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Topic:
Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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GrandAdmiralJello
Title:
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Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 6:06pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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Thank you. 
Any more terms to be defined/discussed?
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I_am_Banned
Registered:
Aug '07
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 6:12pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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Let's discuss the c word.
What is Communism? What differentiates it from Socialism? From Fascism?
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Rogue_Ten
Registered:
Aug '02
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 6:49pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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Oh, you're implying he's racist?
No. I was implying that, as someone opposed to amnesty, it's in his interest to paint a latino pride movement as "racist" and "pro-illegal immigration".
Assumptions, Ender. Assumptions.
But thanks for that interesting generalization about Taiwan. I would have guessed Japan. 
BTW: The most racist places I've been are the American South and Australia.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 8:28pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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I'd have said Australia until I lived in Taiwan. 
Generalisation? No. Sorry.
Communism, eh?
Communism might as well be viewed as the "evolutionary" stage of socialism (according to VI Lenin), in theoretical terms. It's been a collossal failure, universally, in implementation so we'll talk about what it ought be.
Socialism concentrates the means of production in the hands of the state, but in evolving to communism the state is effectively dissolved and replaced with a stateless, classless society whereby the means of production are concentrated in public hands.
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx says that "The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat".
Yada, yada, he says with a yawn.
It goes back in a truly theoretical sense to Thomas More's Utopia, where he wrote of a perfect society with shared property ideals. Examples of limited scale communism in monastic communities etc has been documented, but this was the first time someone advocated, albeit tacitly, the abolition of surplus and private property.
In The German Ideology, Marx began to define how he viewed communism in practise and it bears a utopian bent:
"In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."
But Communism has several distinct traits:
1) Abolition of class
2) Dissolution of the state in favour of a dictatorship of the proletariat which, despite how it looks, is not advocating totalitarian rule. Instead it refers to a system in which all proletariat hold power equally (and all communists, according to Marx, are proletariat)
3) Belief in the inevitability of revolution
4) Belief in the scientific validity of communist thinking and of the scientific law of class struggle.
One major theoretical criticism of communism I'd levy is that it offers which offers the "communist" a glorious, yet unsubstantial, future to compensate for the frustrations of the present. That is, it ends up being a catalogue of faults with capitalism rather than a viable alternative.
In practise, well, we could go all day. Communists always seem to forget, however, that the state ought serve man; man should not serve the state.
E_S
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Lord_Vivec
Registered:
Apr '06
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 8:51pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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goes back in a truly theoretical sense to Thomas More's Utopia, where he wrote of a perfect society with shared property ideals. Examples of limited scale communism in monastic communities etc has been documented, but this was the first time someone advocated, albeit tacitly, the abolition of surplus and private property.
Doesn't this go against American ideals? I seem to recall reading "life, liberty, and property" as the three American ideals.
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I_am_Banned
Registered:
Aug '07
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 9:08pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
- Date Edited:
9/24/07 9:16pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
I_am_Banned
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That would probably explain why many Americans were so (and are still, to a certain degree) anti-Communist..
Thanks for that, Ender. Are there any examples throughout history of a Communist government working sort of well? Or have they all been dismal failures? What about a truly socialist society?
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
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Feb '01
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 9:14pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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There's no states that have worked as communist states, but there's a strong Christian tradition of communism (finding the accumulation of property to conflict with service to God) and there was the Taipani revolt in China...
As for socialism; the problem ends up being that state controlled enterprises lack an essential element for successful economic growth - competition. There's no innovation, and almost no invention as incentives are totally stripped.
E_S
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Espaldapalabras
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 10:18pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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That is, it ends up being a catalogue of faults with capitalism rather than a viable alternative.
Exactly, but I think that it does do a fairly good job of finding legitimate faults with capitalism. Communal economies, which aren’t necessarily the same thing as Communist economies, have a long history of working quite well in some small communities.
The problem with focusing only on economic growth is that there are often other issues that are more important than simply economic growth. Equality of opportunity, social mobility, public non-excludable goods, and softening the blow to those who loose out in the free market are all issues that capitialism by itself cannot address.
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Lord_Vivec
Registered:
Apr '06
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 10:22pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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The Amish are a prime example of a communal economy where everyone living there is happy, no one starves to death, and no one is exploited.
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GrandAdmiralJello
Title:
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 10:48pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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Lord_Vivec posted:
goes back in a truly theoretical sense to Thomas More's Utopia, where he wrote of a perfect society with shared property ideals. Examples of limited scale communism in monastic communities etc has been documented, but this was the first time someone advocated, albeit tacitly, the abolition of surplus and private property.
Doesn't this go against American ideals? I seem to recall reading "life, liberty, and property" as the three American ideals.
More wasn't American.
Life, liberty, and property are John Locke's rights that ought to be guarenteed. Jefferson adopted them but changed them slightly so that his natural rights were "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
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Lord_Vivec
Registered:
Apr '06
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 10:49pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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GrandAdmiralJello posted:
Life, liberty, and property are John Locke's rights that ought to be guarenteed. Jefferson adopted them but changed them slightly so that his natural rights were "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Ahh, yes, that's what I was talking about.
And as for More, I mentioned this because it made sense with America's refusal to Communism.
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GrandAdmiralJello
Title:
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Date Posted:
9/24/07 10:56pm
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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Sort of. I'd say it was more the American emphasis on the individual (his freedoms and abilities) that would be opposed to the sort of collectivism that communism imposes.
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
9/25/07 5:25am
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
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Communism and socialism have never really been given a chance to fail on their own terms, not that they wouldn't.
The problem ends up being that state controlled enterprises lack an essential element for successful economic growth - competition. There's no innovation, and almost no invention as incentives are totally stripped.
This is not necessarily true of state-owned companies that compete in international markets. Saudi Aramco competes spectacularly - some of the most innovative oil producers in the world. The Saudis know how to invest in their business.
The important thing to remember I think is that almost no one is really a free market capitalist. No one really believes in free trade above all else. For the industrialized world, the issue has always been trying to find the right mix of socialism and capitalism.
The U.S. does its political business in a very narrow range relative to much of the rest of the world. The political differences between most democrats and republicans are laughably small. A "bleeding heart liberal" in the U.S. would be kicked out of a European social democrat party as a rightist.
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Rogue_Ten
Registered:
Aug '02
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Date Posted:
9/25/07 7:07am
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
- Date Edited:
9/25/07 7:52am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Rogue_Ten
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Ender gave a wonderful explanation of Communism, but I'd like to accent a few points:
Communism is a really great idea, which ultimately fails each time it's attempted due to the fact that it's, in my opinion, simply contrary to human nature.
The level of spectacular failure of an attempted "Communist" regime, (I use quotations because no large-scale government has ever achieved true Communism), tends to vary inversely with the speed with which the shift to Communism is attempted. For example Cambodia's Khmer Rouge attempted to abolish money and intall everyone into peasent communes almost immediately after taking power, leading to the death by execution, famine, and disease of half the country.
Noted Communist writer Karl Marx's best works are his writings on the nature of Capitalism, which are extremely insightful. The Communist Manifesto, his most well known work, is essentially polemic in nature, and most of his other work on "Communism" simply describes a basic outline, rather than any kind of complex plan for achieving the desired ends.
Basically, Marx believed that Capitalism was untenable and that the result of its eventual failure would be a shift to Communism. He makes a strong case for the latter and a weak one for the former, in my opinion.
In any case, Marx remains an extremely important social theorist and expert on Capitalism.
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
9/25/07 7:36am
Subject:
RE: Neofascistconservativeleftistprogre ssiveliberalism, FTW!
- Date Edited:
9/25/07 7:59am (3 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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But there's a strong Christian tradition of communism (finding the accumulation of property to conflict with service to God).
This has always intrigued me. I think that it would be possible to set up a Christian communist theocracy (not in the U.S. of course) that would give a communist state the needed moral underpinning and cultural buy in for long-term success. I've always wanted to try it, but haven't found the banana republic where I can parachute in and launch my christian communist cult-state.
I know this is heretical to strict Marxism, but religion seems like a useful pathway for achieving Gramsci's cultural hegemony in a communist state. Obviously socialism grounded in liberation theology is not a new idea, but there's a lot of untapped potential.
The intersection of religion and political economies is much discussed. I highly recommend Weber's Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist Des Kapitalismus. According to Weber, capitalism began to flourish when supercharged culturally by the aftermath of the reformation, but maybe it's time for christianity to back a different horse.
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