Ygfi said:
Therumancer said:
just to correct you on something, liberalism is not tied to the left or right. there are infact two political scales, the totalitariancapitalist.
moving on, i do have to agree with what you;re saying, it makes sence. i take it you're in england (time zone and situation you're talking about). these issues do seem like the sorts of things most governments don't have the balls to do anything about...
I'm from the US, East Coast though. Most of what I'm talking about is simple sociology and applies everywhere where those issues exist. The Baby Boom hit England just like the US, and women's sufferage causes universal issues when it's suddenly implemented that are again pretty much universal when suddenly implemented without foresight.
The US, England, and Australia are all very similar coming from the same parent culture (British Empire). It's just people like to focus on the differances as opposed to the similarities. To true outside observers we seem like more or less the same group for some good reasons.
In America our politics are rather messed up, and the left wing (Democrats) are a group of odd ducks who at the bottom of their party are "do whatever I want to do" liberals, and at the top of the party a group of "uber-powerful goverment that controls everything" totalitarians.
In a nutshell, American Democrats are people who run around wanting to buck the system and feel the best way to do this is to build a powerful federal goverment that will overrule the state and local goverments to let them do whatever they want to do in the short term. A sort of messed up logic of ensuring freedom by giving away freedom to a large central goverment.
The "street" Democrat stereotype (which is admittedly not 100% accurate) is an anarchist/hippy type guy who wants to do drugs and whatever the heck he wants without interferance. Peace, love and tolerance. Pretty much your true liberal/anarchist, hence the liberal association. At the top of the party you've got guys who pretty much want totalitarianism (or are totally naive) who do things like say "well if you give up your right to free speech, we the goverment can ensure that nobody will be able to freely express hatred of minorities".
The way I refer to "liberals" makes sense in context given that I'm a Republican and it is fairly accurate on a lot of levels.
It should be noted however that while relatively hard core Republican/Right Wing I'm also extremely critical of my own side. It's simply no middle ground that I truely agree with exists. Most "compromise" partys in between seem more insane than either "side".
i'm going to have to correct you on another thing; as you seem to he the impression that anarchy = chaos; this is quite the opposite. chaos is more or less a branch of capitalism in it's extreme (everyone can do what they want) and anarchy is in short, communism without a government as such. political parties are almost never what the name would suggest. our liberal/labour are pritty messed up, but at least our democrats held up to their name when they were around; and the greens are actually looking pritty green.
but lets get away from the politics, i don't want another 33 page thread.
apologies for thinking you were brittish, you can see my reasoning (and the brits have a really broken welfair system).
No problem, no reason to be offended by that.
As far as the rest goes, I believe you are incorrect. I learned things very differantly in Sociology.
Anarchy is the idea of no rules or society at all, complete personal freedom. This means of course the freedom to force other people to do whatever you want (and there is no law to stop you). Thus it leads to chaos and domination based totally on personal violent might. As soon as you impose any kind of order or control on people's behavior it is no longer Anarchy. Anarchy isn't a system bute more of a concept to apply other systems to.
Communism is the idea of communal property. Basically everything belongs to everyone, with no personal ownership, thus there is no wealth. Everyone donates to the society as a whole and supports the less fortunate members so there is no wealth or social order. This happens automatically and is sustained by the people themselves who all universally contribute to the ideal. This can work in VERY small communities but is generally not practical.
Socialism is basically the same thing as communism, and what Communism by nessecity turns into when practiced by anything but a very tiny group of people. Basically when dealing with large scale communism you see people wanting to contribute to the society only in whatever ways they personally want to. In the end everyone wants to be an artist, doctor, lawyer, or someone to be taken care of. Nobody wants to go out and work the assembly lines to produce the goods, raise and slaughter the animals, or do backbreaking farm labour to feed, clothe, and provide for all those people. Even thought interested in seriously contributing want to be leaders as opposed to workers, or enter into highly pretigious and skilled occupations like doctors and the like. Nobody wants to be a manual labourer yet they are always nessicary.
A good example of this is what happened with Russia. Basically there was a communist revolution and then everyone decided "Yay, we won. Now I can just kick back and be happy rather than busting my butt". This pretty much devestated Russia and proved by Lenin's ideals cannot work. It lead to Stalin imposing Socialism, and using draconian techniques (The Gulags) to put Russia to work. Socialism basically amounting to a central goverment that makes sure all the needed work is done, distributes the wealth and resources based on contribution, and other things. Very much a "human hive" mentality, and also it turns into massive corruption because of course those leading do the most important job so take the biggest cuts for themselves, and also have the authority to assign the best and most desired roles to their friends and families. Socialism basically being Communism with a goverment as opposed to assumed community participation.
Capitolism is simply the idea that people compete within a society and succeed based on their own abillities. Basically the people on top wind up being either the best that the society produces in whatever area your talking about, or having inherited wealth from someone else's success. "Best" in many cases can simply mean being more charismatic, or ruthless than the competition. Constant competition means that generally speaking the wealth and people at the top move around (or should if it works properly) as there is always a new group of sharks on the rise. Those who inherit money (like say a Paris Hilton) either wind up losing that money or becoming good enough (however they might seem) to hold onto it. In many cases being able to pick people you really can trust *IS* A pretty effective survival skill.
Capitolism and socialism are pretty much the opposed groups. Socialism being the opposite of capitolism because for all intents and purposes society puts you into a specific role, or gives you specific options based on what it needs. Your personal desires or capabilities may or may not become a factor. If say they need to expand farmland to feed a growing population they WILL produce more farmhands, they won't just wait and hope people decide to do the job, or let migrants come in from over the border or whatever. They might be "smooth" about it but in the end if that is the job they need, someone will be waiting to hand you your shovel when you enter the work force. In comparison in a capitolist system you go as far as you can based on your relative capabilities. This can in some cases also amount to people who are very talented being wasted if they happen to simply wind up competing in an area where there are those who are far better. In the end though you do tend to see a situation where the best people the society can produce are at the top, and the people at the bottom (as unhappy as they might be) tend to be the dregs.
That's the basics as I learned it (without getting political and talking about too many examples and exceptions... I simply make an exception for the USSR because while the attitudes seem to be returning on some levels, it effectively died. ).
