Calling all marxists

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It also becomes flawed when the politicians raid the treasury to buy votes.

Keeping a Republic requires a strength of character which is missing in most politicians.

ruveyn

I don't see them as mutually exclusive, but I don't see them as being exactly in the same category either.

While Marx contributed some brilliant ideas, like anything, I think we should be taking what works and using it to our benefit. Rarely is any one philosopher solely right without reproach. I do not believe Marx is an exemption to that rule.

Some of the opportunities that I grew up with due to communism I am very grateful for. Free education (including higher education), free healthcare, free literacy programs and the like have certainly made a very positive impact and I think we could learn from that (or at least ensure excellent programs are in place for those who cannot afford them). Equal opportunity is something I would like to see focused on.

I can certainly agree with the bottom up approach, it certainly seems to work for co-operatives and the like. I do not oppose small business either though. People should choose what works for them, and I think a mix of the two could potentially work quite well.

Democracy should win if capitalism and democracy are in conflict. I don't think I could refute that logic. I do believe in democracy and in everyone being able to have a say, although I might want to question how the system would be structured.

I see a need to regulate capitalism, due to the nature of it and the possibility of monopolies that can come from it, along with the power or corruption a monopoly can cause (I don't need to look too far to see some stunning examples of monopolies and their power right now).

thanks.

mhm. the whole ownership of the means of production bit is important because social democracy might advocate for a fairer society with universal health care, childcare, education, etc and i cant tell you the number of times i have heard "you dont need socialism when you have sweden" but it misses the point about workers control and revolution. without that you cant have a true democracy.
parliamentary democracy must be encouraged and you'll find socialists of various sorts(for different reasons) in social democratic parties but the collective organisation of workers in the workplace is a higher form of democracy. plus i dont think that leaders elected under capitalism, no matter how reformed, can be interested in the welfare of the people when their interests are tied up with capital. plus the second point you(declension) made ties in with that. marxists do not see the system as redeemable- it constantly goes into crisis and workers always bear the brunt of that.

rainy: what do you mean? are you talking about informed choices when going to the polls or saying that when democracy fails it is because of the voters not having enough schooling and picking the right person? i think people should make informed choices at the polls but when democracy fails i think it is because democracy isnt in the interests of our rulers or bosses that it flops under this system.

kjas: i dont think there are any socialist/communist countries in existence. cliffites would argue that countries calling themselves that now are actually state capitalist because they have all the characteristics of capitalism but state controlled.

Most of the money they use comes from private sources.

VMSmith: A democracy can fail for multiple reasons. What I gave was one of the more general and common flaws.

I agree with that, and that is what worries me about some of the decisions being made here in general and especially over the last 10 years.

You are correct, there are no truly communist countries yet. However, there are countries who are based on communist principles, although they differ in the reality of what they put into practise (e.g. statism) compared to what Marx thought of as ideal, as it was one of those countries I was referring to.

Well, the reason that I abandoned this thread is because I really didn't feel like dealing with ruveyn and TM.

I am not a revolutionary for the simple reason that I think overthrowing the government does not work. It's been tried and has had horrible results. If by a revolution you mean a period of rapid change, I also disagree with that because rapid change is difficult and tends to create problems. I wish that rapid change could work, because I'm impatient, but I don't believe that it can.

All of that said, I am not a social democrat. Universal healthcare and free education are of course important to socialism, but are only a small part of it. I do believe in collective ownership and economic democracy. I believe that major industries should be nationalized over a period of 10-20 years or so. Or, as the case may be, renationalized since many of them were publicly owned before the '80s. I strongly support cooperatives, both workers and consumers'. I think that credit unions are a great idea, as are insurance cooperatives. And there is a cooperative grocery store chain in my region that I'd shop at if there was one within walking distance (I don't own a car)--mind you, they are slowly going out of business because the bigger chains have lower overhead.

I think that perhaps the best thing a socialist could do is encourage the formation of new cooperatives. By and large nationalization is a dead policy (although Iceland showed some real guts in nationalizing their banks that failed) and is not likely to be resurrected for a few decades.

I agree that we have yet to see a socialist country. Parts of Europe were making excellent steps in that direction before Thatcher and her ilk came along. And Chile might have become socialist if the USA hadn't sabotaged their economy and helped to overthrow Salvador Allende. Venezuela may become socialist under Chavez, but I'm wary of him; he doesn't seem adverse to cheating in the democratic process. I'm somewhat more optimistic about Evo Morales in Bolivia. Of the original "Communist" countries, only Cuba has a chance of becoming socialist in the foreseeable future. There are some reforms being made which are good first steps towards becoming democratic (although there is still a long, long way to go) and the economic reforms don't sound like they'll revert it to capitalism, like happened in China.

Two to tango. Two for corruption: the briber and the bribee.

And the money is in the form of subsidies and tax breaks.

ruveyn

good answer.

I agree with ruveyn.

are you sure?

He makes the most sense 99.99% of the time so yes I am sure.

i didnt get involved in the thread earlier for the same reason. i figured that might have detered some left wingers too.

marxists think a revolution is necessary to gain collective ownership and democracy- i dont think the bosses are just going to let workers take collective control over their work place no matter how much the population wants it or how wide mass support is reflected in polls or whatever. i think that bit about allende is a good example. this leftist reformist promises radical reforms for workers(including socialism) & the the bosses get uneasy & in 1973 Pinochet launches a military coup with the support of the bosses & cia and they off him & crush the workers movement. plus how long would it have been before he started shifting to the side of the bosses in the name of keeping the economy healthy?
cooperatives ive got nothing especially against but as a means of changing society, well, i dont see how they can. theyre still a buisiness and still have to exist in the capitalist market and will still fail unless they compete with other buisinesses. and it still leaves you with a government that you have to deal with.
marxists think revolution is necessary because it empowers the working class and teaches them something about their own power as a collective & it teaches them how to organise. plus i think it was eugene debs who said " if I could do it(emancipate the working class) for you somebody else could undo it for you. But, when you do it yourselves, it will be done for ever" ie. revolution not reformism. im adverse to one person giving the working class socialism- its supposed to be about workers power.
as for rapid change, if you are going to go for a bottom up approach then that is how it will happen. the class stuggle doesnt happen at a steady pace and im not sure that people "plan" revolutions. workers dont all radicalise at the same rate and there might be times when you can win many over to socialist politics and other times when the word socialism will get the "oh thats a nice idea, its so nice you havent lost that idealistic streak yet" reaction from people instead of "f@#$ the bosses". i think it is important that they have the right politics. that being said a revolution is a while off because people take time to radicalise.
also i still think cuba is state capitalist, it never was socialist and i dont think revolution has been proven to fail. when they do fail there are reasons but that would take too long to go into & this is already longer than the international law essay i was supposed to be writting but am procrastinating on. again. because its total bollocks.

@VMSmith: Now this is the kind of conversation that I was hoping we could have in this thread. For certain things cooperatives can successfully compete with other businesses. I'm thinking of credit unions here--1/3 of Canadians use them for their banking. My point about cooperatives is that as of yet there is not the wide-spread support that would be needed for nationalization or other drastic reforms. So I think that a better approach would be for those socialists to form a cooperative for themselves without the intention of competing per se. For example, a housing cooperative doesn't need to compete with apartment buildings if all of the tenants are ideologically in favour of the cooperative. These cooperatives would work as a good platform from which to recruit potential socialists and may act to bring in the desire for the more radical changes that you describe.

I also see cooperatives as useful because they are done from the bottom up. Tenants banding together to buy out their landlord involves them far more in the changes than some far-off president nationalizing the apartment complex. We both support grass-roots mobilization, we just approach it from different angles. I also talk of cooperatives because they are something which can be done now, while the revolution you speak of, if it could ever happen, is decades away. Except, perhaps, in places like Greece--you might be able to mobilize something there.

I agree that Cuba is not socialist right now, nor has it ever been. I think that state-capitalism is a good term for all of the old Soviet-style communist countries. However, Cuba probably is/was among the least terrible of those countries (hardly and inspiring slogan). My point was simply that it is conceivable that it will one day become socialist. There are some faint beginnings, such as the development of their urban agriculture system. That essentially happened because people needed food and decided to take over unused land to grow it. The government was smart enough to recognise a good idea and threw its support behind them. But it was essentially a grass-roots movement.

On an unrelated topic, do you read Green Left Weekly? I did for a couple of weeks but was turned away by how uncritical they were of the Cuban government, among other things.

I can certainly agree when it comes to nationalization of resources, I think that is cruical to any countries economic and political sovereignty. Certain countries are making strides in that direction, and with good reason. (Bolivia, Ecador and Agrentina being current examples)

Cuba is not really ever going to be a good example because they face too many other issues that muddy the waters politically (and econiomically), for there ever to any agreement on the issue, even amongst lefties in general. Those "other issues" is what made it necessary for the "state capitalism" (as you're going to call it), to be put in place in the first place. Until the political dynamics of that particular region change (you all know what I'm talking about), we will not know whether grassroots socialism could be successful there or not. Currently that "state capitalism" is the only thing stopping Cuba becoming a virtual colony of the US (again). Until that threat is removed, we are never going to know one way or the other what would or will be successful there

I have read green left and still do, along witht the guardian weekly and a few others. The trick with any source of media is learning to read between the line and tranlsate correctly, because none of them are ever going to be truly objective since they all have their agendas.

Canada on the other hand is selling our resources to other countries' state-owned corporations. Sinopec and Statoil are the main examples. I think I might have heard that the Cuban oil company will be investing too. Cuba will require a security review (fair enough) but for some reason China (which is far more dangerous) has never needed one.


I like the Guardian--I read it occasionally when I see a copy in my university library.

Yes am a socialist (centre-left political), my city Liverpool has a rich history in the socialist and communist movements.
Most Scousers have no love for right wing politics! My philosophy on socialism can be best summed up with this quotation from a former manager of the football team I support.



I wouldn't say capitalism is evil, its amoral and we on the left need to be critical of capitalist systems.
With the rise of globalization, wound it be fair to say that the corporation is the new opiate of the masses?