Blair's Book

[P.K.]

Keep digging boys. Fill those sandbags. Get those revetments up. Get that wire deployed.

 

Don't forget to fix bayonets...

[La_Dolce_Vita]

So socialism is communism in your book. Well I like communists even less than I like socialists.

What I described is socialism. You can go and look up communism.

 

Having things that everybody needs like s NHS given by the government is ok but I don't think much beyond the essent5ials should be given by the NHS. Same with state welfare. All the state should deliver are the bare essentials. Nowt else. Let people dog paddle or swim. Dont let them drown, dont give them water wings. If they want water wings let them get them for thesmselves.

Ok, so you're quite happy with socialist practices in small doses where capitalism does not provide?

[ballaughbiker]

Why has everything got be argued as though its a black and white situation? You even hear on the radio about "the rich" and "the poor" as though they are two distinct groups and you are either in one or the other.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

LDV you are just proving what I said, nothing is black and white, not everything has to follow the text book example, things like capitalism, socialism and communism can and do live side by side and integrated together

You don't have communism nor socialist systems existing with a capitalist one. What you have of recent are socialist methods that HAVE to be adopted to mitigate the effects of capitalism on the worker. Capitalism creates unemployment - unemployment benefit; capitalist practices result in increasing wealth inequality and suppression of wages - welfare and benefit payments; and those with power and influence have historically made use of capitalist AND socialist practices whenever it has benefitted them to the detriment of society - the financial crisis and bail outs are an example of this.

 

you do not have to have clear boundries, the whole point about virtually all societies is that people for the most can pick bits of each system as the feel like doing and live their life quite happily like this.

When you say 'people', are you really talking about you and me? What is it you pick and choose? I think you'll find it is you who picks and chooses at all.

 

Just for once accept that someones views and ideals do not conform to what you see and expect and allow them to be individuals even if it does not compute in your idealistic mind. Our lifestyle is about as far from vanilla as you can get and would freak a lot out but it works for us and has done for 28yrs, therefore for us it is perfect and the same happens to life and society in general. It is about time you stopped fussing about how other people live and think and got on with your own life.

It might seem to work for YOU. It doesn't work for most people. Most people are not happy with the status quo. And am I really to take seriously your advice that one should only care about he/she lives their life. Judging from your posts, it has always been the case that you have cared a great deal for how others get by - don't you have a problem with 'scroungers' and 'criminals'?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Why has everything got be argued as though its a black and white situation? You even hear on the radio about "the rich" and "the poor" as though they are two distinct groups and you are either in one or the other.

Good point. They are not completely distinct. But what you do have is a very small minority of those who hold a great deal of wealth and the vast majority who have very little. Strangely in Britain, the dominant thinking portrays a small group of poor and a small group of rich and then everyone else in this almost satisfied and natural middle.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I think Spook dislikes "from each according to their ability to each according to their need"

You believe that's a coercive maxim though. You mentioned it before in a discussion of communism but I have never understand how you think this phrase implied coerciveness.

 

I'd say that bald statement is communism - though I suspect LDV would add it to the anarchist pantheon - honest question - is anarchism a way to achieve communism?

Anarcho-communists would argue that the best society that can be achieved would be a communist one, but that it would have to be achieved through revolution without any vanguard party that Leninist and Trotskyists prescribe.

 

When a government decides what people's abilities and needs are that is socialism. I don't think you necessarily need state control of the means of production for socialism - but the state does provide services - the level of this intervention varies and certainly many left wingers beleive state ownership is necessary, but its a spectrum and many socialists are fine with privatized industries.

The use of the term socialist and socialist when associated with the use of government to take over the means of production is a change in meaning that came in the twentieth century. It is what most people now understand as socialism.

I think people's attitudes to socialism depends on the level of state control.

 

When the government is democratic and provides reasonable social welfare; while maintaining the impartiality of the law and defence of the state, most people are willing to let a certain amount of socialism into their lives.

I think few could even sanction the end of socialist practices. What would happen if welfare benefits and social care was removed? It wouldn't be acceptable.

 

But when the state starts to control more and more it becomes increasingly inefficient and brutal in its removal of autonomy from people. Then socialism turns into tyranny.

But as State power decreases the tyranny of private interests becomes even greater. And wages workers are already under the tyranny of their employers in non-democratic workplaces.

 

LDV - you feel there is a far better way to organize the world than capitalism - I'm not sure quite how you hold this belief: you definitely don't have any evidence for it - and you are so critical of religious believers!

My beliefs don't rest on anything quite so extraordinary as a God, let alone a Christian or Muslim God. In these cases there is no evidence and something extraordinary would be required as evidence for them.

I feel that there must be a better way to organise the economic system in recognition of the fact that the current system so clearly fails people in so many respects. That it is unsustainable in its current guise and although evolving it does appear to be further reducing the power of the majority who contribute to it.

 

My attitude is that certainly alot of people's working life is as uninspiring as can be - my idea of progress is to allow people to achieve more from their lives, but quite frankly I can't see how you can easily change the reality of drugery - that has been the history of man's lot on this planet and I definitely do think the drudgery of the working classes now is a lot lot better than the drudgery of a Medieval serf or a Vicotrian mill worker.

It is in certain respects. The modern worker more likely produces in a safer environment, works less hours, has more breaks, and in the case of a comparative with the mill worker has a greater disposable income. (Of course, with the exception of the last instance they have all had to be fought for.) But the role of the waged worker in the capitalist society is what I believe largely contributes to the attitude to work as being drudgery - in the erosion of an awareness the social relations between workers and what they produce, the relations of production.

[mæŋksmən]

ffs

[Terse]

ffs

What is the world coming to? The only sensible comment on a page of drivel and it comes from mæŋksmən!

[jimbms]

LDV you are just proving what I said, nothing is black and white, not everything has to follow the text book example, things like capitalism, socialism and communism can and do live side by side and integrated together

You don't have communism nor socialist systems existing with a capitalist one. What you have of recent are socialist methods that HAVE to be adopted to mitigate the effects of capitalism on the worker. Capitalism creates unemployment - unemployment benefit; capitalist practices result in increasing wealth inequality and suppression of wages - welfare and benefit payments; and those with power and influence have historically made use of capitalist AND socialist practices whenever it has benefitted them to the detriment of society - the financial crisis and bail outs are an example of this.

 

you do not have to have clear boundries, the whole point about virtually all societies is that people for the most can pick bits of each system as the feel like doing and live their life quite happily like this.

When you say 'people', are you really talking about you and me? What is it you pick and choose? I think you'll find it is you who picks and chooses at all.

 

Just for once accept that someones views and ideals do not conform to what you see and expect and allow them to be individuals even if it does not compute in your idealistic mind. Our lifestyle is about as far from vanilla as you can get and would freak a lot out but it works for us and has done for 28yrs, therefore for us it is perfect and the same happens to life and society in general. It is about time you stopped fussing about how other people live and think and got on with your own life.

It might seem to work for YOU. It doesn't work for most people. Most people are not happy with the status quo. And am I really to take seriously your advice that one should only care about he/she lives their life. Judging from your posts, it has always been the case that you have cared a great deal for how others get by - don't you have a problem with 'scroungers' and 'criminals'?

 

faber est quisque fortunae suae

[Lonan3]

Quandoquidem inter nos sanctissima divitiarum maiestas, esti funesta pecunia templo nondum habitas.

[jimbms]

Quandoquidem inter nos sanctissima divitiarum maiestas, esti funesta pecunia templo nondum habitas.

Give the lad a chance Lonan he is only just drying behind his ears.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

As opposed to getting old and having a dried out brain.

[Lonan3]

As opposed to getting old and having a dried out brain.

I was half-expecting a witty response from you.

 

 

I really should have known better.

[Chinahand]

I think Spook dislikes "from each according to their ability to each according to their need"

You believe that's a coercive maxim though. You mentioned it before in a discussion of communism but I have never understand how you think this phrase implied coerciveness.

 

It will always require a cohersive system as it doesn't value people's ability and it has no system to deal with limited availability.

 

You are an idealist who assumes there will always be enough for everyone and no one will have to rank their needs and compromise on not having B because they prefer A more.

 

Have you ever read any micro-economics with indifferent curves etc - which do you prefer 3 roast potatoes and two pieces of lamb or two patoatoes and 3 pieces of lamb.

 

As soon as you do that you get a concept of value and because people are different with different circumstances they value things differently. When people have differential values they can exchange with both sides feeling they've gained - its called non-zero sum.

 

Your anarchism doesn't recognise this - you see everything as a zero-sum game and hence profit has to be taken from someone and given to someone else: that's simplistic and only values a part of the equation.

 

An example

 

John wants to buy a certain type of car - he won't pay more than £5000 for it.

Fred wants to sell a car such a car - he won't sell it for less than £3000.

 

These two people can make a non-zero sum deal - there is a zero sum portion to it: they'll haggle between £3000 and £5000 and every penny John gets Fred to drop his price is a profit he makes out of him, but at the end of the day they'll come to an agreement both are happy with - that is the non-zero-sum portion of the deal and it is the important one. If there was no overlap you couldn't have them come to an agreement, you'd have to coercively force one to accept a deal they wouldn't agree to voluntarily.

 

"From each according to his ability, to each according to need" cannot distinguish the zero-sum from the non-zero-sum - needs are not defined and so have to be defined outside of the system - either by the government or some anarchist social pressure to conform for the good of society (whatever that means).

 

The result is that as the least able will get things no matter what, the more able have to supply those no matter what.

 

It is a scroungers charter.

 

Ability has worth and that is simply not recognized in your philosophy.

 

You've said a few times that you don't recognise the value of working - and your political philosophy thinks people should provide value to others with out the effort of that being recognized. The result is that either people won't work, or they will have to be coerced into doing it. Your system will result in either destitution or coercion.

 

You feel, in the current system, that the efforts of the workers aren't being recognized - but they don't have to work - they can go and do the Good Life thing and provide for themselves - on state benefits too! But that is a limited life - if they want more then they have to value their time - is it worth it to sacrficing a day to get paid to be able to buy something. Those decisions creates the non-zero-sum cycle.

 

You say that's not fair and that people shouldn't have to work; they should have their needs provided for them, but purely and simply we live in a world of limited resources and that is just not possible.

 

With limited resources people will value their needs differentially and that creates the essence we call money. Anarchism cannot get rid of that without enforcing common standards and that will mean coercing people to provide those standards even when they do not believe it is worth their effort to do so.

 

Look at the history of social engineering LDV - you do not base your beliefs on evidence or reality, you don't even have a theoretical underpinning to your ideology which can be modelled and compared with reality. Its a cloud cuckoo land theology which you hold for just as irrational reasons as any zealot.

 

How does your system work? What would your revolution attempt to do? What will you reform society into. You cannot answer any of these questions.

 

You say your ideology is not coercive - well explain how it would work then?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

As opposed to getting old and having a dried out brain.

I was half-expecting a witty response from you.

 

I really should have known better.

Why would a witty/jocular response be better. I am explaining it as I see it. Jimbms and others think they are profound and accurate when they repeat oft-repeated phrases that only explain that as you get older you stop giving a toss about the way the world is. And that ideas like mine are the preserve of the naive. Yet judging from Jimbms's replied, I doubt he has ever had a political understanding broader than what it given in the daily newspapers. Sorry Jimbms.