Socialism in Ireland

[BohsPartisan]

We already collectively "own" many of our public amenities & services.

In theory we do but we don't have any real control over them. People don't feel any connection to society today because the type of society we live in doesn't encourage any kind of civic duty or pride. It encourages greed and avarice. Most people cannot live up to the expectations that this society plants in their heads, so they become bitter and alienated.

[BohsPartisan]

Maybe this discussion is confused. What is the difference between communism & socialism?

The "Communist" states in eastern europe were as far from being communist in the real sense of the word as they were from being democratic. Only the economic base they rested upon bore any similarity to Socialism. For the difference between Stalinism and real Socialism or Communism refer to what I was saying about Workers' Democracy or the below article.

50 Years since workers' revolt against Stalinism in Hungary

As for what the word Communism actualy means, well Communism is the highest form of Socialism. It is a stage that can only be arrived at when there are no classes so no need for the repressive aparatus of the state as we know it. It can also only occur on an international basis. The lower stage of Socialism stems from the democratic Workers' state that would be established when workers take power. There would still be classes at this stage so the state would still exist as an instrument of class rule, only this time it would be workers' democracy instead of capitalist democracy and the ruling class would be the majority - workers.
For a more thorough going over of the subject have a look at Chapter 5 of Lenin's The State and Revolution

As for your ascertation that the Race to the Bottom is not taking place, that is a fiction. I have relatives who work as builders who are out of work for long spells because migrant workers are being used to undercut wages in that industry.

[pete]

If the debate comes down to a choice between the purest form of socialism & its capitalist equivalent then people will usually choose Capitalism. Socialism sounds great on paper but you ignore the competitive nature of human beings. People strive to achieve in exchange for reward.

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.

[Dr.Nightdub]

See Pete, you're back to "the competitive nature of human beings" - who's says that's our nature?

Anthropology throws some interesting light on this. In primitive tribes, co-operation is what comes naturally to them - I remember reading once about some researchers in the nineteenth century trying to do IQ tests on Sioux children, they got totally cheesed off when the kids started showing each other the right answers instead of being "naturally" compeitive.

The reason such studies are important are cos they focus on people who haven't learned the behaviours necessary to keep your head above water under capitalism - competition, selfishness, etc; they paint of picture of what people were like before capitalism mucked up their heads. That's not to say I want us all to go back to wearing loincloths - it's just another challenge to the view that "human nature" is something universal and static.

[BohsPartisan]

Exactly. If there is any one word to describe human nature then that word is Change. If human nature wasn't adaptable to new situations then evolution as a theory would be kaput.
Plus its not as if when revolutionary situations arise people are sitting down with a piece of paper with one saying Capitalism and one saying Socialism and you have to tick one or the other. Revolutionary situations arise when class antagonisms are at their highest I.E. when the interests of the main contending classes are so starkly shown to be incompatable that people revolt. This sounds like science fiction to someone who is only used to looking at the world around them and assuming things are always the same but if you take the long view of history you will see that this is the norm. Each society was a product of the class that was dominant in it and was made in its likeness. When a new class came on the scene and became economically dominant it for a while would co-exist under the leadership of the old ruling class until such a time as the old ruling class was an impediment on its further developement. This is what happened in Europe with the rise of Capitalism. The Bourgeoisie for a time supported feudal and semi-feudal monarchy's because they were gramted certain concessions and were able to live reasonably comfortable lives. However when the feudal structure impeded the developement of Capitalism, the new mode of production needed to break free of its political fetters. For the last century the Working class has been economically the most powerfull class in society. When it withdraws its labour Society stops and there is nothing the capitalists can do about it. At times enough concessions were given from above to the workers' movement to allow the development of reformism, workers' parties who based themselves on making sure the working class were well looked after under Capitalism. In doing this they supported the system. In the period between the end of WW2 and the oil crisis of the early 70's this seemed natural - economically and culturally this period resembled a working class version of the bourgeois rennaissance that happened in the 15th Century. However since the 1970's living standards on a world scale have been in decline as growth has slowed. Yes booms still happen but they are miniscule compared to the long boom between 1948 and 1973 (Possible because of the impetous given to the economy by the need to rebuild Europe after the war and the late arrival of the US as a major power able to extend credit to old powers in Europe.
The fall of the Soviet Union gave world Capitalism some respite from the class confrontations that were growing in the 70's and 80's but now relations are normalising. The downside for the working class is that all their old political and industrial organisations have either collapsed or sold out in the period where it seemed to many (not Marxists though) that the end of the cold war meant game over for the class struggle. There is therefore a desperate need for the class which is only slowly groping in the dark to regain its consciousness of itself as a class. The next step is to reclaim the unions from the bureaucratic clique who controll them and to build new mass workers' parties.
Paris in 1871, Russia in 1905 and 1917, Germany and Hungary and Limerick!!! in 1918 and 1919, Britain in 1926, Barcelona 1936, Hungary in 1956, France in 1968, Chile in 1973, Argentina in 2000, Bolivia in 2003 and 2005 and Venezuala on an ongoing basis are example of when workers' spontainiously moved to set up a parralel government to run society in the form of democratic workers' committees. In 1917 in Russia they had a revolutionary party at their head with the correct perspectives which was why the October Revolution succeeded where others failed. As Dr. Nightdub suggested you should read John Reed's 10 days that shook the world or Victor Serge's account of the Russian Revolution. Theres also France 1968: Month of Revolution by Clare Doyle. As a modern European example the May Revolution in France in 1968 is especially relevent to us here in Ireland. Unfortunately the Russian Revolution was isolated in a very backward country. If the German revolution succeeded things could have been very different. As long as Capitalism exists the boom and bust cycle will rule people's lives and class confrontation will inevitably happen. Opportunities for workers' democracy will arise again and it is essential that the class has a Party with the right perspectives at its head.

[rebs23]

Your views on this are of course always going to be influenced by what you believe about human nature but also about what you believe motivates people.

People will want a reward for their endeavours in life. This reward that they recieve for their hard work or skill is what motivates them to work harder, study, create, etc. Remove the reward or the potential for reward and they become demotivated. It is for this reason that capitalist democracies are the more creative, hard working societies because people are rewarded for their skills, attitude and aptitude. If I work harder, have the skills etc then I want to be reawrded for my endeavours above the individual who is either not capable or has no interest.

Socialism I feel has never adaquately addressed these individual factors because by it's very nature it is more concerned with the collective. This concern with the collective over the individual also leads to less freedoms or the restriction of personal freedoms such as the right to trade, travel and speech. It also leads to the bullying of the individual by the collective.

Fortunately people will always recognise the flaws in a socialist ideal as it removes freedoms from the individual and rewards the collective at the lowest common denominator. This is why socialism as a way of strucuring society is a dead duck.

Where socialism or socialists do have a role to play is challenging some of the excesses of the capitalist society and campaigning on single issue politics. That is where it has its greatest success making governments/people sit up and take notice that certain issues whether it is housing issues, war in iraq, environmental issues etc need addressing.

As for your comments sonofstan about us corkies, your half right, there is very poor support for left wing politics in Cork. Probably down to historical factors but I suppose the structure of the city and county is a lot different than Dublin, Limerick or even Waterford. Can't really put my finger on it but I am always struck by how similar Cork and Galway are and view life as opposed to the other 3 cities. Work a lot in Limerick and it has a completely more militant trade unionist tradition as does Waterford.
It would make a good debate the differences between the cities, etc.

[Lim till i die]

It would make a good debate the differences between the cities, etc.

That debate would crash in flames within seconds of starting

As for human nature, surely one of the most basic instincts is survival?? What about a socialist system where the laziness which has been mentioned above is just not tolerated??

People can also strive for success for the sense of smug self-satisfaction it brings. It needn't always be about monetary gain. That's something which the capitalist system has imbedded in everyones brain

[BohsPartisan]

Socialism I feel has never adaquately addressed these individual factors because by it's very nature it is more concerned with the collective. This concern with the collective over the individual also leads to less freedoms or the restriction of personal freedoms such as the right to trade, travel and speech.

There are many, many writings on this subject in the Marxist lexicon. Marx and Engels themselves wrote extensively on them. Lenin and Trotsky wrote on them in the revolutionary days of Russia when these subjects were of direct relevence to everyday life. Other notable thinkers who wrote on the subject are Antonio Gramsci and Lev Vygotsky. It seems you haven't bothered reading the majority of this thread because the subject of human nature has been dealt extensively with by Dr ND and myself. Our side of the arguement is backed up by anthropological evidence. You probably feel that your side is backed up by "common sense" but in reality is derived from the mindset that capitalist society engenders.
There is no contradiction either between the bettering of the collective and giving more freedom to the individual. In fact they go hand in hand. In capitalist society the majority of people are so locked into the struggle for everyday survival that they can never experience freedom. In Socialist society, the demeaning aspect life is removed and people can be truelly free to express themselves.

It also leads to the bullying of the individual by the collective.

The rule of the majority over the minority? Isn't that the essense of democracy?

Fortunately people will always recognise the flaws in a socialist ideal as it removes freedoms from the individual and rewards the collective at the lowest common denominator. This is why socialism as a way of strucuring society is a dead duck.

People will not "always" do anything. A quick look at the historical developement of society will show that values change along with society.

To quote Mumia Abu Jamal:
"Contrary to popular belief, conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires.... But what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit"

When we are on the subject of peoples' attitudes to Socialism and revolution have a look at this article about the current happenings in Mexico.

Popular Assemblies

[pete]

Our side of the arguement is backed up by anthropological evidence. You probably feel that your side is backed up by "common sense" but in reality is derived from the mindset that capitalist society engenders.

You can't just dismiss someones opinion saying they polluted by capitalist mindset.

Socialism seems to be all theory & no practice as I can't identify a current socialist state. Cuba is communist so if they have an apparent good health system that not really a socialist success? I need practical examples...

The most successful countries are mixed economies - good free market policies to encourage the private sector but state intervention to fill the gaps.

[BohsPartisan]

Socialism seems to be all theory & no practice as I can't identify a current socialist state. Cuba is communist so if they have an apparent good health system that not really a socialist success? I need practical examples...

It is quite the opposite Pete. Marxists are Philosophically Dialectical Materialists. This means our starting point is within society, how society has developed and on hard economic data. The most successful Capitalist economists concede that Marx was right in his characterisation of the Capitalist system in his work "Capital". Anthropologists generally agree with Engels' work on their subject. Check out Stephen Jay Gould for example. He essentially uses a Marxist method in his work because it is the most scientific approach to problems of society and evolution.
As to wheter people would co-operate given the right social milieu, all society was co-operative in nature until the rise of class society between six and four thousand years ago. That is to say that for the majority of the time humans were on the planet they organised their societies in a co-operative manner. Without co-operation we never would have evolved from our origins as monkeys. This is an essential part of our nature.
A lengthy addition to the debate by Albert Einstein, who himself supported Socialism.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished...
If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary...
Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

[rebs23]

I have bothered reading this thread, with difficulty at times but when you discussed Human Nature you did not address Motivation.

I have asked this question at the start of this debate and I will ask it again how can a socialist society protect the rights of the individual to free speech, trade and travel?

How is seizing the property of companies going to motivate any individual to make any product or to advance technology etc? What effect will this seizing of the means of production mean for our economy?

How will a socialist society remove the demeaning aspect of life. What is the demeaning aspect of life that you refer to? work??

Why should I get rewarded the same as someone with less skill, knowledge, attitude and aptitude?

You are clearly completely obsessed with socialism and its ideology, or at least your or your partys version of it.

Maybe its time to reflect a bit and realise the world is not so black and white that there is a lot of grey in relation to human nature and the differences between individuals, how we are all motivated differently, think differently, etc and that there is merit in different ideologies and viewpoints given certain circumstances and issues.

For all its faults a capitalist democracy gives people oppurtunities to prosper, work, travel, speech, etc that have never been available in any model of socialism that has ever existed. Where there are oppurtunities to prosper it will attract the more educated, intelligent, hard working etc An oppurtunity to be effectively the same as everyone else, to me is very frightening.

You are constantly trying to convince us that Eastern Europe, China, etc , etc are not true reflections of Socialism and are trying to convince us that your untried model of Socialism would give us this marvelous society. Now where have people heard that before, asking us to believe that your model of society will work, a model that has at its core the same principles as these failed countries.

People will never buy into it again and your intolerance of other viewpoints, to me is frightening. Remember the Gulags!

[BohsPartisan]

Remember the Gulags!

That is the most moronic contribution to the debate so far. The first people in the Gulags were Socialists, Bolsheviks in fact, the people who made the revolution. Stalinism was counter-revolutionary, a retreat from Socialism.

I have bothered reading this thread, with difficulty at times but when you discussed Human Nature you did not address Motivation. !

Yes I did.

As I said before, the incentive for the majority under Capitalism is to starve or not to starve, to be destitute or not to be destitute. People are pitted against each other in a bitter struggle to survive. Who can work for the least wages, who can put one over on his brother or sister. Under Socialism the incentive is for the community to work together to better themselves collectively. It is a genuine opportunity to better yourself. Under capitalism bettering yourself can be as crass as having one more car than your neighbour. Under Socialism bettering yourself means unbending your back and joining the human race, appreciating and enjoying the finer aspects of civilisation and having the time to do so. In the present only the minority, the oligarchy can do this, yet their pitting of man against man somehow makes them inhuman still

How is seizing the property of companies going to motivate any individual to make any product or to advance technology etc?

If you work for Microsoft and you come up with a new way of making computers faster your innovation belongs to Microsoft not you. Where is the motivation there? The end product will be that Bill Gates and the Shareholders of Microsoft make massive profits while you at best will get a miniscule (in terms of the real value of your work) raise. If you innovate under Socialism and this innovation benefits society, you will see a real raise in your living standards and you will have the satisfaction of getting the praise of your peers for raisng their living standards too.
After the revolution in Russia when there was still elements of Workers' Democracy, the Soviets (workers' councils) organised Communist Saturdays. People were asked to voluntarily give up a few hours to help rebuild the country's infrastructure that had been destroyed during the war. Guess what, people did it because they had a sense of ownership of their republic.

What effect will this seizing of the means of production mean for our economy?

The main effect will be that the aims of the economy will be to provide for the wants and needs of everyone rather than a profit for a tiny minority. Technology will be used to raise the productivity of labour. The boom bust cycle that is endemic of Capitalism will be ended. Because can never afford to buy back the full product of their labour under capitalism, there will always be crisis of overproduction. That we have huge surplusses of goods and at the same time people starving and homeless in the world shows what a sick and illogical system we live under.

Why should I get rewarded the same as someone with less skill, knowledge, attitude and aptitude?

Who said that would happen?

You are clearly completely obsessed with socialism and its ideology, or at least your or your partys version of it.

I am a revolutionary socialist. The world we live in, the environment is being destroyed by the system we live under. Peoples lives are being destroyed on a daily basis by this profit system. I see a viable alternative, what for me is the only realistic alternative and I will pursue that for the rest of my life, or at least until it is achieved. I call that commitment.

People will never buy into it again and your intolerance of other viewpoints, to me is frightening.

There you go again speaking for "people". Its the crux of your arguement. People will always do this, people will never do that. If Capitalism were to be the finished stage of human society it would completely buck the trend of history, yet you still persist in using illogical arguements that are devoid of any real facts. You keep speaking of a freedom that for the vast majority of the human race is but a dream. Billions of people do not have enough food or adequate shelter. There are millions if not billions dying of curable diseases because there is no profit in providing them with free drugs. Even in advanced countries from the day you enter the education system you are moulded into an efficient means of creating surplus value. In these factories of education you are robbed of everything that makes you an individual and forced to conform, to adopt a herd mentality. The mass media is controlled by billionaires who feed us propaganda every day of our lives because if people really start thinking for themselves those billionaires will be in trouble. Every day I see people on packed trains coughing and spluttering, eyes like p1$$ holes in the snow as they are shipped off to glass cages in the city to work to keep the captains of industry in Golf Clubs and Yachts. And this freedom you talk of? For the majority its a two week holiday in a manufactured resort the media tells you that you want to go to, (Fair enough, some people steer clear of resorts and I try to myself but sometimes you can't afford to.) two days spent recovering from your week at work as a weekend? Commuter hell? 30 or 40 year mortgages? Constant financial worry? Great idea of freedom you have there.

[Dr.Nightdub]

I have asked this question at the start of this debate and I will ask it again how can a socialist society protect the rights of the individual to free speech, trade and travel?

Rebs, maybe you're confusing socialism with eastern-European communism, I'm not sure, but what makes you think the rights to free speech or travel wouldn't be protected? Suggest you go back and read what's been written earlier in the thread regarding the socialist view of democracy - free speech is an implicit part of that. And as regards travel, socialism as the likes of Bohs Partisan or myself see it simply couldn't exist without freedom to travel, to exchange ideas, goods, services, etc with people from other countries.

Trade is a trickier one. The way it worked out in practice in rural Republican Spain in the 1930s was like this: entire villages voted to collectivise their efforts, pool their land (or that of their recently and hastily-departed landlords), tools, machinery, farm animals, whatever and put them to work developing the land for the benefit of all.

There was stress on the VOLUNTARY nature of this co-operation so anyone was free to opt out and go off and farm their "own" bit of land and exchange their produce for whatever they needed from the rest of the village. There was a catch though: because wage labour had been abolished, they couldn't just employ some skivvy for next to nothing to do all the hard work for them while they sat back and gave orders, if they wanted to stand on their own two feet they had to do it themselves.

Without wanting to go into the whole labour theory of value, the "price" of anything depended on the amount of work that had gone into it - not what it could be sold for. So in theory, they had total freedom to trade what they produced individually against what the village produced collectively. So not surprisingly, very few saw any practical benefit in doing solo runs.

Why should I get rewarded the same as someone with less skill, knowledge, attitude and aptitude?

More importantly, why should anyone be denied the opportunity to develope their skill, knowledge and aptitude cos of restricted access to education? A more direct answer to your question brings us back to the principle I stated in an earlier post: "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."

Supposing you and Joe Bloggs have been given equal access to education, but you've just got more aptitude for something than him - does that mean that while he needs three meals a day, you need six? And suppose he has more aptitude than you for something completely different - does that mean he suddenly needs six meals a day as well? Of course not.

I think you're asking the wrong question: the way I'd phrase the question is "How can you justify pandering to one person's greed when another is starving?"

[Dr.Nightdub]

Just thinking in general terms about this thread and I can't help wondering if it wouldn't help if we defined some terms, just so that at least we're all discussing the same thing.

When people talk about "socialism", they generally mean one of three things:

1. The kind of socialism represented by Pat Rabbitte or Tony Blair, or more properly, the old-style Labour Party in Britain, which looks at moving things along gradually within the confines of capitalism. So you get more state provision of services, more state-owned industries, etc, etc but effectively the whole set-up still runs and operates according to the confines of capitalism. Call this one "reformism" for shorthand. But go a step too far and you end up like Salvador Allende in Chile, in the basement of a football stadium. So not much future in that one.

2. The kind of socialism represented by Stalin and Mao, the whole evil empire side of things. Call it "communism" for shorthand. I'm not presuming to speak for Bohs Partisan, but anyone wanting to slag off that kind of set-up would have to get in a queue behind me for definite and him 99.9% more than likely.

How what started off in Russia in 1917 ended up like that is a whole nother thread in itself, but what it ended up as is most definitely NOT what he and I mean by socialism. I'd call it state capitalism, he may have a different but similar term for it. In effect, the competition between individual capitalist firms was replaced by competition between two blocs of capital, one in private hands, one ostensibly in public hands but without the essential element of democratic control and so effectively in the hands of a self-serving bureaucratic elite. Boo hiss in any event.

3. The kind of socialism aspired to by Bohs Partisan and myself, where even though we may have slightly differing ideas of how to get from A to B, we probably want to end up in much the same place. It's a place that depends very heavily on freedom - both "freedom to" and "freedom from". It depends on participation and on democratic control (all that "By the people, for the people" stuff that folks currently get teased by but never quite get to having). It depends on setting aside the pursuit of profit for a few as the main driving force for society and replacing it with the pursuit of the common good.

Trotsky would be the main poster boy for this school of socialism - and the very fact that he was implacably opposed to Stalin, right up to his death, should propmpt some thinking among those who equate "socialism" with "communism". But there have been many wider-spread examples of nudges in the right direction, many of which have already been quoted in the thread, and none of which (unfortunately) got to develop very far. Just so that everyone's clear, when I talk about "socialism", I'm referring to this school of thought.

[Dr.Nightdub]

OK, my last contribution on this for tonight...

Socialism seems to be all theory & no practice as I can't identify a current socialist state. Cuba is communist so if they have an apparent good health system that not really a socialist success? I need practical examples...

Pete, you can't identify any cos there aren't any. Unfortunately for the world, socialist revolutions have a crap home record when it comes to international fixtures:

1917, Russia: invaded by thirteen foreign armies, industry destroyed - civil war, famine and Stalin being the full time scores.

1936, Spain: crushed by Franco, whose team was bolstered by Mussolini and Hitler declaring for Spain under the fascist granny rule.

1959, Cuba: team of local boys defied all the odds, beat off an attempted comeback by American visitors who dropped the ball, ended up threatening to call the big, fat, balding but nuclear-capable Russian centre-forward off the bench; a draw. Home ground still lacks tons in terms of human rights and democracy (hello? naming your bro as your heir?) but you gotta admire Team Ché's spirit and work ethic. Tried playing an away match in Bolivia, didn't end well.

1979, Nicaragua: starved out by counter-attacking Contras bankrolled by Reagan Abrahmovic. Victory here helped consolidate the USA's grip on the World (Cup)

See the common thread? Every time someone starts off down the road to socialism, they get hit with the political equivalent of a two-footed studs-up Alan Reynolds lunge and the refs almost invariably turn a blind eye.

[BohsPartisan]

And I can see the next question already - If the US won't tolerate these revolutions are they doomed to failure? Lets look at the Russian example as DrNightdub pointed out they were invaded by 13 invading armies. The US, Britain, France, Germany (Hello weren't Germany the enemy only one year previously), Hungary, Czechoslovakia among them. Yet the Red Army won. Why was this? In part due to the revolutionary enthusiasm of the Red Army, in part due to the demoralisation of the white army and foreign troops, and in part because of international solidarity. French sailors mutineed and raised the red flag, British Soldiers refused to fight and docckers in Britain blacked ships supplying the war, the German Proletariat and Hungarian proletariat revolted at home and their armies had to withdraw.
How does that translate onto today? Imagine a continent spanning revolution in Latin America (I use this example because there is huge support for Socialism there and the class struggle is well and truelly on the agenda). Obviously the US would want to intervene but two things would stand in its way.
1. It is militarily overstretched in the middle east and the army is highly demoralised. A lot of these guys are economic conscripts from impoverished backgrounds. They would become even more demoralised fighting a motivated revolutionary force who were defending the things the poor american soldiers aspired to and could easily mutiny.

2. The demographics of many US cities include large poor latino populations. Trying to crush the Latin American revolution could bring revolt to the doorstep of the Empire itself. Latinos are already the most militant force in US society as it is.

[paul_oshea]

actors in general are socialists, why is that you ask? because they either have loads of money or none, and when you have no money its great to share stuff out and have a broad view of free transport, free this, free that. when you have nothing sharing with those who have more is a great concept.

communisim and socialsim dont take into account our basic instinct - greed. based on maslows hierarchy of needs, once ones need is met we instinctively raise the bar to the next need.....and so on and so forth......so we are ALWAYS wanting more. that is why capitalism gives you that opportunity ( to get more ), and though I don't usually agree with pete, what he is saying makes perfect sense and sums up the downfall of communism and socialism.

Animals and humans thrive on reward, when a dog has been good you give him a treat, to train a guide dog or a sniffer dog to do what you want you give him a treat.....this grows and grows....again this is what makes capitalism so strong.

Anthropology throws some interesting light on this. In primitive tribes, co-operation is what comes naturally to them - I remember reading once about some researchers in the nineteenth century trying to do IQ tests on Sioux children, they got totally cheesed off when the kids started showing each other the right answers instead of being "naturally" compeitive.

The reason such studies are important are cos they focus on people who haven't learned the behaviours necessary to keep your head above water under capitalism - competition, selfishness, etc; they paint of picture of what people were like before capitalism mucked up their heads. That's not to say I want us all to go back to wearing loincloths - it's just another challenge to the view that "human nature" is something universal and static.

one study is hardly the basis for all human kind and how we work though in fairness....one set of people....

[pete]

All these big words hurt my head so going to come back to basics. The State services are the closest we get to full on socialism & back & large they are hopeless - i can't name a state service that is run well & cost effectively. This particularily relevant as i travelled out of dublin airport yesterday but thats for a different thread.

[BohsPartisan]

communisim and socialsim dont take into account our basic instinct - greed. .

This has been covered by me and Dr. ND. Read the thread. We have given many examples that counter this arguement. There is NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for the arguement that we are inherintly greedy. All anthropological evidence points in the opposite direction. The basic human instincts are to survive and to co-operate. Capitalist society encourages greed. Even within Capitalist society, human co-operation and solidarity can not be snuffed out. Why do people give their time voluntarily to sports clubs, special interest societies, trade unions, political parties with no personal gain? Why do people work for and give to charities, why do people give blood? I spend a lot of time after long days of work on Socialist Party activities. I'm usually knackered, I get nothing material out of it yet I do it gladly despite the fact that it I could be doing other stuff for myself.

[paul_oshea]

As for your comments sonofstan about us corkies, your half right, there is very poor support for left wing politics in Cork. Probably down to historical factors but I suppose the structure of the city and county is a lot different than Dublin, Limerick or even Waterford. Can't really put my finger on it but I am always struck by how similar Cork and Galway are and view life as opposed to the other 3 cities. Work a lot in Limerick and it has a completely more militant trade unionist tradition as does Waterford.
It would make a good debate the differences between the cities, etc.

all the crusties and hippies live in galway. so I would say they are more left wing.....