New York City

[promethean75]

Comrades who are unsure about exactly what Socialism is may wish to inform themselves with Socialism For Das Beginners

[promethean75]

And you know the Democrat party is not and has never been Socialist in a genuine Marxist sense. A few socialist sounding policies, in effect, do not make a socialist society. And a 'Marxist politician' is almost an oxymoron if you aren't allowing for a comnunist party leadership role (which no Democrat has ever had). A Democrat today, if he were truly Marxist, would resign.

And because western politics is stabilized into only two antithetical parties, there wouldn't ever be any political reform toward a Socialist society. The party lines are fixed, and both endorse free market capitalism. There will be no more coups in the west. No more revolutionary third parties or nights of the long knives.

So we have a double whammy: you can be wrong about both what Marxism is and who/what a Marxist would look like. It's like snipe hunting for boogeymen. It's literally logically impossible, but somehow many manage to do it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I feel like I'm in a 1950s suburban high school social studies class listening to a conservative guest speaker pitch that American dream nonsense.

Except it is 2025. The same principles still apply. They are absolute. Incontrovertible. It really is not nonsense, Promethean. People in my region who apply the principles advance.

[MikeNovack]

Actually, Communism is utopian Socialism. So it's one sub-variety of the larger toxicity, but not the only version.

At the risk of upsetting Promethean75 (who I presume Marxist) I would like to explain to IC that he completely misunderstands socialism vs communism. To do that I will commit the no-no of using a utopian model << I do not know of a route to get there >>

IC, imagine a society where the PRIMARY unit is the "commune" a group of 50-200 individuals (a group size where all wouldknow each other PERSONALLY). These communes practice sharing under the "from each by ability to each by need". These communes relate to each other "in the market" except neighboring communes act more neighborly, likely to help each other out as needed. However many activities/projects are too big for groups of such size to undertake. For THESE, "enterprises" are organized with multiple communes taking a share of the venture (and participating in its governance. There might even be some so large that all (in the region, in the whole "state") are participating"in the venture".

Understand? When you see traditional leftists Marxists discuss "who owns the means of production" they are treating the relation "owns" as describing a material relation rather than a social relation (which exists or does not exist depending on what people believe).

But back to my utopian model. What would you call something like that, IC? If you say not (a form of) communism, WHY do you say that?

[Immanuel Can]

Actually, Communism is utopian Socialism. So it's one sub-variety of the larger toxicity, but not the only version.

IC, imagine a society where the PRIMARY unit is the "commune"...etc.

I don't see a contradiction with what I said. You'll have to identify it, if you think there is one.

What I said was that Socialism, the broad category, includes the State or Big Government as permanent...and, as Marx said, Communism assumes the State will, so use Marx's terms, "wither away" when Socialism has been in place long enough, to be replaced by a communal society, allegedly.

Understand? When you see traditional leftists Marxists discuss "who owns the means of production" they are treating the relation "owns" as describing a material relation rather than a social relation.

That's actually not the case, and I can show it isn't.

You seem to be forgetting that the primary thing that gets "produced" when Socialists "seize the means of production" is not merely economic. It's man himself. Marxism is a human-engineering project. The economics are only instrumental.

That will strike superficial followers of Marx as surprising. It's not an aspect of Marxism that gets talked about in one's local chapter of the Red Brigade. But remember that Marxism teaches that human beings are not born fully human; they're born "alienated from their humanity," which consists in their material relations, particularly economic and class ones. But until they come into "Socialist consciousness," they remain alienated -- they are not truly and fully actualized as human. Humans, then, are "constructed" from their "social relations," meaning that only Socialists get to count as human.

You see this with Mao, for instance. For him, "the People" does not mean the Chinese, or even just the Han Chinese. It means only those who are committed to Socialism, and of a sort that Mao approved. To see from "the People's standpoint," in Maoism, is to think like a Chinese Socialist. And only Chinese Socialists can count as "the People," and hence can be fully human. Human authenticity is made contingent upon one immersing one's thinking in "Socialist consciousness."

The idea that human beings are "constructed by society," through their material relations, is essential to Marxism, and is at its core. Essentially, Marxism is not an economic engineering project, but a human-engineering project performed through the manipulation of material means.

So society is key, for them. The control of society must be absolute -- not for economic reasons exclusively, but ultimately, for human-engineering purposes. Man -- Socialist Mankind -- is the "product" at which Marxism aims, and for which it so happily murders all objectors.

[promethean75]

Comrade Novack, the description you provide of socialism is too simple to even be mentioned, isn't it? I thought everyone already knew about the naked communes sharing a chicken. That's why i didn't explain that to comrade IC.

[accelafine]

Australia has a fantastic public health care system and an excellent welfare system including the old age pension. Must be awful for IC to enjoy the fruits of a 'socialist' country.

Perhaps IC will understand AI a bit better, because he can't seem to grasp any basic human explanations:

''Socialism and Communism are not the same. The main difference is that communism typically advocates for state ownership of all property and resources, while socialism allows for individual property ownership alongside state control of essential services and a more equal distribution of wealth through democratic means.''



'Socialism' sounds dreaful

[Alexis Jacobi]

Promethean wrote:

Anyway, why must one sacrifice to be successful? I mean, a guy just wants an honest job. He doesn't need a brass band. You make the mission to be happy in america like a scene from Alien where a bunch of obnoxious marines are slapping each other, trying to get all psyched up before they enter the old ship and walk into certain death. It's just a job, dude. You're reading too much Ayn Rand, i dunno. You're like one of those 1830s railroad tycoons. He's gotten a whole set of staff, like twenty people, and he's out in the middle of a field standing beside a slightly built Francis wearing what looks like a field and stream fishing vest and sat at a small wooden fold-out table. One this table is a stack of maps and blueprints, a typewriter, a bottle of champagne, and a surveyor's kit.

Duh! You can choose to sacrifice and channel that time and that money toward delayed enjoyment (that is one way to see it). It is proverbial: grasshoppers fiddle away their allotted time (etc etc). The plan already exists. You could find it in just one or in a hundred different (business enthusiasm) books.

I guess that if you are constituted to complain and rail against the way things are that you will. But it will not help you to advance. You are interesting in this conversation because you illustrate (perhaps) how others of your generation think and see. Both you and Gary (if I read you correctly) have nothing much to live for. That attitude, though I guess it is understandable, is pretty common. Spiritual nihilism. I would recommend making other choices snd starting right now.

I am only telling you what I see here (in back-assward S. America) among people with 50 times less advantages than you have. They have to focus themselves. And when they do they build wealth, and they build an economy. No one is going to help them and they know this.

But noble Promethean waits on The Revolution.

You in your situation (I intuit a general picture) if you planned things carefully, smartly, could put yourself in a very different situation in 10 years.

But your attitude holds you back from those choices.

[promethean75]

"Must be awful for IC to enjoy the fruits of a 'socialist' country"

I don't know the exact number, but a good three or four of my strongest anti-socialist opponents lived and/or live in a country more socialist than my own.

How duhya like that? Have you ever heard something so absurd before?

[accelafine]

Hypocrisy and stupidity aren't exactly rare, plus Australians might be even more stupid than Americans or at least very close anyway.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know the exact number, but a good three or four of my strongest anti-socialist opponents lived and/or live in a country more socialist than my own.

Define "more Socialist." How does a country become "more Socialist" than yours? What are the symptoms you're detecting?

[Immanuel Can]

Hypocrisy and stupidity aren't exactly rare, plus Australians might be even more stupid than Americans or at least very close anyway.

I'll let them know, if I meet any, that you're displeased with them. They'll be devastated, I'm sure.

[MikeNovack]

''Socialism and Communism are not the same. The main difference is that communism typically advocates for state ownership of all property and resources, while socialism allows for individual property ownership alongside state control of essential services and a more equal distribution of wealth through democratic means.''

That won't really work as a defining difference

Go back to my utopian mode (and consider what you would call something like that)

Why should such a model necessarily preclude some individuals living by themselves, in atomic families, etc.? Maybe six decades ago no but I remember some of the New York Federation of Anarchist folks (left libertarians) meeting with individualist anarchists (right libertarians) to discuss on what things we agreed and on what disagreed. Both sides surprised by how much agreement and that both our visions of what we thought society should be like left room for the other. In other words, THAT came down to a matter of taste, what sort of immediate group we preferred to live in.

Please note that in the 19th Century into the early part of the 20th those terms used more interchangeably than now.

[Immanuel Can]

Why should such a model necessarily preclude some individuals living by themselves, in atomic families, etc.?

Well, there's no reason such a thing shouldn't be done, but Socialism will not stand for it, of course. The Socialist argument is that we can't have "real Socialism" or "successful Socialism" while any other form of arrangement is allowed to persist and compete with it. Socialism is a totalitarian doctrine.

If Socialism were willing to advocate alternate arrangements and personal choice, then there'd be no need for Socialist propaganda, and Socialists would all simply be saying, "Hey, I happen to like Socialism, but if you want to be a 'capitalist' or libertarian or monarchist or republican, or whatever, you can just go right ahead and be that." But is that, in fact, what the advocates of Socialism ever say? Of course not. They insist that YOU, the exception-taker, the "counter-revolutionary," the "selfish one," the one who falls afoul of "social justice," are the root of all the problems Socialism is supposed to solve, and you must be eliminated -- if not by being forcibly merged with Socialism, then by way of confiscation, torture, gulags...

[MikeNovack]

Define "more Socialist." How does a country become "more Socialist" than yours? What are the symptoms you're detecting?

THAT is precisely why I say you should look at what the individualist anarchists say, look at their analysis. They will be pointing to what they identify as elements of socialism in the most capitalist/non-socialist of our societies. That might help you see "socialism" as a matter of degree with no hard dividing line to non-socialist.

In considering the history of the terms "socialism" and "communism", especially the term "democratic socialism", keep in mind how few places had democracy/representative democracy in the 19th Century even when you are just considering MEN. For example, in GB, men with property,, not men had the vote until 1918. And women ? Not in Switzerland till1971 with the last canton giving in 1991? (90's not sure year).