Socialism in Ireland

[rebs23]

No it doesn't but the only other option is environmental devastation, continuing war and terror and a best scenario of a reversion to a semi feudal society where the technological gains of the Capitalist era are lost. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Capitalism is a very old rabid dog that should have been put out of its long ago. You speak of options for reform to change the world for the better. What are these options. Make your case if you have one.

What makes you so sure that Socialism would mean the end of war, famine and environmental devastation? Again I am repeating myself but every model of socialist states that has ever existed has failed to end war, terror and pollution. In fact their record in these areas is hardly ideal. You expect me to believe that your model will be any different basd on the exact same principles as these failed states.

Capitalism will always be more adept at change because it is far more capable of responding to the market and peoples needs, desires and wants than a model where the state/ workers committees decide. People vote for reform and vote for the policies that are implemented by government including legislative reform.

You are the ones trying to implement a different method of organising society so it will always be up to you to make the case for a socialist model as against a model that has shown itself capable of reform, change and improving peoples living standards over the last 200 years either via the market or via democracy or a combination of both.

[BohsPartisan]

Capitalism will always be more adept at change because it is far more capable of responding to the market and peoples needs, desires and wants than a model where the state/ workers committees decide. .

How? Capitalism is geared towards profit not peoples' wants and needs. I don't want or need to have a 70 mile round trip to work. I don't want or need transfats and other health detrimental substances in all the most affordable foods, I don't want or need an extortionate 30 year mortgage for a house that is poorer quality than the council house I grew up in.

I'll get back to your other point after lunch if DrND or SoS don't get there first.

[Jamjar]

Why would anyone choose to undertake a job with more responsiblity but same level of pay??? Why would people look to achieve greater training without reward? There is a reason why people paid differently.

I think you are taking the socialist idea of 'all people being equal' a bit to literally. Obviously in a socialist state a brain surgeon isn't going to be paid the same as an unskilled worker. So there would be incentives to take on more responsibility.

A lot of posts here keep saying socialism has never worked. The USSR was never 'socialist', it was a totalitarian regime (gulags etc, no free speech), as is China. Socialism has never been given the chance to work. If it seems to be becoming successful, outside interference (notably USA) occurs (Nicaragua, Venezuela for example).

[BohsPartisan]

The fact that the Stalinists had to purge the Socialists or real Communists to take power says it all about the nature of their regime. Lets be clear about this. The old Bolsheviks were purged before Stalin moved onto the Kulaks and the middle classes, in fact he flirted with these strata of society when he needed support for his bureaucracy against the return of Workers' Democracy. Stalin and his thugs were so hell bent on wiping out every last vestage of the October Revolution that after constant attempts to asassinate Trotsky they finally succeeded in 1940 when a Stalinist agent posing as a journalist stabbed him in the head with an ice-pick. The USSR conciously sabotaged the revolution in Spain in 1936. It was more desirable to them to see the Fascists take power than to allow a genuine workers' democracy with an internationalist outlook to take root in Europe. If the Stalinists were Socialists then why did they rewrite Lenin? Why did they re-write the history of the revolution, why did they feel the need to erase Trotsky fromthe history books? Why were texts that dealt with the type of state needed to move towards Socialism either banned or constantly "out of stock"? Why did they oppose Socialist revolution in colonial countries arguing instead for "Bourgeois democratic" revolutions?
Has anyone here read The Foundations of Leninism by Stalin? I have. I've also read the major works of Lenin and guess what? Stalin's work selectively quotes Lenin out of context and conveniently leaves out key parts of his work.
Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm are satires of Stalinism. Yet Orwell was a Socialist. In both books a bureaucracy has purged (in the case of 1984) or purges (as in the case of Animal farm) the people who made the revolution. They rewrite the history of the revolution and falsify the theories of Socialism. 1984 is to an extent an exageration, but it is supposed to be. In essense though this is precisely what Stalinism undertook when it won the struggle against genuine Marxism. This is why I can say with authority that Stalinism and genuine Socialism are diametricly opposed.

[sonofstan]

You are painting a really depressing picture there. I don't think that is everyones life. You cannot just generalise and say everyone is experiencing what you are experiencing or what you believe others are experiencing. How about the people that do a days work come home go out to the local sports club with their children, involve themselves with community life, have a good steady job with relatively good income or indeed like tens of thousands have started up their own businesses and are in control of their own destiny, etc, etc.
If the state owned it would I ever get to own it? would I ever get to remortgage it or sell it and move on? Would it ever increase in value? Would I have that freedom to decide my own destiny without having to apply to the "committee/state" to sell or move or remortgage or get another property in a location I want to live in?

No it's not everyone's life but you can't tell me you don't know lives like that in Ireland, reputedly one of the richest capitalist economies in the world. As Bohs Partisan points out, you certainly can't live where you want - I'd love to live by the sea in Clontarf, but unless we Bohs members forget about football and divvy up the money for Dalyer that's never going to happen. Our traditional heartland - Cabra/ Phibsboro' / Finglas is already out of reach of many of our fans - so they buy houses, first in Blanch, then in Mulhuddart, then Navan, till eventually they're commuting from Longford; meanwhile an Older generation is isolated miles from any of their kids....

I remain to be convinced that Capitalism provides a better life for the majority of working people - a phrase of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze sums it up; Capitalism deterritorialises to reterritorialise; in other words, capitalism breaks up the ties of family and community with the promise of freedom - a better job, a better house a better car - only to redefine you, not as a person with an identity tied to non- economic factors, but an entirely economic being, entirely expressible as a credit rating and stripped of any refuge should your economic status take a nosedive.

[BohsPartisan]

What makes you so sure that Socialism would mean the end of war, famine and environmental devastation? .

Getting back to this point which I missed when I was answering your post, Socialism is a system based on the use of the world's resourses for the maximum benefit of everybody on the planet. Why are Wars fought under Capitalism? They are fought by Captialist powers over resourses markets or both. In some cases like the Vietnam and Korean wars they were fought because these states were seen as a threat to capitalist hegemony. Why would we need wars in a Socialist society. The Trillions upon Trillions of Dollars that ar siphoned off into the private bank accounts of Billionaires and Millionaires, the Trillions that are spent on Arms and the Trillions that are spent on convincing us that we need the latest brand of washing powder would be rerouted to provide the basic necessities of life for all, invest in the means of production to cut the time people needed to spend at work and allow people more time to excercise their creative potential. Investment could go into the research and developement of new energy sourses to replace the environmentally unsustainable ones we have today.
On your idea of reforming Capitalism, you still have to provide any examples. Capitalism reached its Zenith in the late 1960's. At that time the maximum reforms that were possible to wring out of the system were already in place. Since the 70's these reforms have been rolled back as the nature of the current economy is not such that allows for any kind of equilibrium between the contending class interests. Come up with an alternative and we can debate it. Otherwise stop saying there is another "unnamed" alternative.

[rebs23]

Come up with an alternative and we can debate it. Otherwise stop saying there is another "unnamed" alternative.

As I said already I am not the one poposing an alternative, you are! You are the ones trying to implement a different method of organising society so it will always be up to you to make the case for a socialist model as against a model that has shown itself capable of reform, change and improving peoples living standards over the last 200 years either via the market or via democracy or a combination of both. (I know copy and paste)


So why would I come up with an alternative when I am quite happy with the present structure of society. Doesn't mean I don't recognise it has faults but still it is far more preferable to the structure you are proposing which is based on the same principles as the former failed socialist/communist states.

On the other main points you raised Capitalism will always repond to peoples needs, wants and desires better than the state because in order for businesses to survive they have to respond to the market. I doubt it that the state/ worker collective run farms or state/ worker collective run building firms would have the capability to repsond to demand like a business with a need to profit would. Again I ask what would the motivation be to do it?

How could you possibly divert trillions in a socialist state if you seize the means of production? It just doesn't make sense. Who would be earning and producing this money?

As for the Stalinist purging the real socialists, if my memory of history is correct the socialists/communists that were in power before Stalin were more than capable of snuffling out anyone who didn't agree with them. The Anarchists and Capitalists were particularly badly treated as were their freedoms of speech, trade and movement.

I could go an repeat some of the earlier questions I raised on how would I be treated in a Socialist state? These have gone unanswered.

[sonofstan]

I could go an repeat some of the earlier questions I raised on how would I be treated in a Socialist state? These have gone unanswered.

Well BP, Dr. N, and Me would obviously be commissars of the people and you'd be up against the wall first night.

[rebs23]

[QUOTE=sonofstan;563196]you certainly can't live where you want QUOTE]

No but you have the oppurtunity and a relative choice. The idea in a socialist state that I would have to apply to live in Clontarf (God Forbid!!) is just frightening. Going before a committee to decide who gets the plum houses in the plum estates just would make for a very corrupt and warped society. Not everyone could live where they wanted in a Socialist state either but at least in our current system it can be in your own hands and at least there is the oppurtunity and you have the possibility of controling your own destiny without the "workers committee" deciding your location.

What would happen if I didn't get on particurly well with the workers committee and as I said already was organising a political party to oppose the "socialist workers" state. I can just see it now, up to the top of that tower block, floor 42 for you.

[rebs23]

Well BP, Dr. N, and Me would obviously be commissars of the people and you'd be up against the wall first night.

You could have least put a smiley after that sentence!

[BohsPartisan]

So why would I come up with an alternative when I am quite happy with the present structure of society.
.

Its well for you. Don't mind SoS...

We'll only shoot you if you actively resist.

[BohsPartisan]

[QUOTE=rebs23;563281]

you certainly can't live where you want QUOTE]


What would happen if I didn't get on particurly well with the workers committee and as I said already was organising a political party to oppose the "socialist workers" state. I can just see it now, up to the top of that tower block, floor 42 for you.

We'd say good luck finding support. It'd be your turn standing outside the GPO trying to sell "THE CAPITALIST"

[Marked Man]

Howcome all the Bohs lads are socialists? What's going on in Phibsborough these days?

[sonofstan]

Howcome all the Bohs lads are socialists? What's going on in Phibsborough these days?

Hey, alone in the premier division, we own the means of production....... pity the product looks as inefficient and uncompetitive as something out of the USSR in the '70s

[rebs23]

[QUOTE=BohsPartisan;563427]

We'd say good luck finding support. It'd be your turn standing outside the GPO trying to sell "THE CAPITALIST"

At a good profit margin of course!

[pete]

The free market has lead to the greatest advances in the history of mankind. I am not convinced socialism has the drive to achieve this.

Cuba might seem to have good health system but how many how drugs or medical eqiipment have they created? Capitalism is the driving force behind enterpreneurship & invention.

[sonofstan]

The free market has lead to the greatest advances in the history of mankind. I am not convinced socialism has the drive to achieve this.

Cuba might seem to have good health system but how many how drugs or medical eqiipment have they created? Capitalism is the driving force behind enterpreneurship & invention.

And why do you think entrepreneurship and invention are so uncomplicatedly good in themselves? I could argue that many examples of inventions that might have benefited mankind have been hampered in their application by the supremacy of the profit motive; look at the way drug companies actively prevent the distribution of cheap drugs in poorer countries in order to protect their margins - and don't come back with 'they need the money for research and development' a lot of the research that leads to advances in pharmacology is done in publicly funded university depts. and then bought by companies, and even if the companies fund the research the expertise that goes into it is the result of publicly funded education.

As long as you see the market as somehow a 'natural' and 'neutral' mechanism for regulating the hierarchy of needs, of course you won't see alternatives. Those, in whose interests the world markets operate, have every to gain by it seeming thus; it all then looks like the result of the operation of some quasi- scientific law, instead the manipulation of the needs and desires of the many for the benefit of the few.

[pete]

As long as you see the market as somehow a 'natural' and 'neutral' mechanism for regulating the hierarchy of needs, of course you won't see alternatives. Those, in whose interests the world markets operate, have every to gain by it seeming thus; it all then looks like the result of the operation of some quasi- scientific law, instead the manipulation of the needs and desires of the many for the benefit of the few.

You said a mixed economy was not an option so you are only leaving choice of pure capitalism or pure Socialism. Given those options capitalism is the only one that has ever been even attempted in practice since cave men walked the planet.

[sonofstan]

You said a mixed economy was not an option so you are only leaving choice of pure capitalism or pure Socialism. Given those options capitalism is the only one that has ever been even attempted in practice since cave men walked the planet.

If you mean Capitalism has been around since 'cave men walked to planet' that's just wrong; Capitalism in any recognisable sense - the primacy of exchange value over use value, a banking system, speculation etc. is barely older than renaissance Venice; as hegemonic i.e. the dominant form of social organisation you have to wait till the industrial revolution in Britain and Germany - I suggest you take a bit of time and read some Weber or Lukacs.

[pete]

If we had socialism how would we decide what to produce? What happens when someone produces a product that no one wants? Surely the marketplace is the best gauge of what people want? How do you decide what to charge for a product? How much would be too much mark up? Socialism would just leading worker monoplies like state companies which restricts competition.

Socialism sounds anti-democratic to me. I know you say its is not communism but sounds very like it to me. We have a mixed economy with democratically elected politicians. If we (the collective) don't like them we can run ourselves or vote for alternatives. Remember the state funds political campaign here too. You may not always find a politician that matches your views but you have to pick the best available. If people too stupid or lazy to vote then they don't deserve any say in the way the country run. Irish people do not want the state to run everything for them as they remember what that was like in the past. Our new found relative wealth may be somewhat false but its a hell of a lot better than the 80s & early 90s. A lot more irish start & run their own business now which is great.