Corporation Socialism

[Gary Childress]

But trusting of Biden?

But who taught you Trump was Hitler? Who told you riots were "social justice"? Who glossed over the coronation of Kamala Harris, and told you Biden was never senile? Who told you the fires in LA were only because of climate change? Who told you about "Russia Collusion"? Who told you the laptop wasn't possible to verify? Where did you get all those ideas, except from the very media about which you've become suddenly worried?

The same media moguls who lied so lavishly about the Bidens, about COVID, about transism, and about Gaza owned those companies before Trump, and they own those companies now. In that sense, the arrival of Trump changed nothing. Control now is in exactly the same hands it was then.

It was always time to be concerned. It never isn't, when the media power is concentrated in a few hands.

Do you see why many of us preferred Harris over Trump as the lesser of two evils? Or does that not resonate yet?

Harris? Seriously?

Even the Dems didn't want her, at first. She got no votes in the primary. She wasn't elected by anybody, but had to be nominated by a senile Biden, and later appointed to run without a primary, by a cabal. She couldn't do a coherent speech, and was a brainless Marxist. I don't know if you could not possibly find a worse candidate...maybe in Canada...but she was certainly bottom-of-the-barrel, even by her own party's actions.

She's actually a really good illustration of Corporation Socialism...a political appointee, with no democratic credentials, intended to merely serve as a puppet for the continued rule of the corporations.

Trump will absolutely not listen to anyone on the left. Is that better than Harris? At least Harris and Biden would pay some lip service to leftists. We're getting an outright brick wall from Trump. Which is worse, someone who acknowledges that humanistic concerns are important or someone who does not acknowledge them at all? As you say, Harris wasn't a great candidate, but Trump seems like he's going to be outright evil. That's what people on the left have been saying all along.

[Impenitent]

if not being enslaved by democratic governmental officials is evil...

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

Do you see why many of us preferred Harris over Trump as the lesser of two evils? Or does that not resonate yet?

Harris? Seriously?

Even the Dems didn't want her, at first. She got no votes in the primary. She wasn't elected by anybody, but had to be nominated by a senile Biden, and later appointed to run without a primary, by a cabal. She couldn't do a coherent speech, and was a brainless Marxist. I don't know if you could not possibly find a worse candidate...maybe in Canada...but she was certainly bottom-of-the-barrel, even by her own party's actions.

She's actually a really good illustration of Corporation Socialism...a political appointee, with no democratic credentials, intended to merely serve as a puppet for the continued rule of the corporations.

Trump will absolutely not listen to anyone on the left.

It's too early to tell. But he certainly has plenty of left-oriented people on his staff. Did you forget that both RFK and Gabbard were recently celebrated Dems? Not to say anything of Musk, of course, who also was. Did you forget that at one time, Trump himself was a most-celebrated Dem donor and supporter?

So you'll have to wait and see. We all will.

Is that better than Harris?

In every possible way. Good heavens.

[Gary Childress]

Harris? Seriously?

Even the Dems didn't want her, at first. She got no votes in the primary. She wasn't elected by anybody, but had to be nominated by a senile Biden, and later appointed to run without a primary, by a cabal. She couldn't do a coherent speech, and was a brainless Marxist. I don't know if you could not possibly find a worse candidate...maybe in Canada...but she was certainly bottom-of-the-barrel, even by her own party's actions.

She's actually a really good illustration of Corporation Socialism...a political appointee, with no democratic credentials, intended to merely serve as a puppet for the continued rule of the corporations.

Trump will absolutely not listen to anyone on the left.

It's too early to tell. But he certainly has plenty of left-oriented people on his staff. Did you forget that both RFK and Gabbard were recently celebrated Dems? Not to say anything of Musk, of course, who also was. Did you forget that at one time, Trump himself was a most-celebrated Dem donor and supporter?

So you'll have to wait and see. We all will.

Is that better than Harris?

In every possible way. Good heavens.

Fair enough. We'll wait and see.

[Belinda]

Which I did. I came to a different conclusion to you and explained why, with references to the video. In case you missed it, here it is again:

No, I didn't miss it. It's the sort of evasive stuff I was expecting to get in reply. I just thought it wasn't worthy of comment.

Well, given that it confronts how you have interpreted the video with quotes from it, what are your grounds for calling my response evasive?

You just throwing out a video and suggesting that by watching it I will

is an appeal to authority...

Not at all. I never invoked any "authority" from anybody at all.

Wait for it:

I just showed you an intelligent, well-informed expert speaking on a topic.

Pretty much a definitive appeal to authority.

It was a vote of confidence in your ability to hear facts and see reason.

Why then were you expecting "evasive stuff"?

And if it was excessive to suppose that, I suppose I can retract that supposition.

I can only assume you include that because it is the sort of thing you might care about.
Nothing you have written in your response has any philosophical merit. I have to disagree with mickthinks though; as one of the useless cranks tolerated by Philosophy Now, there is space for you here.

There is a useful function for an Aunt Sally ,for improving our aims

[Will Bouwman]

It's only a fallacy if we say, "Believe him, because he's an authority."

So a fallacy is only a fallacy if the person committing the fallacy broadcasts that they are committing the fallacy? Is that only saved from being a really stupid thing to say, because you didn't say it is stupid?

...I've pointed you to a genuine expert and asked you to evaluate the quality of his argument...not to accept him on the basis of authority.

You know you're dealing with an idiot when you constantly have to remind them of their own words:

...I had the impression that Will was competent to make his own assessment, and to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

You didn't offer any of your own analysis, you simply said that if I were to listen to a third party, I would agree with you. That is why it is an appeal to authority.

Further to that, who, other than a useless crank, could turn this:

Well, if you are going to cite videos, it would be helpful if you could pick out the parts, either by quoting or giving time references, ideally both, that you believe support your argument.

into this?

Of course, if, as you claim to think, we are not allowed to refer to anybody intelligent, well-informed or expert on a topic...

It is only because you are none of those, with regard to philosophy, that I have to point out that nowhere have I claimed to think any such thing.

But I don't think you thought any of those things.

So now you don't think I "thought any of those things" you earlier claimed I "claim to think". Your thinking is shambolic.

I just think you wanted to evade the challenge of his erudite analysis...

It is not Zitelmann I am challenging; it is your chaotic analysis that is in question. Zitelmann decides to call certain types of legislation, by democratically elected governments, "the modern form of socialism". That is his prerogative. You, being hopelessly erratic, accept that definition, which is your prerogative, but it bears little relation to your own description of socialism. So you have two instances, Hitler and Zitalmann's, where you accept what they call 'socialism' to be socialism, even though in neither case is it what you define as socialism; you have your own brand of "Corporation Socialism" which also doesn't meet your own criteria, but the one instance in which people who call themselves socialists definitely aren't socialists is when they call themselves democratic socialists.

I don't think you're unable to fathom the point, or assess the evidence. So the obvious conclusion is that you're simply fighting hard to avoid the necessary conclusion...

As I said before, to call a conclusion "obvious" betrays a lack of philosophical understanding, and a conclusion is only "necessary" if it is the product of a valid argument. Which yours isn't.

[Immanuel Can]

It's only a fallacy if we say, "Believe him, because he's an authority."

So a fallacy is only a fallacy if the person committing the fallacy broadcasts that they are committing the fallacy?

No, it's only the fallacy of authority if the speaker uses authority as the basis of his claim. But you can find that out in any definition of the fallacy you care to look up.

...I had the impression that Will was competent to make his own assessment, and to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

You didn't offer any of your own analysis,

Of course not. I thought you'd be smart enough to make up your own opinion of his arguments. I didn't prechew your food for you. But I could have, if I had a lower estimation of your abilities, of course. I just didn't feel that it would be necessary in your case.

Apparently, I was too kind in that assumption. So you say, now.

It is not Zitelmann I am challenging;

Well, you should be. It was his analysis I pointed out to you. And instead, you're trying to misdirect by insulting me. So while you're looking up the "appeal to authority" fallacy, you might want to look up the "ad hominem fallacy" as well.

Zitelmann decides to call certain types of legislation, by democratically elected governments, "the modern form of socialism".

He makes a proper case of that, you'll find.

He points out that Nazism and Communism were both merely kinds of Socialism. The latter had a totally command economy. The former had a command economy in all sectors important to the national project, plus willingness to take control of all "capitalist" enterprises that were not already useful to that national purpose. So in both, the outcome was essentially the same: Big Government had total de facto control of the economy, but Stalin kept the tighter rein on his horse.

And, of course, both were human rights disasters...Stalin's the bigger of the two, because he was the more thoroughgoing Socialist ideologue.

...you have your own brand of "Corporation Socialism"

It's not "my" brand. I didn't invent it at all. It's a product of things like the EU, the WEF, and to a large extent, the Woke Democrats as well. All I asked is whether or not Socialists were aware that Socialism is now in bed with the big corporations, so as to be alert to the fact that they're being sold down a new river.

...democratic socialists...

Still a contradiction. You won't find any Socialism that can tolerate democracy beyond its first arrival in office. From there, it must inevitably undermine and eliminate democracy, or it will lose it's own Socialist project.

You'd love to deflect to personal insults, I see. And that simply reassures of exactly what I suspected: you don't have anything substantial to offer by way of critique of Zitelmann's analysis, and so have to run off in an irrelevant direction, trying to criticize the manner of the conversation instead of dealing with the substance of the content.

You know you're wrong. You're just desperate to find some other way to "be right." Maybe it's because you're a Socialist ideologue yourself...or maybe that you've been asleep in the warm glow of hope that "democratic Socialism" would give you free stuff. But Socialism doesn't really aim to "give" to the ordinary citizen, at least nowhere near as much as it takes. Despite all its loud professions of humanist virtue, its real aim is not the greater good of the masses but the consolidation of control in the hands of those who can advance the Socialist project, which inevitable means some sort of soviet, elite or dictator. And that's just the historical fact in 100% of the cases, you'll find.

But today, the "soviet" or "elite" in view turns out to be a fusion of Big Business, Big Media, and Big Government. Socialists like yourself don't want to see that, maybe...but that's the reality. You're being had.

[Will Bouwman]

...it's only the fallacy of authority if the speaker uses authority as the basis of his claim.

That is precisely what you have done:

I just showed you an intelligent, well-informed expert speaking on a topic.

I didn't prechew your food for you. But I could have, if I had a lower estimation of your abilities, of course. I just didn't feel that it would be necessary in your case.

That'll be because you thought Zitelmann is such "an intelligent, well-informed expert", an authority, that you wouldn't have to.

You'd love to deflect to personal insults, I see.

Nothing I have said about you is a personal insult; it's just the facts. Your thinking is chaotic, which shows how little philosophical skill you have.

You know you're wrong. You're just desperate to find some other way to "be right." Maybe it's because you're a Socialist ideologue yourself...or maybe that you've been asleep in the warm glow of hope that "democratic Socialism" would give you free stuff.

No. I neither want nor need "free stuff". I am happy to pay my taxes in return for the infrastructure, education, services and security I get in return. I am happy to pay my national insurance contributions for the health care I get in return. As it happens, I had a heart attack last year. I was driven to hospital in an ambulance, had a stent inserted, stayed in hospital until I was well enough to go home, had physiotherapy and a dietician and I am on a bunch of prescription drugs, some of which I will be on until I die; but since I had paid up front, none of that cost me any additional money. Even if I lived a charmed life that never required medical intervention, I would still be happy to pay for the NHS for the reassurance it gives me, and the benefit it brings to others. I recognise that I live in a society and believe that by voluntarily contributing to that society, I make it better. I vote for politicians who share my view; neither they nor I have any wish to condemn people like you who disagree to gulags or gas chambers.

[Immanuel Can]

...it's only the fallacy of authority if the speaker uses authority as the basis of his claim.

That is precisely what you have done:

No, it isn't. I asked you to evaluate the argument, not fall at the feet of an authority.

Are you annoyed that I chose somebody intelligent and well-informed, somebody with actual knowledge and expertise, and had the audacity to think you could follow his argument and judge for yourself? Forgive my temerity. I've insulted you by thinking too much of you. Would you have been happier if I had chosen somebody for you who was badly-informed, unintelligent and unfamiliar with the field? Would that have been less an insult to your intelligence?

Oy frickin' vey.

I would still be happy to pay for the NHS for the reassurance it gives me...

Oh. There it is. There's the reason.

You think Socialism is like "health care." So you're blind to all the horrors Socialism causes, and indifferent to the disasters it visits on the economy. So long as you get your free meds, you're all enthused.

Well, it may be understandable, given your situation. But it's no way to evaluate a comprehensive plan of social revolution. And it's no basis on which to judge whether or not something makes economic sense.

You say you're happy for others to get the same benefits. Would you be equally happy for them to have poverty, property theft, starvation, gulags, torture rooms, murders and total economic collapse? Because that's what Socialism, except when applied to a very limited set of social programs funded by "capitalist" enterprise, inevitably brings in.

"Benefit to others?" If you cared about that, you'd never be a Socialist.

[Will Bouwman]

I asked you to evaluate the argument, not fall at the feet of an authority.

It's too late; you have already admitted it is an appeal to authority:

It was pretty hard to mistake the argument...and I had the impression that Will was competent to make his own assessment, and to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

There's no great shame in failing to understand why that is an appeal to authority. It's not rocket science, but requires a level of mental agility that not everyone commands. If you simply cannot admit that you are labouring a point about which you are wrong, then there is something you can do, but it requires the intellectual confidence you clearly struggle with.

So, after protesting that you haven't appealed to an authority in the very next sentence you say:

Are you annoyed that I chose somebody intelligent and well-informed, somebody with actual knowledge and expertise, and had the audacity to think you could follow his argument and judge for yourself?

One of the most glaring signs of a lack of philosophical ability, is not being able to understand that someone can judge for themselves and reach a conclusion other than the one you judge "obvious".
As I have said several times: philosophy is fundamentally story telling. More often than not, I pass that through the history and philosophy of science, because whatever philosophical expertise I have earned, it is there. So I am sure you are familiar with my saying that theories/hypotheses/stories are underdetermined, and while that is couched in subject specific jargon, the gist is true in the wider field of epistemology. Anyone who doesn't get that will never understand philosophy. That includes you.

Forgive my temerity. I've insulted you by thinking too much of you. Would you have been happier if I had chosen somebody for you who was badly-informed, unintelligent and unfamiliar with the field? Would that have been less an insult to your intelligence?

Oy frickin' vey.

Petulant.

Oh. There it is. There's the reason.

Ad hominem.

You think Socialism is like "health care." So you're blind to all the horrors Socialism causes, and indifferent to the disasters it visits on the economy. So long as you get your free meds, you're all enthused.

Dishonest, stupid or both. I said this:

No. I neither want nor need "free stuff". I am happy to pay my taxes in return for the infrastructure, education, services and security I get in return. I am happy to pay my national insurance contributions for the health care I get in return. As it happens, I had a heart attack last year. I was driven to hospital in an ambulance, had a stent inserted, stayed in hospital until I was well enough to go home, had physiotherapy and a dietician and I am on a bunch of prescription drugs, some of which I will be on until I die; but since I had paid up front, none of that cost me any additional money. Even if I lived a charmed life that never required medical intervention, I would still be happy to pay for the NHS for the reassurance it gives me, and the benefit it brings to others. I recognise that I live in a society and believe that by voluntarily contributing to that society, I make it better. I vote for politicians who share my view; neither they nor I have any wish to condemn people like you who disagree to gulags or gas chambers.

"Benefit to others?" If you cared about that, you'd never be a Socialist.

I don't claim to be a "Socialist". I am a social democrat, living in a social democracy with a mixed economy, with the costs and benefits, as I perceive them, listed above.
It is the fact that you have to lie about what you and I have actually said that shows you are no philosopher.

[Belinda]

I asked you to evaluate the argument, not fall at the feet of an authority.

It's too late; you have already admitted it is an appeal to authority:

It was pretty hard to mistake the argument...and I had the impression that Will was competent to make his own assessment, and to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

There's no great shame in failing to understand why that is an appeal to authority. It's not rocket science, but requires a level of mental agility that not everyone commands. If you simply cannot admit that you are labouring a point about which you are wrong, then there is something you can do, but it requires the intellectual confidence you clearly struggle with.

So, after protesting that you haven't appealed to an authority in the very next sentence you say:

Are you annoyed that I chose somebody intelligent and well-informed, somebody with actual knowledge and expertise, and had the audacity to think you could follow his argument and judge for yourself?

One of the most glaring signs of a lack of philosophical ability, is not being able to understand that someone can judge for themselves and reach a conclusion other than the one you judge "obvious".
As I have said several times: philosophy is fundamentally story telling. More often than not, I pass that through the history and philosophy of science, because whatever philosophical expertise I have earned, it is there. So I am sure you are familiar with my saying that theories/hypotheses/stories are underdetermined, and while that is couched in subject specific jargon, the gist is true in the wider field of epistemology. Anyone who doesn't get that will never understand philosophy. That includes you.

Forgive my temerity. I've insulted you by thinking too much of you. Would you have been happier if I had chosen somebody for you who was badly-informed, unintelligent and unfamiliar with the field? Would that have been less an insult to your intelligence?

Oy frickin' vey.

Petulant.

Oh. There it is. There's the reason.

Ad hominem.

You think Socialism is like "health care." So you're blind to all the horrors Socialism causes, and indifferent to the disasters it visits on the economy. So long as you get your free meds, you're all enthused.

Dishonest, stupid or both. I said this:

No. I neither want nor need "free stuff". I am happy to pay my taxes in return for the infrastructure, education, services and security I get in return. I am happy to pay my national insurance contributions for the health care I get in return. As it happens, I had a heart attack last year. I was driven to hospital in an ambulance, had a stent inserted, stayed in hospital until I was well enough to go home, had physiotherapy and a dietician and I am on a bunch of prescription drugs, some of which I will be on until I die; but since I had paid up front, none of that cost me any additional money. Even if I lived a charmed life that never required medical intervention, I would still be happy to pay for the NHS for the reassurance it gives me, and the benefit it brings to others. I recognise that I live in a society and believe that by voluntarily contributing to that society, I make it better. I vote for politicians who share my view; neither they nor I have any wish to condemn people like you who disagree to gulags or gas chambers.

"Benefit to others?" If you cared about that, you'd never be a Socialist.

I don't claim to be a "Socialist". I am a social democrat, living in a social democracy with a mixed economy, with the costs and benefits, as I perceive them, listed above.
It is the fact that you have to lie about what you and I have actually said that shows you are no philosopher.

Just for my information, Will if you please : is social democracy a sub-category of socialism?
I need to ask because my political stance is like yours, so I begin to wonder if I am old-fashioned in calling myself a socialist. I mean for instance , during the Spanish Civil War the people who fought against Franco called themselves socialists.

[Age]

Just BEING 'social', and/or living 'communally', WITH one another, IN A 'One world community', is OBVIOUSLY NOT some thing that "immanuel can" WANTS nor DESIRES.

[Immanuel Can]

I asked you to evaluate the argument, not fall at the feet of an authority.

It's too late; you have already admitted it is an appeal to authority:

It was pretty hard to mistake the argument...and I had the impression that Will was competent to make his own assessment, and to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

I said no such thing, of course. You clearly don't even know what "appeal to authority" means. You should look it up, maybe.

So, after protesting that you haven't appealed to an authority in the very next sentence you say:

Are you annoyed that I chose somebody intelligent and well-informed, somebody with actual knowledge and expertise, and had the audacity to think you could follow his argument and judge for yourself?

One of the most glaring signs of a lack of philosophical ability, is not being able to understand that someone can judge for themselves and reach a conclusion other than the one you judge "obvious".

Ironic. You're the one who got it wrong, and now won't admit it. But when you look up the defintion, you'll find out.

You're clearly miffed and scrabbling for some desperate excuse to avoid the actual point, which is that Fascism is just another form of Socialism. I have said it, Zitelmann has said it, you've had good explanations from both as to why it's the case...but you don't even debate the facts. You prefer to resort to ad hominems and other deflections.

But you don't have to: you could actually tackle the argument. Or keep avoiding it. It's up to you.

I neither want nor need "free stuff".

If you say so.

I am a social democrat,

That's like "I am a homicidal humanitarian." Sorry...just doesn't work.

[Gary Childress]

That's like "I am a homicidal humanitarian." Sorry...just doesn't work.

Good grief. Really? "Social democrat" is the same as saying "homicidal humanitarian"?

[Immanuel Can]

That's like "I am a homicidal humanitarian." Sorry...just doesn't work.

Good grief. Really? "Social democrat" is the same as saying "homicidal humanitarian"?

Yep. One is good for people, and the other is death. And everybody knows which is which.