With respect dllp, you don’t know what socialism is, redistribution is the mark of capitalism not socialism. Socialism is a totally different economic system to capitalism, and does not involve the private ownership of the means of production.

I’m also not sure what conclusion can be drawn about socialism by the comments of families of military personnel, even the armies of absolute monarchs were paid for by taxes.

Finally, there has never been an industrial capitalist economy which has operated without state intervention.

and why would that make them bad?

Because there’s a large swathe of the American population that are little more than trained hounds that react keenly to dog whistle terms, of which socialism has long been one (Kenyan is the most recent word added). When the term ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ is used by the average always-angry conservative republican it roughly expresses the same mix of feelings that ‘cunt’ or ‘cuntishness’ does from the mouth of an Englishman, rather than the political term you’re attempting to refer to.

Socialism is the shared ownership of the means of production. Nationalised industries – of which the defence industry forms part – are owned by the State, which only nominally represent the wishes of the electorate, but in reality represent the wishes of a social and economic oligarchy, which is why the defence industry subcontracts manufacturing out to private companies, and why the State increasingly turns to mercenary, sorry, private military companies like Academi (nee Blackwater).

America is corporatist, same as pretty much every country in the developed world. The only difference is the extent of public funding, not public ownership, as public ownership is a myth.

The Commission on Industrial Relations (1913-15) remarked that company towns showed ‘every aspect of feudalism except the recognition of special duties on the part of the employer.’

So socialism is a type of feudalism is it? Or perhaps feudalism is a type of socialism? I wonder.

However among the many substantive points you miss, virtually all of these examples are private arrangements. If I work and my wife stays at home, so she is dependent on me for her housing, food, healthcare and pension, that is not socialism. It is also voluntary. She can leave. Just as anyone can leave a company town if they want.

Americans are right to demonise socialism. Or the taking of money from the politically weak and giving it to the politically strong as it usually is. We have been doing that for a while and the joy ride is about to stop.

@ 4 SMFS

“So socialism is a type of feudalism is it? Or perhaps feudalism is a type of socialism? I wonder.”

Neither of the above. Company towns are capitalist, not socialist.

“However among the many substantive points you miss, virtually all of these examples are private arrangements. If I work and my wife stays at home, so she is dependent on me for her housing, food, healthcare and pension, that is not socialism. It is also voluntary. She can leave. Just as anyone can leave a company town if they want.”

Um, the article points that out. Try reading before responding.

“Americans are right to demonise socialism. Or the taking of money from the politically weak and giving it to the politically strong as it usually is. We have been doing that for a while and the joy ride is about to stop.”

That’s total nonsense. Socialism generally takes from the politically strong and gives to the politically weak.

4

‘Americans are right to demonise socialism’

It’s always a good idea to know a little something about what it is you are demonising, but the OP, most Americans and you, SMFS, do not.

The provision of street lighting is undeniably socialistic.

Street lighting is usually collectively purchased by public sector egencies and supplied free at the point of delivery because no one has figured out how to charge those who personally benefit from street illumination or how to prevent free-riding by those who don’t pay.

I’ve not detected signs of a public campaign to abolish street lighting because it is “socialistic”.

The programme for the inter-state highway system was launched during the Eisenhower Administration through the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. It has been aptly described as the largest public works programme since the the building of the Pyramids:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

SMFS if anything it is capitalism that is feudalistic. you just replace the lord of the manor with money. The fact that the money is ultimately controlled by the modern day equivalent of a lord of the manor clinches it… After all, capitalism did emerge from the feudal world, as feudalism emerged from absolute monarchy…

Like the previous systems, money is acumulated by the strong, at the expense of the majority.

Cylux
Agreed, in the case of some americans they really are little more than trained hounds. Only because ignorance is fetishised by the conservatives that have brainwashed them from birth. They are as far from freedom as people in the USSR under Stalin, only they are too ignorant to understand that, and the oligarchy has at least the smarts to not indulge in death camps (yet) Unless America’s so called criminal justice system counts as a death machine…

HL Mencken writing in The Chicago Tribune September 1926:

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Bob b

That makes the people scary then, to the oligarchy. Why do you think they portray intelligience and knowledge as UnAmerican?

Dissident: “Why do you think they portray intelligience and knowledge as UnAmerican?”

It’s more sinister than that. Try this BBCTV doc by Adam Curtis about Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, who virtually founded the public relations profession in America in the 1920s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTarrgvkjo

Try also the CIA funding of the research of D Ewen Cameron.

5. Chaise Guevara

Neither of the above. Company towns are capitalist, not socialist.

Don’t tell me. Tell the OP.

That’s total nonsense. Socialism generally takes from the politically strong and gives to the politically weak.

No it doesn’t. By its very definition it cannot. You must have power before you can take other people’s money. That is why socialism in the Third World usually takes from minority communities. When Idi Amin stripped the Ugandan Asians of their property, or Algeria and Iraq did so with their Jews, they were taking from the wealthy but politically powerless.

Even in the West, when the British Labour Party is elected, it has the support of the majority. It then takes from people who did not vote for it and give the money to people they think did.

Socialism is all about taking from the weak and giving to the strong. In theory the weak have money but they do not have to. They just have to be weak.

steveb

It’s always a good idea to know a little something about what it is you are demonising, but the OP, most Americans and you, SMFS, do not.

I am sure it is comforting for you to think so Steve. But that don’t make it so.

Dissident

SMFS if anything it is capitalism that is feudalistic. you just replace the lord of the manor with money. The fact that the money is ultimately controlled by the modern day equivalent of a lord of the manor clinches it… After all, capitalism did emerge from the feudal world, as feudalism emerged from absolute monarchy…

Except workers, even in company towns, are not tied to the locality. They can leave. Those wealthy Americans who live in Gated Communities to keep out criminals are not serfs. Nor are workers in company towns. You have that backward – absolute monarchy emerged from feudalism. You can’t even get your pop Marxism right.

However if the previous system shaped the present, does that mean socialism is capitalist too as it emerged from the capitalist world?

Like the previous systems, money is acumulated by the strong, at the expense of the majority.

Except the majority as so massively wealthy this is obviously not true. Because, of course, the pie is not fixed. Capitalism has made us all so wealthy that we have left the realm of necessity and are in the realm of freedom. More or less.

Dissident

Agreed, in the case of some americans they really are little more than trained hounds. Only because ignorance is fetishised by the conservatives that have brainwashed them from birth.

I love it when socialists attempt to rationalise away their lack of support.

They are as far from freedom as people in the USSR under Stalin, only they are too ignorant to understand that, and the oligarchy has at least the smarts to not indulge in death camps (yet) Unless America’s so called criminal justice system counts as a death machine…

Yes. They can buy any book they like, read any author they want, write whatever they feel like, without the remotest threat of prison, unlike the Soviet Union, and they are so stupid they think they are free.

As arguments go this is beyond lame.

Socialism means common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Redistribution isn’t nearly enough.

smfs

The workers in America cannot leave the shackles of money behind. If they rebel, they are blacklisted, rendered unemployable and end up homeless. Once homeless, even normal human bodily functions like having a piss or eating food or sleeping are maliciously criminalised.

You say they are ‘free’ to buy any book they want, technically yes. Yet to fit in their communities they have to limit what they buy to the bible, left behind series and autobiographies of the rich & powerful, otherwise they face ostracisation from their peers! That sort of thing is even corrupting cities, let alone smalltown America ie the bible belt.

As each decade passes, even more of their freedoms are stripped from them, as being unAmerican….

You say they are wealthy beyond necessities, yet their peak wealth was in the seventies, now they have only two choices, conform & get into deeper debt shopping for the ‘latest’ inneficient gas guzzler etc, or rebel into homelessness.

You call that freedom and wealth?

Dissident,
You’re losing an argument with SMFS, and losing it badly.

For your own sake, please desist.

13

‘However if the previous system shaped the present, does that mean socialism is capitalist too as it emerged from the capitalist world’

There is no example of socialism emerging from capitalism (as Marx stated that it was the only way it could happen) Marx was also quite clear about the extent of scientific and technological benefits which capitalism would confer upon the people, in fact he waxed lyrical about it. The revolutionary part of socialism is the changing of the ownership of the means of production, which in reality is more evolutionary, of course the good works of the capitalist will be exploited and continued for the benefit of all rather than the few.

@ 13 SMFS

“Don’t tell me. Tell the OP.”

I love this. In the very post you’re replying to, I pointed out that the OP doesn’t say that it’s socialist. Guess the blinkers come on when you think you might have made a mistake.

“No it doesn’t. By its very definition it cannot. You must have power before you can take other people’s money.”

I suppose you could claim that being in a demographic that makes people want to give you benefits is power of a kind. But in sensible terms, a heavily disabled benefit claimant is a lot less powerful that a multi-millionaire, even though society will take from the latter to support the former. And your attempt to paint this as an abuser/victim relationship (I assume this is where you’re going by describing it as exploitation) is silly. Seriously, who would you rather be out of those two guys? You’re focusing on one kind of very indirect power (the kind of power you can’t even really use yourself, but which gets used for you) and ignoring all others.

“That is why socialism in the Third World usually takes from minority communities. When Idi Amin stripped the Ugandan Asians of their property, or Algeria and Iraq did so with their Jews, they were taking from the wealthy but politically powerless. ”

I make no excuses for the actions of fascist socialist states, because I do not support a fascist socialist state.

“Even in the West, when the British Labour Party is elected, it has the support of the majority. It then takes from people who did not vote for it and give the money to people they think did.”

And it also takes money from those who did vote for it and gives it to those who do not. Much of Tony Blair’s success was due to convincing the very taxable middle classes, while many poor people (who pay the least while often getting equal or better benefit) are Tories. For the millionth time, we don’t live in your magic land where everything’s black and white and reality is defined by your desires.

You could also add the Bank of North Dakota to the list. The USA’s only state owned (and very successful) bank.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation%E2%80%99s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street

15. Dissident

The workers in America cannot leave the shackles of money behind. If they rebel, they are blacklisted, rendered unemployable and end up homeless. Once homeless, even normal human bodily functions like having a piss or eating food or sleeping are maliciously criminalised.

It warms my heart to see this sort of Trot nonsense still brought out. Really it does. Money is not a shackle. It is just a means of counting. So how do you explain the career of Noam Chomsky? Not only not blacklisted, or rendered unemployable, but still a tenured academic in one of the world’s leading educational institutions? Or Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers who not only rebelled but killed people. Where is he now? Blacklisted and unemployable?

You say they are ‘free’ to buy any book they want, technically yes. Yet to fit in their communities they have to limit what they buy to the bible, left behind series and autobiographies of the rich & powerful, otherwise they face ostracisation from their peers! That sort of thing is even corrupting cities, let alone smalltown America ie the bible belt.

Oh my God – ostracism! The horror. Technically yes. Meaning your argument is pathetic. How does anyone in a small town know what they buy?

As each decade passes, even more of their freedoms are stripped from them, as being unAmerican….

That I agree with except for the un-American bit. Their freedoms are being stripped from them by the Left.

You say they are wealthy beyond necessities, yet their peak wealth was in the seventies, now they have only two choices, conform & get into deeper debt shopping for the ‘latest’ inneficient gas guzzler etc, or rebel into homelessness.

No their peak wealth was not. They are about twice as rich as they were in the 1980s. Nor does your pathetic understanding of American life actually work as a convincing argument. Given America is full of people who have chosen neither.

You call that freedom and wealth?

It is what it is.

Chaise Guevara

I suppose you could claim that being in a demographic that makes people want to give you benefits is power of a kind. But in sensible terms, a heavily disabled benefit claimant is a lot less powerful that a multi-millionaire, even though society will take from the latter to support the former.

I am sure that a heavily disabled benefits claimant is a lot less powerful than a multi-millionaire. But that is a dishonest argument and you know it. The comparison is not between one individual from each group, but the two groups as a whole. We have a lot more heavily disabled benefits claimants than multi-millionaires and that makes all the difference.

And your attempt to paint this as an abuser/victim relationship (I assume this is where you’re going by describing it as exploitation) is silly.

I don’t see the words “abuser” or “victim” in what I said. Nor the word exploitation either. After all, exploitation implies husbandry and it is usually a little more hunter-gather in my experience. That is, they expel all the Asians and take all their property but they can only do that once.

Seriously, who would you rather be out of those two guys? You’re focusing on one kind of very indirect power (the kind of power you can’t even really use yourself, but which gets used for you) and ignoring all others.

No. I am focusing on the one very direct form of power that counts – the power to go into your living room and take your things. In Britain the majority of people have voted themselves the power to do that. You are in the odd position of arguing that a millionaire’s indirect power to lobby or otherwise influence government and public opinion is more important than that power. Which is nonsense as can be seen by the fact that armed men representing the power of the state do go into people’s homes and take their stuff. And occasionally their physical bodies off to prison. To answer Lenin’s question: in a democracy the politically powerful take from the politically weak. That is, to the majority of voters in a democracy from the minority. How that majority is defined is the only real question.

I make no excuses for the actions of fascist socialist states, because I do not support a fascist socialist state.

I have to say it is an interesting experience to see socialism described as fascism. But sticking this label on it does not change the fact that they are people you would have supported at the time, their policies were and are more or less your policies and far from being Fascists, that is just a way of you distancing yourself from policies you have only come to reject now in this argument and with the benefit of hindsight. Well, that is more true of the FLN than Idi Amin I suppose. I can’t see you endorsing the French effort to remain in Algeria. But then I don’t see you endorsing the British remaining in Uganda either.

And it also takes money from those who did vote for it and gives it to those who do not. Much of Tony Blair’s success was due to convincing the very taxable middle classes, while many poor people (who pay the least while often getting equal or better benefit) are Tories. For the millionth time, we don’t live in your magic land where everything’s black and white and reality is defined by your desires.

Not if it can help it it doesn’t. Blair’s success was to stop focusing on the past clients of the Labour Party and work on distributing more to the middle classes. Thus, feeling safer, they voted for him. And he delivered. The working class does not have the numbers it used to. But the working class and a good chunk of the middle class does. Nothing much else has changed. Nor has my model for how socialism really works been even remotely challenged by anything you have said. Although you seem to have understood it which is an improvement.

You can say something for the millionth time, but if it was wrong the first time and the last time and at every point in between, it will remain irrelevant. As it does this time.

@20 SMFS

No their peak wealth was not. They are about twice as rich as they were in the 1980s.

Actually, real wages in the US have been stagnant since the mid-1970s, and thanks to reaganomics most of the proceeds of growth fro the past 30 years have gone to the top 1%. This unfortunate little fact was disguised for many years by the availability of cheap credit which gave the illusion of prosperity for a while, at the cost of vastly increased debt. And we all know how that has ended up!

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/no-long-term-recovery-without-real-wage-growth
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/07/58-of-real-income-growth-since-1976-went-to-top-1-and-why-that-matters.html

That I agree with except for the un-American bit. Their freedoms are being stripped from them by the Left.

Really, which freedoms have been stripped by the ‘left’, and who was in power when the Patriot Act was passed? The most authoritarian piece of legislation in US history. Hint, it wasn’t the left! Who was it who fought for Civil Rights for blacks, women, gays etc, Hint: it wasn’t the right?

you are too close to see the lay of the land, SMFS!! the other side of ‘The Pond’ gives me a perspective you seem to lack. I know Americans, and they hate what that country has become.

People like Chomsky are but a figleaf (look, we allow HIM to speak, we are free) Try that in the real world! The Department of Homeland Insecurity

I once beleived that country’s self propaganda. Yet over the years, that has become threadbare. With fuller understanding of exactly how much your fellow Americans have been betrayed

It’s a bot people, you’ll never find it link to primary sources, arguing with it is a bit like shouting at the television.

haha cylux
I seem to remember reading threads about that before… what I find is that the responses to it have useful info and links however, so SMFSbot serves a useful function!

Of cours, I don’t provide links either

That would explain a lot. I always wondered about the absurd arguments he/she/it came out with. Repeating the same arguments over and over despite being debunked. Not properly engaging with the opponents arguments etc.

Passing the Turing Test hasn’t quite been cracked yet!

21. Graham

Actually, real wages in the US have been stagnant since the mid-1970s, and thanks to reaganomics most of the proceeds of growth fro the past 30 years have gone to the top 1%. This unfortunate little fact was disguised for many years by the availability of cheap credit which gave the illusion of prosperity for a while, at the cost of vastly increased debt. And we all know how that has ended up!

This is of course a stupid argument. Even by the standards of LC. And so easy to check. In fact your very first source says:

[w]hile from 1980 through 2006, the median income of an American household has risen only from $39,700 to $48,200 in real terms, house prices for example have shot up form nearly $125,000 to $246,500.

So people with houses are richer and they are earning a lot more money. Two seconds with google will produce similar results:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Household_income_over_time

Overall, the median household income rose from $33,338 in 1967 to an all-time high of $44,922 in 1999, and has since decreased slightly to $43,318.

In 1972, disposable personal income was determined to be $4,129; $19,385 in 2005 dollars. In 2005, disposable personal income was, however, $27,640, a 43% increase.

Try this too:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104652.html

Really, which freedoms have been stripped by the ‘left’, and who was in power when the Patriot Act was passed? The most authoritarian piece of legislation in US history. Hint, it wasn’t the left! Who was it who fought for Civil Rights for blacks, women, gays etc, Hint: it wasn’t the right?

Hardly the most authoritarian. It has nothing on the legislation passed during WW1 for instance. Who was in power? The Democrats held the Congress if I remember correctly. They certainly voted for that bipartisan piece of nonsense. Who fought for Civil Rights for Blacks? That would not be the party of the KKK would it? The Democrats were opposed to Civil Rights for a very long time. It would be the party of the NAACP. Which was founded by a bunch of Republicans.

Dissident

you are too close to see the lay of the land, SMFS!! the other side of ‘The Pond’ gives me a perspective you seem to lack. I know Americans, and they hate what that country has become.

The fact you know two Trots on the internet proves nothing. Although I find it amusing you think I am too close to America to see properly but your little Trot American mates can see clearly.

People like Chomsky are but a figleaf (look, we allow HIM to speak, we are free) Try that in the real world! The Department of Homeland Insecurity

A fig leaf? Amazing. Is there any fact that you cannot rationalise away? Why not try it in the real world? Chomsky is one of the ten most frequently cited academics and the only living one. A lot of people are doing that in the real world.

I once beleived that country’s self propaganda. Yet over the years, that has become threadbare. With fuller understanding of exactly how much your fellow Americans have been betrayed

Good for you. But your personal issues do not change the facts.

oh dear, SMFSbot.

I have news for you, the Americans I know are a retired USAF pilot from Montana and a staff nurse in an east coast hospital… hardly your 1D stereotypes!

The pilot had to carpet bomb Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. In the name of the domino ideology, what a resounding success for ‘your’ people.

The nurse is worked off her feet in that hospital, and hasn’t the opportunity to make sure people are looked after properly. She also has to bring up a 2yr old on her own, as her former partner sank into the drink because he had no job prospects.

Mind you, both of them work for the state, so you would see them as Trot…