Poll: Your political standing?
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Halfway measures are for the weak-minded, and I meant kicked out of the country. I say this because as of yet I haven't developed viable cure for stupid.thiosk said:My god, a dead tie for capitalist pigs and socialist dogs!
Never saw THAT coming.
You do realize that the financial crisis in the US was created by the pre-financial crisis US economy? Hooray for socializing loss and privatizing gain, eh comrades? eh?Dele said:
LewsTherin said:
I was very confused by this post.
Making a rule against stupid people kind of defeats the whole purpose of anarchism. And if the solution is to kill all the stupid people, well, thats Hitler-brand fascism right there.
And socialism demands centralized planning, and a hierarchical government structure, with tons of rules regulations laws and levies.
So, its kinda funny that you choose anarchism as an idea and socialism as the next best thing. One would think we could you know go anarchist --> libertarian --> republican --> democrat --> socialist --> communist but no, straight to socialist!
For myself, I was very upset at the lack of a "Paul-tard" category, because thats what I classify myself as. Not even a libertarian school of thought. Meh.
Bah, I'm more of a libertarian at heart, anyhow. Telling the unwashed masses how to live their lives is a job for a bigger person than I.
Simply put it's all about who holds the power. Capitolism ultimatly gives individuals the most personal power because as a philosophy it is based around the idea of people being able to own their own property, and succeed or fail compared to others based on their own personal abillity. It's one of those things that blurs the lines between economic strategy and politics.
In Communism for example people do not own anything philsophically, everything belongs to everyone. It's all about the community. Socialism is what you get when people realize Communism simply cannot work except with tiny groups, and a central authority is created with control over everything to see that it's distributed fairly based on need, and to ensure that all of the needed jobs are filled. Communism and Socialism ultimatly being the same thing when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it. A lot of socialist nations like to hold onto the pretensions of communism.
All other philsophies, including liberalism, basically hold to the idea that someone is put into power at a fundemental level with the abillity to make desicians involving other people and/or their possessions. Only capitolism (in it's true form) bases this power on the individuals and basically has the power ultimatly balanced by what one group of people can do to another based on what they have and personally can do.
All of this gets more complicated in practice, but that is how I understand things.
Ultimatly social order is a giant circle that feeds on itself
Under say a capitolist system the people at the bottom sit there and think "wow, this is unfair. I never had a chance to compete, and even if I did, it's wrong for other people to be able to treat me this way because they are simply better than me, have more stuff, or have someone else with more capabilities and resources to provide for them. Rather than all the power and money being in the hands of a few people, even the most capable, it should be distributed more evenly among the people so guys like me will have more, instead of ekeing out a compartive pittance when others live in decadent luxury". This leads to Communism, Socialism, etc.. where in one way or another the individual becomes secondary to the needs of the community. Even liberalism falls into this catagory because in forcing people to accept everyone, and trying to arrange a "fair" playing field, it ultimatly also becomes about holding the individual, especially the ones at the head of the pack, back. It also gets into ethnical questions like "in the search for universal tolerance and freedom, are people truely free if their right to hate and express hate is removed?"
The flip side to this of course is that when people live under that kind of "society before the individual" mindset, understand that there is still going to be discontent. Someone has to do the cruddy jobs for everyone to get by (which is how socialism gets started). For every doctor, engineer, or skilled labourer society needs, it probably needs a hundred people working fields or assembly lines, or shoveling animal manure, or whatever. This leads to favortism in the group making such desicians (human nature) and leads to castes and such.
The majority of people in such a situation are going to look at the system and think "Wow, this is really unfair. I'm wasted here attaching handles to shovels. Given the oppertunity to live up to my full potential I could do a lot better than all these other guys, but under the current system I'll never have that chance!". This of course leads to the people fighting for the exact kind of capitolist/individualistic society mentioned above.
The big thing is though that the needs of humanity are such that for us to continue to function there are always going to be more people at the bottom than at the top. The people at the bottom (which sadly includes me, being disabled) are always going to want something differant. Whether it's liberalism, thinly disguised communism/socialism, or people in a nation already like that wanting capitolism.
I personally support the American version of Capitolism (Capitolism with a number of guidelines set by things like our constitution and it's accompanying body of law) simply because I feel it's the best compromise on the issue that the world has managed to produce so far... despite not being perfect.
The problem is of course that in the US, we're always in danger of losing the rare middle ground we achieved from three major forces. One are the people who want a purely capitolistic society of what amounts to merchant-kings (many Republicans), another are those who want to turn the nation into a sociolistic entity (unfettered Democrats... liberals). Then there is the biggest danger which of course the fact that the conflict between the above two forces makes us introverted and blind to what is going on outside of our borders, even when the wolf (today China) is baying at the door. Even when playing world police we're still ironically a group of isolationists at heart and that voice just never seems to go away.
Duelling political philsophies and such in the US tends to give us the perspective that we're both alone in the world, and invincible.
>>>----Therumancer--->
In Communism for example people do not own anything philsophically, everything belongs to everyone. It's all about the community. Socialism is what you get when people realize Communism simply cannot work except with tiny groups, and a central authority is created with control over everything to see that it's distributed fairly based on need, and to ensure that all of the needed jobs are filled. Communism and Socialism ultimatly being the same thing when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it. A lot of socialist nations like to hold onto the pretensions of communism.
All other philsophies, including liberalism, basically hold to the idea that someone is put into power at a fundemental level with the abillity to make desicians involving other people and/or their possessions. Only capitolism (in it's true form) bases this power on the individuals and basically has the power ultimatly balanced by what one group of people can do to another based on what they have and personally can do.
All of this gets more complicated in practice, but that is how I understand things.
Ultimatly social order is a giant circle that feeds on itself
Under say a capitolist system the people at the bottom sit there and think "wow, this is unfair. I never had a chance to compete, and even if I did, it's wrong for other people to be able to treat me this way because they are simply better than me, have more stuff, or have someone else with more capabilities and resources to provide for them. Rather than all the power and money being in the hands of a few people, even the most capable, it should be distributed more evenly among the people so guys like me will have more, instead of ekeing out a compartive pittance when others live in decadent luxury". This leads to Communism, Socialism, etc.. where in one way or another the individual becomes secondary to the needs of the community. Even liberalism falls into this catagory because in forcing people to accept everyone, and trying to arrange a "fair" playing field, it ultimatly also becomes about holding the individual, especially the ones at the head of the pack, back. It also gets into ethnical questions like "in the search for universal tolerance and freedom, are people truely free if their right to hate and express hate is removed?"
The flip side to this of course is that when people live under that kind of "society before the individual" mindset, understand that there is still going to be discontent. Someone has to do the cruddy jobs for everyone to get by (which is how socialism gets started). For every doctor, engineer, or skilled labourer society needs, it probably needs a hundred people working fields or assembly lines, or shoveling animal manure, or whatever. This leads to favortism in the group making such desicians (human nature) and leads to castes and such.
The majority of people in such a situation are going to look at the system and think "Wow, this is really unfair. I'm wasted here attaching handles to shovels. Given the oppertunity to live up to my full potential I could do a lot better than all these other guys, but under the current system I'll never have that chance!". This of course leads to the people fighting for the exact kind of capitolist/individualistic society mentioned above.
The big thing is though that the needs of humanity are such that for us to continue to function there are always going to be more people at the bottom than at the top. The people at the bottom (which sadly includes me, being disabled) are always going to want something differant. Whether it's liberalism, thinly disguised communism/socialism, or people in a nation already like that wanting capitolism.
I personally support the American version of Capitolism (Capitolism with a number of guidelines set by things like our constitution and it's accompanying body of law) simply because I feel it's the best compromise on the issue that the world has managed to produce so far... despite not being perfect.
The problem is of course that in the US, we're always in danger of losing the rare middle ground we achieved from three major forces. One are the people who want a purely capitolistic society of what amounts to merchant-kings (many Republicans), another are those who want to turn the nation into a sociolistic entity (unfettered Democrats... liberals). Then there is the biggest danger which of course the fact that the conflict between the above two forces makes us introverted and blind to what is going on outside of our borders, even when the wolf (today China) is baying at the door. Even when playing world police we're still ironically a group of isolationists at heart and that voice just never seems to go away.
Duelling political philsophies and such in the US tends to give us the perspective that we're both alone in the world, and invincible.
>>>----Therumancer--->
You have this analysis backwards.Therumancer said:
Socialism is the necessary transitional step between capitalism and communism, so lots of folks decide to go socialist, and end up communist. Or democratic, in the case of north korea, the peoples democratic republic of korea.
In america, we have socialized our roads, for instance. But where true capitalism is about social mobility, socialism is about social equality, breaking down class structures and centralizing the means of production in the people. We don't have a 100% capitalist system, that would be libertarian. Libertarians think you need no federal government of any kind, and you should pay cops and firefighters for putting out your housefire or investigating a burglury. This is why i'm a paleorepublican (read: paul tard) and not a libertarian.
You are right tho, socialists truly only exist in small groups... communes and the like. France has a heavily socialist system, however, which is great for french citizens but not so great for the gazillions of immigrants who live there and aren't allowed to participate in said system. Its communism tho where instead of centralizing power and production in the hands of the people, well, you kinda do the whole Central State thing and you get your brownshirts and your gulags and your whatnots. The socialists who understand this tend to say things like "communism is bad, but socialism is still ok! honest! you can trust us this time, we won't send the unmentionables to death camps this time, PROMISE!"
I feel socialists suffer from an "if only" syndrome. "If only everyone would drive hybrid cars" "if only everyone would keep their tires inflated" "if only everyone would turn their cellphones off in the movies" "if only everyone in america would send me $1 i could retire with 300,000,000 in the bank." Of course, people don't do these things, so you need more laws, and then you need more police to enforce laws, and people resist the new police, so you outfit them in riot gear and ghettoize anyone who doesn't behave.
