, State, and money would be in place. Hence Socialism is a transition to Communism.
The Soviet Union and other Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries never got rid of State and money and definitely never established Communism.
They were following doctrines of Socialism, where the workers take a Revolutionary path, but there is also a less violent more democratic way of being elected into power through a democratic government as well. Regardless Lenin himself called what they achieved State Capitalism. That is the State functions as Capitalists employing people, owning the means of production, receiving profits, and distribute or allocating as they wish. This was not at all Socialism, which Lenin called State Capitalism. Stalin would declare State Capitalism as Communism or Socialism achieved which was inherent bullshit.
The workers had employers so that wasn’t Socialist. The workers never controlled the means of production or their own labor in these countries, though they may argue they did through the one-Party system. Regardless it was Totalitarian form of government which was a shit departure from the freedom Socialists always wanted for workers.
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Titan The hell are you talking about? Socialism is a socioeconomic system, not a form of government. It focuses are getting rid of classes and giving laborers control of their labor.
Catalonia was Anarcho-Syndicalist and the workers owned their means of production. They didn’t have to revolt as this was occurring just before the Spanish Civil War. They formed it over the years and created a society of freedom, no government, a Socialist economy, radical Unionism, and no private property or Capitalism. Everything was decentralized, and democratized, and production was distributed by need not for profit. They thrived until Franco the Fascist dictator won the Civil War.
This was a society so free that George Orwell fell in love with it. In “Homage to Catalonia” Orwell expresses his admiration for the freest society he ever witnessed. He despised the Soviet Union and Fascism as seen in his famous works “Animal Farm” and “1984” He fought for the Anarchists and was a true Democratic Socialist the rest of his life.
It’s not delusion, people are just fed propaganda that a system where wealth is concentrated to an elite few, the very things Liberals fought against, is some kind of freedom. It’s your ignorance that makes you think there is no other possibility for human social organization. It’s been done before, and people will always move towards freedom not the other way around.
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Titan Again you spewed nonsense. I already explained why State Capitalism isn’t anything Socialist. Socialism is a socioeconomic system not a form of government. Usually it’s Anarchists who have achieved that kind of system. They have no government and voluntarily work in a decentralized and collaborative system of industry. Look up the Paris Commune, Revolutionary Catalonia, Rojeva etc... These were free and thriving societies until defeated by Fascists or Monarchists. Again George Orwell paid respects to the Anarchists and Syndicalists of Catalonia, the freest society he ever had the pleasure to witness. We’re talking 1984 Orwell. The praises critic of the Soviet Union and Authoritarianism. Well Orwell was a Democratic Socialist.
The intellectuals of Anarchism, Communism, and Socialism made clear in their works that their systems are about liberty and equality. Not the crap Marxist-Leninist pulled off that Lenin himself coined State Capitalism. The Libertarian Left condemns these “Communist States” (an oxymoron) as the garbage they are. You still have this outdated Cold War idea that Communism and Socialism means tyranny. Well no, notice when Capitalism takes a wrong turn you here no such criticisms. Such as the Fascists of Europe, or dictatorships like Pinochet’s in Chile. There’s a reason Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists are places in the Far Left of the political spectrum, they are the systems of least or practically no State coercion upon the individual. It is the most Libertarian wing on the spectrum. I’ll just recommend you educate yourself on the matters instead of just believing what you were told and not challenging preconceived notions. That’s how I became an Anarchist. Not saying you will change your mind but you have nothing to lose informing yourself.
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@waltergrace565 the problem with Republicans is they aren’t even conservatives, they’re reactionary extremists. People like De Santis aren’t actually ideologues, they’re careerists that will take advantage of uneducated constituents by fear mongering and blaming everyone for their poverty except the business elites. DeSantis isn’t a conservative, he’s not even an ideological reactionary, he just wants power. If here were from a blue state he’d be pretending to be a liberal. Actual Traditionalism is Burke, Adams, Hamilton, Goldwater. Social conservatism is a disease that has put classical conservatism on the fringes. They’re authoritarian and theocrats that want to destroy liberal society and force everyone to live in accordance with their specific morals. Then you have the economic libertarians who only care for profits. This is why the Republican Party is majority grifters with no real conservatives policy or rhetoric. It’s all just contradictory contrarian talking points and fabrications to maintain power for greed’s sake. American traditionalists need to expel all social conservatives, extremists, and unethical politicians and reform the conservative movement.
“The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it."
“Gays and lesbians are a part of every American family. They should not be shortchanged in their efforts to better their lives and serve their communities. As President Clinton likes to say, ‘If you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded’ and not with a pink slip just for being gay.”
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
— Quotes from Mr. Conservative; Barry Goldwater
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@derek9783 again as an Anarchist you are completely devoid of historical knowledge. If socialism is authoritarian fundamentally and not capitalism then why is Anarchism, the most radical anti-authority ideology historically socialist and anti-capitalist. Why was anti-government politics and libertarianism founded amongst socialists? The father of Anarchism was the socialist Pierre J Proudhon, and the term “libertarian” is credited to the anti-authoritarian communist Joseph Dejacque. If what you claim is true then why does history say different? Why did George Orwell advocate socialism and opposed capitalism, even as his very name became synonymous with opposition to totalitarianism and any authoritarian regime is called Orwellian. A figure remembered for staunch anti-authoritarian ideals was a socialist who said: “ And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer – that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That in itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party.
…I believe the I.L.P. is the only party which, as a party, is likely to take the right line either against Imperialist war or against Fascism when this appears in its British form. And meanwhile the I.L.P. is not backed by any monied interest, and is systematically libelled from several quarters. Obviously it needs all the help it can get, including any help I can give it myself.
Finally, I was with the I.L.P. contingent in Spain. I never pretended, then or since, to agree in every detail with the policy the P.O.U.M. put forward and the I.L.P. supported, but the general course of events has borne it out. The things I saw in Spain brought home to me the fatal danger of mere negative ‘anti-Fascism’. Once I had grasped the essentials of the situation in Spain I realised that the I.L.P. was the only British party I felt like joining – and also the only party I could join with at least the certainty that I would never be led up the garden path in the name of Capitalist democracy.”
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@Eli Ubaldo Affirming trans identities means affirming all identities. A cisgender individual can be confident in their gender once they can know that they had every freedom to be otherwise. Having options that aren’t for you takes nothing away from the one that is. And any new guidelines against misgendering would not only protect trans children, it would protect cis boys from stereotypical PE teachers, misgendering them in a misogynistic way for not running fast enough.
The final authority on an LGBTQIA child’s identity is the child themself. However much censorship and restrictions in autonomy may advertise themselves as about “protecting the children,” they are clearly about protecting adults from their own anxieties. However much differential there may be in judgment capacity, a child is their own person with their own rights that cannot be overridden for the sake of an adult’s aesthetic preferences.
Parents, such as myself, have rights as persons but, with respect to our children, we have duties instead. Abridging our parental autonomy for a yet more distant authority would also be bad – laws and provisions preventing parents, children, and physicians from pursuing hormone blockers or medical transition for minors for instance. But this isn’t a matter of parental rights, it’s a matter of parental autonomy being instrumental to children’s rights. Taking children from parents they wish to remain with violates their preferences and in this case, it would also violate their preference in favor of medical transition. One of our duties is to protect the rights of our children and the first step in protecting rights is to not violate them yourself.
The regime being put forward by anti-LGBTQIA forces is not even one of respecting parental autonomy. It’s just one of conservative governments and conservative parents having special privileges to force their will upon LGBTQIA children. Abusive parents and governments can be partners in crime, such as when law enforcement brings runaway children back to their abusive homes. People who wish to bully queers out of public view or out of existence should not be humored, they shouldn’t even be given an inch. Society has a ways to go before all beings are equally free and these traditionalists cannot be allowed to rob that of us, much less create a darker future of oppression and spiraling authoritarianism.
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@regislafrance3667 the fact that anarchism was birthed as the anti-statist wing of socialism. The historical record. Whatever you want to call it. In the 19th century anarchism was born from socialism. Pierre J Proudhon a free market anarchist/ market socialist was the first to call himself and ideal Anarchist. And the fellow French Anarcho-Communist Joseph Dejacque is credited with popularizing the term “libertarian” and had the first anarchist newspaper in America with “Le Libertaire” Anarchism is anti-capitalist since it’s inception. Right wing capitalist enthusiasts calling themselves libertarians, and anarchists (Anarcho-capitalism) is a 20th century phenomena of the 1950s. Even their founder, Murray Rothbard has said so. “We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical." - Rothbard
And what the hell are you on about. Anarchists are radical egoists. They want market socialism or communism because they want individuals to flourish without hierarchies like capitalism. They want the maximum output of egos to express their abilities, talents, and skills without being held back by hierarchies. Read the poem “Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde. Even if one supports free markets, that is not incompatible with socialism, as we have a radical strain of free market anarchism. Who put capitalists to shame because they don’t believe in any state or hierarchy, just libertarian markets, which would be socialist, free from the hierarchy of capitalism (property owners).
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Nicholas Olesen the difference is one is anarchist the other is Marxist. Marxism is responsible for most Statist Socialism, meaning using the government to implement and sustain a revolution. Can be democratic or Leninist. Anarchists seek the abolishment of State and all hierarchic social relations for a free society of free associations and federation. The State is seen as anathema to the socialist social revolution of popular assembly.
Also welfare state while a band aid isn’t a solution to capitalism. In fact the first modern welfare state was Bismarck’s successful attempt to stop socialist uprising. Welfare is a temporary balm to temper anger towards capitalism, and then roll back when the capitalist ruling class feel it safe enough. This is why social democratic parties, which used to be Marxist in origin, were deemed a failure. All they did was compromise for social welfare while keeping the exploitative system. There is no socialism without the end of private ownership of the means of production and wage labor. The only solution is free worker’s associations, and socialized means of production. Not government assistance. Or as Proudhon put it:
“Under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality. [...] We are socialists [...] under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership. [...] We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies, joined together in the common bond of the democratic and social Republic.”
Anarchists believe this can only be done by popular assembly and direct worker’s association. Marxists believe in a socialist labor government to achieve and protect socialism.
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Connor Mack that would come to a surprise to the founders of socialism.
In “What is Government” the first figure to call libertarian socialism “anarchy” Proudhon said:
“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”
Socialists are the only political theorists that ever called for the abolishment of States. Not capitalists. It is because they sought a world of voluntary association, of self-governance not of government. The belief that all socialism agrees with Leninist Bolshevism is but propaganda for capitalists to prevent industrial democracy. Considering Socialists came from radical liberal and revolutionary factions.
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MarshallJukov Factions like the Mensheviks, the Democratic Socialists, there were other parties. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the Socialist Revolutionary Party etc... Lenin and the Bolsheviks lost their election and so they decided the Bolsheviks should just grab the government .
The replacement of working class power by party power flows logically both from the nature of the state and from the vanguardism at the heart of Leninism. The state, by its very nature, empowers those at its centre and so automatically replaces popular power with power in the hands of a few party leaders. And if the party is the decisive factor in a “successful” revolution than anything that weakens its hold on power cannot but harm the revolution. Including working class democracy. As Trotsky put it in 1936, the “revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party is . . . an objective necessity” and the “revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution”
Which shows the limitations of Marxism and its confusions about the state. For the Marxist Gluckstein, the Paris Commune “inextricably linked change from below and the state” and “Parisian direct democracy made the masses part of the state, and the state part of the masses.” He suggests that Marx synthesised Proudhonism and Blanquism, that Marx’s contribution was to “synthesise their insights”
If “Proudhonism” stressed action from below then Blanquism stresses action from above, by the state, for they recognised the need for “socialist organisation to overcome their capitalist opponents” Thus the Commune shows that “discipline under a centralised command was absolutely vital to mould a fighting force out of the workers of Paris. This was not an optional extra.” It is cryptically noted that “in time the Commune's open, direct democracy would have selected more effective leaders form their midst, but it did not survive long enough for this to occur.” Does this not imply that, when push comes to shove, the “revolutionary party” will simply appoint “more effective leaders” from above? This is precisely what the Bolshevik did do.
In 1905, Lenin mocked the Mensheviks for only wanting “pressure from below” which was “pressure by the citizens on the revolutionary government.” Instead, he argued for “pressure . . . from above as well as from below,” where “pressure from above” was “pressure by the revolutionary government on the citizens.” He noted that Engels “appreciated the importance of action from above” and that he saw the need for “the utilisation of the revolutionary governmental power.” Lenin summarised his position (which he considered as being in line with orthodox Marxism): “Limitation, in principle, of revolutionary action to pressure from below and renunciation of pressure also from above is anarchism.”
Given that Lenin had rejected the idea of “only from below” as an anarchist principle (which it is), we need to bear in mind that Leninist calls for “democracy from below” are always placed in the context of a Leninist government. Lenin always stressed that the Bolsheviks would “take over full state power,” that they “can and must take state power into their own hands.” Leninist “democracy from below” always means representative government, not popular power or self-management. So in 1918 it was the concrete situation of a "revolutionary" government exercising power "from above" onto the very class it claimed to represent. As Lenin summarised to his political police, the Cheka, in 1920: “Without revolutionary coercion directed against the avowed enemies of the workers and peasants, it is impossible to break down the resistance of these exploiters. On the other hand, revolutionary coercion is bound to be employed towards the wavering and unstable elements among the masses themselves.”
Which is precisely why anarchists reject socialism “from above” in favour of one created “from below.” In the state, it is always the leaders at the top who have power, not the masses. Few revolutionary anarchists deny the need for self-discipline and the need to co-ordinate revolutionary struggle and defence. From Bakunin on, it was considered a truism that there was a need to federate revolutionary forces to defeat reaction. What we recognise is that giving power to a few leaders is a fatal mistake, that they will implement what they consider as “socialism” and override the creative actions from below so necessary to the success of a revolution and the building of socialism.
As history shows, “from below” and “from above” cannot be combined. The latter will always undermine the former simply because that was what it was designed to do!
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MarshallJukov
Ultimately, one is left with the feeling that for all their talk of mass participation the M-L sympathies rest with the Blanquists and their vision of a centralised revolution conducted by professional revolutionaries who knew what they wanted (“Solid organisation and clear leadership were distinguishing features of Blanquism” This can be seen from M-L less than critical account of Blanqui’s politics. Given the obvious similarities of Leninism to Blanquism this is not unsurprising as any systematic critique of the latter would be applicable to the former.
For example, M-L Gluckstein quotes Blanqui's opinion that socialist consciousness has to injected into the working class by “an elite minority” of the bourgeoisie and that the revolution's “soldiers are workers though the leaders are not.” The parallels with Lenin’s arguments in “What is to be Done?” are obvious. Then there is Blanqui’s belief, quoted by Gluckstein, “that workers would need to be educated into communism over a period of time because 'the working class, accustomed to the yoke by long years or oppression and misery [is led] by their masters like blind beasts'” Or, as Lenin argued in 1920, “the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts . . . that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard . . . Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the essentials of transitions from capitalism to communism . . . for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation.”
Gluckstein does present some criticism of Blanquism, namely that it was conspiratorial and so could not play the role Blanqui hoped for it. Thus the Blanquists “came closest to having a revolutionary party” but were “not linked organically to the wider movement through daily participation”, “debating and battling for leadership” and so did not have “an instant mass following.” Which meant their hopes for seizing power were impossible to put into practice as they lacked mass support – or even awareness that they even existed or that their insurrections were taking place.
While he lambasts Proudhon for ideas he (mostly) did not actually hold, Gluckstein simply presents the ideas of Blanqui. It is significant that his criticism of Blanqui is so mooted (much the same could be said of Marx). He states that the Proudhonists and Blanquists have “no direct modern descendants” but “archetypes of tendencies in our movement” but, obviously, this is not the case. The “left-Proudhonists” (i.e., collectivists) have descendants in the anarchist movement while the Blanquists, bar their secrecy, are the Trotskyists.
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censored girl I agree people calling Trump fascist have no idea what Fascism is. But Trump does have authoritarian tendencies, don’t have to be a Fascist to be authoritarian. Trump is a kakistocrat and a kleptocrat. The Republican Party isn’t a Conservative party, it is an authoritarian cult of religious fundamentalists, conspiracists, far right bigots, and corporate oligarchs. It’s a regressive anti-American organization with no sense of patriotism. An American conservative isn’t an authoritarian, but preserves traditional institutions, and liberal society. Actual genuine conservatives say this themselves.
From Conservative Political Scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann in “Finding the Common Good in an Era of Dysfunctional Governance”:
“The framers designed a constitutional system in which the government would play a vigorous role in securing the liberty and well-being of a large and diverse population. They built a political system around a number of key elements, including debate and deliberation, divided powers competing with one another, regular order in the legislative process, and avenues to limit and punish corruption. America in recent years has struggled to adhere to each of these principles, leading to a crisis of governability and legitimacy. The roots of this problem are twofold. The first is a serious mismatch between our political parties, which have become as polarized and vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a separation-of-powers governing system that makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. The second is the asymmetric character of the polarization. The Republican Party has become a radical insurgency – ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. Securing the common good in the face of these developments will require structural changes but also an informed and strategically focused citizenry.”
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@zilchnilton Nah Jesus said the only commandment left was "Love one another as I have loved you" and so the social justice and equality inherited from Jewish religion reformed in Jesus' teachings. As I already said the further left the more atheistic, and while I don't think of Jesus a God, he was an influential figure who's social and somewhat economic messages are compatible with left-wing ideology. As does Christian Socialists who hate the greed of Capitalism and refer to Scripture to explain why they are Socialists.
Actually Anarchism and Socialism is about common ownership of the means of production, not the State ownership of Stalinism and Maoism. There are many Communist and Socialist schools of thought not all involve Stalin's totalitarian State. George Orwell who wrote the books on Big Brother, 1984, was a Democratic-Socialist, a real one not what Bernie names himself.
It may be tempting to dismiss Marx’s analysis given that his communist vision failed in practice. However, the politics that developed in the Soviet Union were not part of Marx’s vision of a social structure. Besides, Marx thought true communism would develop only under certain conditions. “Marx predicted that for a communist revolution to survive, it would need to involve the countries with the most developed industries, and become at least as broadly international as the capitalist system it would replace." Neither of these conditions were met in the case of the Soviet Union, which was always highly economically isolated. Doubtful Marx would approve of such totalitarian states that give power and ownership to the State and not the workers.
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French Flag The French Commune was defeated by the forces of Napoleon III. The monarchy took back Paris.
As for Rojava being a shit hole? Let’s see surrounded by Muslim extremists fighting all around, and the Anarchists holding their own community down best they can. Well it’s not their fault their neighbors don’t get along. Doesn’t it tell you something that they’re willing to fight for their free society? The region is polyethnic yet they all live for democratic principles and freedom.
Oh and you’re not understanding Anarchism. We don’t want governments. Societies are at a municipal level. Free Associations of communities, with Socialist economies, worker’s councils, self-management, Democracy. Delegation, immediate recall of representatives, and for the larger organization decentralized federation of course. Those who founded the United States also understood larger communities are best broken into federal decentralization. Liberty, equality, solidarity. Like Liberals before the far left continues the dismantling of concentrations of wealth, power, and prestige. “No gods, no masters!” Liberals saw government as a necessary evil to always stay vigilant of, Libertarians go further to organizing autonomous societies without hierarchies. Like is standard of international communism, we believe a world of worker’s solidarity is possible.
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Nobody From Nowhere yeah no. Anarchism isn’t local tribalism. Anarchists believe in principles of solidarity, autonomy, free associations, democracy etc... Moving past archaic structures like nations, states, races etc... Humanity is one. I know it sounds far fetched, crazy Utopianism. But ultimately humanity is going to realize we’re a species. Like Marxist international communism, worker’s can find solidarity. Principles and values allowed Catalonia to work together and associate freely. Even in Rojava, Syria as they fight against religious extremists they have a society that looks towards gender equality, ethnic diversity, and freedom. It’s not perfect, it’s an ongoing struggle but it’s an ideology. We don’t look to create municipal decentralized societies to end up in tribalist beliefs like we’re in our primitive age. As Proudhon said “Anarchy is Order!” If anything these fucking authoritarian governments are destroying our world and creating chaos, acting like national tribalist for resources and power.
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Sp3nd Coin the hell are you talking about? All they accomplished was State Capitalism. Don’t tell me you bought the Stalinist kool aid that that garbage can pass for Communism.
Communism is Stateless, moneyless, and classless. Soviet Russia was clearly a nation-State, they had money, wage labor, and State Capitalism, and they had a political class governing the workers. Three strikes you’re out.
Whereas the Anarcho-Syndicalists in Catalonia abolished the State in their autonomous territories, did not use money, and were in organized decentralized free associations of worker’s syndicates. Where the worker’s were in direct control of production and distribution.
Libertarian Socialists actually were closer to Communism, as it’s why Anarcho-Communism became the biggest strain of Anarchism. I fail to see how State Socialists and Marxist-Leninist’s State Capitalism is anywhere near Communism. Even China today exploits the laborers and participate in the Capitalist mode of production. Leninists never managed post-Capitalism, let alone Communism.
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Evan Loginov A common objection given by capitalists to Anarchist theories is that Anarchism is utopian because people will always form hierarchies, as much as we’d like them not to do so. In short, hierarchies are part of human nature.
There are two major problems with this assumption. First, if hierarchies were natural, then they would have been adopted by all societies. And yet we know this is not true, as there have been many societies which actively eschewed hierarchical decision-making (see for instance examples in People without Government: An Anthology of Anarchy, by Harold Barclay).
Second, if hierarchies were part of human nature, then everyone should desire them. And yet few people desire to obey others (who likes to have to work, pay taxes, and so on?). We obey for many reasons, but not out of a desire for the hierarchy itself. No other human instinct works in this way. We seek to have sex because we want to have sex, not because we’re forced to. We eat because we’re hungry. People follow some religion or spirituality, and don’t wish ardently that they were skeptics. In short, if hierarchies are natural, then why don’t we actually like them?
I said that we obey others for many reasons. This obviously needs to be explained before the argument takes its full force. There are three main reasons why we obey:
1. Because we have no other viable options (this is not true in some cases, but certainly true in others).
2. Because we can’t imagine things being any other way. This is especially true of hierarchies which have existed for more than a generation. This would apply to people who didn’t have access to education, despite the fact that we are now more educated, we are not taught about the different kinds of societies that existed before ours (as in the book I already referenced), or the alternatives which exist today (see for instance the examples from Anarchy in Action, by Colin Ward).
Our education system is geared towards turning children into good citizens and good workers, not into informed decision-makers or people with any knowledge of society beyond the tyrannical concepts of our capital-democracies. Decision-making is, of course, to be left to the “experts” and “authorities,” leaving the people as a whole with token choices between pre-approved options. And because we are taught that “it’s always been that way,” we can’t imagine it being any other way.
3. We hope to, one day, be the ones who give the orders, either as an individual or as part of a faction. This is the goal of most hierarchical games conditions, including those of capitalism and democracy, and those that don’t have that goal still give an inbuilt sense of superiority (in Christianity, for instance, one cannot become God, but one can feel superior to others by worshipping God the right way and having the correct beliefs).
In fact, it’s interesting to note how little even true believers in this or that faction support the hierarchy that makes their factions possible, in democracy for example. The staunch Democrat or Republican does not believe in democracy, at least most of the time; he or she praises the democratic process only when their chosen faction wins. They want to impose their values on everyone else, not obey the results of the process as such.
The best argument against the “hierarchies are natural” position is the massive amount of indoctrination, threats and cajoling necessary to make people obey, starting from a young age all through one’s life. And yet, the moment their control weakens, widespread public resistance springs up almost by magic. In his famous work The True Believer, Eric Hoffer pointed out that dictatorships need not fear opposition as long as they maintain their iron grip, but that any relaxing of that grip is inevitably followed by public rebellion. If hierarchies were natural, this is the exact opposite of what we would expect.
If hierarchies are not natural, then what is natural? As Kropotkin famously argued, mutual aid permeates the animal kingdom, including humans, and is probably a more important evolutionary factor than warfare between species or competition within a species. The faculties which led the human species to unlock the secrets of nature were social adaptations, not tools of war.
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Soul Prestigio In a right-libertarian or "anarcho"-capitalist society, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, "the libertarian defines the concept of 'freedom' or 'liberty'. . .[as a] condition in which a person's ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand."
This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another's property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual's only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-libertarians themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. However, this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether laissez faire capitalists are actually interested in freedom.
Looking at Rothbard's definition of "liberty" quoted above, we can see that freedom is actually no longer considered to be a fundamental, independent concept. Instead, freedom is a derivative of something more fundamental, namely the "legitimate rights" of an individual, which are identified as property rights. In other words, given that "anarcho"-capitalists and right libertarians in general consider the right to property as "absolute," it follows that freedom and property become one and the same.
Another important implication of this "liberty as property" concept is that it produces a strangely alienated concept of freedom. Liberty, as we noted, is no longer considered absolute but a derivative of property -- which has the important consequence that you can "sell" your liberty and still be considered free by the ideology. This concept of liberty (namely "liberty as property") is usually termed "self-ownership." But, to state the obvious, I do not "own" myself, as if were an object somehow separable from my subjectivity -- I am myself. However, the concept of "self-ownership" is handy for justifying various forms of domination and oppression -- for by agreeing (usually under the force of circumstances, we must note) to certain contracts, an individual can "sell" (or rent out) themselves to others (for example, when workers sell their labour power to capitalists on the "free market"). In effect, "self-ownership" becomes the means of justifying treating people as objects -- ironically, the very thing the concept was created to stop! As L. Susan Brown notes, "at the moment an individual 'sells' labour power to another, he/she loses self-determination and instead is treated as a subjectless instrument for the fulfilment of another's will." [The Politics of Individualism]
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Soul Prestigio and so Capitalism will never be freedom. It relies on government intervention to even be sustainable, but ultimately it is an antiquated Social Darwinian system. Anarchists are socialists or for Anarchist Markets, not one is Capitalist. Tyranny whether by government or private owner class is opposed to liberty. And so Anarchists organize society in decentralized federations of free associations. Socialist economies of worker’s ownership, worker’s councils, cooperatives, democratized workplace, self-management, recall etc... Free societies of free individuals in worker’s solidarity. Societies like Anarcho-Syndicalist Catalonia were more liberated than any Capitalist one could ever hope to be. We’re anti-Authority, anti-Statist, and anti-Capitalist. But in the meantime we’ll do anything to alleviate the working class from their owner class exploiters. The more Social Democratic the less concentrated wealth. Ultimately Capitalists support the State. As they did with Franco, Hitler, Pinochet, Mussolini etc... Free Market Capitalism is a fantasy. No system of such concentration of prestige, wealth, and power is sustainable without a government to regulate it. Without a State to protect the Capitalist ruling class. Workers don’t look for employers to work for a salary because they are free to, otherwise they’ll starve and be homeless. They do it cause they have to.
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Soul Prestigio please don’t call yourself “Libertarian” Actual Libertarianism is what Anarchist Socialists called themselves and their anti-Capitalist and anti-State ideology. What you are is a laissez faire Capitalist. A Miltonist, a Chicago Boy etc... no need to use another’s term.
Capitalism brings people out of poverty? Sure the privileged Capitalist owners. Let’s not forget why minorities are least likely to be in the socioeconomic elite historically.
Capitalism is presented as a “natural” system, formed a bit like mountains or land masses by forces beyond human control, that it is an economic system ultimately resulting from human nature. However it was not established by “natural forces” but by intense and massive violence across the globe. First in the “advanced” countries, enclosures drove self-sufficient peasants from communal land into the cities to work in factories. Any resistance was crushed. People who resisted the imposition of wage labour were subjected to vagabond laws and imprisonment, torture, deportation or execution. In England under the reign of Henry VIII alone 72,000 people were executed for vagabondage.
Later capitalism was spread by invasion and conquest by Western imperialist powers around the globe. Whole civilisations were brutally destroyed with communities driven from their land into waged work. The only countries that avoided conquest were those—like Japan—which adopted capitalism on their own in order to compete with the other imperial powers. Everywhere capitalism developed, peasants and early workers resisted, but were eventually overcome by mass terror and violence.
Capitalism did not arise by a set of natural laws which stem from human nature: it was spread by the organised violence of the elite. The concept of private property of land and means of production might seem now like the natural state of things, however we should remember it is a man-made concept enforced by conquest. Similarly, the existence of a class of people with nothing to sell but their labour power is not something which has always been the case—common land shared by all was seized by force, and the dispossessed forced to work for a wage under the threat of starvation or even execution. As capital expanded, it created a global working class consisting of the majority of the world’s population whom it exploits but also depends on.
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Thomas Jefferson I hear what you’re saying. I don’t like the Federalists. They weren’t actually for Federalism which at the time wasn’t a clear concept. Confederalism and Federalism to some were synonymous, Jefferson was an actual Federalist, the Nationalists weren’t. Their Constitution, the one we inexplicably still have now, was one to centralize power to the whims of the elitist “Federalists”, it was a counterrevolutionary coup. Hamilton justified the Constitution as giving government pretty much unlimited powers despite the rhetoric of power distribution.
As per the US Constitution I agree with Paine and Jefferson. No generation should be governed by the dead.
My point was that in accordance to the Federal Constitution, government use of authority is constitutional to all it deems national interest. We are living in Hamilton’s republic, governed by and for elites, wealthy aristocracy, and high industrial production serving the speculators, financiers, and plutocrats.
As for the not being a Federal issue you’re right. Then therefore Tucker’s premise is nonexistent as to the unconstitutionality of the issue. If it’s not a Federal issue the purview of the situation lies with the State as to whether or not it is breaking Constitutionality to which this Governor answers he was following health guidelines and deemed it necessary. The Synagogue can take it up to court after the pandemic.
Reading the letters and personal documents of the Founders gives the larger picture. Jefferson was a strict constructionist (until he wasn’t). But he wouldn’t mind if the living generations have differing views for the times.
Today the Federal is more unitary, and government influences perhaps more than it ever has... but that’s a consequence of blind worship to an outdated Constitution created by elitist Nationalists. Real Federalism is Confederalism, the smallest unit closest to the people should have the most influence.
General Welfare is also a concern of the States. So long as one State doesn’t interfere with another I’m good. If they wish to allow people to gather well then perhaps let them, it’s their problem? However not everyone in the same State will even agree. Regardless I’m not arguing the ‘General Welfare’ clause itself implies unlimited powers, but the entirety of the Constitution itself is useless paper, it’s been bypassed throughout the ages, like the Bible used to justify whatever. Hamilton created the National Bank justifying it with the Constitution. Others saw it a violation of it. Some saw the New Deal as unconstitutional, the New Deal coalition saw it as keeping to those ideals of Liberalism, Life and Liberty. Some see addressing climate change a national interest to be addressed by government in accordance with the right to Life. Some see ‘General Welfare’ as justifying public projects and universal healthcare coverage.
My favorite Founder Thomas Paine was essentially a proto- liberal Democratic Socialist. He even designed the nation’s first welfare state. He was the most radical and far more liberal than the Federalists, even more than Jefferson a close second. Paine envisioned a far more radical liberal democratic republic than the Constitution provided.
All in all it is all debatable. I don’t agree with the actions of these folks, nor the Governor’s. But realistically the answer is not complex, these days public gatherings don’t have to be personal. It wreaks more of caprice. They shouldn’t be punished or praised, they should be left to their own devices so far as they don’t effect others.
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@rustinusti yeah but Lincoln was defending the encroachment of capitalism. He believed there was nothing wrong with the capitalist system, but that it was the system of modernity. Free labor meant being able to work your way up to being a capitalist. And sure, it was an easier pill to swallow back in a pre-capitalist society like American was back when. The majority of people were self-employed artisans and farmers. And the people feared wage slavery. Lincoln and the Republicans were the harbingers of capitalism to the States, and while they ended chattel slavery, they brought upon wage slavery.
“It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class–neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families–wives, sons, and daughters–work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.
Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.” Lincoln’s SOTU Address 1863
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@vincesmith2499 “Hitherto there has been no alternative for those who lived by their labour, but that of labouring either each for himself alone, or for a master. But the civilizing and improving influences of association, and the efficiency and economy of production on a large scale, may be obtained without dividing the producers into two parties with hostile interests and feelings, the many who do the work being mere servants under the command of the one who supplies the funds, and having no interest of their own in the enterprise except to earn their wages with as little labour as possible. The speculations and discussions of the last fifty years, and the events of the last thirty, are abundantly conclusive on this point. If the improvement which even triumphant military despotism has only retarded, not stopped, shall continue its course, there can be little doubt that the status of hired labourers will gradually tend to confine itself to the description of workpeople whose low moral qualities render them unfit for anything more independent: and that the relation of masters and work-people will be gradually superseded by partnership, in one of two forms: in some cases, association of the labourers with the capitalist; in others, and perhaps finally in all, association of labourers among themselves.”
“The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.”
– John Stuart Mill in Principles of Political Economy
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@vincesmith2499 I am. I just know that the amount of money leisure classes make are do not to free market competition, but to monopolies backed by government. Monopolies of money, land, tariff, and IP (patents/copyright). Free banking is one of the cases I advocate for most. Only by free competition on credit could workers establish mutual banking credit networks where they can lend at low interest, establishing worker’s associations and independent enterprisers. But in order to do this the State must be limited in it’s artificial prop up of monopolies landlords and capitalists make use of. Land (LVT, Georgism, rent the land value as Single Tax); Money (free banking competition and credit market); Tariffs (eliminate all taxes on sales, import, export, income, and property leaving only the efficient LVT (Physiocrats)); Patents (eliminate all intellectual property and copyright artificial monopolies protected by government to open free competition and greater innovation and enterprise).
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@miguelbruno-vd8yz “The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.” — John Stuart Mill, classical liberal
With free competition in banking the workers/producers could form mutual credit banking based on their own enterprise. Free banking should be taken back by the people to establish systems of free credit. They contend that banks have a monopoly on credit, just as capitalists have a monopoly on the means of production and landlords have a land monopoly. Banks create money by lending out deposits that do not belong to them and then charging interest on the difference. Mutualists argue that by establishing a democratically run mutual savings bank or credit union, it would be possible to issue free credit so that money could be created for the participants' benefit rather than the bankers' benefit. Individualist anarchists noted for their detailed views on mutualist banking include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Batchelder Greene and Lysander Spooner.
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@vincesmith2499 do you not know what rent-seeking is? This is the problem with neoclassical economics. The money monopoly allows for the restriction of credit and the development of debt-based models that destroy stores of value and make individuals slaves to the desires of governments and banks through modern forms of debt peonage. This has been apparent in the works of classical liberals since the 18th and 19th centuries. As Dowd notes, over the 20th century “the US dollar has lost almost 85 per cent of its purchasing power even by official government statistics; for its part, sterling has lost 98 per cent of its value over the last century”. The restriction of credit coupled with the inflationary tendencies of modern fiat currencies mean the poorest are effectively forced into wage labour, as they rely on pitiable increases in nominal wages and are unable to gain any real credit for self-employment or collective worker-owned enterprises. What happens is a redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the richest. Left-libertarian Austrian economist Roderick Long shows that “inflationary monetary policies on the part of central banks also tend to benefit those businesses that receive the inflated money first in the form of loans and investments, when they are still facing the old, lower prices”. The pre-inflation money allows investors and banks to capitalise on new production and investment while the poorer elements of a society receive minimal benefits as the inflationary course makes its run, with prices rising and wages following later.
This also leads to massive levels of debt found currently throughout the globe, as credit instruments are used to make up for stagnant wages that can’t afford increasing land prices and subsequently rent prices, as well as an increase in the price of consumer goods that are a significant chunk of working people’s wages. The process of rent extraction via high interest rates follows from this, as “the money monopoly also includes entry barriers against cooperative banks and prohibitions against private issuance of banknotes, by which access to finance capital is restricted and interest rates are kept artificially high”. Mutualist Kevin Carson notes further that the elimination of controlled interest rates would lead to “significant numbers (of workers) retiring in their forties or fifties, cutting back to part-time, or starting businesses; with jobs competing for workers, the effect on bargaining power would be revolutionary”. The current banking system leads to the necessitation of wage labour through restricted credit dissemination and debt-based forms of finance.
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Libertarian Capitalist Anarcho-Syndicalism is a radical Unionism and decentralized industrial or workplace organization. Each Union, collectively own their industry and means of production and voluntarily deal with each other in Federalist network or system.
Mutualists believe in ownership based on occupancy and use. They think that as long as you use something or live somewhere, you own it; but as soon as you leave, it ceases to be yours. Because of this, Mutualists are anti-capitalist, because they think it’s exploitative, and a violation of worker’s rights, for a boss to profit off of somebody else’s labour. The workers, in their view, should own their place of work, and also believe tenants should own their homes, instead of landlords. However, unlike many other forms of socialism and anarchism, they don’t necessarily believe in a communal society. In their view, a marketplace in which workers own their respective businesses would be much more competitive and efficient than hierarchical businesses.
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Jose Mendoza I think “left-authoritarianism” is a contradiction. I understand what people mean by that, people who say they believe in leftists ideals but try to coerce it. But the thing is left-right spectrum is about government types, and no left wing ideologue supports authoritarian methods or leadership. The furthest left would be Anarchism and the furthest right would be Fascism or Totalitarianism. Socialism is a socioeconomic organization, not a government. Therefore one can want a Socialist economy with authoritarian government, which is Marxist-Leninism. Leninism unfortunately became the popular revolutionary Socialism and it has lead to all these tyrannical Socialist States under right wing forms of government. Capitalism has also been under right wing governments. Such as Fascists who made use of the hyper form of Capitalism, Corporatism. Or such as Capitalism in Chile under dictator Pinochet. The left wing Socialist schools, those Lenin called “infants of the left” include Democratic Socialism (aka evolutionary Marxism, or Liberal Socialism informed by liberal political ideals such as democracy, republicanism, grassroots participatory democracy), Council Communism or Libertarian Marxism, and Libertarian Socialism (aka Anarchism) etc...
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@yuh1592 I’m a libertarian socialist. And literally FDR and the New Deal was liberal corporatism. A liberal and watered down corporatist economic system that is not as complete as fascist corporatism based in nationalist syndicalism. Liberal corporatism has been the prominent economic doctrine since post-WW2 thanks to Cold War fear mongering and social democratic groups in the conflict of not wanting full State Socialism and addressing the mess of unfettered liberal capitalism. Forms of liberal corporatism include the Nordic social democracy model, German ordoliberalism, French Dirigisme, and what’s called social market economy.
But clearly you haven’t read much on the matter. If you want to understand actual Fascism, read actual Fascist philosophers and literature. Fascists supported the capitalist mode of production, but were anti-liberal capitalism. They wanted the Corporative State, a nationalist Syndicalist organism of labor and business interests.
“Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (1936) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.” - Mussolini on Keynesian economics, the basis of the New Deal and liberal corporatism.
Liberals think the State serves capitalists. Fascists believe in the capitalists serving the State, as said by the English Fascist Oswald Mosley. One of the points of Fascists was liberal capitalists being too individualist, and under Fascism all classes serve the national interest and State. Fascism is after all nationalist collectivism. But indeed the closest the USA came to fascism economically was the New Deal, as it was a corporatist model, the same economic model advocated by fascism. Fascist’s greatest threat was socialism but they also persecuted liberalism. Fascists were as anti-liberal as they were anti-socialist.
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@yuh1592 I don’t disagree with George Jackson. Anarchists have been critical of the State and welfare capitalism. It’s Marxist movements that turned to concessions and social democracy. Until abandoning all Marxist roots.
And no I don’t believe in Vanguard Party and centralized State. Ultimately they just end up participating in global capitalism. Not to mention the striking prediction anarchists made on what Marxist statism can lead to
“The leaders of the Communist Party, namely Mr. Marx and his followers, will concentrate the reins of government in a strong hand. They will centralize all commercial, industrial, agricultural, and even scientific production, and then divide the masses into two armies — industrial and agricultural — under the direct command of state engineers, who will constitute a new privileged scientific and political class.” 1873.
“The Dictatorship of the Proletariat... In reality it would be for the proletariat a barrack regime where the standardized mass of men and women workers would wake, sleep, work and live to the beat of a drum; for the clever and learned a privilege, of governing: and for the mercenary minded, attracted by the State Bank, a vast field of lucrative jobbery.” 1869.
“The programe of the International is very happily explicit: the emancipation of the workers can only be gained by the workers themselves. Is it not astonishing that Marx has believed it possible to graft on this never-the-less so precise declaration, which he publically drafted himself, his scientific socialism? That is to say, the organization of the government of the new society by socialistic scientists and professors - the worst of all, despotic governments! 1872.
If you’re Marxist-Leninist in a developed nation then you clearly haven’t actually learned what Marx himself said.
“Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics.
But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.
You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.” - Marx in Hague
The modern Marxist movement should at this point be less Lenin and Mao, and more Luxemburg and Pannekoek.
“If [the proletariat] should and must at once undertake socialist measures in the most energetic, unyielding and unhesitant fashion, in other words, exercise a dictatorship, but a dictatorship of the class, not of a party or of a clique – dictatorship of the class, that means in the broadest possible form on the basis of the most active, unlimited participation of the mass of the people, of unlimited democracy.” — Rosa Luxemburg
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@c.j.giordano2129 The Soviet Union was Marxist not anarchist. Libertarian socialism existed before Marx’s State Socialism, and continues to exist. Anarchism is anti-statist socialism. Again read a book. Look up Josiah Warren the first American anarchist, Pierre J Proudhon, Benjamin Tucker, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin. All socialists, all anarchists. Put down the State propaganda and actually study history. You like to claim you are against State authoritarianism, well then what better expression than anarchism. The first person to call himself Anarchist was Proudhon, the most radical political theorist of his time. He formulated the first genuine anti-government philosophy, and was an intellectual rival to Karl Marx. Here is how Proudhon described his ideals:
“Under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality. We are socialists under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership. We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies, joined together in the common bond of the democratic and social Republic.”
Socialism doesn’t need government, that’s the Marxist school. Though even Marx’s goal was the abolition of State and government for a stateless communists social order. Anarchism is the anti-authoritarian school of socialism and it developed before Marx and the German school came on the scene.
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@c.j.giordano2129 I’m just saying you have a state propaganda view of socialism. The first critics of Marxist socialism were the libertarian socialists, they predicted what would happen should they implement their ideals and lo and behold the USSR proved the libertarians right. You sound ridiculous and ahistorical given that anarchism is a socialist movement, so conflating socialism with authoritarianism is the result of poor American government education. Never mind the fact that socialists died fighting against the robber barons, struggled to implement the 8 hour workday people enjoy today, and died fighting for labor rights against state and police. It’s an insult to the many libertarian socialists that died fighting Fascism, and even the Soviet Union. I bring up anarchism because it’s inconvenient proof to your painting all socialists as authoritarian and statist. The fact that Orwell was a socialist and is synonymous with anti-authoritarian should tell you that the picture that socialism is authoritarian is bullshit propaganda that the ruling class indoctrinates you with. Otherwise you’ll start looking into libertarian socialism, and American figures like Josiah Warren and Lysander Spooner, or start thinking about industrial republicanism.
The people of China, North Korea, Cuba aren’t feeling socialism, they are fleeing authoritarian states and governments. I know for a fact the third world views neoliberalism and the USA an evil empire that seeks to exploit their labor and resources. Nelson Mandela On the U.S. war with Iraq:
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings."
You may not even understand that the underdeveloped world would rather have an authoritarian Marxist state than be a colony for Western imperialism and mercantilist capitalism. It’s not different then American colonists overthrowing British imperial forces and forming a stronger centralized government (US Constitution) to uphold their winnings, and appeasing the land and slave owning elites to maintain the union.
Mandela on Castro and the Cuban revolution:
"From its earliest days, the Cuban Revolution has also been a source of
inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist-orquestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gain made in the Cuban Revolution. ... Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro."
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@c.j.giordano2129 There are two economic schools of Anarchism; Mutualism and Communism. The primary aspects of mutualism are free association, free banking, reciprocity in the form of mutual aid, workplace democracy, workers' self-management, gradualism and dual power. Mutualism is often described by its proponents as advocating an anti-capitalist free market. Mutualists argue that most of the economic problems associated with capitalism each amount to a violation of the cost principle, or as Josiah Warren interchangeably said, the cost the limit of price.
Mutualism holds that producers should exchange their goods at cost-value using systems of contract. While Proudhon's early definitions of cost-value were based on fixed assumptions about the value of labor-hours, he later redefined cost-value to include other factors such as the intensity of labor, the nature of the work involved and so on. He also expanded his notions of contract into expanded notions of federation. Proudhon argued:
“I have shown the contractor, at the birth of industry, negotiating on equal terms with his comrades, who have since become his workmen. It is plain, in fact, that this original equality was bound to disappear through the advantageous position of the master and the dependent position of the wage-workers. In vain does the law assure the right of each to enterprise. ... When an establishment has had leisure to develop itself, enlarge its foundations, ballast itself with capital, and assure itself a body of patrons, what can a workman do against a power so superior?”
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@c.j.giordano2129 Mutualists argue that association is only necessary where there is an organic combination of forces. An operation that requires specialization and many different workers performing their individual tasks to complete a unified product, i.e. a factory. In this situation, workers are inherently dependent on each other as without association they are related as subordinate and superior, master and wage-slave. An operation that can be performed by an individual without the help of specialized workers does not require association. Proudhon argued that peasants do not require societal form and only feigned association for the purposes of solidarity in abolishing rents, buying clubs and so on. He recognized that their work is inherently sovereign and free. In commenting on the degree of association that is preferable, Proudhon wrote:
“In cases in which production requires great division of labour, it is necessary to form an association among the workers ... because without that they would remain isolated as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage workers, which is repugnant in a free and democratic society. But where the product can be obtained by the action of an individual or a family, ... there is no opportunity for association.”
For Proudhon, mutualism involved creating industrial democracy. Under mutualism, workers would no longer sell their labour to a capitalist but rather work for themselves in co-operatives. Proudhon urged "workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism". This would result in "capitalistic and proprietary exploitation, stopped everywhere, the wage system abolished, equal and just exchange guaranteed".
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@c.j.giordano2129 Mutualists support mutual credit and argue that free banking should be taken back by the people to establish systems of free credit. They contend that banks have a monopoly on credit, just as capitalists have a monopoly on the means of production and landlords have a monopoly on land. Banks are essentially creating money by lending out deposits that do not actually belong to them, then charging interest on the difference. Mutualists argue that by establishing a democratically run mutual savings bank or credit union, it would be possible to issue free credit so that money could be created for the benefit of the participants rather than for the benefit of the bankers. Individualist anarchists noted for their detailed views on mutualist banking include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Batchelder Greene and Lysander Spooner.
Needless to say anarchists are more free market radicals than any capitalist can claim considering many of us want the abolishment of the State and letting the free market reign. Because libertarian socialists aren’t opposed to market economy, but we are opposed to capitalism.
In What Is Mutualism?, Clarence Lee Swartz wrote:
“It is, therefore, one of the purposes of Mutualists, not only to awaken in the people the appreciation of and desire for freedom, but also to arouse in them a determination to abolish the legal restrictions now placed upon non-invasive human activities and to institute, through purely voluntary associations, such measures as will liberate all of us from the exactions of privilege and the power of concentrated capital.”
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@reasonerenlightened2456 looks like you aren’t so enlightened. You know classical liberals were the precursors to socialism and libertarianism? From Adam Smith’s crusade against landlords and rents, to David Ricardo laying foundations for class analysis and expanding on Smith’s labor theory, to John Stuart Mills support of socialism over capitalism, and Thomas Hodgskin’s work advocating for labor to maintain it’s wealth and capital.
“The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.” - John Stuart Mill
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@reasonerenlightened2456 While mutualism was popularized by the writings of anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and is mainly associated as an anarchist school of thought and with libertarian socialism, its origins as a type of socialism goes back to the 18th-century labor movement in Britain first, then France and finally to the working-class Chartist movement. Mutualists are opposed to individuals receiving income through loans, investments and rent under capitalist social relations. Although personally opposed to this type of income, Proudhon expressed that he had never intended "to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose." As long as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labor, mutualists support markets and property in the product of labor, differentiating between capitalist private property (productive property) and personal property (private property). Mutualists argue for conditional titles to land, whose ownership is legitimate only so long as it remains in use or occupation (which Proudhon called possession), a type of private property with strong abandonment criteria. This contrasts with capitalist non-proviso labor theory of property, where an owner maintains a property title more or less until one decides to give or sell it.
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M. Fink Well capitalism isn’t synonymous with markets. Markets existed long before a socioeconomic system of proprietors relying on wage work for the accumulation of wealth and capital. Capitalism is very much a system of the primacy of capital, the rule of wealth, plutocracy. And capitalism can work within a market economy as in liberal capitalism, but it is not inherent to free markets. Such as Corporate Capitalism of Fascist States, or State Capitalism.
Classical liberals were even critical of capitalism, the word capitalist was a pejorative for those merchants and owners of capital whom received privileges and favors from State authority, so that they maintain monopolistic practices.
Early liberal advocated for industrial democracy and what today is called Market Socialism. David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Rousseau, Thomas Hodgskin etc... several were self proclaimed socialists, as socialism was understood as those who hold the labor theory of value, and against the exploitation of labor by capital, or a ruling business elite. Hodgskin’s “Labour defended against the claims of Capital” is one of the earliest works of class struggle and socialist principle. Such sentiments continued in liberal circles unto Abraham Lincoln and the modern socialist movements. Yes there are actual leftist socialist strains opposed to Leninism and authoritarian state socialism. Socialism started in liberal thought and circles.
Taking the ideals of classical liberals you’ll naturally come to an anti-capitalist market socialist ideology and model.
Capitalism is simply making money cause you own a property, extract the surplus, and worker’s who create the value and wealth are left to a wage. As Lincoln said: "And, inasmuch [as] most good things are produced by labour, it follows that [all] such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government."
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Auditory Productions What socialists meant by “personal possessions” was distinctly different than what is meant by supporters of capitalism as “private property”. Basically, the “libertarian” right exploit, for their own ends, the confusion generated by the use of the word “property” by the likes of libertarian socialists like Benjamin Tucker to describe a situation of “possession.” Proudhon recognised this danger. He argued that “it is proper to call different things by different names, if we keep the name ‘property’ for the former [individual possession], we must call the latter [the domain of property] robbery, repine, brigandage. If, on the contrary, we reserve the name ‘property’ for the latter, we must designate the former by the term possession or some other equivalent; otherwise we should be troubled with an unpleasant synonym.” [What is Property?]
A similar position was held by Anarchist/libertarian socialist John Beverley Robinson. He argued that there “are two kinds of land ownership, proprietorship or property, by which the owner is absolute lord of the land, to use it or to hold it out of use, as it may please him; and possession, by which he is secure in the tenure of land which he uses and occupies, but has no claim upon it at all if he ceases to use it.” Moreover, “[a]ll that is necessary to do away with Rent is to away with absolute property in land.” [Patterns of Anarchy] Joseph Labadie, likewise, stated that “the two great sub-divisions of Socialists” (anarchists and State Socialists) both “agree that the resources of nature — land, mines, and so forth — should not be held as private property and subject to being held by the individual for speculative purposes, that use of these things shall be the only valid title, and that each person has an equal right to the use of all these things. They all agree that the present social system is one composed of a class of slaves and a class of masters, and that justice is impossible under such conditions.” [What is Socialism?]
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imaginepeace63 how about you use your head independently and refrain from soaking in propaganda talking points.
Firstly, private property is not the distinctive aspect of capitalism -- exploitation of wage labour is.
On the first issue, it is important to note that there are many different kinds of private property. If quoting Karl Marx is not too out of place:
"Political economy confuses, on principle, two very different kinds of private property, one of which rests on the labour of the producer himself, and the other on the exploitation of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter is not only the direct antithesis of the former, but grows on the former's tomb and nowhere else.
"In Western Europe, the homeland of political economy, the process of primitive accumulation is more or less accomplished . . .
"It is otherwise in the colonies. There the capitalist regime constantly comes up against the obstacle presented by the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems has its practical manifestation here in the struggle between them." [Capital, vol. 1]
So, under capitalism, "property turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of others, or its product, and the impossibility, on the part of the worker, of appropriating his own product." In other words, property is not viewed as being identical with capitalism. "The historical conditions of [Capital's] existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It arises only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence finds the free worker available on the market, as the seller of his own labour-power." Thus wage-labour, for Marx, is the necessary pre-condition for capitalism, not "private property" as such as "the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They only become capital under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation of, and domination over, the worker."
For Engels, "before capitalistic production" industry was "based upon the private property of the labourers in their means of production", i.e., "the agriculture of the small peasant" and "the handicrafts organised in guilds." Capitalism, he argued, was based on capitalists owning "social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men" and so they "appropriated . . . the product of the labour of others." Both, it should be noted, had also made this same distinction in the Communist Manifesto, stating that "the distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property." Artisan and peasant property is "a form that preceded the bourgeois form" which there "is no need to abolish" as "the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it." This means that communism "deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation."
In pre-capitalist social environments, when property is directly owned by the producer, capitalist defences of private property can be used against it. Even John Locke's arguments in favour of private property could be used against capitalism. As Murray Bookchin makes clear regarding pre-capitalist society:
"Unknown in the 1640s, the non-bourgeois aspects of Locke's theories were very much in the air a century and a half later . . . [In an artisan/peasant society] a Lockean argument could be used as effectively against the merchants . . . to whom the farmers were indebted, as it could against the King [or the State]. Nor did the small proprietors of America ever quite lose sight of the view that attempts to seize their farmsteads and possessions for unpaid debts were a violation of their 'natural rights,' and from the 1770s until as late as the 1930s they took up arms to keep merchants and bankers from dispossessing them from land they or their ancestors had wrestled from 'nature' by virtue of their own labour. The notion that property was sacred was thus highly elastic: it could be used as effectively by pre-capitalist strata to hold on to their property as it could by capitalists strata to expand their holdings."
To summarise, from an anarchist (and Marxist) perspective capitalism is not defined by "property" as such. Rather, it is defined by private property, property which is turned into a means of exploiting the labour of those who use it. For most anarchists, this is done by means of wage labour and abolished by means of workers' associations and self- management. To use Proudhon's terminology, there is a fundamental difference between property and possession.
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Goldwater was the last prominent actual conservative. Soon the religious right took over the party and now it is a sham political organization that functions as a cult for conspiracists, religious fundamentalists, and corporate greed and corruption.
A conservative American would be someone that is constitutionalist, and believe in a liberal society and democratic Republic. Modern Republicans aren’t conservatives but authoritarians. Democrats are the actual conservatives.
As Chomsky said “The spectrum is broad, but in an odd sense, the spectrum is basically center to extreme right -- extreme right, way off the spectrum. The Republican Party about 20 years ago basically abandoned any pretense of being a normal political party."
"What happened is that, during the whole neoliberal period, both parties shifted to the right, but the Republicans went way off the spectrum. They became so dedicated to the interests of the extreme wealthy and powerful that they couldn’t get votes. So they had to turn to other constituencies which are there, but were never politically mobilized: the Christian evangelicals, the nativists who are afraid that 'they’re taking our country away from us.'"
Chomsky himself was referencing the work, and words, of conservative political scientist Norman Orstein.
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Mister E Here’s the thing. The Libertarians ideologies are near direct descendant of Liberalism. It seeks to dismantle all forms of concentrated power, wealth, prestige, coercion. It’s literally the next step or evolution of Liberal ideology and it’s doctrines of liberty and equality. It goes even further by seeking to end all forms of coercion, or hierarchical institutions such as government.
In Anarcho-Syndicalist Catalonia the worker’s took ownership of the means of production in radical Unions. They abolished any State apparatus (Government) and organized in decentralized federal free associations. The economy was Socialist, where they produced and distributed towards the communities needs. There were no classes, the workers owned the means of production, the industries. There were no employers.
And what about innovation? Usually you’ll find Anarchists being atheists or agnostics. In a society where commodity production is done with, allowing fewer work hours a day as technology advances, the people will have more freedom to pursue their talents, abilities, and knowledge. They’ll have more time to participate in politics concerning the community, seeking knowledge, pursuing their passions. Indeed this was Albert Einstein’s ideal world for human progression and scientific advancement. If people have to spend most their lives working, as they do under Capitalism, those are many individuals not free to pursue the arts and sciences.
Even in this Capitalist system it is not the CEOs and employers that bring innovation. It is R&D groups, start ups who are pursuing their goals.
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Seán O'Nilbud lol Einstein was Socialist, so were George Orwell, Thomas Hodgskin, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Edward Bellamy (wrote the American pledge of allegiance), Dr. MLK, Nelson Mandela, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo, Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner etc.... guess we are all just dumb as hell.
What’s cute is a right winger believing they know more about freedom than an anarchist. You live your life under governments and bosses, have fun kneeling and licking boots.
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@Karl Marx I think there was a possibility that Lincoln’s party could have went a liberal socialist route with the influence of socialists and workers not wanting to be wage slaves. But unfortunately it went the capitalist route as part of Lincoln base was Northern capitalists and financiers. I know all about Lincoln’s respect for labor but it wasn’t a socialist belief. Lincoln believed that laborers would become capitalists and they would employ workers as a cycle. He essentially believed that wage labor would be only a temporary issue for the majority and that it wouldn’t be a permanent condition. Obviously he was wrong. I think in an alternative history Lincoln’s party would have been a liberal socialist one with the influence of labor organization and socialists, something similar to what John Stuart Mills advocated. A blend of worker’s associations with capitalist owners, and eventually maybe full worker associations. But it would have been a struggle between socialists and capitalists within the party. With Lincoln assassinated the party turned fully to the Northern elites, and Republican capitalism that lead to the Gilded Age and the abandonment of Reconstruction.
Classical liberalism was actually more socialist than given credit. It wasn’t until neoliberalism that liberal economics went full capitalist. Classical economists were actually influential to socialism. Adam Smith hated land owners, David Ricardo was an early advocate of socialistic thought, John Stuart Mill favored worker’s cooperatives and rejected capitalist firms, Thomas Hodgskin wrote class analysis like “Labor Defended Against the Claims of Capital” etc.... It’s why libertarian socialists and market socialists were highly inspired by classical liberals. Classical liberalism was about free markets and enterprise, not necessarily in support of capitalist production. That came later in the form of neoliberalism which was full on capitalist based economics. I mean here we have a quote from classical liberal Mills:
“Hitherto there has been no alternative for those who lived by their labour, but that of labouring either each for himself alone, or for a master. But the civilizing and improving influences of association, and the efficiency and economy of production on a large scale, may be obtained without dividing the producers into two parties with hostile interests and feelings, the many who do the work being mere servants under the command of the one who supplies the funds, and having no interest of their own in the enterprise except to earn their wages with as little labour as possible. The speculations and discussions of the last fifty years, and the events of the last thirty, are abundantly conclusive on this point. If the improvement which even triumphant military despotism has only retarded, not stopped, shall continue its course, there can be little doubt that the status of hired labourers will gradually tend to confine itself to the description of workpeople whose low moral qualities render them unfit for anything more independent: and that the relation of masters and work-people will be gradually superseded by partnership, in one of two forms: in some cases, association of the labourers with the capitalist; in others, and perhaps finally in all, association of labourers among themselves.”
– John Stuart Mill in Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy
Now think what could have been had the Republican Party of Lincoln fully embraced this liberal socialist blend that would be a step towards full socialism. Even capitalists would be persuaded to do business with labor associations should labor bargaining power increase. I think Lincoln could have be persuaded of at the very least this “liberal socialism.”
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@NewNormalWorldOrder no… Neoconservatism refers to the foreign policy of military adventurism, and the doctrine of “American exceptionalism”. The Neocons, just like the establishment Democrats, follow the economic doctrine and policy of neoliberalism which is pro-capitalist and global “free” trade economics. Neoliberalism was an economic policy that originated with the policies of right wing Ronald Reagan, and in the UK Margaret Thatcher. Many of Democrats also support Neocon legislation. Democrats are a right wing political establishment, comparable to the liberal parties of Canada or Europe.
The left-right dichotomy is usually one that denotes progress and egalitarianism vs traditionalism and hierarchies. It originates in the National Assembly of the French Revolution where the conservative clergy, nobles, and pro-monarchists sat on the right wing of the Assembly. The republicans, liberals, and revolutionaries sat on the left wing. Peep the profile pic, while I agree that it is a simple model that doesn’t capture political complexity the history of it isn’t hard to grasp. Leftism today is referring to ideals of anarchist, socialist, or communist revolution looking towards the abolishment of the State. And rightism is in reference to ideals of sociocultural conservatism, and the defense of the system of private property and capitalist hegemony. But overall I agree that left-right is too simple a model to have much accuracy. Still it is the common jargon, and still is use in political science.
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Eric Duprey In a right-libertarian or "anarcho"-capitalist society, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, "the libertarian defines the concept of 'freedom' or 'liberty'. . . as a condition in which a person's ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against. . . . Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand."
This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another's property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual's only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-libertarians themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. However, this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether "anarcho"-capitalists are actually interested in freedom.
Looking at Rothbard's definition of "liberty" quoted above, we can see that freedom is actually no longer considered to be a fundamental, independent concept. Instead, freedom is a derivative of something more fundamental, namely the "legitimate rights" of an individual, which are identified as property rights. In other words, given that "anarcho"-capitalists and right libertarians in general consider the right to property as "absolute," it follows that freedom and property become one and the same. This suggests an alternative name for the right Libertarian, namely "Propertarian." And, needless to say, if we do not accept the right-libertarians' view of what constitutes "legitimate" "rights," then their claim to be defenders of liberty is weak.
Another important implication of this "liberty as property" concept is that it produces a strangely alienated concept of freedom. Liberty, as we noted, is no longer considered absolute, but a derivative of property -- which has the important consequence that you can "sell" your liberty and still be considered free by the ideology. This concept of liberty (namely "liberty as property") is usually termed "self-ownership." But, to state the obvious, I do not "own" myself, as if were an object somehow separable from my subjectivity -- I am myself. However, the concept of "self-ownership" is handy for justifying various forms of domination and oppression -- for by agreeing (usually under the force of circumstances, we must note) to certain contracts, an individual can "sell" (or rent out) themselves to others (for example, when workers sell their labour power to capitalists on the "free market"). In effect, "self-ownership" becomes the means of justifying treating people as objects -- ironically, the very thing the concept was created to stop! As L. Susan Brown notes, "at the moment an individual 'sells' labour power to another, he/she loses self-determination and instead is treated as a subjectless instrument for the fulfilment of another's will."
Ironically, the rights of property (which are said to flow from an individual's self-ownership of themselves) becomes the means, under capitalism, by which self-ownership of non-property owners is denied. The foundational right (self-ownership) becomes denied by the derivative right (ownership of things). Under capitalism, a lack of property can be just as oppressive as a lack of legal rights because of the relationships of domination and subjection this situation creates.
So Rothbard's argument (as well as being contradictory) misses the point (and the reality of capitalism). Yes, if we define freedom as "the absence of coercion" then the idea that wage labour does not restrict liberty is unavoidable, but such a definition is useless. This is because it hides structures of power and relations of domination and subordination. As Carole Pateman argues, "the contract in which the worker allegedly sells his labour power is a contract in which, since he cannot be separated from his capacities, he sells command over the use of his body and himself. . . To sell command over the use of oneself for a specified period . . . is to be an unfree labourer."
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Typical conservative weak fragile society shit. That’s why we need authority and enforced order blah blah blah
"The parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold cherishes them, and is formed a Whig by nature." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823
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B-Rye no, actual right wing conservatives do.
“The framers designed a constitutional system in which the government would play a vigorous role in securing the liberty and well-being of a large and diverse population. They built a political system around a number of key elements, including debate and deliberation, divided powers competing with one another, regular order in the legislative process, and avenues to limit and punish corruption. America in recent years has struggled to adhere to each of these principles, leading to a crisis of governability and legitimacy. The roots of this problem are twofold. The first is a serious mismatch between our political parties, which have become as polarized and vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a separation-of-powers governing system that makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. The second is the asymmetric character of the polarization. The Republican Party has become a radical insurgency – ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. Securing the common good in the face of these developments will require structural changes but also an informed and strategically focused citizenry.”— Excerpt from “Finding the Common Good in an Era of Dysfunctional Governance” from conservative political scientists Thomas Edward Mann and Norman Jay Orstein.
If you have never read about or heard Barry Goldwater, you are missing out. He was a Republican Senator in Arizona and the Republican Presidential nominee in 1964. Nicknamed "Mr. Conservative", he represents what the Republican Party should have been before selling out to the Religious Right - a party dedicated to small constitutional government, equal opportunity for all, free markets and individual liberty. He has become a libertarian hero for his dedication to these principles even as the Republican Party moved closer to the Evangelicals and abandoned its core mission to keep our citizens as free from the constraints of government as possible. Here are some quotes I think you will enjoy.
On the Religious Right
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
--Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."
--Said in July 1981 in response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned." Time Magazine, (20 July, 1981)
On Gay Rights
"The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it."
"Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it."
“Gays and lesbians are a part of every American family. They should not be shortchanged in their efforts to better their lives and serve their communities. As President Clinton likes to say, ‘If you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded’ and not with a pink slip just for being gay.”
On True Conservatism
"What I was talking about[Gay rights, Abortion]was more or less 'conservative,' " Goldwater recalls, saying he was smeared by the people around President Johnson – "the most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency." Goldwater continues: "The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."
As a far leftist, an actual anarchist (libertarian socialist) I can tell you I don’t care if people have social conservative values. I of course am socially progressive. But what any libertarian wants is for a libertarian culture where people not try to dominate others and tell them what to do. Which is why I get along with actual traditional conservatives. They have conservative social-cultural values but believe in actual American constitutional federalism, subsidiarity, anti-war, county power, live and let live (no social engineering and legislation). Us anarchists get along with actual patriotic conservatives with liberal values (meaning not trying to control individuals via legislation). We build community networks together. The problem isn’t social conservatives, but Statism and a religious fundamentalism. Trying to hold others to regressive views. By that same note trying to social engineer for progressive values via legislation is also the problem. By my standard American conservatives are center-left traditionalist conservatives. Left meaning liberal conservatism, a belief in liberal democratic republicanism. Not this horrendous circus manifested in the Republican Party. Liberal conservatives aren’t authoritarians and theocrats. To be an American conservative you defend liberalism, in the classical sense.
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realscummy I stand behind Socialist liberal democracies or republics , not authoritarian states. No power will tell me how to behave and what I can do. State Socialism scared away the working class worldwide cause especially developed nations won’t give up their liberties to an elitist government in the name of socialism. They’d rather keep their liberties and fight for egalitarian socioeconomic revolution at the same time. Even Marx has said so:
“You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries—such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland—where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must someday appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.”
“If in England, for instance, or the United States, the working class were to gain a majority in Parliament or Congress, they could, by lawful means, rid themselves of such laws and institutions as impeded their development, though they could only do insofar as society had reached a sufficiently mature development. However, the "peaceful" movement might be transformed into a "forcible" one by resistance on the part of those interested in restoring the former state of affairs; if (as in the American Civil War and French Revolution) they are put down by force, it is as rebels against "lawful" force.”
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@nataliekhanyola5669 look up free market socialism. Georgism. Classical polo economists like John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hodgskin, David Ricardo etc… recognized the socialist potential of free markets. Because socialism requires as a goal the end of government for industrial administration and management without a state. Government is actually oppositional to socialist society. And whether the socialist economy is planning or market oriented it requires immanent social coordination not an external force or authority commanding society. It is society organized for itself. Free markets can help by destroying the concentration of wealth and monopolies and privileged passive income that are sustained by government policies. Monopolies of land, money, IP (patents), and tariff all coalesce to privilege capital from intensive competition and reduces labor power. Imagine mutual banking where labor funds itself, imagine an LVT becoming a Single efficient tax replacing all other harmful taxes like income and sales tax. A tax on land value could fund the entirety of public infrastructure and investment, the rest be distributed as a citizens dividend or UBI. This is where Georgism can be used to tackle land monopoly. Patents are artificial government sanctioned monopolies that prevent distribution of information, innovation, and competition. The result of such a freer market would be intensive demand from capital with not enough labor, leading to increase in labor power, where labor would more and more demand it’s full product as wage. This sort of market economics was a school of socialism since the 19th century rooted in radicalized classical political economy.
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The Man a genuinely free market is a Mutualist and socialist one where government monopoly on currency, tariff, patents, and land are abolished. Capital made competitive, as labor is today, would mean two capitalists looking for a laborer, instead of two laborers looking a capitalist. By this I mean the natural wage being it’s full product. Mutualism is a libertarian socialist market economic theory. Based on libertarian economics from liberal economics. Essentially following free markets to its natural conclusion is a socialist economy rather than Statist capitalistic. Full fledge competition would erase the State protected usuries of profit, rent, and interest.
Without Statism and government intervening on behalf of capitalists, propertarians would not be able to collect tribute via profit. Socialism isn’t about equality of abilities or skills, but of basic opportunity and necessities. Be it communism or market socialism. Were free markets genuine such labor exploitation and expropriation would not be rampant.
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Hendrix Price Their form of government was Totalitarian, a right wing mode of governance indeed. They got rid of private property and private capitalism only to establish State Capitalism. That is the State, supposedly controlled by ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ or in Leninism the Vanguard Party, takes on the capitalists role in employing, paying wages, allocating resources, accumulating wealth etc... As you can see this State Capitalism as Lenin named it was supposed to be some transitional phase from “Socialism” to “Communism.” Truth is it wasn’t even the transitional Socialism. The workers did not control production or the means to them. Everything was State controlled and planned. This lead many libertarian left socialists to criticize the Soviet Union as an abomination of the desired freedoms of Socialism. Stalinism would be the worst, and Stalin would declare State Capitalism is Socialism.
Indeed Socialism is meant to be democratization of the workplace and a post-Capitalist economy. George Orwell who fought for Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, would hate the Totalitarianism of Stalinism and the Fascists forces that won the Spanish Civil War. He spent his life criticizing those powers and a staunch Democratic Socialist.
I think these Socialist movements ultimately moved towards the more right wing forms of government with it’s Authoritarian tendencies. Supposedly the workers controlled the State, but it was a Party that would basically take leadership over them. You can make similarities between Fascism and the Soviet Union, but I would say they are different as Fascism involves more facets than just Totalitarianism. State Capitalism would involve the same type of government and an emphasis on a planned economy, and the supposed State control by the workers, not at all a democratic control of affairs however. Left wing Socialists and Anarchists are more of the democratic persuasion of worker’s control, and do declare systems like in the Soviet Union to not being truly Socialism or Communism.
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Ant Man lol The American founding fathers had a fundamental mistrust of all government. They understood no government is to be trusted. They begrudgingly left a strong federal government as they saw no alternative. Had they seen what Capitalism would lead to with corporations and private power they would have fought against that. Classical Liberalism fought against concentrated wealth, power, and privilege. Had they lived to see the Libertarian movement of Anarchist Socialists they probably would have been Anarchists. Imagine their ecstasy at the possibility of NO GOVERNMENT! Anarchism is based on communities or locales operating in free associations. They would work through larger territories in federal organization. Early Anarchists literally called themselves Federalists. Autonomous territories freely cooperating with each other if they want. Don’t give that “homogenous” crap. Anarchists like all Socialists are class conscious. They look for worker’s solidarity not caring about race, gender, ethnicity, religion etc... The worker’s are united in solidarity.
“I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life—snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.—had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master.”
George Orwell
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random channel lol tell that to Revolutionary Catalonia, Free Territory Ukraine, the Paris Commune. Socialism has a broad variety of schools. From Libertarian Anarchist, to Marxist-Statist. What you mean is there isn’t a Marxist-Leninist movement that hasn’t lead to authoritarianism. George Orwell understood authoritarianism and assessed it throughout his literary career. He fought with Socialists in the Spanish Civil War. Why would the writer of 1984 and Animal Farm, fierce criticisms of Totalitarian States like Fascism and Stalinism say things like this if all Socialism is authoritarian:
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
George Orwell, “Why I write”
“And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a socialist party.”
– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”
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The Awoken and Broken Matt Hardy You actually do. I’m going by historical precedent. Anarchists used Libertarian more when they were being censored. Anarchism was also known as Libertarian Socialism. No capitalist advocates called themselves libertarian or anarchists until the propaganda of American Capitalists. They claim they are rooted in Individualist Anarchists, yet Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, Spooner all called themselves Socialists, and staunchly anti-Capitalist.
My grievance with the political compass is that it claims left-right is based on economics. Untrue, as historically it is based on government types. Hence Anarchism/Libertarianism is the most left wing stance, and Totalitarianism/Fascism the most right wing. One can be a liberal and socialist, as seen in the Paris Commune Democratic Socialist government. Or one can be a Libertarian Socialist an Anarchist as seen Revolutionary Catalonia.
The root liberty is in both Libertarianism and Liberalism. One is for the dissolution of all coercive institutions and government bodies for autonomous free associative and decentralized stateless social organization. The other is about limited government, republic models, parliamentary politics, civil liberties and rights protected by government, social contract etc...
I don’t know what you go by, but I’m going by historical precedence and many literature on Anarchism.
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Dat Boi The Individualists opposed capitalism as a system of privilege, exploitation, accumulation without limit, theft, abuse, and wage slavery, all supported by the coercive authority of the state. Students of the principles of classical political economy — the ideas of Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, et al. — the Individualists contended that the full realization of those principles and ideas meant an economic paradigm very different from capitalism, which they viewed as the successor of feudalism and mercantilism as a political, rather than economic creature. “Laissez-faire,” they said, had been improperly and spuriously leveraged for the defense of a system of injustices that in fact had nothing to do with legitimate free markets. Capitalists, the idle rich, were only able to profit from the labors of the industrious because they were protected by unfair advantages, embodied in law, that allowed them to escape the natural outcomes and pressures of genuine, full-fledged competition.
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Arrogant Ambassador Old Testament:
“You shall not oppress or exploit your neighbor... love your neighbor as yourself” Leviticus 19:13, 18
“[God] enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants... “ Deuteronomy 10:17-19
“Don’t take advantage of poor or needy workers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities.” Deuteronomy 24:14
“Give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalms 82:3-4
New Testament:
“All who believed were together and had all things in common, and they sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all men, as every man had need.” Acts 2:44-45
“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.” Acts 4:32
“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you posses and give to the poor.” Matthew 19:21
“When you give a feast, invite the poor, maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” Luke 14:13-14
“Distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.” Acts 4:35
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