Why Liberalism And Not Socialism?

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 03:45 PM

My assertion is this:

Because liberalism (in the United States) and social democracy pacify class unrest while preserving the class structure, they are, therefore, counter-revolutionary.

There is a difference between calling for the noblemen to pay more in taxes and provide for the serfs, and calling for abolition of serfdom itself. This is the difference between social democracy and socialism. I am not about taxing the rich more or creating more welfare programs. Those policies do not address the fundamental structure of the mode of production.

Even if the wealthy did pay more in taxes and the poor were provided for, it doesn't change the fact that there are rich and poor, owner and worker. It is not real change, at the root.

The "mixed economy", so to speak, is therefore a meaningless concept, another type of capitalist economy in which the welfare state pacifies class conflict while preserving the bourgeoisie.

Real change is where the workers directly own, operate, and manage the means of production and there are no classes.

In the USA, modern progressive thought (liberal) arose in the Gilded Age and the New Deal era as a way of addressing class conflict while avoiding revolution. Believe me, if capitalists could still get away with near-slavery, they would. They give up a little bit to keep the whole lot.

**spidergoat** · 07-19-12, 03:54 PM

You can't eliminate class without also eliminating personal motivation to succeed, so you might as well mitigate the worst effects of it. We WANT to avoid revolution.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by spidergoat

You can't eliminate class without also eliminating personal motivation to succeed

I disagree. Material conditions determine "human nature" (if that is the argument you are appealing to).

Furthermore, class as defined by Marx is not about income or compensation but property ownership. We can compensate harder workers more without giving them ownership of lands and factories.

so you might as well mitigate the worst effects of it.

Putting a band-aid on capitalism doesn't change anything

We WANT to avoid revolution.

Then you are, by definition, a reactionary

**spidergoat** · 07-19-12, 04:32 PM

Land or money, it makes no difference, it's all wealth. And maybe people generally don't want to wait to be "compensated" due to the goodwill of some elite class (a dynamic ripe for corruption), but rather be the architects of their own success, whatever that might mean to them.

I'm one of those Democratic Socialists, a progressive if you must label it, not a reactionary, and not a revolutionary.

Reactionary denotes "a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state" and a "return to a previous condition of affairs."

That's not me.

**Jeeves** · 07-19-12, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by RedStar

Material conditions determine "human nature"

Over time, sure. The kind of time-frame in which that would be true is too large for us to observe; certainly far longer than can be influenced by a historic event. Human nature won't be changed by a new economic or political arrangement - which is why most regimes fail, regardless of their philosophical tenets: real people just don't live up to any theory, no matter how well it works in the head of a well-intentioned genius. Character types are constant throughout a stretch of 100,000 years. Alpha Homo sapiens tend to behave in exactly the same way when they become rulers, under any system. Work-horses plod; magpies collect; sheep follow. Canaries sing and fall, ignored. Ostriches don't want to know; frogs sit comfortably in warm... rather hot, actually... er, boiling now... soup.

We can compensate harder workers more without giving them ownership of lands and factories.

We? Therein lies the problem.

Putting a band-aid on capitalism doesn't change anything

True. Violent uprising would change something: reduce the number of rebels and innocent bystanders; put a new set of swine in leadership positions; destroy a good deal of existing infrastructure; dissipate currency (all those fleeing aristocrats don't just pack their Hermes underwear!), tear down foreign relations (not all bad,) and credit (all bad) and leave the country bleeding, dazed, confused and bearing scars that will barely scab over before the next revenge opportunity.
It's change, but you can't predict whether it willy turn out better or worse.

A gradual drift toward socialism, as Canada was doing through the second half of the 20th century, as Europe was doing with variable success, saves a lot of regime-change damage. In fact, democracy, when allowed to operate according to the manual, inevitably and inexorably does drift toward socialism. That's why democracy always has to be subtly perverted (as in Canada) or bluntly bludgeoned (as in the US) when it starts getting too popular.

Democracy would do just fine, if we ever figured out a way to safeguard it.

**spidergoat** · 07-19-12, 06:03 PM

There is no political system that cannot be corrupted.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by spidergoat

Land or money, it makes no difference, it's all wealth.

It actually makes a huge difference. Have you ever read Marx?

Land is a means of production. Money (currency) is not. It's ownership of the means of production that leads to exploitation.

And maybe people generally don't want to wait to be "compensated" due to the goodwill of some elite class (a dynamic ripe for corruption), but rather be the architects of their own success, whatever that might mean to them.

They will be compensated according to what the community votes on.

I'm one of those Democratic Socialists, a progressive if you must label it, not a reactionary, and not a revolutionary.

So do you accept that, even democratically, we should move towards a classless society where owners own the means of production directly?

If yes, then you are indeed a socialist. Otherwise, you are a reactionary.

Reactionary denotes "a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state" and a "return to a previous condition of affairs."

That's not me.

I recommend "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxembourg

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxe...tion/index.htm

**spidergoat** · 07-19-12, 06:38 PM

"So do you accept that, even democratically, we should move towards a classless society where owners own the means of production directly?"

I don't accept that we can have a classless society, I only hope to mitigate the inequality through social welfare and investments in education and the like.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 06:42 PM

That's a rubbish position.

Should the serfs have just said "well, we can't change the system so let's just mitigate its effects"? Of course not. And indeed, during the time period where land was the primary means of production, they probably thought society could never change.

But it did. And it can.

We can have a classless society in the sense that no individual ever owns land or factories, or is ever in a position to deny others a job or fire others or profit from their labor.

Why not? We can. Only a classless society can be democratic, in fact.

**spidergoat** · 07-19-12, 06:44 PM

Yeah, if only someone tried that, it would be so successful the rest of the world would happily follow...

...not.

**Grumpy** · 07-19-12, 06:51 PM

RedStar

As I told someone else of almost exactly the opposite viewpoint to yours, pure Capitalism is evil, as it tends to concentrate money, property and influence in the very few at the top of the pile at the expence of everyone else. Pure socialism removes any incentive to innovate, succeed or better one's circumstances. The countries in the world with the greatest success(equality, social welfare and economic success for all)have a mix of both philosophies. There are certain things better handled with socialist policies(like welfare, medicare, roads, basic research, police and military needs). And there are other things more successfully handled with a Capitalist system(innovation, new businesses, new products, ect.) Politics is a constant struggle seeking the best balance between the two.

Grumpy

**Repo Man** · 07-19-12, 07:24 PM

Great, another religious dogmatist.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by spidergoat

Yeah, if only someone tried that, it would be so successful the rest of the world would happily follow...

...not.

I see, so you're one of those defeatists who thinks we will always need lords to tell us what to do. We might as well have stuck with feudalism and slavery, then.

Or, you can realize that history is not black and white and that material conditions impact human behavior. Socialism has never been tried in the circumstances defined by Marx. Russia was virtually feudal in 1917, and China, Korea, Vietnam, etc, were doomed from the beginning for various complicated reasons (including material development).

Successful socialism (in the Marxist sense, not your definition) will probably need to begin in Western Europe, which is industrialized and largely enlightened. It can then spread from there. The Communist Party of France and the Communist Party of Spain are relatively large, so I can easily see France or Spain leading the movement in the future.

Capitalism will collapse. It's almost inevitable. Maybe not in this century. Maybe not even the next. It took 800 years of feudalism before it was replaced.

Originally Posted by Grumpy

RedStar

As I told someone else of almost exactly the opposite viewpoint to yours, pure Capitalism is evil

What's "impure" capitalism? Either labor is a commodity and the means of production are privately owned or not. It's either capitalism or it isn't. The false libertarian notion that only laissez-faire capitalism is "real" capitalism is...well, false.

Pure socialism removes any incentive to innovate, succeed or better one's circumstances.

Absolute rubbish soundbite. Innovation and success existed before capitalism and they will exist after capitalism.

The countries in the world with the greatest success(equality, social welfare and economic success for all)have a mix of both philosophies.

Actually, the idea that you can "mix" two mutually exclusive ideas is nonsense. Either you have class division or you don't. If you do, that is, if you have an ownership class and a labor class, it's capitalism straight and simple.

There are certain things better handled with socialist policies(like welfare, medicare, roads, basic research, police and military needs). And there are other things more successfully handled with a Capitalist system(innovation, new businesses, new products, ect.) Politics is a constant struggle seeking the best balance between the two.

Socialism is concerned with labor, not welfare. All of what you have mentioned is not socialism. It's welfare, which is not even remotely close.

And, interestingly enough, it was originally pushed by the capitalist class in order to pacify class unrest.

**spidergoat** · 07-19-12, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by RedStar

I see, so you're one of those defeatists who thinks we will always need lords to tell us what to do. We might as well have stuck with feudalism and slavery, then.

Or, you can realize that history is not black and white and that material conditions impact human behavior. Socialism has never been tried in the circumstances defined by Marx. Russia was virtually feudal in 1917, and China, Korea, Vietnam, etc, were doomed from the beginning for various complicated reasons (including material development).

Successful socialism (in the Marxist sense, not your definition) will probably need to begin in Western Europe, which is industrialized and largely enlightened. It can then spread from there. The Communist Party of France and the Communist Party of Spain are relatively large, so I can easily see France or Spain leading the movement in the future.

Capitalism will collapse. It's almost inevitable. Maybe not in this century. Maybe not even the next. It took 800 years of feudalism before it was replaced.....

I'm being realistic. The Soviet experiment had a chance to play out, and the American one has to play out too. It's not a failure yet, even if capitalism as we know it fails (and I agree it will soon due to the limitations of resources, particularly energy). I find your descriptions of socialism to be similar to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Perhaps you aren't considering that the failures of the USSR were indeed failures of communism, when communism was actually implemented in the real world and not just on paper.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by spidergoat

I'm being realistic. The Soviet experiment had a chance to play out, and the American one has to play out too. It's not a failure yet, even if capitalism as we know it fails (and I agree it will soon due to the limitations of resources, particularly energy). I find your descriptions of socialism to be similar to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Perhaps you aren't considering that the failures of the USSR were indeed failures of communism, when communism was actually implemented in the real world and not just on paper.

I understand what you are saying but I feel that it is limited. Capitalism has been around longer than socialism, and the USSR was the only real major socialist experiment the world has seen to date, aside from China (which, objectively speaking, did improve under Mao). And that's what it comes down to: the Soviet Union made accomplishments despite all the odds being stacked against it.

In the midst of a World War, the USSR was established, handicapped and underdeveloped. WW2 came and added to the devastation, and there was a dearth of capital resources. And yet, despite all this, the USSR triumphed as a world superpower economy.

Surely there is something of value to be learned in that history. By the way, communism is gradual and will only be achieved after international socialism has been achieved, which it hasn't.

Why is it "unrealistic" to imagine a future where workers own the means of production democratically? The history of the USSR would have been far different if the Spartacists had succeeded in Germany, I suspect, anyways. Imagine what would have been accomplished if the first socialist experiment was England or America rather than feudal Russia. See?

And socialism can be achieved gradually and democratically, but my only fault with this method is that it gives the counter-revolutionaries and capitalists alot of room to come in and screw everything up. But it can be done. If it is, it will consist of a gradual transfer of ownership of land and capital resources from the capitalist class to the working class. Something like legislation requiring 50% of all businesses be owned by workers, and then 75%, and then finally 100% with the abolition of capitalism and the profit system.

The only reason capitalism has not yet collapsed is because it has been prolonged by the liberal approach and because of imperialism, which sustains domestic capitalism. (Read Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" for a detailed analysis). There is not an international proletariat in the world today because much of the world is not industrialized, but what the imperialists and out-sourcers don't realize is that they are digging their own grave as they create an international proletariat which will internationally overthrow them.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 08:51 PM

There is a path of progression that follows civilization: slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society, communist society.

**Jeeves** · 07-19-12, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by RedStar

There is a path of progression that follows civilization: slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society, communist society.

Take any slave society, of any period in history, and show how that progression worked. Give dates and specific events.

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 09:27 PM

The best example is probably the Roman Empire. After its collapse in 476 AD, there was a power void in the West that was filled by the Roman Catholic Church. Kingdoms arose as kings were granted land, who then granted the land to lords, who then granted it to their vassals, who had serfs to work the land. Land became the primary mode of production and medium of wealth, so to speak.

That is feudalism. Feudalism was replaced by mercantilism and capitalism as land became more obsolete in the face of commodity production. The highlight of capitalism was the industrial revolution, which enabled workers to be completely alienated from the means of production and enabled capital accumulation to occur faster than ever before.

Modern European monarchies are remnants of feudalism, although now largely powerless.

**Jeeves** · 07-19-12, 10:19 PM

You have a neatly organized concept of history and definitions. So why be impatient? If it was okay for Europe to take 1500 years to get to the middle of the progression, why not wait patiently for the inevitable advent of communism? Say, 2700AD?

**RedStar** · 07-19-12, 10:22 PM

If you are asking me whether or not the path of progression is inevitable, the answer is no. If it was, there would be no need for revolutionary activity. Rather, Marx was criticizing the contradictions of capitalism and suggesting that these make capitalism unsustainable, which is true. The historical trend seems to be toward a more egalitarian society. Communism will not happen until socialism happens.