What is socialism?

Honest John

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stepic said:
what aspiration and ambition do the majority of people on the planet have? you're lucky if you can just make ends meet for the vast majority of the planet. the concentration of money into the hands of the elite is more pronounced now than ever. this idealised 'american dream' idea is a falsehood, really.
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I would contend that most humans have aspirations. What they don't have is opportunity. Socialism doesn't solve that.
 

Florida Man

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Honest John said:
Socalism is the systemized eradication of human aspiration and ambition.
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Yeah I'm sure those tens of thousands of excel monkeys making mediocre money in a 9-5 in the corporate world are really the pinnacle of aspiration and ambition. I'm sure Karen who works in claims at Geico is REALLY passionate about her craft.
 

Florida Man

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André Dominguez said:
Team work gets you to the top, but there's always people trying to get rights over a big part of the hunt and crops, and some are so "ingeniously evil" that even create a system to help them, like being a member of a royal family that means you'll have wealth and power before you were even born.

Same also happens in socialism: the generals who "create" the "revolution will stick to power no matter what, and make sure their families get involved too.

But I agree with your shift point : it is a very difficult task for a human to motivate without no visible valuable reward. Our "animal instinct" tell us that we need to possess territory (which nowadays translates to house, cars, latest tech, vacations on exotic places, etc), we need to flaunt our conquers.

To change that mindset into a "working to make you and your country richer" is very difficult (if not totally impossible on a full scale), because personal goals become united with "state goals" and our individuality becomes a bit lost.

The best thing is always a mix between both and there are a few countries showing that works well (social democracy), but it requires a strong honesty culture that does not condemn "snitching".
In one hand it lets the market run almost free, but making sure the competition between companies of the same sectors is fair. And they still ensure their citizens get public services with good standards. And the citizens feel motivated to "snitch" persons or companies who are breaking the law.
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I think that boils down to the schools of philosophy from thousands of years ago. You could argue that the whole west and their insistence on individualism can trace their philosophy to the ancient Greeks. Places like China have stemmed the school of Confucius for the most part, where the insistence is on family instead of the individual.

In the meantime, I agree that social democracy is the most practical approach.
 

MTF

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Florida Man said:
I think that boils down to the schools of philosophy from thousands of years ago. You could argue that the whole west and their insistence on individualism can trace their philosophy to the ancient Greeks. Places like China have stemmed the school of Confucius for the most part, where the insistence is on family instead of the individual.

In the meantime, I agree that social democracy is the most practical approach.
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I think this is a part of it. Obviously there's the big potential negative of individualism where people see their own importance as above the others'. But I recognize that the difference in philosophy is the hardest part for me to accept of any form of collectivist system/society, even if it were possible to claim a better overall economic outcome.
 

finneh

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stepic said:
what aspiration and ambition do the majority of people on the planet have? you're lucky if you can just make ends meet for the vast majority of the planet. the concentration of money into the hands of the elite is more pronounced now than ever. this idealised 'american dream' idea is a falsehood, really.
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Everyone has aspiration, but often they don't have opportunity. This is down to statism whereby governments restrict global free movement and free trade.

Capitalism in its purest form without statism would allow the poorest people in the world to move to and/or trade with the wealthiest countries and therefore share in their success. Statism implements rules, regulations and tariffs that prevent the poorest from sharing in western success. Ironically in preventing the poorest from moving/trading we're actually making everyone poorer, as billions of people who're potentially customers can't afford to buy our goods or use our services.

The entire planet in a purely capitalist environment would have the opportunity to create wealth for themselves and their families. Obviously this wouldn't eradicate poverty, but it would be a hell of a lot better than a quarter of the planet hoarding the vast majority of wealth at the expense of everyone.
 
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Synco

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SquishyMcSquish said:
Better dead than red.
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From experience, I can tell you otherwise.

MTF said:
Obviously there's the big potential negative of individualism where people see their own importance as above the others'. But I recognize that the difference in philosophy is the hardest part for me to accept of any form of collectivist system/society, even if it were possible to claim a better overall economic outcome.
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Speaking only of philosophy: the anticipated prospect for all members of society to develop their own individual abilities, interests & desires has been central to relevant concepts of communism. Earlier ones (I'm aware of Fourier and Marx, but there are certainly more), and later ones (various proponents of Critical Theory and others). Rigid collectivism and anti-individualism is the hallmark of authoritarian variants of socialism - although, tbf, they were by far the most historically significant in practise.

I don't expect anyone to be convinced by just this, but I think it's important to know there are two opposing thought traditions on this matter.

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(And just to show that I'm not hiding: I'm long due another reply on this and related issues in this thread, and still won't get it done any time soon.)
 
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Sweet Square

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MTF said:
I think this is a part of it. Obviously there's the big potential negative of individualism where people see their own importance as above the others'. But I recognize that the difference in philosophy is the hardest part for me to accept of any form of collectivist system/society, even if it were possible to claim a better overall economic outcome.
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Trotsky always makes for interesting reading
However, does not an excess of solidarity, as the Nietzscheans fear, threaten to degenerate man into a sentimental, passive, herd animal? Not at all. The powerful force of competition which, in bourgeois society, has the character of market competition, will not disappear in a socialist society, but, to use the language of psychoanalysis, will be sublimated, that is, will assume a higher and more fertile form. There will be the struggle for one’s opinion, for one’s project, for one’s taste. In the measure in which political struggles will be eliminated – and in a society where there will be no classes, there will be no such struggles – the liberated passions will be channelled into technique, into construction which also includes art. Art then will become more general, will mature, will become tempered, and will become the most perfect method of the progressive building of life in every field. It will not be merely “pretty” without relation to anything else.

All forms of life, such as the cultivation of land, the planning of human habitations, the building of theatres, the methods of socially educating children, the solution of scientific problems, the creation of new styles, will vitally engross all and everybody. People will divide into “parties” over the question of a new gigantic canal, or the distribution of oases in the Sahara (such a question will exist too), over the regulation of the weather and the climate, over a new theatre, over chemical hypotheses, over two competing tendencies in music, and over a best system of sports. Such parties will not be poisoned by the greed of class or caste. All will be equally interested in the success of the whole. The struggle will have a purely ideological character. It will have no running after profits, it will have nothing mean, no betrayals, no bribery, none of the things that form the soul of “competition” in a society divided into classes. But this will in no way hinder the struggle from being absorbing, dramatic and passionate.

And as all problems in a socialist society – the problems of life which formerly were solved spontaneously and automatically, and the problems of art which were in the custody of special priestly castes – will become the property of all people, one can say with certainty that collective interests and passions and individual competition will have the widest scope and the most unlimited opportunity. Art, therefore, will not suffer the lack of any such explosions of collective, nervous energy, and of such collective psychic impulses which make for the creation of new artistic tendencies and for changes in style. It will be the aesthetic schools around which “parties” will collect, that is, associations of temperaments, of tastes and of moods. In a struggle so disinterested and tense, which will take place in a culture whose foundations are steadily rising, the human personality, with its invaluable basic trait of continual discontent, will grow and become polished at all its points. In truth, we have no reason to fear that there will be a decline of individuality or an impoverishment of art in a socialist society ...

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1923/art/tia23.htm
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Synco said:
From experience, I can tell you otherwise.


Speaking only of philosophy: the anticipated prospect for all members of society to develop their own individual abilities, interests & desires has been central to relevant concepts of communism. Earlier ones (I'm aware of Fourier and Marx, but there are certainly more), and later ones (various proponents of Critical Theory and others). Rigid collectivism and anti-individualism is the hallmark of authoritarian variants of socialism - although, tbf, they were by far the most historically significant in practise.

I don't expect anyone to be convinced by just this, but I think it's important to know there are two opposing thought traditions on this matter.
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I think Isaac Deutscher refers to this different as classical Marxism(Develop their own individual abilities, interests etc) and vulgar Marxism(Authoritarian). Although it does sort of turn into people Deutscher likes and doesn't like.
 

SquishyMcSquish

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Sweet Square said:
That they are equally as evil, murderous, dangerous etc etc ?

If you had to pick, would you rather live under soviet communism or nazism ?
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If I had to pick? Communism. I can at least relate to some of the ideology and see it comes from a place of some decency, whereas nazism makes me sick to the core.

But I wouldn’t exactly be cheering in the streets if I was a Latvian citizen getting liberated by the Nazis, only to face Soviet oppression instead.
 

Sweet Square

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Didn't know where to put this but since Julia Reichert American Factory won the oscar for best documentary, thought this was worth posting



(For some reason the youtube channel is a pro trump channel).
 

Sweet Square

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I know this is utterly pointless but if anyone is actually interesting in learning some of Marx's thoughts, this video series is very good



 
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