Philosophy Now Forum

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 10:29 pm John Smith at Jamestown.

Seriously? You think that was "Socialist"? Maybe you should explain why you think it managed to be, when Socialism wasn't even invented.

See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism, or https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispe ... ialism.htm.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 11:05 pm "So there would be no actual difference between living in a Socialist state of a Fascist one."

Empirically so.

In fact, if anything we would have to say that life under Socialism was worse than under Fascism, since Fascism did have time for some fixtures of Socialism -- totalitarianism, death camps, torture, militarism, human rights violations, and so on -- but lacked enough time to have what Socialism had, in terms of things like economic disaster, purges, re-education camps and starvation.

So we know even more about how desperately bad it is to live under Socialism than we know about the wretchedness of suffering under Fascism.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2023 2:16 am

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 10:29 pm John Smith at Jamestown.

Seriously? You think that was "Socialist"? Maybe you should explain why you think it managed to be, when Socialism wasn't even invented.

See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism, or https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispe ... ialism.htm.

Socialism wasn't even invented? It isn't a object, it is a social action of a community. Small dictatorships in times of emergency do lean towards it naturally. It's why one of the translations of Aeneas Tacticus uses Proletariat to describe cities under siege in the Greek iron age when they are democratic.... it's the artisans and working class carpenter and masonry soldiers who really matter and not the oligarchs. In the bronze age, Myceneans palace culture had a mix of oligarchs and communal peasants working together in trade workshops for trade with neighboring communities. The concept of capitalism didn't even get "invented" until the philosopher John of Paris developed the idea in the middle ages, but these bronze age communities managed to do both Socialism and Capitalistic exchange.

Basically the concepts are used long before they are invented. American dictator John Smith, at Jamestown, was a Socialist Dictator for a time. We didn't stick with that system as it sucked. Even James abandoned it. But it was necessary- in a time of emergency when anarcho-capitalism wasn't working (cannibalism was discovered by Archeologists on site).

John's name re-appeared in the early 20th century, when Distributist writers such as the Catholics Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton attributed to him the earliest statement of the capitalist philosophy in De potestate regia et papali.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Paris

If you need premodern examples of Socialism I'll endlessly quote you archeological and sociological data and speculation on iron age to Paleolithic communities living with various degrees of it, make it a 10,000 page anthropological discussion. It isn't a system made for a precision machine culture, but it is instinctively something we do in unsophisticated economies with weak governments. We also are plague prone in such societies and are prone to exploitation by the wicked due to weak laws due to weak government. Exceptions would be the ancient Egyptians who avoided the use of money and held to a strict regulated feudalism to ensure the functioning of a larger national society by strict partition of the Land and Water rights. Humans have done various forms of Socialism and Capitalism through history. It doesn't rest on the philosopher to invent the concept before it can be used. People just do it, theory follows after.

... but it is instinctively something we do in unsophisticated economies with weak governments.

Or as Rousseau put it, "L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers'.

I'd be the first to admit to Socialism at it's best, indicating a larger unsophisticated society unable to take care of itself. It isn't a great system, meant more for the nomadic, tribal, hunter gatherer mode of existence.

You prefer the shackles of Western civilisation?

I understand!

Western Civilization is always going to have shackles. Every civilization will. Socialism is no cure for this. It's best case scenario is a mixed government where it is making a object that is life and death less prone to jealously and riots by transparently distributing some set of goods. That's until the forces of production catches up and makes it irrelevant.

Marching around in uniforms saluting some Reich Marshall or People's Commissar is a useless addition. And freaking out on minority groups like both Marxist and Nazis do is extremely ignorant and unproductive. And putting over emphasis on Socialism first and foremost is likewise idiotic. You need a productive system that is actually humane, not merely speaking about humanity while a bunch of unelected dingbats run amok inflicting carnage and letting the larger economic system rot because it isn't sufficiently Socialism as per some piece of paper enough.

I see no reason to accept the fully shackled experience that much of Western Civilization has to offer.

And putting over emphasis on Socialism first and foremost is likewise idiotic.

But it's you and people like you who are putting the emphasis first and foremost on Socialism. You do this by first labelling as "woke" every push-back against conservative shackles, such as BLM and Trans campaigners, and by at the same time insisting that "woke" = "Marxism".

A school librarian stocking books that make children who don't fit "Western Civilisation"'s narrow, shackling view of normal, nice and proper feel seen and safe and valued isn't putting socialism first and foremost. They are just trying to do the best for all their children.

They are not the problem you guys are making them out to be.

Constantine wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2023 3:35 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2023 2:16 am

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 10:29 pm John Smith at Jamestown.

Seriously? You think that was "Socialist"? Maybe you should explain why you think it managed to be, when Socialism wasn't even invented.

See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism, or https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispe ... ialism.htm.

Socialism wasn't even invented? It isn't a object, it is a social action of a community.

Nope, sorry. It's a definite ideology, as those websites say. You could argue there are precedents, but not that those precedents are "Socialism." And though most websites say Socialism came into being a little earlier than this, most also make the major mover Karl Marx. That's about right.

Small dictatorships in times of emergency do lean towards it naturally.

What you really mean is that dictators always claim an "emergency" and impose their authority. And that's right...that's how they do it. It can be an "emergency" of lack of "lebensraum," or of "oppression" or "public health," or of "climate crisis." It all works, and the result is the same.

American dictator John Smith, at Jamestown, was a Socialist Dictator for a time.

Show that. Show he deserves the name "dictator" and "Socialist." (Saying so, and just repeating it, is not a form of proof, by the way.)

mickthinks wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2023 3:18 pm I see no reason to accept the fully shackled experience that much of Western Civilization has to offer.

And putting over emphasis on Socialism first and foremost is likewise idiotic.

But it's you and people like you who are putting the emphasis first and foremost on Socialism. You do this by first labelling as "woke" every push-back against conservative shackles, such as BLM and Trans campaigners, and by at the same time insisting that "woke" = "Marxism".

A school librarian stocking books that make children who don't fit "Western Civilisation"'s narrow, shackling view of normal, nice and proper feel seen and safe and valued isn't putting socialism first and foremost. They are just trying to do the best for all their children.

They are not the problem you guys are making them out to be.

Where did I ever push back against Trans campaigners? I pushed against Queer, because I don't think queer exists. I generally avoid touching LGBT.