What really frosts my weenie is that many on the Republican/Republican Entertainment Complex side do not even realize that "socialism" and "communism" are not the same thing. For decades, socialists and communists loathed each other.
Socialism--A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of produc…
What really frosts my weenie is that many on the Republican/Republican Entertainment Complex side do not even realize that "socialism" and "communism" are not the same thing. For decades, socialists and communists loathed each other.
Socialism--A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Communism--A political and economic ideology advocating for a classless system in which the means of production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed.
Socialism does not particularly care about social class (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are all monarchies and all of them have some REALLY wealthy people). Communism DOES care about social class and calls class evil (Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution anyone?). Socialism is not terribly interested in societal control, while communism *is* interested (that is its Leninism showing...and for the record, Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT on Taiwan were a Leninist party that we had ZERO qualms about from 1949-1979...and interesting fun fact, the KMT was aligned with the Soviet Communist Party for quite a few years before Mao and the CCP built up steam). Not defending Communism, but many of the excesses of the Warsaw Pact nations stemmed more from their Leninism than their Communism. Lenin himself basically acknowledged that system does not work when he drew up the New Economic Policy in the early 1920s. That said, he had a major ****** for social control, and that is what Communism really morphed into.
Anyone taking any sort of political philosophy instruction from Fox Channel/Mark Levin, et al is a certified moron.
“ Socialism is not terribly interested in societal control,”
Yet how does the socialist enforce their beliefs and control of the economy if not by “societal control.”
Socialist states have either gone bankrupt (or nearly so) or rapidly devolved into totalitarianism. Give us an example where that hasn’t happened. (And no, Sweden isn’t a socialist state).
This is the eternal argument. Socialism is not terribly interested in societal control until organized resistance forms, and then the instruments of coercion come out.
Marx and Lenin were, in a sense, refreshingly honest in their analysis -- so, to a point, was Eugene V. Debs, which helped get him thrown in jail. They recognized that a period of serious coercion -- Marx's "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" -- would be required to make their revolution irreversible, and that a leadership of dedicated revolutionaries -- Lenin's "Vanguard Party" would be necessary to ensure the Dictatorship's non-deviation and ultimate success. All the soft-focus blurring between "social democracy" and "socialism" is just that: soft focused blurring to avoid stating the obvious. The irreversibility of the economic program, guaranteed by force, is the ultimate distinguishing characteristic. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown led one of the world's most successful Social Democratic parties, in part, because they unequivocally rejected that; Jeremy Corbin is in the political wilderness because he most assuredly did not.
There IS one aspect in the revolutionary Enlightenment values of the United States that is treated as irreversible. It's the thing that the Founders talked the most about: Liberty. We generally treat Liberty as on a one-way ratchet: over time it expands, but doesn't retreat for long. As long as we retain our love of Liberty, no form of social organization that ultimately depends on coercion can truly flourish here for very long.
What really frosts my weenie is that many on the Republican/Republican Entertainment Complex side do not even realize that "socialism" and "communism" are not the same thing. For decades, socialists and communists loathed each other.
Socialism--A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Communism--A political and economic ideology advocating for a classless system in which the means of production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed.
Socialism does not particularly care about social class (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are all monarchies and all of them have some REALLY wealthy people). Communism DOES care about social class and calls class evil (Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution anyone?). Socialism is not terribly interested in societal control, while communism *is* interested (that is its Leninism showing...and for the record, Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT on Taiwan were a Leninist party that we had ZERO qualms about from 1949-1979...and interesting fun fact, the KMT was aligned with the Soviet Communist Party for quite a few years before Mao and the CCP built up steam). Not defending Communism, but many of the excesses of the Warsaw Pact nations stemmed more from their Leninism than their Communism. Lenin himself basically acknowledged that system does not work when he drew up the New Economic Policy in the early 1920s. That said, he had a major ****** for social control, and that is what Communism really morphed into.
Anyone taking any sort of political philosophy instruction from Fox Channel/Mark Levin, et al is a certified moron.
“ Socialism is not terribly interested in societal control,”
Yet how does the socialist enforce their beliefs and control of the economy if not by “societal control.”
Socialist states have either gone bankrupt (or nearly so) or rapidly devolved into totalitarianism. Give us an example where that hasn’t happened. (And no, Sweden isn’t a socialist state).
This is the eternal argument. Socialism is not terribly interested in societal control until organized resistance forms, and then the instruments of coercion come out.
Marx and Lenin were, in a sense, refreshingly honest in their analysis -- so, to a point, was Eugene V. Debs, which helped get him thrown in jail. They recognized that a period of serious coercion -- Marx's "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" -- would be required to make their revolution irreversible, and that a leadership of dedicated revolutionaries -- Lenin's "Vanguard Party" would be necessary to ensure the Dictatorship's non-deviation and ultimate success. All the soft-focus blurring between "social democracy" and "socialism" is just that: soft focused blurring to avoid stating the obvious. The irreversibility of the economic program, guaranteed by force, is the ultimate distinguishing characteristic. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown led one of the world's most successful Social Democratic parties, in part, because they unequivocally rejected that; Jeremy Corbin is in the political wilderness because he most assuredly did not.
There IS one aspect in the revolutionary Enlightenment values of the United States that is treated as irreversible. It's the thing that the Founders talked the most about: Liberty. We generally treat Liberty as on a one-way ratchet: over time it expands, but doesn't retreat for long. As long as we retain our love of Liberty, no form of social organization that ultimately depends on coercion can truly flourish here for very long.
Excellent!