Socialism, liberalism, conservatism.. is whatever you're told it is

[Harleyman]

Ronald Reagan was a Conservative. George Bush was an Evangelist

[epiphany]

By what definition are you claiming that Bush isn't a conservative and that your definition is absolutely the only one? Because the fact is that until the depth of the failure of his project in Iraq and most of all the financial collapse became evident there was widespread agreement amongst US conservatives that he was a conservative. Just as until the depths of evil and failure of the USSR became evident many western socialists were happy to call it socialist.

 

Which US conservatives?

 

I am taking the generally accepted position among long standing conservative Republicans in the US that based on the record spending that occured under his watch, many times more than Clinton (although, granted, not on social programs), he could not be considered "conservative" by any stretch of the imagination. He was not about limited government and he was certainly not conservative in his foreign policy. His general oversight of a monetary system based on inflated credit and printing money for government programs was also not considered particularly conservative among the more traditional Republican base.

 

"the socialist idea" Are you seriously claiming there's only one? Socialism is a highly variegated movement with lots of divergent ideas, some of which gave rise to the Soviet Union.

 

Anti-wage labour, anti-monopoly, anti-class rule - the fundamental socialist idea, otherwise where was the new idea??.

 

Try actually looking at how it was run, ignoring the rhetoric of its ruling elite or intellectual servants.

 

And the definition of 'socialist' absolutely excludes a medium of exchange, commodity production, any form of stratification, managers... does it? By taking on all these post hoc qualifications onto the definition of 'socialist' you are once again committing a classic no true Scotsman fallacy.

 

It certainly, surely, excludes imposed managers within the framework of a class society (i.e. not democratically elected - see Lenin's doctrine on democratic centralism). The capitalist mode of commodity production, plek. I didn't even mention medium of exchange.

 

Socialism at it's most basic is concerns collective ownership, redistribution of wealth, collective provision of goods and services... the USSR was set up to try and achieve those aims. Just because you don't agree with how they set out to achieve them or how that attempt turned out it doesn't magically stop the USSR from being socialist.

 

I disagree, I don't believe the USSR was set up to acheive those aims at all, since there was little to no effort to hand capital back to communities and workers. Control, capital and therefore power was heavily centralised. It was about power and control by the few.

 

At it's most basic, socialism is the ability for workers to own the means of their production and the fruits of their labour. The state institutions owned the means and the fruits, not the worker. There is a significant legal and social difference between the two.

 

Stop moving the goal posts you said:

 

"If you observe the hierarchical structure of the Soviet system, the only difference between that and a neoliberal capitalist society is that the capital was held exclusively by an elite faction, a ruling class - this could just as well be capitalism at its most centralised."

 

Why don't you actually back that claim up instead of making a new very different one. How about you meet my challenge and name a 'neo-liberal' country so we can compare the two and see if there is more than this single difference.

 

In terms of the machinery and hierarchical structure of capitalism (capital flowing to the capstone of the pyramid) there was no other difference. Stop taking my words out of context. We're talking fundamentals here, and side by side there is no difference between how the Soviet Union empowered an elite class, and how capital flow in the modern day US, for example, empowers an elite class.

 

Just because more crumbs are thrown at workers in modern capitalist societies means nothing when analysing the dynamics of the system. Which fundamental differences, in terms of capital and class rule, are you observing?

 

Yes and? Of course people ideologically obsessed with the evils of states see things that way.

 

An aside, but they have a valid obsession in my opinon. States have commited countless atrocities throughout history. Where have you been? States have been the driving force behind the most barbarous forms of imperialism, assuring limited liability to autonomous, immortal entities (corporations), subsidising large corporations and immunising them from "market forces", sanctioning 3rd world nations, murder, plunder... the list of state atrocities and conflicts of interest to its people goes on. These must be rectified, and thank goodness for those who do strive for reform and non-violent revolution. The tendency for states to become tyrannical over a docile population is too irresistable, it seems.

 

Of course, it's not my personal view that states can't be run for the benefit of society, in a decentralised manner, but I'm trying to see from the perspective of non-capitalist as well as capitalist theorists, both of whom have legitimate points to make about the role of the state. I feel, however, you are prepared to dismiss over a century of analytical discourse because of your preconceptions about non-statist schools of thought.

 

Of course invading countries wasn't invented by Neocons I never said it was, that doesn't mean that the recent invasion of Iraq wasn't a Neocon project.

 

Apologies, I clearly misunderstood your point.

 

Are you seriously claiming all the media do this on a consistent basis? If so I'd like to see your evidence for this universal claim.

 

Yes, I believe the media are incredibly non-specific about the detail and nuance of socialism and other political ideologies. They report in terms of dichotomy - it's easier for its audience to digest.

 

I could find you dozens of articles if you want, but would you really care? Would I just be wasting my time? It might be more practical, if you're so confident that the breadth of socialist thought is adequately presented in the media, that you pick out an example that seriously discusses socialism in terms of its fundamental premises and the variation of its application.

 

I take it you completely missed for example British media's reaction to attacks upon the NHS from the US then?

 

From what I saw, it was nothing more than a "reality check" in response to the inane babblings of brainwashed herds of the American public.

 

So what? Just because lots of people have a distorted view of the totality of socialist thought that doesn't justify your attempts to try and promoted an equally distorted reverse image of this view.

 

You may have missed a post earlier which provided a couple of useful links which proved there are people and schools of thought who have studied the concept of state capitalism masquerading as socialism, in far greater detail than I have. Dismiss knowledge at your will.

[Br8inend]

How far do you take the definition of any ideological "ism" and upon what do you base that definition?

 

As with any political ideology, the more you read about their historic detail and intellectual depth, the more you come to realise just how crude and inadequate modern definitions have become, and how our division of political "camps" has become so robustly formed based on presumption, disregarding the convoluted and complex nature of the non-linear political spectrum.

 

"Socialism" is constantly equated with the Soviet Union - a statist, authoritarian, capitalist experiment. It is equated with the state controlling all resources, the consolidation of the free individual into a herded, unthinking collective.

 

Now that bankrolled state-socialism has monopolised the definition of socialism in general, it's no wonder that the use of the term has become derogatory and associated with state tyranny and oppression.

 

This is ideal for any ruling intellectual hegemony - by using the Orwellian inspired technique of shrinking the grand spectrum of political definition and debate into a simplistic dichotomy (conservative vs liberal, or even just red vs blue, party A vs party B) they are able to shape the supposedly conflicting ideologies into concepts that can only be differentiated by aesthetic and non-penetrative issues, the status quo can be comfortably maintained.

 

"Socialism" now becomes an undesirable, outdated, tried and failed model, because of its gross misdefinition. It now lies outside the accepted "moderate" political arena.

 

What will never be discussed, as long as this artificial concision is maintained within academic and media institutions, is that state-socialism is only one branch of socialism that developed from Marxist reactionism. Detail.

 

If people want to take politics seriously, and explore the many solutions and alternatives to the status quo, they must open their minds beyond the preformed spectrum of debate constantly drip-fed to us by those who wish to maintain the status quo.

 

I second that..surely we all know the people who were in charge in egyptian times are still in charge now.. royalty marries royalty . Universities their tools. They have keys to the patent box. Scholars discovered thousands of years ago how rulers lose power and understood how to prevent losing power....... The result is our unjust world we live in.!

[epiphany]

Wildcat, I found your post very interesting and insightful. I feel as long as there is a class division between labour and capital, there will always be an unnecessary weight on the productivity and purchasing power of society as a whole. How to best synthesise this inherent conflict, however, is something I am still reading and learning about. The solutions proposed in the theories surrounding economic democracy and co-operative economics seem to be the most sensible way forward, as people become more and more disillusioned with the volatility and unsustainability of capitalism.

 

Plekhanov, on a personal level, I wouldn't be surprised if we actually agree for the most part on the nature of capitalism and the necessity of economic and social reforms. We could argue about semantics till the cows come home.

[Wildcat]

I find myself in the novel position of siding with Plekhanov...

 

While on the face of it, the OP is a laudable piece about pigeon-holing and stereotyping instead of appraising ideas on their merits, it is really a piece about how Socialism shouldn't be attacked on the basis of failed experiments with it, the world over.

 

To define Socialism so narrowly that the Soviet Union doesn't fall within the definition, and to define Capitalism so broadly that that the Soviet Union falls into that one, is quite breathtaking given the nature of the original complaint.

 

Let's look at Wikipedia's definitions of Capitalism and Socialism to see where the Soviet Union fits best....

Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system in which the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor.

 

Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating state, worker or public ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with an egalitarian method of compensation.

 

So apart from the method of compensation/wage distribution which is a fairly woolly concept anyway, the old Soviet Union was clearly Socialist and clearly not Capitalist.

 

The Soviet Union was more Capitalist than you might expect. Under the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin the intention was for the state to only control banking, foreign trade and large industries. Not so different from the UK system.

 

In the period under Stalin state control was stronger but the system was no longer democratic and so can't be described as worker or public ownership. It became a Stalin controlled fascist system, not a socialist state.

[plekhanov]

Britanica's intro to socialism covers this disagreement:

 

socialism

 

Overview

 

System of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control; also, the political movements aimed at putting that system into practice.

 

Because “social control” may be interpreted in widely diverging ways, socialism ranges from statist to libertarian, from Marxist to liberal. The term was first used to describe the doctrines of Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon, and Robert Owen, who emphasized noncoercive communities of people working noncompetitively for the spiritual and physical well-being of all (see utopian socialism). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, seeing socialism as a transition state between capitalism and communism, appropriated what they found useful in socialist movements to develop their “scientific socialism.” In the 20th century, the Soviet Union was the principal model of strictly centralized socialism, while Sweden and Denmark were well-known for their noncommunist socialism. See also collectivism, communitarianism, social democracy.

 

Main

 

social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members.

 

This conviction puts socialism in opposition to capitalism, which is based on private ownership of the means of production and allows individual choices in a free market to determine how goods and services are distributed. Socialists complain that capitalism necessarily leads to unfair and exploitative concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of the relative few who emerge victorious from free-market competition—people who then use their wealth and power to reinforce their dominance in society. Because such people are rich, they may choose where and how to live, and their choices in turn limit the options of the poor. As a result, terms such as individual freedom and equality of opportunity may be meaningful for capitalists but can only ring hollow for working people, who must do the capitalists’ bidding if they are to survive. As socialists see it, true freedom and true equality require social control of the resources that provide the basis for prosperity in any society. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels made this point in Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) when they proclaimed that in a socialist society “the condition for the free development of each is the free development of all.”

 

This fundamental conviction nevertheless leaves room for socialists to disagree among themselves with regard to two key points. The first concerns the extent and the kind of property that society should own or control. Some socialists have thought that almost everything except personal items such as clothing should be public property; this is true, for example, of the society envisioned by the English humanist Sir Thomas More in his Utopia (1516). Other socialists, however, have been willing to accept or even welcome private ownership of farms, shops, and other small or medium-sized businesses.

 

The second disagreement concerns the way in which society is to exercise its control of property and other resources. In this case the main camps consist of loosely defined groups of centralists and decentralists. On the centralist side are socialists who want to invest public control of property in some central authority, such as the state—or the state under the guidance of a political party, as was the case in the Soviet Union. Those in the decentralist camp believe that decisions about the use of public property and resources should be made at the local, or lowest-possible, level by the people who will be most directly affected by those decisions. This conflict has persisted throughout the history of socialism as a political movement.

 

Just because you happen to be of the decentralist/anarchist/libertarian... persuasion that doesn't automatically mean that all those (and there have been many millions) of socialists who thought a more centralist/statist/Marxist-Leninist... aren't socialists, they have the same basic goal they just have very different ways of trying to get there.

 

Don't you realise how absurd it is of you to be simultaneously arguing for such a narrow definition of 'socialism' whilst simultaneously pretending that any system with a means of exchange, commodities, any kind of stratification... = capitalism? Despite the lack of anything like a free market and the other things generally used to define capitalistic systems.

[Wildcat]

Wildcat, I found your post very interesting and insightful. I feel as long as there is a class division between labour and capital, there will always be an unnecessary weight on the productivity and purchasing power of society as a whole. How to best synthesise this inherent conflict, however, is something I am still reading and learning about. The solutions proposed in the theories surrounding economic democracy and co-operative economics seem to be the most sensible way forward, as people become more and more disillusioned with the volatility and unsustainability of capitalism.

 

Plekhanov, on a personal level, I wouldn't be surprised if we actually agree for the most part on the nature of capitalism and the necessity of economic and social reforms. We could argue about semantics till the cows come home.

 

I looked that up previously when you mentioned it before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy

 

It looks like a good well balanced intelligent system, that addresses a lot of my concerns.

 

have you seen The Corporation?

 

film here

[epiphany]

Don't you realise how absurd it is of you to be simultaneously arguing for such a narrow definition of 'socialism' whilst simultaneously pretending that any system with a means of exchange, commodities, any kind of stratification... = capitalism? Despite the lack of anything like a free market and the other things generally used to define capitalistic systems.

 

I'm not arguing for a narrow definition at all. I am merely focussing on the essential elements of any socialist system (which the Britannia entry partly acknowledges) and, as a result, disregard the Soviet Union as part of that definition. It may appear narrow, but so does capitalism if you strip it down to its fundamental ingredients. All ideologies have their pillars.

 

Now, my argument was that ideological thinking has become conflationary - that's not what I've done with my interpretation at all. I have merely observed the crux of what makes a socialist system inherently different from a capitalist system (otherwise there would be no fundamental difference in the machinery). That's not the same as someone identifying "socialist state A" based on its self-proclamation and sub-Marxist rhetoric and "socialist state B" and defining the two as the same "socialism that failed and that which proves socialism doesn't work bla bla bla".

 

Secondly, I never once suggested that all statist forms of socialism are to be considered capitalist by default. In utopian terms, a state could be the vehicle for a wholly co-operative and democratic economic system. I have yet to see such a system successfully assemble. Monopoly state control of resources, capital and property, however, is a different story, and certainly not a socialist one. In my humble opinion.

[Wildcat]

Don't you realise how absurd it is of you to be simultaneously arguing for such a narrow definition of 'socialism' whilst simultaneously pretending that any system with a means of exchange, commodities, any kind of stratification... = capitalism? Despite the lack of anything like a free market and the other things generally used to define capitalistic systems.

 

Capitalism and Socialism aren't mutually exclusive. You can have some of both systems, like we do today with benefits like the NHS, Education all with some form of public and democratic accountability.

[Br8inend]

I'm not arguing for a narrow definition at all. I am merely focussing on the essential elements of any socialist system (which the Britannia entry partly acknowledges) and, as a result, disregard the Soviet Union as part of that definition. It may appear narrow, but so does capitalism if you strip it down to its fundamental ingredients. All ideologies have their pillars.

 

Now, my argument was that ideological thinking has become conflationary - that's not what I've done with my interpretation at all. I have merely observed the crux of what makes a socialist system inherently different from a capitalist system (otherwise there would be no fundamental difference in the machinery). That's not the same as someone identifying "socialist state A" based on its self-proclamation and sub-Marxist rhetoric and "socialist state B" and defining the two as the same "socialism that failed and that which proves socialism doesn't work bla bla bla".

 

Secondly, I never once suggested that all statist forms of socialism are to be considered capitalist by default. In utopian terms, a state could be the vehicle for a wholly co-operative and democratic economic system. I have yet to see such a system successfully assemble. Monopoly state control of resources, capital and property, however, is a different story, and certainly not a socialist one. In my humble opinion.

 

The main difference in my mind is socialism is one for all and capitalism is all for one. Humans are a collective by nature. There should be a maximum wage not a minimum wage.