Wall Street Occupation...

[hippifried]

The word socialism has been so evacuated of meaning. The essence, core, backbone and basis of actual socialism is worker control of production (meaning deep and profound democracy), people controlling their own communities, their lives. (Not top-down or centralized control.) We can't just throw around words.

No we can't. But is your narrow take correct? I don't buy the idea that Marx invented the term, or is even an authority in its use. I guess maybe I'm just tired of all the crackpots pointing at other crackpots & trying to tell me that a "one way" or even linear thought process is legit as an authoritative reference.

We're social critters because we're bereft of fang or claw, & without the society, we're just another prey animal that doesn't survive because we're not fast or strong either. As far as I'm concerned, you're either a "socialist" or you're a hermit. Capitalism isn't some kind of separate or opposite system. It's just how business pools its collective resources, It's just privatized socialism with a narrow scope. The incessant McCarthyesque red baiting is just stupid or gullible people (either knowingly or unwittingly) promoting fascism.

[Stavros]

Neither Ben nor Russtafa understand Socialism as a concept in itself, one uses it as a term of abuse, the other is just confused.

Alexander Gray published a critical survey called The Socialist Tradition in 1947 which traced the ideas that constitute socialism back to Moses and ancient Greece; the concept of Christianity as a form of socialism has been problematic: in Europe the Christian Socialist parties that were established in the 19th century in Austria and Germany were extreme right and either mildly or explicitly anti-Jewish; whereas in the Netherlands and Switzerland they have tended to be centre-left. The Labour Party in the UK in part, and only in part, grew out of a powerful anti-establishment Christian socialist movement that viewed all men and women as equal in the sight of God, and therefore all property too. The influx of Russian, Eastern European and Baltic Jews into the Labour Party after its foundation in 1900 -and the Jews brought their own Socialist traditions to the UK- meant that officially Labour could never be wholly Christian; nevertheless its most famous left-wing Firebrand of recent years, Tony Benn is a teetotal Christian Socialist, and his famous adversary Denis Healey left the Revolutionary Communist Party in the 1940s to join Labour because it was more congenial with his personal Christian commitment to do something about poverty. A lot of the support Labour politicians have given to Israel relates to the mistaken belief that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a socialist experiment.

If socialism was one thing, it would be easy to discuss; but it is not. Marx and Engels, the latter in particular, bear some responsibility, appearing to create a division, in Engels words of Socialism: Utopian or Scientific? In which Marx's forensic analysis of capitalism was deemed to be scientific, and thefore TRUE, whereas the emotional, come on lads let's all work together ethos, was deemed to be romantic tosh with no political backbone.

Crucially, socialism must believe that private property must be abolished, that property be held in common; that goods that are produced should be shared equally; that equal opportunities for all are a human right. As it said on my Labour Party card before that traitor to history Antony Seldom Blair scrapped it:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

[trish]

Crucially, socialism must believe that private property must be abolished, that property be held in common

If that's a necessary tenant of socialism, there must be very few socialists indeed. Way fewer than people seem to see in every corner and nook. Certainly words evolve with usage. Once released into the public sphere, the messenger loses control of the message and the special jargon that may have been in it.

[Stavros]

If that's a necessary tenant of socialism, there must be very few socialists indeed. Way fewer than people seem to see in every corner and nook. Certainly words evolve with usage. Once released into the public sphere, the messenger loses control of the message and the special jargon that may have been in it.

But in the strict sense of the word no, there aren't many socialists around, and although it sounds arcane, a logical progression of Marx's critique of private property results in the abolition of money, because in a capitalist society in which everything is turned into a commodity, the value of a commodity is expressed in monetary terms. I once tried to explain to a Conservative who assumed the socialists were going to come and take away her house that this would not happen -but money will be abolished, which shocked her even more.

A moneyless society ecame part of a debate in 'revolutionary Russia' around 1919-20, Bukharin in particular advocating it. Lenin went one way, and then another, as he often did. The feeling was that the Civil War had caused so much disruption, inflation and so on that the new State was approaching a kind of Year Zero, ideal for creating a moneyless, propertyless society -it is also possible that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had this in mind when they embarked on their own Year Zero, suggesting it might not be a good idea, certainly not if imposed from above with attendant violence...

A mild version, sometimes called social democracy, or democratic socialism is associated with the Labour Govt of 1945 that brought into public ownership the railways and the transport system (ie buses), coal and steel, and education and health, although private services and schools were allowed to remain. Subsequently, although anti-socialists opposed these on ideological grounds, the Tories tended to argue that public owned industries were inefficient badly run, etc -and in some cases they were.

If the history is too obscure or well, just about things that have been and gone, ask yourself why people call Obama a Socialist -its mainly because it is associated with failure and is a term of abuse, it has nothing to do with ideas that challenge the concept of an individual rather than society, of what Habermas once called the Public Creation of Privately Appropriated Wealth....

[russtafa]

But in the strict sense of the word no, there aren't many socialists around, and although it sounds arcane, a logical progression of Marx's critique of private property results in the abolition of money, because in a capitalist society in which everything is turned into a commodity, the value of a commodity is expressed in monetary terms. I once tried to explain to a Conservative who assumed the socialists were going to come and take away her house that this would not happen -but money will be abolished, which shocked her even more.

A moneyless society ecame part of a debate in 'revolutionary Russia' around 1919-20, Bukharin in particular advocating it. Lenin went one way, and then another, as he often did. The feeling was that the Civil War had caused so much disruption, inflation and so on that the new State was approaching a kind of Year Zero, ideal for creating a moneyless, propertyless society -it is also possible that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had this in mind when they embarked on their own Year Zero, suggesting it might not be a good idea, certainly not if imposed from above with attendant violence...

A mild version, sometimes called social democracy, or democratic socialism is associated with the Labour Govt of 1945 that brought into public ownership the railways and the transport system (ie buses), coal and steel, and education and health, although private services and schools were allowed to remain. Subsequently, although anti-socialists opposed these on ideological grounds, the Tories tended to argue that public owned industries were inefficient badly run, etc -and in some cases they were.

If the history is too obscure or well, just about things that have been and gone, ask yourself why people call Obama a Socialist -its mainly because it is associated with failure and is a term of abuse, it has nothing to do with ideas that challenge the concept of an individual rather than society, of what Habermas once called the Public Creation of Privately Appropriated Wealth....

well i know what i dislike and it's what you people support so i don't like it automatically

[russtafa]

I support anything by on My Knees or Erika and can not go wrong

[Faldur]

Amen!

[Ben]

Amen!

Nobody decried Steve Jobs for attaining an 8 billion dollar fortune. No one decries Madonna for being a multi-millionaire. No one decries Lady Gaga for being a multi-millionaire or Britney Spears. Or Charlie Sheen. Or Tom Cruise. No one is upset with Brad Pitt being a multi-millionaire.
Or for Julia Roberts making $20 million a film.
Or Nicole Kidman being rich.
No one decries George Lucas for being a billionaire. No one decries Oprah Winfrey for being a billionaire. Or Steven Spielberg. You can't sustain a protest movement based on wealth inequality. It wouldn't work in America.
So, no one decries a businessman or woman who invests his or her own money and works hard and is thus rewarded.
Adam Carolla says at the end of the clip, "There goes Mr. Jenkins, he works hard, he built a company." Exactly. But what Adam Carolla omits is the corruption, the corruption on Wall Street. No one, again, decries, say, a Mr. Jenkins for working hard and building a company. That isn't the point. I mean, Ron Paul could explicate all of this to Adam Carolla --
The profound problem is the corruption. The problem, as RON PAUL has said, is soft fascism.
Fascism was coined by Mussolini. It means: a merger of corporate power with state power. (When Dick Cheney gets to HOLD ONTO HIS SHARES AT HALLIBURTON when he's vice president and then hands them billions and billions of public money and the stock goes up and then he cashes in when he leaves office, well, that's downright sleazy corruption. That's money that's undeserved. Unless you think everything is okay, criminal activity is okay, corruption is okay. Everything is fine with respect to how you make your money.)
After the 2008 crash General Motors and the other auto companies were bailed out, were saved by the government. Again, what does that have to do with principles of free markets?
We, all the time, RADICALLY VIOLATE free market principles. By violating core free market principles, well, we don't believe in pure capitalism.
Also, take, say, free trade. The core of free trade is the free circulation of labor. Meaning you can go anywhere you want. Again, we violate this core notion of market principles!
And it's the corporate takeover of congress, of the presidency. That's the crux of the problem. The democratic system has been bought. Elections now are essentially bought. Whichever candidate raises the most money wins.
Bankers got behind Obama and he won. (And it's the sleazy revolving door that exists between politicians and corporations.)
The problem, in part, is that we don't live in a free market system. Because what does bailing out the banks have to do with capitalism??????? In capitalist theory when the lender lends he/she assumes the risk. And if he/she loses, well, they assume that loss. Again, what does baling out the banks have to do with free market capitalism??????
What we have is a rigged system.
Adam Carolla doesn't talk about the stark erosion of the middle class. He doesn't even talk about externalities. I mean, externalities are a big problem in the economy. He doesn't mention the vast investments made by the state sector in this so-called capitalist society. I mean, things like the Internet, computers, radio, television, lasers etc. etc. came out of the state sector. (Places like M.I.T. and the University of Chicago.)
The Internet was in the State sector from 1965 to 1995 and then was handed over to the private sector. Which no one really knows how it happened.
All this goes back to Adam Smith. Adam Smith was worried about England when he said the free movement of capital and free import of goods would harm England. This has happened to America. America looks the way it does because of policy decisions.
I mean, if you wanted to raise wages for the vast majority of the population, well, you tighten the labor market. How do you do this? Well, bring down the retirement age. And restrict the number of immigrants -- as was done throughout the 50s, 60s and early 70s which brought about a burgeoning middle class.
Actually, a middle class was created through tax policy decisions and unions.

[trish]

The profound problem is that wealth is power and wealth inequality is reflected the inequality of political power. The fix is for the people, through the State, to regulate the modes of wealth acquisition and taxation to protect the commons and create revenues to serve the common good. The State (of by and for the people) is there to protect OUR shared resources and OUR shared liberties. Neither our liberties nor our resources are there for the taking by greediest opportunist. They are there for US.

Actually, a middle class was created through tax policy decisions and unions.

Exactly

[sammitv]