Oddly, I actually disagree that the Nazi's were socialists though. I do think there is a large difference between state capitalism and State Socialism, and the Nazi's fall under state capitalism. Crucially, the companies were mostly privately owned. If we allow state control of factories to constitute socialism, then most countries in a war economy would be considered socialist, including WW2 America.
State capitalism is an oxymoron though. Those same companies were required to have Nazis leading them or to have a certain amount of Nazis in the board room. If there were anything that the Nazis could use such as a book keeping error, they would fine the company ludricous amounts of money so companies would do exactly what the state wanted or else. In much the same way any company or corporation bends over backwards for the CCP in China because the state can just seize the company at any time it wants.
The video I linked previously, goes into detail starting here.
Capitalism involves privately owned but public (as in not state ownership) ownership of a company. If the state has enough people who report to it directly in ownership of a company or corporation, regardless of any attempts to paint it as privately owned and publicly controlled, ie in a capitalist fashion, the state is (like North Korea's claim, another communist failure, to be a democratic republican country it is clearly a Stalinist inspired communist state) lying.
Hmm, @DirtbagLeft ... you wouldn't have posted threads about "Sando Aqua vs the Cloverfield Monster" or "The Light of Reason vs the Force" 9 or so years ago, would you?
Capitalism involves privately owned but public (as in not state ownership) ownership of a company. If the state has enough people who report to it directly in ownership of a company or corporation, regardless of any attempts to paint it as privately owned and publicly controlled, ie in a capitalist fashion, the state is (like North Korea's claim, another communist failure, to be a democratic republican country it is clearly a Stalinist inspired communist state) lying.
First, you are using public in directly the opposite way it is usually used. Public ownership of a company is a euphamism for government control of a company.
Second, the reason the distinction matters between state capitalism and state socialism is that it tells a huge amount about where the power comes from. In Nazi Germany, you had factory owners and investors join the Nazi party because they were already wealthy and successful, and wanted more of that. This isn't government control of wealth, this is coorporations getting some handle on the politics.
So in state capitalism, power can come from business success. In state socialism, it comes only from the state.
First, you are using public in directly the opposite way it is usually used. Public ownership of a company is a euphamism for government control of a company.
Second, the reason the distinction matters between state capitalism and state socialism is that it tells a huge amount about where the power comes from. In Nazi Germany, you had factory owners and investors join the Nazi party because they were already wealthy and successful, and wanted more of that. This isn't government control of wealth, this is coorporations getting some handle on the politics.
So in state capitalism, power can come from business success. In state socialism, it comes only from the state.
I'm using public in that it can be publicly traded, IE capitailism. In Nazi Germany, you had people joining the Nazi party or they'd lose their companies. The Nazi party left companies run themselves (kind of) with the known but unspoken threat that if you didn't do what they wanted, they'd destroy your company. Saying that that they just joined the Nazi party is as ludicrous as saying, you have free speech but the government can arrest for you saying something they don't like. They joined the Nazi party or incorporated Nazis into leadership roles so they wouldn't get their companies stolen by the state which is something that socialist states tend to do.
Public ownership means government ownership. That's well established and normal definition for the word. Use the phrase 'publicly traded company'/'public company' to mean a company on a public stock exchange. I just got thru complaining at @DirtbagLeft for making up definitions to already defined terms. This isn't as bad, but let's please avoid new definitions for already defined terms.
They joined the Nazi party or incorporated Nazis into leadership roles so they wouldn't get their companies stolen by the state which is something that socialist states tend to do.
The Nazi party left companies run themselves (kind of) with the known but unspoken threat that if you didn't do what they wanted, they'd destroy your company. Saying that that they just joined the Nazi party is as ludicrous as saying, you have free speech but the government can arrest for you saying something they don't like.
Yes, they were threatened and had to do stuff for the state, but they still had ownership. That's state capitalism.
In contrast, in state socialism, there would be no threats, all the owners would be executed, and the state would seize control. This is what happened in the USSR with the killing of the Kulaks, for example. Any time someone asserted ownership over anything, they would be arrested and sometimes executed.
Public ownership means government ownership. That's well established and normal definition for the word. Use the phrase 'publicly traded company'/'public company' to mean a company on a public stock exchange. I just got thru complaining at @DirtbagLeft for making up definitions to already defined terms. This isn't as bad, but let's please avoid new definitions for already defined terms.
Except it isn't, not in the context of the Nazis and socialism. If I can say I own something but the state can come along at any time and claim ownership of it and I have no recourse, then I don't really own it. At best, I'm tending to it till the state decides it wants it and takes it.
Yes, they were threatened and had to do stuff for the state, but they still had ownership. That's state capitalism.
In contrast, in state socialism, there would be no threats, all the owners would be executed, and the state would seize control. This is what happened in the USSR with the killing of the Kulaks, for example. Any time someone asserted ownership over anything, they would be arrested and sometimes executed.
You're literally describing the same thing. Just because the state runs the economy through proxies is exactly the same as the state running the economy itself. I don't see anything beyond a barely academic difference between the two.
Hmm, @DirtbagLeft ... you wouldn't have posted threads about "Sando Aqua vs the Cloverfield Monster" or "The Light of Reason vs the Force" 9 or so years ago, would you?
Except it isn't, not in the context of the Nazis and socialism. If I can say I own something but the state can come along at any time and claim ownership of it and I have no recourse, then I don't really own it. At best, I'm tending to it till the state decides it wants it and takes it.
You have no control over it, sure, but you do own and make a profit off of it. This is decidedly different than being killed regardless of willingness to cooperate, and having everything stolen. And we have terms for these two states. The first is state capitalism, where yes, you have limited to no control over how your company operates, and can ulltimately be superseded by the state. It sucks and is awful, but isn't state socialism. Crucially, it allows for the profit motive, and means that the economy won't collapse under stupidity.
We see this with the Nazis, WW2 America, a number of other countries under total war conditions, and partially post Maoist China. The Nazis were unusual in that state capitalism was their preferred economic system, while most countries dip into it out of necessity of hardship. In contrast, China opened up its system from state socialism to state capitalism by allowing some private companies, like Alibaba and Huawei.
You're literally describing the same thing. Just because the state runs the economy through proxies is exactly the same as the state running the economy itself. I don't see anything beyond a barely academic difference between the two.
Because the state isn't running the factories, the factory owners are, but for the good of the state. There is ultimately a market undergirding the entire thing, and the factory owners aren't all killed. There was no collectivized ownership of the companies, but some collectivized control. Socialism requires collectivized ownership.
Orwell is a socialist in the sense that he hated capitalism and the abuse of power that stems from it. He was not and never would have been a socialist as you; an anti civilization, Utopian loon that I'm sure would be totally fine with shooting a few more Kulacks if you thought it would make a 'perfect society'.
I mean, strictly speaking, you were the one who started making threats when you said you were going to exterminate Invictus' religion in a cultural revolution once you took power.
This is why I firmly hold the belief that all reactionaries are brain dead. You do understand that (AS I MADE CLEAR) you can exterminate an ideology without killing anyone. Ideologies are born and die all the time. Exterminating a religion is not in anyway equivalent to exterminating people.
I do not believe that Socialism will solve all of the worlds problems. And anyone who does is an idiot. Socialism will solve some of the worlds problems. As to being anti-civilization I understand that you love to project on others but no. I am not the one that wants to take us back to the time before the enlightenment. Violence contrary to what many believe creates more problems than it solves. While using violence defensively is morally acceptable as a rule I still advocate against using violence defensively except in the case of a counter-revolution.
Don't try to bullshit me. I have had no less than 2 vague posts about the use of violence against me and mine. We all know exactly what was meant by the words "And more" meant. do not be surprised when I call people on their vague posting bullshit and make it clear that if you push us to the wall we will defend ourselves.
I'd actually say the opposite is true. If you ask a plll of people if the USSR was socialist, you'd get a near unanimous yes. Hence if you don't, you are on the outside.
Your logical fallacy is bandwagon What part of logical fallacy is unclear? The fact that lots of people believe a thing does not make the thing they believe true.
It is really simple. What is the definition of X. If Y does not meet the definition of X then y is not = to X.
This is not a hard concept to grasp.
Let's look at all the redefinitions you proposed:
Your definition of socialism doesn't include the USSR, your definition of racism doesn't include an individual klukker. You simply aren't good at defining things.
'your definition of evolution doesn't include the formation of planets' If you do not like my definition of socialism then provide your own. As to the definition of racism it is a definition which I myself do not like or use. It is however a definition I accept when contextually appropriate. The fact that you are incapable of doing so demonstrates bad faith on your part. I actually think that I can demonstrate most of the people on this forum are racist by the individual definition of the term.
Collectively owned by anyone, including the state. That's because if you don't consider the USSR socialist, you are simply wrong.
Please define property and by extension ownership under socialism. Cite your source.
No, this is different. It is in regards to your claim that socialists don't believe the USSR is socialist. In response, I'm citing socialists (who named the country) that claim that the USSR is socialism. Basically, I'm saying that there are people who do believe that the USSR is socialist, not that being called the USSR means that it is socialist (it is, because of collective ownership of property, not because of the name).
So if I can provide a quote or quotes from the founders of the USSR which demonstrate that the founders themselves did not believe that the USSR was socialist would you change your mind? I suspect I know the answer but I am always open to being surprised. I just never expect it.
Hitler and the Nazis were socialists. This video goes into it quite well and I'd advise anyone with some time to watch it and thanks to everyone's favourite, communist failure of a government, the CCP, more of us have a lot of free time to look into it.
So to understand the argument which it took six minutes of rambling before he even started. Hitler took a pre-existing term. Redefined the term. And therefore by redefining the term he therefore made the Nazi party socialist. This in combination with an etymological fallacy is supposed to constitute evidence that Nazi germany was in fact socialist. This is the best you have? A redefinition and a fallacy. What makes this even more pathetic is I have read the original sources for both arguments and they were better presented by the Austrian's. The only problem is that when you actually read the socialists they are not committing a genetic fallacy and are instead defining their terms clearly in such a way as to be abundantly clear that the way he is defining the term shares no relation to how he is defining the term. What's more comical is that these same socialists were anarchists. Lastly they make a clear distinction between personal property and public property. Something which this tik seems to fails to elaborate in any way shape or form. Instead lumping them in as the same even though they are clearly not. I can perhaps use smaller words if necessary to explain the difference between public property and personal property. But I am doubtful that it would help given your rather low IQ.
Socialism is such a bad/impossible system that every single attempt to impliment socialism/communism has failed. Do you know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting something to change but it never does so you keep trying and trying and trying?
If you are genuinely interested we can have that conversation. Given that you are mentally retarded I seriously doubt however that you would be able to have that conversation let alone be willing to actually have it. You see those of us who do more than LARP politics are keen on actually studying the past and the mistakes of the past so that we don't repeat them. I can go over in great detail the mistakes of past attempts at socialism and how to avoid those same problems in the future. it's the old "I haven't failed -- I've just found 10,000 that won't work." If you look at the track record of democracy it's had about the same failure rate at socialism. It doesn't work until it does. With each time that it fails the reactionaries point their fingers and say "see we told you it wouldn't work". What they fail to understand however is that failure is more important than success. Because by failing you learn what doesn't work and how to avoid those same problems in the future. Political and economic systems are never born like Athena fully grown. They are laborious affairs that take much trial and error.
Ha! A socialist calling someone else retarded. That's hilarious. You're literally advocating a system that has, without fail, at every attempt to implement has failed in a fashion I would term as spectacular if it wasn't for the near incomprehensible levels of human suffering in it's wake. Tik has a far better understanding of your own ideology than you do and hell, he even backs up what he's saying with shitloads of sources and quotes. Are you Vaush? You seem to have the same kind of spergy attitude like when Sargon mopped the floor with him.
Also, as noted, every attempt at a socialist country has failed. The western, first world nations, which are largely capitalist, have the highest rate of success and living standards for the majority of the people living in them. Second world countries like Soviet Russia, N. Korea, Venezuela etc etc have all failed miserably, they're bastions of human suffering and corruption. You'd swear since the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany's collapses, you'd have some kind of success in the modern day world but no, you still have your Cubas, Venezuelas and Chinas.
I repeatedly have. And you seem to ignore it. Again, socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production. This was done in the USSR in a process called... Collectivization.
So if I can provide a quote or quotes from the founders of the USSR which demonstrate that the founders themselves did not believe that the USSR was socialist would you change your mind? I suspect I know the answer but I am always open to being surprised. I just never expect it.
1) Those quotes don't prove anything, by your own admission in your first post that labels don't matter. If labels don't matter, neither do what socialists claim.
2) I also present evidence that socialists do claim that the USSR is socialist. So you are wrong twice.
And here you are quoting part of my previous post that talked about a definition for socialism that you seem to ignore.
@Realm, as the resident lefty, please help this person argue, this conversation is bad. I'm even agreeing that Nazi's aren't socialists, yet this guy goes around with the worst arguments.
This is why I firmly hold the belief that all reactionaries are brain dead. You do understand that (AS I MADE CLEAR) you can exterminate an ideology without killing anyone. Ideologies are born and die all the time.
What are you going to do when they refuse to give up their faith? Confiscating their children so you can brainwash them in Glorious Atheism? Throwing them forcibly into mental institutions for "sluggishly progressing schizophrenia"? Or will you "re-educate" them? Maybe you'll concentrate them in camps?
The Soviet regime had an ostensible commitment to the complete annihilation of religious institutions and ideas.[12] Communist ideology could not coexist with the continued influence of religion even as an independent institutional entity, so "Lenin demanded that communist propaganda must employ militancy and irreconcilability towards all forms of idealism and religion", and that was called "militant atheism". "Militant" meant an uncompromising attitude toward religion and the effort of winning the hearts and minds of believers from a false philosophy. Militant atheism became central to the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a high priority policy of all Soviet leaders.[4] Convinced atheists were considered to be more politically astute and virtuous individuals.[4][13]
The state established atheism as the only scientific truth.[14][15][16][17] Soviet authorities forbade the criticism of atheism and agnosticism until 1936 or of the state's anti-religious policies; such criticism could lead to forced retirement.[18][19][20]
Soviet law never officially outlawed the holding of religious views, and the various Soviet Constitutions always guaranteed the right to believe. However, since Marxist ideology as interpreted by Lenin[21] and his successors regarded religion as an obstacle to the construction of a communist society, putting an end to all religions (and replacing them with atheism[22]) became a fundamentally important ideological goal of the Soviet state. The official persecution of religion took place through many legal measures which were designed to hamper the performance of religious activities, through a large volume of anti-religious propaganda and education. In practice, the state also sought to control the activities of religious bodies and interfere in their internal affairs, with the ultimate goal of making them disappear.[22] To this effect, the state sought to control the activities of the leaders of different religious communities.[12]
The Communist Party often rejected the principle of treating all religious believers as public enemies,[21] partly due to pragmatic considerations (given the large number of people who adhered to a particular faith) and partly based on its belief that the large number of believers included many loyal Soviet citizens whom the authorities sought to convince to become atheists rather than attack them outright.
Religious believers always found themselves subjected to anti-religious propaganda and legislation that restricted their religious practices. They frequently suffered restrictions within Soviet society. Rarely, however, did the Soviet state ever officially subject them to arrest, imprisonment or death simply for holding beliefs. Instead, the methods of persecution represented a reaction to the perception (real or imagined) of their resistance to the state's broader campaign against religion.[23]
The campaign was designed[by whom?] to disseminate atheism, and the acts of violence and terror tactics which were deployed, while almost always officially invoked on the basis of perceived resistance to the state, aimed in the larger scheme not simply to dampen opposition, but to further assist in the suppression of religion in order to disseminate atheism.[23]
The story of Romanian persecution and martyrdom is virtually without equal in the 20th or any other century. As LOsservatore Romano wrote in 1948, whe...
www.catholiceducation.org
The Romanian Communists pioneered brainwashing techniques in Eastern Europe, often giving them a satanic cast. The typical prisoner was forced to denounce everything that he held most dear: friends and family, his wife or girlfriend, and his God if he was a believer. The Romanian jailer Eugen Turcanu created a special approach for seminarians:
Some had their heads repeatedly plunged into a bucket of urine and fecal matter while the guards intoned a parody of the baptismal rite. One victim who had been systematically tortured in this fashion developed an automatic response that went on for about two months: every morning, to the great delight of his re-educators, he would plunge his own head into the bucket.
But even this degradation of religion apparently was not enough:
Turcanu also forced the seminarians to take part in black masses that he orchestrated himself, particularly during Holy Week and on Good Friday. Some of the re-educators played the part of choirboys; others masqueraded as priests. Turcanus liturgy was extremely pornographic, and he rephrased the original in a demonic fashion. The Virgin Mary was called the Great Whore, and Jesus, that ____ who died on the cross. One seminarian undergoing re-education and playing the role of a priest had to undress completely and was then wrapped in a robe stained with excrement. Around his neck was hung a phallus made of bread and soap and powdered with DDT. In 1950 on the Saturday before Easter the students who were undergoing re-education were forced to pass before the priest, kiss the phallus, and say, he is risen.
I do not believe that Socialism will solve all of the worlds problems. And anyone who does is an idiot. Socialism will solve some of the worlds problems.
Your ideology can't even calculate basic resource distribution, since you have no market. No market, no prices, and your central planners are stuck groping in the dark while the economy collapses around them. It has never solved any problems except perhaps "how to justify tyranny, mass killing and robbery".
As to being anti-civilization I understand that you love to project on others but no. I am not the one that wants to take us back to the time before the enlightenment.
You want to murder and rob everybody who has more money than you do, because you feel slighted that they do. That's a fucking caveman attitude, and you add on top to it an overbearing intellectual pride that imagines yourself as the Grand Coordinator controlling every aspect of our lives because you just know better than us, you grand intellect that imagines an ancient Greek famous for advancing a hypothesis he couldn't prove was the start of "the Left", that there is some providential force in history that guides you to your inevitable victory.
Violence contrary to what many believe creates more problems than it solves. While using violence defensively is morally acceptable as a rule I still advocate against using violence defensively except in the case of a counter-revolution.
What will you do when the factory bosses refuse to hand over their life's work and investment to "the people"? When the suburbanites refuse to let their houses be subdivided into apartments for "the workers"? When the farmers who own their own tractors and barns and acres of land refuse to give up their "private property" to the "collective" (meaning the State, meaning the Politburo). We know what that is - we've seen it in Russia, in China, in Cambodia.
And yes, you'll find "counter-revolutionaries" once you're in charge, plenty of them. Or if the Great Leader isn't you, you'll find yourself designated as one of them after running foul of him.
Don't try to bullshit me. I have had no less than 2 vague posts about the use of violence against me and mine. We all know exactly what was meant by the words "And more" meant. do not be surprised when I call people on their vague posting bullshit and make it clear that if you push us to the wall we will defend ourselves.
Yes, you'll kill a few million people in "self defence" against "reactionaries, kulaks and saboteurs". Then you'll kill a few million more, and then another few million, for as long as your system lasts. Then when it collapses your ideological descendants will say "DirtbagLeftopia wasn't real socialism!".
Your logical fallacy is bandwagon What part of logical fallacy is unclear? The fact that lots of people believe a thing does not make the thing they believe true.
It is really simple. What is the definition of X. If Y does not meet the definition of X then y is not = to X.
This is not a hard concept to grasp.
As I've said before, your definition of socialism is a fantasy. The commonplace definition of socialism is that in which it manifests in the real world. Your personal definition is irrelevant, because it can't exist as an actuality in the world.
'your definition of evolution doesn't include the formation of planets' If you do not like my definition of socialism then provide your own. As to the definition of racism it is a definition which I myself do not like or use. It is however a definition I accept when contextually appropriate. The fact that you are incapable of doing so demonstrates bad faith on your part. I actually think that I can demonstrate most of the people on this forum are racist by the individual definition of the term.
Your "socialism" is a fantasyland designed to lure in idealistic dupes. When we talk about socialism, we talk about socialism as it manifests in the real world. Famines. Genocides. Totalitarian surveillance states. Gulags. Death camps. An economy so centrally mismanaged that the 3% of farms allowed to run by non-socialist principles bring in 25% of the nation's food.
Please define property and by extension ownership under socialism. Cite your source.
In Russia small farmers who happened to own brick houses and animals had their "private property" - i.e. the means of their livelihood - expropriated to useless collective farms and were viciously massacred by the millions - in "self-defence" against "dangerous reactionaries", no less.
So if I can provide a quote or quotes from the founders of the USSR which demonstrate that the founders themselves did not believe that the USSR was socialist would you change your mind? I suspect I know the answer but I am always open to being surprised. I just never expect it.
“The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. […]
[T]he accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations – which any literate person can perform – of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.”
...
“Instead of the special institutions of a privileged minority (privileged officialdom, the chiefs of the standing army), the majority itself can directly fulfil all these functions, and the more the functions of state power are performed by the people as a whole, the less need there is for the existence of this power. […]
[C]ontrol by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption […] must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers […]
Under socialism […] for the first time in the history of civilized society the mass of population will rise to taking an independent part, not only in voting and elections, but also in the everyday administration of the state. Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.”
[T]he “state” which consists of the armed workers […] is “no longer a state in the proper sense of the word”.”
“Under capitalism we have the state in the proper sense of the word, that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by another […] Naturally, […] such an undertaking as the systematic suppression of the exploited majority by the exploiting minority calls for the utmost ferocity and savagery in the matter of suppressing, it calls for seas of blood […]
[D]uring the transition […] suppression is still necessary, but it is now the suppression of the exploiting minority by the exploited majority. A special apparatus, a special machine for suppression, the “state”, is still necessary, but […] the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday is comparatively so easy, simple and natural a task that it will entail far less bloodshed […] Naturally, the exploiters are unable to suppress the people without a highly complex machine for performing this task, but the people can suppress the exploiters even with a very simple “machine”, almost without a “machine”, without a special apparatus, by the simple organization of the armed people”
Note especially the references to "the people as a whole", "the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday", "the people", "the whole of the population", "the mass of population", "the majority itself", "the workers", etc.
So to understand the argument which it took six minutes of rambling before he even started. Hitler took a pre-existing term. Redefined the term. And therefore by redefining the term he therefore made the Nazi party socialist. This in combination with an etymological fallacy is supposed to constitute evidence that Nazi germany was in fact socialist. This is the best you have? A redefinition and a fallacy. What makes this even more pathetic is I have read the original sources for both arguments and they were better presented by the Austrian's. The only problem is that when you actually read the socialists they are not committing a genetic fallacy and are instead defining their terms clearly in such a way as to be abundantly clear that the way he is defining the term shares no relation to how he is defining the term. What's more comical is that these same socialists were anarchists. Lastly they make a clear distinction between personal property and public property. Something which this tik seems to fails to elaborate in any way shape or form. Instead lumping them in as the same even though they are clearly not. I can perhaps use smaller words if necessary to explain the difference between public property and personal property. But I am doubtful that it would help given your rather low IQ.
You should have watched it far longer. You would have learned about the Nazi price controls, wage controls, attempts at collectivisation of agriculture, State take-over of industries, etc. But that isn't "socialism" to you. Because "socialism" is your eschatonic fantasyland where the oceans are lemonade and the sky rains free food and no-one ever has to work unless they want to. Your con is pretty old, you know?
If you are genuinely interested we can have that conversation. Given that you are mentally retarded I seriously doubt however that you would be able to have that conversation let alone be willing to actually have it.
Ah, so obsessed with your supposed intellectual supremacy. So much of a big brain you think that Aristarchus was anything more than a footnote in history, and that Christianity was responsible for the evils of the anti-Christian USSR.
You see those of us who do more than LARP politics are keen on actually studying the past and the mistakes of the past so that we don't repeat them. I can go over in great detail the mistakes of past attempts at socialism and how to avoid those same problems in the future. it's the old "I haven't failed -- I've just found 10,000 that won't work."
How many millions - or billions - have to die in pursuit of Never-Neverland before you lot give up? And no, you don't learn. Your socialist utopias always fail in the same way - in dictatorship, in starvation, in mass deaths. It always begins with promises of freedom and prosperity, and always ends with a Great Leader ordering mass executions, living in a gilded mansion while the starving poor suffer and die.
If you look at the track record of democracy it's had about the same failure rate at socialism. It doesn't work until it does. With each time that it fails the reactionaries point their fingers and say "see we told you it wouldn't work".
There are an infinitely higher number of prosperous, peaceful democratic states than there are of socialist states meeting those criteria.
What they fail to understand however is that failure is more important than success. Because by failing you learn what doesn't work and how to avoid those same problems in the future. Political and economic systems are never born like Athena fully grown. They are laborious affairs that take much trial and error.
And the same things keep happening. Great Leaders keep rising up. The people keep starving. State-controlled industries stagnate, then collapse. There are gulags. There are secret police. Lots of people die. And then when the sorry mess is over, and what was previously touted as the new Great Socialist Experiment is indefensible, socialists like you say it wasn't real socialism.
You never learn. When socialism fails, it's never Real Socialism, because Real Socialism cannot exist in the real world - the world populated by fallible, corrupt humans, where resources are finite and where the central planners will never have access to the information they need to steer the economy.
I said this (but Abhorsen said it first) pages and pages ago, but honestly what is the point of being able to prove that Nazis weren’t socialists if nobody is a socialist? If your definition of socialism is such that no actual government has ever met the standard, then you’re essentially saying nothing about Nazis to say that they aren’t socialist.
We’re just right back to no true Scotsman. None of the destructive totalitarian regimes who have advocated socialism, called themselves socialists, espoused socialist ideals, or gained their followings based on opposing capitalism in favor of more collective systems have been actual socialists. If all of those regimes aren’t socialist, then all I can say is that regimes who pretend to be socialist sure seem have have consistently terrible results.
I said this (but Abhorsen said it first) pages and pages ago, but honestly what is the point of being able to prove that Nazis weren’t socialists if nobody is a socialist? If your definition of socialism is such that no actual government has ever met the standard, then you’re essentially saying nothing about Nazis to say that they aren’t socialist.
We’re just right back to no true Scotsman. None of the destructive totalitarian regimes who have advocated socialism, called themselves socialists, espoused socialist ideals, or gained their followings based on opposing capitalism in favor of more collective systems have been actual socialists. If all of those regimes aren’t socialist, then all I can say is that regimes who pretend to be socialist sure seem have have consistently terrible results.
I said this (but Abhorsen said it first) pages and pages ago, but honestly what is the point of being able to prove that Nazis weren’t socialists if nobody is a socialist? If your definition of socialism is such that no actual government has ever met the standard, then you’re essentially saying nothing about Nazis to say that they aren’t socialist.
We’re just right back to no true Scotsman. None of the destructive totalitarian regimes who have advocated socialism, called themselves socialists, espoused socialist ideals, or gained their followings based on opposing capitalism in favor of more collective systems have been actual socialists. If all of those regimes aren’t socialist, then all I can say is that regimes who pretend to be socialist sure seem have have consistently terrible results.
The saddest thing about Dirtbag's 'arguments' is that there is a good argument that can be made that the Nazi's weren't socialist. There wasn't collective ownership, etc, like you see with the USSR. It's honestly closer to America's WW2 economy than socialism. But if you don't acknowledge state socialism is socialism, and then don't make a difference between state socialism and state capitalism, then you can't make the argument.
No you see, socialism failed because of external/capitalist subversion, because of the lack of the right appraisal of the situation(which would have been corrected with ya know proper application of dialectical materialism), or maybe if only rebellion in X country had succeeded, this would have allowed better development or something.
Socialists will always blame something else, and point to context as to why socialist projects failed-sure context matters. But if socialism is so dependent on 10 trillion things going right at every level, its still unworkable.
Frankly, I understand the appeal-the current world order is unjust, its unfair, there are real abuses that come from corporations, bosses, and the cold unfeeling nature of the market.
So long as man oppresses man by virtue of having more-socialism will always remain the dream on the other side of the rainbow, a heaven on earth, that only if we work hard enough and have the precisely right set of ideas and people-will be achieved.
No you see, socialism failed because of external/capitalist subversion, because of the lack of the right appraisal of the situation(which would have been corrected with ya know proper application of dialectical materialism), or maybe if only rebellion in X country had succeeded, this would have allowed better development or something.
It's not even that. As I said, he's defining "socialism" as the eschatonic fantasyland, and not actual socialism as it manifests in the world. Which is why no historical socialists were ever actually socialists to him, because the fantasy never came true, as it can't exist in the real world.
I read an alternate history that posited that if Rosa had succeeded, a communist federation would have emerged and eventually absorbed the world in glorious communist utopia.
That's the deal with socialists-they will only admit failure on contingent grounds, not absolute grounds.
