A Few Thoughts On Socialism, Since The Matter Has Lately Come Up....

[The Magistrate]

In society, no person has the right to injure others for their personal benefit. Everyone recognizes this in the case of a stick-up artist with a pistol in his hand and a snarl of 'Gimmie yer wallet!" on his lips. But a great many things flow from any serious attempt to apply this principle universally. For at the core of our present economic practices is the blunt statement that ownership conveys the right to do injury to others for one's own gain. Indeed, this is even raised to the status of an imperative, presented as something a person does not just have the right to do, but something a person is right to do, and ought to do, whatever the promptings of personal conscience, or protests by those it is done to, might otherwise dictate. An owner who pays cut-throat wages; an owner who lays off workers to increase a profit margin; an owner who looses poisons on the land; an owner who shirks taxation: all these do real injury to fellow citizens, and do it for their own gain. People who do these things constrict the lives of others, disrupt and unsettle the lives of others, inflict illness and its attendant costs on others, force others to open their pockets further to the tax collector, and they do them for no better or different motive than the stick-up artist: they want more money than they have at present, and no scruple whatever in effecting that desire, whatever the harm done to another in its fulfillment.

The chief difference between the case of the stick-up artist and the grasping owner is not the different style of their methods of aggrandizing themselves at the expense of their fellows. The chief difference in their situations is the attitude of the state in which they operate. The state takes an adversarial relation to the stick-up artist: police hunt them, courts jail them. The state does no such thing with the grasping owner: the state is the grasping owner's friend, it is in very fact the pistol in his hand. It is by means of the state that the owner can effect his injuries to others, and the owner depends on the state for his very existence. For the very fact of ownership, the secure possession of a great deal of valuable property in the face of those with less property, or none at all, requires the power of the state, and the exertion of state power on the owner's behalf. Nothing is more puerile and false than the claim of owners that they arise and exist independently of the state, that they owe it nothing, that the state is even their adversary. Without the armed power of the state, the habit of obedience to the state, and the civil order this maintains, it would not be possible for an owner to act in ways that injure many other citizens, indeed, it would be scarcely possible to main concentrations of ownership such that one individual owned a good deal more than others. Equilibrium would be restored, and maintained, by that simplest tool of mass numbers, the mob.

Capital is simply value in excess of immediate consumption, fixed for storage in some durable form for later use, whether that be something so basic as pile of food or so esoteric as a piece of paper people have agreed to regard as more valuable than some other piece of paper. Humankind has been accumulating surplus value ever since the species commenced its existence, and the piles have gotten rather large. They are essential to any complex society. A great deal of what people in society need done, and want done, does not have any immediate pay-off, whatever it may bring in time. While engaged in such doings, people must still eat, be clothed and sheltered, amuse themselves. That is done out of the accumulated surplus, which is replenished by the proceeds of the ventures they are engaged in when these come to fruition, and produce a value greater than what has been consumed in the course of its production. The accumulations of surplus value are the enablers of complex social orders, the engine which moves social activity, and the augmentation of surplus value is the nearest thing to a collective purpose for a complex social order.

That this surplus value should be regarded as a private possession, and the increase of it wrought by the labor of many go into the purses of those who claim it as a private possession, is hardly necessary to its function in society. Tended by stewards rather than held by owners it would perform exactly the same function, and produce exactly the same benefits, for the society around it. It is undoubtedly true that some people would be better at superintending the employment of a society's surplus value than others; there is no field of human endeavor in which differentials in aptitude and skill cannot be discerned. But a system of private ownership of the accumulations of surplus value no more guarantees it will be in hands best suited to manage it than a system of private 'ownership' of the state (in the forms of autocracy or hereditary monarchy) guarantees the state will be well governed. In any society, it swiftly becomes the case that most who enjoy private ownership of large portions of accumulated surplus do so through inheritance, through accident of birth into a privileged class of owners. "No damned nonsense about merit" attends their position as those who possess, direct, and personally profit from, the accumulated surplus that is the heart of the society they exist within, or their position at the apex of it.

A chief method by which the owners of the accumulated surplus value defend their private possession of it is by blurring the concepts of property in capital goods and property in personal effects. They pretend that to deprive them of ownership of banks and factories and fleets of transport and great tracts of land is to deprive people of their personal possessions, and since the same word, 'property', is employed for both things, it is a fairly simple trick to pull off. They have been helped at times by ill-judged social movements who have in fact engaged in the same blurring from the opposite direction, and regarded a carter possessing a truck or a neighborhood baker possessing an oven as objects for expropriation equally with the owners of a fleet of several thousand trucks, or of a dozen factory ovens turning out millions of loaves and cakes each year. But a moment's reflection will disclose that these things are no more identical than a mouse and an elephant, and that the difference is the degree in which they are able by their possessions to impact the lives of others for good or ill. The small proprietor can do little in either direction, and must look the people he or she directly affects in the face: the great owner can do great good or great harm to great numbers, and to people he or she will never see.

It is perverse to the point of absurdity to attempt to seriously maintain decisions concerning how surplus value is to be deployed ought to be made without any concern for the general effects one use or another will have on the society in which it exists, and the people who comprise that society, and insist instead that the sole concern governing how surplus value is deployed ought to be getting more of it into one individual's pockets, whatever any other consequences might be. Actions which have great public effects are properly the concern of the public, and ought to be directed by the public, as the nearest thing possible to a positive assurance they will be made in the public interest. Once this is grasped, it is clear that the private owner of surplus value, and the aggrandizement of the private owner of surplus value, is an irrelevance, where it is not an active agent of harm. A public stewardship would have incentive to increase the accumulated surplus, for doing so is a public good, that enables a society to do more, and is essential to its growing larger and becoming more prosperous. A public stewardship would have no incentive to do this in a way that harmed large portions of the public, and indeed would be actively discouraged by the public from doing any such thing.

[InternalDialogue]

1. Thank you for the thoughtful exposition.

I am reminded of Derrick Jensen's premises, which revolve less around economics than around environmentalism. Nonetheless, premise four operates in both instances:

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

[The Magistrate]

3. That Last, Sir, Is An Excellent Observation

It accounts for a great deal of the reflexive reaction many display to someone like Col. Chavez in Venezuela. He is turning government power against those accustomed to wield it, and the novelty of this makes it a shocking and discomforting spectacle to many. Meanwhile, next door in Columbia, union and community organizers are routinely done to death with the open connivance of Uribe's government, and since this is simply 'business as usual', it occasions little more than mild murmers.

[TahitiNut]

44. OUr country has a long history of supporting regimes that quashed/oppressed labor.

Indeed, that was the seduction of Italian fascism, Batista, Pinochet, and a list as long as my arm in Latin America. Any regime that went against organized labor and granted (foreign/elite/colonial) 'ownership' entitlements enforced by the police powers of that regime was a-ok with the 'business interests' in the yew-ess-of-ay. Nicaragua. Guatamala. Haiti (thrice). Venezuela (thrice). and the list goes on.

[The Magistrate]

57. True, Sir

And it is a great wrong that that has been so. In the colonial period it was the normal usage of the world; during the Cold War it was to some degree understandable, though in my view poor policy and poorer strategy. At present there is no excuse for it whatever; it is not only a wrong on its face, but works directly against the interests of the people of our country.

[Idealism]

2. I am thankful that

the "Socialism" issue has not gained much traction among likely voters, because it is simply a non-starter. Every politician is a Socialist, if by the right wing definition of said term is to "spread the wealth." Earmarks are a classic example of this. Taxes, in a more indirect way are another. Something that bothers me is in this election people think Socialism equates to Communism or Fascism somehow, it is no such thing. Under Obama's tax plan, it doesn't limit your potential income, it just realigns the tax code to the more progressive tax structure we had under past presidents, while maintaining cuts for the middle-class (obvious, sorry.) Honestly I do not think a progressive tax is unfair at all; if our capitalistic system benefited you so much more than the average person, it is in your best interests to preserve that system. You ensure the posterity of the system by paying for it more. Simple

The Republican parties argument for Obama's tax plan being akin to Socialism is quite frankly indicative of their monetary policies: deficit spending and borrowing to sustain our government shopping sprees. This will not help pay off the trillions we owe to China, nor help the standard of living in this country, as it only has served to inflate the currency, therefore making it harder for the average American to afford basic needs. What the McCain camp calls socialism, I like to think it is more like responsibility.

[The Magistrate]

6. Well Said, Sir, And Welcome To the Forum!

You are correct, of course, that there is really nothing remotely Socialist about Sen. Obama's proposals, and it is likely this basic break with reality embodied in the charge is a leading reason why this carries little weight outside the ranks of imflamed persons constituting the Republican 'base'. Most people may not be too clear on what Socialism is (indeed, you can find pretty good arguments going on among Socialists themselves over that), but they do know that it is not the progressive-bracket tax structure we have had in this country since the income tax was instituted. For all the whimpering on the right that 'progressive taxes are part of the Communist Manifesto!', they long pre-date that: no less than Mr. Adam Smith recommends taxes be levied in proportion to the degree of prosperity enjoyed, on the ground that the more wealth and property a man holds, the more he benefits from the exertions of government, and it is only just he pay the upkeep in due proportion to that benefit.

[alarimer]

61. Taxes are simply the price we must pay for a civil society.

It is only right and fair that we all help pay for the things we need to operate as a society: roads, defense, police, fire, education, etc. It is progressive (but not socialist) that people who make more pay more. It is only fair, after all, since they wealthy have undoubtedly benefited from society. They SHOULD pay their fair share.

It is also ridiculous to increase spending while cutting taxes. That is not sustainable, as we have seen. We'd save a lot of money just by getting out of Iraq.

[Zhade]

91. I second the welcome. Great points.

NT!

[The Magistrate]

121. Thank You, Sir

Glad you saw this.

[Forkboy]

4. I'd like to add something thoughtful to this discussion.

But why start now?

Excellent post. Thanks.

[The Magistrate]

14. Thank You, Sir!

Glad you enjoyed it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. K&R

[Disturbed]

7. Socialism is another fear tactic that the RWing spwes out.

Most Americans have been brainwashed to hold that word in contempt & fear. The RWing has done everything it can do to keep the majority of Americans in fear of a concept that would actually benefit most Americans. Yes, the Class War is being won by the RWing Noise Machine.

[The Magistrate]

16. True, Sir: Class War Is Long Underway....

"The winners are at war with the losers, and the fix is in. The prospects of peace are awful."

[TexasObserver]

8. There's a reason Robin Hood is the hero, and the Sheriff of Nottingham isn't.

We inherently understand how wrong it is for people to starve because they can't eat game from the King's or the Lord's land, which was all the land. But make the story the modern ownership society and watch how those poor get much of the same.

Concentrations of wealth and power are bad. Spreading the wealth is good. Good for economics, good for politics, and good for society.

[The Magistrate]

10. Indeed, Sir

Once disparity of wealth passes a certain point, democracy becomes impossible, as the disparity can only be maintained by authoritarian means, since the mass of people cannot be relied on to act against their own interests in the face of it, and would vote redistribution in their favor if they could. The nightmare of the men who founded this country was precisely that the people might vote into existence measurers that favored debtors over creditors, small-holders over the wealthy.

[TexasObserver]

13. You wrote "Once disparity of wealth passes a certain point, democracy becomes impossible[.]"

And that is why Mexico, with all its wonderful natural resources, does not have the vast middle class the USA has.

It's amazing that all these GOP geniuses don't understand what Henry Ford did: you need workers to make money if you want them to buy your products. Sharing the wealth is the only way to assure the production of wealth continues.

[The Magistrate]

15. Exactly, Sir: Prosperity Percolates Up, It Does Not Trickle Down

[TexasObserver]

23. Absolutely. If trickle down worked, it'd be working now.

The haves in this country have seldom had so much as now, and yet, the gulf between them and everyone else has grown, not shrunk. Rich people get and stay rich by NOT trickling it down.

I'm not opposed to earning vast amounts of wealth, but those who achieve it must understand that they benefit more than everyone else from the maintenance of this country.

[Unvanguard]

27. And they did a pretty good job preventing it, didn't they?

Even as property restrictions were removed and elections became more direct.

The maintenance of class societies in conditions of universal suffrage is one of the stranger aspects of modern capitalism.

[The Magistrate]

60. They Did Indeed, Sir

Several of the stabilizing tools are gone, however.

There are no longer broad swathes of the population, women, and blacks, barred legally from voting. It is important that the lower rungs of those with the franchise have someone to look down on in order to be able to identify upwards with the more privileged.

It is no longer possible to make oneself a land-holder by the simple expedient of lighting out for the frontier. This bled off a good deal of resentment, and also potential leadership, in the same years that Socialist ideas were coming to dominate the outlook of European workers.

We seem to be in the process now of firmly establishing a functioning aristocracy with the potential to be of hereditary character in this country, and heretofore it has been possible to at least pretend without undue strain this was not the case.

[EFerrari]

9. "property in capital goods and property in personal effects"

I admit I don't readily understand these issues very well, Sir, and that may be in part because my people are genetic communists -- that is, they use extended families and have a category that is between personal and public, i.e., familial, communal, pinko. I don't mean that they constituted a classless sector of their society in Latin America, but that in general, property was more often held in common.

The very first communist uprising on this continent (which more properly should be called a socialistic one) was in El Salvador in 1932, and it was a perfect storm. The rebels were the native peoples to whom the communal was a way of life, of workers fighting for a (literally) living wage collectively, and a few communists that Farabund Marti brought in.

Our north American society suffers from the bad press that communal sphere has gotten over time. Because it is exactly in that realm that our most useful adjustments can be made for the welfare of our people and since it benefits no individual, natural or incorporated, why we'll always have trouble navigating there, imho.

[The Magistrate]

11. One Of My Favorite Lines, Ma'am

Is that when a man says he loves his wife, loves his daughter, and loves a good hamburger, he had better be meaning something very different in each instance. To use the term 'private property' for things so different as the clothes in your closet, the tools in a carpenter's chest, and a piece of paper entitling its holder to a fixed fraction of the proceeds of an enterprise employing the labor of thousands of people scattered over half a dozen countries, is a similar case. Clearly these are all things of very different character, and in each instance something very different is meant by the term employed. Where one term is employed for such various meanings, it always indicates that there is in the society where this is the linguistic practice some uneasiness, some confusion, concerning the topic itself. On the topic of desire, affection, appetite, this doubtless has natural enough roots, and serves no particular purpose, but where concepts of property and ownership are concerned, the confusion and unease can readily be turned to serve a particular purpose, and benefit a particular portion of society.

[EFerrari]

12. That's very true. Then, the entire experience of ambiguity is demonized

to discourage reflection. That much I understand. :)

[arcadian]

17. A question for you Magistrate, (off topic)

If an incident occurs(let's say robbery) and I make an official statement with Federal officers(DHS) who responded to the call, can I present that document to a federal judge to get a warrant sworn out for the arrest of the individuals involved? I guess my question would be, can an individual citizen present a case to a federal judge and have a warrant sworn out? All hypothetical of course. (I know you probably aren't a real Magistrate, but you seem to know the law pretty well)

[The Magistrate]

18. No Idea, Sir

You would need to consult a professional who practices criminal law in Federal courts for an answer to that

[arcadian]

19. Eh... was worth a shot.

Thanks anyway. :hi:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. Depending On Your State Law, You'd Likely Have To Apply To The Local Magistrate And Request A

prewarrant hearing. You will present whatever evidence you have and the alleged offenders will have to be given advanced notice of the hearing. The hearing will determine whether or not a warrant will be issued.

[rug]

21. I thought you were in the fragrance business.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

22. I'm Educated On Many Things. It's Part Of The Bonus That Comes With Being A Genius.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

24. I got mad all over again just reading that

Well said, Dear. K&R

[DailyGrind51]

25. The question to ask ourselves is, are we a loose assembly of 300 million self-interested

individuals, or, a people "united", "...to form a more perfect union."

And from Patton's opening address:

"...This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating...":patriot:

[The Magistrate]

26. It Is A More Or Less Accepted Conclusion Of Scientific Study, Sir

That humans are social creatures, living co-operatively in groups, rather than solitary critters. Popular as the 'lone wolf', the 'rugged individual' is, as a character type in fictions and fantasies, we instinctively recoil in our own lives from the person who cannot mesh with a group in a some way, perceiving something to be wrong with such a person.

[DailyGrind51]

34. But that, in essence, describes your doctrinaire Libertarian!

:crazy: The last true "rugged individual" was Ted Kaczynski!:nuke:

[The Magistrate]

46. Indeed It Does, Sir...Make Of It What You Will....

[King Coal]

28. You like to use colons, sir.

[DailyGrind51]

66. Maybe since one endorsed Barack?

;-) (I know, the spelling is different.)

[ConsAreLiars]

29. VERY well summarized! (K&R). People should read this twice, carefully.

The great lie of this era is that capitalism is somehow a natural fact of of how humans interact, when it is simply a set of laws and punishments and enforcers that serve one small group and impoverish the rest.

(edit typo)

[AntiFascist]

30. If the economy continues to collapse....

we need to support more of "people's capitalism":

Credit Unions are owned and operated by the depositors. CUs should have less tolerance for corruption than a bank or mortgage company where there are a separate class of wealthy shareholders who want to take advantage of the many. The motto expressed by the National Credit Union Association is "Not for profit, not for charity, but FOR service."

Companies like Southwest Airlines promote employee profit sharing and stress customer service above all else. What if more companies followed this model?

When the "proletariat" have a means for controlling capital, separate from the state, then Marxist theory falls apart.

[blindpig]

39. What we are seeing is proof that Marx was right.

The current crisis is the culmination of capitalists overproduction which started in the 70's. The off-shoring of jobs, Tech bubble, Housing bubble, and now finance, these have all been attempts to shore up profits declining due to over-production. This is a chronic problem endemic to capitalism, regulation might postpone it, regulation cannot prevent it.

[AntiFascist]

49. Overproduction leading to our current crisis...

is more a symptom of consumerism gone wild. If production were geared more toward the long-term benefit of society then society would benefit. Green energy, healthcare, and infrastructure are all investments that would benefit society, however the state must intercede in most of these cases, which then causes the other side to complain of 'socialism'.

Part of the solution I mentioned above is to simply take support away from those who abuse their wealth. If people were enlightened enough about how to organize to bring this about then we would be in much better shape, but the media and advertisers often work counter to this. This is the type of 'revolution' that we need, but Marx lived in an older, less evolved time where the separation of the classes was more clearly delineated and reinforced.

[blindpig]

53. Do you think that consumerism appeared out of thin air?

The consumer culture is itself a response to overproduction. If there was not a glut of products on the market there would be no need for the psy-ops that we call advertising.

Wealth is the result of the abuse of the worker, generally speaking. Only by returning the means of production back to the worker will fix this. That is the only revolution that will put an end to this abuse. The nature of that revolution will be determined by the resistance against it.

[AntiFascist]

56. Consider the solutions I pointed out in Post 30....

Suppose that a community of individuals (or even a virtual internet community) banded together and formed a credit union. They would have control over their own excess capital and how it got invested or loaned out. Suppose that members then formed their own specialized corporations, with members themselves as shareholders and directors, and where profit was less of a concern than service to their community and fair treatment of their employees. There does not necessarilly need to be a separate class of idle wealth in such a system that takes advantage of a "working class". We have the tools available to us now to setup such a micro-economy, if we so chose to use them. It would even allow the community to break off from the "grid" that has been established to support the ultra-wealthy. People can talk about romanticized visions of revolutionary uprising, but the truth is if we worked hard enough we could change the system from within.

[blindpig]

67. Not allowed.

The capitalists will brook no competition, allow no alternative. This is why the Black Panthers were destroyed, why the urban gardens of LA were bulldozed, why Cuba and the Zapatistas are besieged. This is why we have endured 125 years of red-baiting.

Working within the system results in assimilation, it is capitulation.

No more. Enough is enough.

[Raksha]

31. K & R

[eridani]

32. Alaska's citizens get fat checks every year from taxes on oil companies

And Caribou Barbie thinks that "socialism" and income redistribution are just awful, gosh darn it. If taxing oil companies and giving every citizen a piece of the boodle is anti-socialism, can the rest of us haz some of tht gud stuff 2? Kthxbai.

[B Calm]

59. which raises the price of Alaska crude for the rest of the country. . .

[B Calm]

33. McCain has been spouting that tax cuts for the middle class is socialism.

I look at it as a recovery mechanism for what the fat cats on Wall Street and the wealthy have stolen from us!

[The Magistrate]

63. Indeed, Sir: Wealth Is Transfered By Government, Always, The Only Question Is In Which Direction....

[B Calm]

65. I look at it as a a wealth tax on the rich, a recovery mechanism for all

the benefits large businesses and the rich received at the expense of 99% of the population and for protection services provided by the US government. . .

It's JUDGMENT DAY, not socialism!

[Locrian]

35. well said my good man...

Very good post and timely too. We need to be prepared for the smearing if (when) Obama takes office. There will be charges and squealing by the money class as we are starting to see.

http://cmsimg.freep.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C4&Date=20081021&Category=BLOG24&ArtNo=81021092&Ref=AR&Profile=1068&MaxW=575&MaxH=475&Border=0

[kentuck]

36. Well said, Sir !

I am finally going to change my registration to Democratic Socialist after this election. It is a political philosophy more closely to my own. K & R!

[wvbygod]

37. How does an owner who pays cut-throat wages disrupt and unsettle the lives of others?

I can see it creating a good atmosphere for wage competition and for him being left to
do all the work himself. Until there is a law requiring people to work for assholes that
pay low wages, I don't see anyone but the employer being harmed by nobody working for him.

And the minimum wage we have now is a joke...unless one works 120 hours/week it is not a living wage.

[The Magistrate]

45. Your Question, Sir, Is Predicated On the Idea There Is A Competitive Market In Wages

The fact is there is no such market. First, because employers effectively collude with one another in setting wage rates, and second, because labor is nowhere nearly so mobile as capital.

The collusion of employers in setting wage rates is not necessarily of the meeting in a room thick with cigar-smoke variety, but flows from conditions of engaging in business. People engaged in the same business in the same place face about the same costs of materials, use about the same processes, and must pay about the same rates for the use of money, and must get about the same price for their products. Wages being a great proportion of the cost of doing business, they must pay about the same rate of wages. If a business pays more than another in wages, it will likely be less profitable, and thus disadvantaged in the value of its shares and its access to credit. If a business pays less than another in wages, it will gain advantage in these areas. Further, it will force, by the gaining of these advantages, other businesses to follow suit; they will have to cut wages or accept a disadvantaged state in competition with the firm that has cut wages.

It is this dynamic that presses companies in this country to ship jobs overseas, and has decimated employment here in industries such as furniture and textiles and shoe-making, and manufacturing generally. Companies gain such an advantage in paying third world wages relative to companies paying living wages in the United States that once this is begun by some, it must be continued by all, or the rest will simply be driven out of business in short order. The difference between wages in a furniture plant in Indonesia and one in North Carolina certainly qualifies as 'cut-throat', and the pursuit of such wage rates has thrown great numbers of people out of work here, inflicting penury and poverty upon them, devastating whole communities.

It is all very well to say people can just go to where wage rates are higher, but this requires individuals to up-root their lives, separate from their families, abandon their communities, and take up a migrant and nomadic existence as atomized individuals. This is not a good thing, either for the individual in particular or for society as a whole.

[NWPatriot]

110. Just a small question....

Should Sen. Obama carry the day on Nov. 5th, there would be some questions to answer:

What about the business owner who says "F*** that!" and decides to close up shop and hide/sit on his money because of what he views as a 'burdensome' tax plan? Where do his/her employees go?

What about the person with money who decides that he/she will give up NONE of it and starts shoveling it away into offshore accounts?

What about those who decide "Well, I don't have to achieve anymore. therefore I won't"?

You see, there is a truth in play here that I don't see anyone mentioning: Humans, by nature are GREEDY. We want MORE, and when we get MORE, we want to keep it. The most altruistic-sounding person out there, whether they want to admit it or not, has a greedy person inside them, just waiting to get out.

The average American business owner, when faced with a government that tells them they need to fork over more money, will say "Screw you!". The taxpayer/land owner who has a lot of money will, when told by the government that his/her taxes will be raised so others can benefit, will inevitably say "Up yours!" and they will find a way to keep it from happening.

The only way that Mr. Obama's plan to "spread the wealth" (which would help my family and myself out, so you know) will work would be to FORCEABLY extract it from those who have it, because there's a bunch of people out there who WON'T just "hand it over". "It's MINE, you CAN'T have it! Mine, Mine, MINE!!!" They won't change their minds, and the only way to seperate it from them is at gunpoint. There is no other way. All the nice talk and thoughts of how good it will be does nothing to change the cold, hard fact that Mr./Mrs. American Business Owner and Mr./Mrs. Gotta Lotta Bucks will do everything they can to NOT allow the government to get one red cent. It will, eventually, evolve into open bloodshed.

Is that what we want?

(The other thing every human being out there wants {although no one will admit it} is POWER. Control. Getting to have the LAST word. One could write pages more on THAT. It is the other thing that turns people off on the thought of Socialism. They equate it with the utterly absolute control over people that the Soviet Union exhibited.)

Edit for spelling correction.

[The Magistrate]

111. Those People, Sir, Are Largely Mythological Constructs

No one is going to close a business it pays to operate. No one is going to cease striving to get more money because past a certain point, an extra three pennies of each dollar go to taxes. These things are not real concerns: they are on one hand lies spread by an economic ruling class determined to monopolize wealth against the publlic interest, and on the other are merely masturbatory fantasies indulged in by people who imagine they can partake of membership in that class, though they have little or nothing themselves, if they only believe in them hard enough.

Force does not bother me in the slightest. All state action, all exercise of government power, all enforcement of law, of regulation, collection of taxes, is an act of force. That is the present state of affairs, has always been the case in the past, and will be the case in future. You are quite correct that any change which is wrought by passage of new laws, by changes in government regulation, will be put into practice by force, and depend on force for its effect.

The idea that Socialism is in any way some especial exercise of power infringing on the liberty of people in a manner absent in the present system is nonesense, that cannot stand a moment's close examination. People today are imposed on in tremendous wise by the power exerted by private individuals who own wealth in great sums, or perhaps more precisely, are imposed on by the power of the state wielded on behalf of such individuals against the rest of the citizenry. Because this is routine, it largely escapes notice by peope who do not reflect on the nature of society and governance at least occassionally. A Socialist system, particularly in its transition phases, would simply employ the accustomed powers of the state in the interests of a broader section of the citizenry, and against the interests of some who are accustommed to state power being employed on their behalf only. A novelty in direction is hardly a difference in kind. Someone is being hit, no matter which direction the force of the blow travels in....

"The laboring people are of necessity the most numerous portion of society, and it is nonesense to suppose that what benefits the greatest portion is injurious to the whole."

[NWPatriot]

113. Thank you, I shall consider that.

Your reply has spurred me to research the matter further. Again, my thanks. Have a nice day!

[Zhade]

92. Your last line answered the question in your first.

NT!

[Swamp Rat]

38. k&r

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

76. HI Swamp Rat !

:hi:

I came up with an McBush idea but I don't know how to do it and with your expertise, I think you could..

Picture this.... McCain gets up in the morning in his P.J's, and he looks in the mirror to comb his hair,,,but G.W.B. is looking back at him.

[mike_c]

40. recommended....

What an excellent post!

[The Magistrate]

50. Thank You, Sir

[Breeze54]

41. One word: 'Commonwealth'.....

Thanks.

K & R

[newtothegame]

42. Thank you, Sir, for posting this, Sir n/t

[FredStembottom]

43. Bookmarking to read tonight.

Love your writing, Mag - but must go to work now.:hi:

[cliffordu]

47. K&R....Excellent.

[varelse]

48. Well said

thank you for taking the time to write this. :)

[The Magistrate]

88. Thank You, Ma'am

[Douglas Carpenter]

51. if I may ask?

You have on many occasion made it clear that you believe that working within the Democratic Party is the only rational alternative for progressives.

Do you believe that it is practical to work toward democratic-socialism within the Democratic Party as a long term agenda?

I would agree that third party alternatives do not offer much in the real world these days. They may have in the first half of the twentieth century. But these days, they seem little more than clubs of pretend and make believe.

Would you imagine that the Democratic Party which is after all a capitalist party that did in fact to a large degree embraced "free market" ideology - can and should be the Democratic Party eventually be transformed into a democratic-socialist or at least social-democratic party?

[The Magistrate]

52. My Preference, Sir, Would Be For A Genuine Social-Democrat Party

Whether the Democratic Party could be converted from within into such a thing over time is unclear, but this ought to be a goal of progressives, in my view.

One must work with the tools at hand, even if these are limited and not too suitable. The Democratic Party is the only national political organization that is at all partial to improvement in the lives of working people and poor people in this country. The evidence of history is pretty clear, that when Democrats are in charge, wages increase somewhat, and people's lives are easier. It is not enough, but it is something. Economic crisis offers opportunity for changing not only programs, but views on the role of government in economic matters. It is essential to undo the effects of Reagan-era propaganda on the public perception of what government's proper role is, and restore the understandings gained during the New Deal period.

[Cleita]

54. On the other hand we are socialist biologically by our human nature.

Sharing is part of our genome at a primeval, tribal level. Anthropologists note that in hunter and gatherer societies, all the food collected is shared among the whole tribe even though fewer members might be too young, too old, or too disabled to fully participate in a hunt. They still get an equal share of what is brought into the camp. So it would seem that those with too much still have a duty to share their largesse with those less fortunate. Since a group effort makes the distribution more equitable than individual efforts, it would seem some sort of governing is in order, whether by a chieftain or a tribal council. So it seems we survive better as a species by sharing.

[The Magistrate]

55. Indeed, Ma'am: 'Private Ownership' Is A Recent Innovation

[happydreams]

73. It's the waterhole scene in 2001A Space Odyssey ....

that keeps playing back in my mind. One ape picks up a club to keep another from drinking and messes up the world for eons.

[bread_and_roses]

58. Kicked and too late to recommend, but tried. (n/t)

[Douglas Carpenter]

62. Your argument Sir is very much a moral argument. - a rational moral argument that I pretty much

agree with.

The difficulty we face in modern capitalist society is how to apply this in ways that actually works and would work in modern American society.

European socialist and even localities in America that have elected municipal socialist governments like Burlington, Vermont or Santa Cruz, California have had to balance the genuine need to maintain a healthy commercial economy which is an absolute necessity and is currently and for the foreseeable future the only mechanism available that is capable of providing adequate employment and financing needed public services.

The world as it now exist and will exist for the foreseeable future is a world of bonds, equities and other investment instruments. It is world in which stimulus and incentive to invest are an absolute requirement. It is a world in which to consume beyond actual need is an absolute necessity in maintaining near full employment. To change that would require a lot more than simply electing progressive governments. It would require a total social revolution. And revolutions like wars are highly unpredictable events. The conditions simply do not exist for such a revolution anyway.

There are built in contradictions in how to transform society within capitalist society as well. It is agreed by almost all economist that only a "recovery of the housing market" will bring about real recovery from the impending recession. But what does a "recovery of the housing market" actually mean in the real world? It means that cost of housing must again be pushed upward again, to and beyond the limit of that which is affordable for the majority of people. So economic recovery means that adequate housing must be made unaffordable to a major portion of the American public.

At least the current economic meltdown has exposed the folly of so-called "free market" ideology, an ideology that was never rooted in the reality of the human condition. Unfortunately it was an ideology embraced to varying degrees by the leadership of both parties.

Now that the folly of "free market" ideology lies in the dust along with the folly of military empire, it might be possible to get back to where Western society was roughly thirty years ago and to at least start down the road again once again to building the just earth.

[The Magistrate]

74. Practical Steps, Sir, Are Indeed Something Of A Conundrum

We share, it would seem, a jaundiced eye for the tool of revolution, as a thing chancy in outcome, tricky to put into practice, and fraught with peril in its course. Change in evolutional degree is preferable, though it brings benefit gradually, and at any given moment will likely do much less benefit than is desired. Several basic courses pursued simultaneous as opportunity opens suggest themselves. The point is to extend public control over the employment of capital, until the final step of public ownership is a small one, and seems to most a natural one.

Unionization is one means. A union has the capacity to exert some control over what an employer does, and this is a capacity that could be exercised in much greater degree than it actually is. A union in which the membership actively participates in union governance is a democratic institution, and is of large enough size to amount to a 'public' institution. Industry wide unions on a syndicalist model, or 'one big union' on the model of the old I.W.W., are preferable to a multiplicity of small-scale craft unions, even where these may affiliate under an umbrella federation or congress. Putting government on the side of unionization, as it was during the New Deal, rather than on the side of the employer resisting or busting unionization, is a practical political project, that serious effort ought to be bent towards.

Schemes for employee ownership within the present frame-work is one means. A respectable argument could be made that an employee stock ownership plan which led to fifty-one percent of voting shares being controlled by the employees of a firm is, in effect, socialism in the classic worker's ownership sense. Employees would have some say in the policies of the firm, in its management, and receive as dividends a portion of the profit they created. A union organization would be a practical vehicle for instituting and effecting such an arrangement, and for giving effect to the views of the laboring shareholders.

Serious government regulation of working conditions is one means. While this would not directly increase the portion of surplus value created by employees that they received, it would benefit their quality of life and health, and tend to accustom people to the idea that the owner and employer does not have a free hand, and liberty to disregard the welfare of others. It is simply a public disgrace that an employer can maintain conditions in the workplace that routinely result in deaths and maimings and illness among employees, with no check but token fines easily written off as a cost of doing business without any appreciable reduction to share-holder profits. Fines should amount to the firm's gross revenue for each day it is out of compliance with safety and health regulations; deaths in the workplace should be treated as criminal acts of negligent homicide on the part of management at the highest level. This, too, is a practical political project, that serious effort ought to be bent towards. Public outrage could readily be created and deployed towards this end by showcase examples.

Reinforcing the progressive nature of the tax structure, and directing the proceeds to projects that directly benefit public well-being, is one means. One reason people brindle at paying taxes, to the point that even those who have and pay little will make common cause with those who have a great deal and seek to evade paying much of anything, is that people do not perceive that they get very much for what they pay. National defense they never see, interest payments on government bonds they do not receive, roads and sanitation and police and fire protection they take for granted, schools they feel, often with some justice, do not work very well. If people received health care, parental leave, higher education, grants or low cost loans for housing or commencing a small enterprise, saw large beneficial public works, as a direct result of their paying taxes, their attitude towards taxation would change somewhat. Reinforcing the progressive nature of taxation goes, in my view, well beyond simply arranging income tax brackets. It is nonsense to tax the proceeds of investment at lower rates than those applied to the wages of labor. It is true enough that some of the proceeds of investment, when an instrument held for a period of time is sold, are only apparent, and are actually a reflection of changes in the value of the currency over the period of time it is held, and it is proper to index the tax on such gains to reflect this, but the basic rate paid should be equal to what an employee would pay on a wage of equal amount.

Outright nationalization is one means. We are seeing, in the present economic crisis, a potential opening for this at present. If the government is supplying capital to financial institutions, this should be in the form of an ownership stake, precisely as a large investor such as Mr. Buffet would demand, and has demanded in a recent 'private bail-out' of a large firm. the ownership stake should not only entitle the Treasury to receive eventual profits of the firms, but give the government say in their direction, in how in future they conduct their business, where and how they lend out the capital the tax-payers have provided. A sovereign wealth fund is another opening towards nationalization. While 'privatization' of Social Security in the form of 'individual accounts', heavily encumbered with regulation and throwing unskilled persons willy-nilly into the stock and bond markets to be preyed on the sharks who dominate those troubled waters, there is no reason that some portion of F.I.C.A. proceeds could not be put into the markets in the same manner as state and union pension funds operate. In normal conditions, and over time, this would produce profit for the pension system independent of taxation, and give the government the same sort of say in operations of firms that any large stock-holder enjoys. Indeed, co-ordinated action among state and Federal funds, and union funds, could be a very powerful influence in the market, and in the character and operation of business.

[Poseidan]

64. in terms of socialism

You must pay, either way. It is merely a matter of how things are appropriated. Maybe you purchase things with your ink and paper, or maybe the government provides your needs.

[lelgt60]

68. A key question is whether surplus would be created if it were not endowed with ownership...

It's basically a human nature/cultural question.

You say: "That this surplus value should be regarded as a private possession, and the increase of it wrought by the labor of many go into the purses of those who claim it as a private possession, is hardly necessary to its function in society."

Is that true?

My observations say maybe it isn't. For some, without whatever personal feeling is attached to "ownership" versus mere "ability to use" makes a big difference on whether they will put in the effort to create the surplus. On the surface, what's the difference? - it's clearly a figment of imagination.

Can this attitude be changed vis education or is it human nature? I have no idea. I've always wondered whether we could change the psychological benefits of being rich from "the one with the most stuff" to "the one who has donated the most stuff". Whether we could truly make it more prestigious to have built a hospital than have built a 50 room mansion.

[The Magistrate]

71. And What Are Those Observations, Sir?

A public say over how surplus value was employed would make a quick answer to whether it was put to constructing a hospital serving the community or a fifty room mansion serving a single family.

The idea that private ownership of surplus value is required for its augmentation amounts to saying that unless one person takes what many produce from them for his or her own personal benefit, there will be no increase in surplus value. That strikes me as a shaky proposition, and a claim that it rests on 'human nature' strikes me as exceptionally dubious. If 'human nature' is the ground on which this is based, one must at the very least postulate two human natures, and hold that employers and employees have different natures, since obviously employees work fairly hard to create surplus value that is never theirs, but becomes immediately the property of their employer, and if their employer will only 'work' if any augmentation of surplus value owing to an enterprise becomes his or her personal property, then his or her 'human nature' must be different from theirs. Down the course of human history, many systems of thought have not shrunk from declaring this, and maintained that by nature the owner is different in kind from the owned: that is the basis of all aristocratic systems. But these have, over the last several centuries, been drowned in blood when the 'owned' have had half a decent chance to do so, and have rather gone out of fashion.

[lelgt60]

72. No...the desire for private ownership doesn't always imply taking from others

All I said is the "some" people might not work as hard to increase the surplus if they could not obtain private ownership in it. It doesn't matter whether they're an employer or an employee. As an employee, I've agreed to work for someone else based on their promise for a specific reward, because I determined the reward would increase my own private surplus. I didn't perceive that as taking anything produced by others...just keeping a part of what I produced for myself.

As to the human nature aspect, I have been both an employer and an employee, and once, have been both at the same time. Many males in this society have clearly been both employees and employers at the same time as they reaped the benefits of a female partner maintaining a household. I'm not attributing employer/employee status to human nature, just the level of desire to produce communal assets versus private assets to one aspect of human nature exhibited by some people. Because of that, I see no reason to limit those people from maximizing their internal surplus generating power by preventing private ownership of some of the results, as long as their total accumulation is not excessive (based on the status of the poorest people in the society). One of the problems I have with existing taxation arguments, is that so many people argue for progressive income taxes, but not progressive property taxes.

A specific example to comment on:

Lets say I install showers for a living. I don't employ anyone else. I purchase all my materials and tools at the local co-op. In order to buy food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, I need to install 20 showers a month, which I can do working 20 days a month. Now, because there is need for shower installation, I could decide to generate surplus by working another 5 days and installing 5 more showers. But, I figure I won't get to decide how to use that surplus - the "community" will. so, I say forget it. How would you convince someone like me to install the other 5 showers?

[The Magistrate]

77. Well, Sir, If You Are Not Capable Of Seeing Benefit To The Community As Benefit To Yourself As Well

Perhaps you ought to engage in some contemplation of what your own best interest actually is.

If there is an actual desire for more showers than you care to install, someone else will install them. They will, like all the showers you are willing to install, increase the value of the premises in which they are installed. The collective value of housing will be increased, whether you bestir yourself to do it or not.

Further, in your list of necessities, you omit an entry for taxes. You already will pay these under a capitalist system, and they might well amount to the proceeds of those additional five showers, which would amount to a rate of twenty percent, which is somewhat below the average total tax that most people pay presently, when all the items of sales and excise taxes, property taxes (whether directly as an owner or indirectly as a portion of rent paid to a landlord), etc., are taken with income and F.I.C.A. taxes as a total. The only difference is that, with the employment of accumulated surplus directed publicly rather than privately, you would, as a voter, and as a concerned and politically active member of your community, have a somewhat greater share in the direction of its employment than you have at present on the employment of tax revenues. You would have some assurance that great quantities surplus value would not be employed in any manner that, while benefitting a few greatly, would harm your community by inflicting the dislocations of wide-spread unemployment or high-priced credit or any of a number of other shenanigans common to our present system.

[lelgt60]

79. Ah...Now we come to some agreement. Understanding what is in my best interest.

1) I agree the tax issue is a flaw in the example. But, the example could easily be modified to accommodate taxes as part of my necessities. After all, on what road could I get to the co-op to buy the materials. Who would come to my aid if my house caught on fire, etc.

2) The assumption that others will install showers may not be correct in the short term (not enough qualified installers), resulting in a shower shortage, and, in a system where I do not get to keep excess production, a black market, wherein I install showers first for those who might...uh...give me a tip.

3) But the above two issues are argumentative details. The crux is, as you said, what is in by best interest versus what I think is is my best interest. Something, I believe, many humans are very bad a figuring out, especially myself. Maybe I shouldn't extrapolate from just myself and the few others I know, but, anyway...The challenge, as I posed in my example, is how to convince me that working to provide a surplus beyond my own needs is in my best interest if I can't "instantly" see the results in the form of a higher number on a bank statement, or a hi-def tv on my wall. Again I agree with your last 2 sentences of your last paragraph. However, could you convince me to trust a community vote as to what my best interest are? What if I have a better idea, but am not particular good at communicating it, and, thus convincing the community to vote my way. In the end, I would probably go off and start another community. Would you let me?

4) So, my proposal is not to try and convince me to change my belief systems (although early childhood education of humane principles is certainly a part of the solution). or, to change the political system to eliminate private ownership. I think it might be easier to convince the somewhat liberal majority to implement a more progressive tax system which automatically returns excess wealth to the community. That means progressive taxes not just on income, but on wealth. Sorry to sound like a broken record.

[The Magistrate]

83. If You Would Do Me the Courtesy, Sir, Of Reading My Additional Point Below

We might have a more fruitful exchange on this question. You are proceeding from what is, in my view, the wrong end of the telescope here, and focusing on the capillary rather than the jugular of the question at hand.

It is not my view that a self-employed craftsman is a capitalist, or a fit or necessary object for the socialization of capital. The only capital good such a person possesses is a set of tools, and perhaps a small fund to advance towards purchase of materials. The wage you pay yourself is your profit, and you would contribute to the actual accumulation of surplus capital in society only as you spent it on goods and services, and only to the degree that the enterprises you spent it with realized profit from those transaction, down the line from retailers to wholesalers to manufacturers and processors and extractors of raw material and cultivators of agricultural products. This would concentrate at levels well up the chain, atop piles that are already solidly in existence.

To participate in a democracy is to agree to abide by the predominant view of the community one exists in on political matters, and there is no clear dividing line between the political and economic: all political choices have economic consequences; all economic choices and structures have political consequences. You may not trust the people of your community to get it right in any political matter, and certainly the people have done things politically in my life-time that astound me in their foolishness and self-destructiveness. But it is still my belief, with Mr. Churchill, that democracy is the worst form of government with the exception of all others that have been tried, and if mistakes are to be made, it is better they be made the people themselves as a whole, than imposed on them by autocrats or plutocrats or aristocracies.

[The Magistrate]

78. One Further Point, Sir

You are engaging in the same sort of blurring between distinct categories pointed out here:

"A chief method by which the owners of the accumulated surplus value defend their private possession of it is by blurring the concepts of property in capital goods and property in personal effects. They pretend that to deprive them of ownership of banks and factories and fleets of transport and great tracts of land is to deprive people of their personal possessions, and since the same word, 'property', is employed for both things, it is a fairly simple trick to pull off. They have been helped at times by ill-judged social movements who have in fact engaged in the same blurring from the opposite direction, and regarded a carter possessing a truck or a neighborhood baker possessing an oven as objects for expropriation equally with the owners of a fleet of several thousand trucks, or of a dozen factory ovens turning out millions of loaves and cakes each year. But a moment's reflection will disclose that these things are no more identical than a mouse and an elephant, and that the difference is the degree in which they are able by their possessions to impact the lives of others for good or ill. The small proprietor can do little in either direction, and must look the people he or she directly affects in the face: the great owner can do great good or great harm to great numbers, and to people he or she will never see."

Having done you the courtesy of first engaging you on the terms you proposed, it seems worth pointing this out. It is a cheerful delusion enjoyed by persons with little of their own that what they do have is a noticeable proportion of the actual mass of capital within society. The fact is that the actual mass of capital in society is huge, and hugely concentrated in a very few hands. Propagandas to the contrary, 'small business' is not the back-bone of economic activity; it has about the same relation as fleas to a dog in our society's economic activity. Small businesses operate only on the margins of, and in the gaps left between, the employments of large concentrations of capital, and exist wholly at their sufferance. It is the direction of concentrations of capital, the large, already extant masses of the stuff, that is the issue here, and the question is whether this should be owned privately, and directed with the personal benefit of those owners as the sole consideration, or whether this should be directed publicly, with the benefit of the public being the over-riding concern of those who superintend its employment as agents of the public.

[lelgt60]

80. Understand...and it changes the argument

First my small shower installer example doesn't apply - it would fall into the small property case.

Second, my initial thoughts are this line of thinking has merit. I've always kinda liked the idea of small free market capitalism combined with large scale socialism. As has been said recently, some things are too big too fail, in which case, they're too big to exist, or too big to be privately owned.

But, believe it or not, have to sign off for today. I have to go install a shower (well, tile a shower - already finished the plumbing)

[The Magistrate]

84. A Pleasure To Cross Words With You, Sir!

And to make your acquaintance here. Best of luck with your enterprise!

[Unvanguard]

81. What surplus?

You install five more showers, and you are paid extra for it. That's the direct product of your labor; you spend it as you see fit, for whatever consumption goods you desire. There's your incentive right there.

The accumulation of capital goods in a socialist economy would not occur through extra labor on the part of particular private individuals, but rather through reinvestment of the profits of collectively-owned corporations, and/or through taxation.

[lonestarnot]

69. The "ownership society" is just another name for pencil one out of their eye teeth, surplus value

for the bourgeois and dirt cakes to the proletariat as is demonstrated by the top 1% owning 65% of this country's wealth. In 1999 it was 55%. Yeah it has worked out well for them. They have never been able to blur that "property" ownership word for me and they hate me for that! :evilgrin: A thief is a thief is a thief! And I hate that conniving smile on their face they always use while at their practice. I want to wipe it off by exposing their pretenses, because I CAN see them. They are squirming now for the greater good! A peoples' union for higher wage, health care, education, housing and pie is coming! And back yard gardens will grow! :applause:

[Shardik]

70. Wonderful post.

Thank you for your time and effort in sharing this with us.

[bobthedrummer]

75. I was born and raised in Milwaukee which had three Socialist Mayors-Milwaukee during the

administration of Frank Zeidler was making a lot of progress, especially from being the most physically racially segregated city in the midwest, that's why the Republicans and Democrats played the bipartisan race card in 1960 against him.

So US socialism is not a big deal to some of US that have experienced it.

WinterBybee posted a tribute thread here after Frank Zeidler's death that is well worth reading today, especially when it comes to policies.

"America's 'last socialist mayor'? Frank Zeidler's legacy." (started by WinterBybee 7-19-2006)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x223344

:patriot:

[gypsylud]

82. Great Thoughts K&R

OK everyone conditioned to cringe at the word "socialism," has got to get over it. Marx was right about some things. Free Market capitalism Does Not Work. It never has. We've never had it. It's an idealistic libertarian promised land they will never get to. Democratic socialism however is a reality. It's not perfect. But it can work. It does fucking work, when we let it. I'm crafting a letter to the editor for my local paper on the subject. We have to get over our post cold war/ red scare hang ups concerning socialism. It may be the only thing that saves us from the collapse of civilization.

[The Magistrate]

85. You Raise An Excellent Point, Sir, Regarding "cold war/ red scare hang ups concerning socialism"

The Soviet Union did incalculable damage to the cause of the socialism in particular, and the left in general. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian power, antithetical to any permutation of liberal and progressive ideas of human freedom, particularly freedom of conscience and expression. Soviet Communism, as it actually developed, was neither the standard bearer, nor the embodiment, of leftist aspirations. State ownership of the means of production, when the state is in the hands of a vanguard party ruling by totalitarian means, is simply a radical form of monopoly capitalism, in which the gun serves as the means of concentrating ownership. Soviet rule moved the people of the Russian Empire out of the twilight feudalism of the latter Czars, it destroyed a corrupt aristocracy, it churned a number of people from the ranks of laborers and peasantry into positions of leadership and power, but it certainly did not bring Socialism, and it ensured that the left would labor henceforth under the charge that what leftists seek is totalitarian, illiberal governance.

[AntiFascist]

86. Who knew, Winston Churchill was a conspiracy theorist?

"From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman, this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization . . . has been steadily growing.

It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."
– Winston Churchill (1920) (p. 193)

[The Magistrate]

87. Old Winnie Thought Some Odd Thoughts, Sir, That Is True

What is odder is how rife they were among people of his class and standing in that day, and the degree to which they actually affected the policy of governments. Comments by Woodrow Wilson on the 'roots' and 'true nature' of Bolshevism would make you weep to read them, but they served him for cause to deploy U.S. soldiers into Archangel and Vladivostock in 1918....

[AntiFascist]

103. Monied interests sponsoring the Bolshevik revolution...

in order to extract wealth from the Czarists sounds like a logical explanation, regardless of the true spirit of the revolution.

[bridgit]

89. McCain and his handlers; and there should be little mistake, McCain has forfieted...

his campaign to the likes of Karl Rove and his minions and so they have extruded this word this: socialism, as though one of the Seven Deadly Words that they *will* spat precisely because it contains that specific gravity; like a not-so-small rock thrown rather purposely at someone's forehead; also less than encouraged in civilized society.

Ownership...

Sitting round this afternoon, doing some laundry, back from the bank & store all the yada-yada stuff, checking in here appreciating your post while every once in-a-while looking up and watching in between it all The Fall wherein one of the protags, having been a slave and freed himself; is very intent on freeing other slaves...it is among the core of his mission: the protags ride to a ridge and look down onto a vast and beautiful desert waste through which travels an ornate, filigreed, embroidered, byzantine (though not per se in that regard, we'll say: opulent, instead ;)) covered wagon; being pulled not by 20 mule team, but by a string of men with men inside squirrel cage-like devises attached to each wheel that they themselves clamor within rolling the wagon forward though to who's benefit indeed,

The freed slave protag announces to his companions, "They are slaves! We must free them!!" and off they ride without so much as a 2nd thought and so they do they free them cutting their chains they bid these newly freed men well which is instantly understood as they are seen running away sooner out of frame...but we know what seems to always remain, right? The ornate, filigreed, embroidered, opulent covered wagon in which is conveyed, it is finally discovered; said or represented as: enlightened beings. Ownership. How much ownership is enough ownership?

What percentage of ownership, is really just part of the con-game? And in a nation such as ours where money = monarchy; isn't that just the errant percentage that perpetuates the belief system of the top 5% while denying access to justice, freedom, and liberty for all?

Regardless of the 'ism', shouldn't we really be encouraging stewardship? And good stewardship at that, especially after your well taken points as to loosed poisons upon a world shared by all; the downward flow of 'rationalized' violence upon they/us not conveyed within filigreed opulence as mentioned by another poster?

If we are our brother's keeper, haven't we frittered our responsibility to ourselves by having enslaved him? Even by means of unscrupulous, or predatory practices? By the obscene, usury profits that never ever trickle down to the people being bumped and scraped and tangled up in blue on a daily basis? By whole other layers of unwholesome state legislators tinkering with process leaving seniors to beg in long early voting lines for a chair to rest on knowing full-well their tricky little means of voter intimidation? Stop me! Do not let me count the ways...

Yes, socialism is the hot button/3rd rail for some. But for others it would seem clear: America needs a creative realignment of thought and process. That being the case the button/3rd rail being ultimately so corrosive; I find utility in flipping that script that they've attempted to flip on us while I auger for good stewardship. And if good stewardship is then declared socialism...?...then I'm good with that. So be it! Cause this *only us 'achievers' with factories we can shut down and move to China and employees to send home crying really matter - let them vote with their feet* gibberish is blowing chunks Big Time!!

Just how much cake is too much cake?


Thank you for your post, The Magistrate. I do enjoy your thoughts, and the ways in which you express them :kick:

[Zhade]

90. Great OP - happy to KandR!

NT!

[ismnotwasm]

93. Very Nice

I had to read it twice, as I often do with such well thought out essays,(and will read it again just for the flow of language, I do love to read!)and am saving it, to share with my husband, and sending it to my (grown) children.

In fact, I just might introduce the concept to my grandson (who's nine, pretty smart little guy)using parts of this.

Thank you!

[ulysses]

94. bowing in your general direction

Nicely done!

[The Magistrate]

96. Thank You, My Friend: Glad You Got A Look At This

[McCamy Taylor]

95. Max Weber described how Puritains equated capital or material wealth with salvation.

Some protestant denominations in the U.S. would object to the attempt to strip individuals of their capital as being an attempt to strip them of the signs of God's grace----an act of defiance against God's will. These are, of course, the denominations which the rich and powerful support.

Since Americans are an extremely religious people, once the rich are able to move the economic discussion onto the religious arena, they have won and everyone else has lost.

Catholics get distracted by abortion.

[bridgit]

99. Yes. My sense is that meth & heroin dealers care little for spiritual enrichments, but...

from the material/monetary side of enrichment they posses that same level of self-justification & importance. On the Puritan side, I believe they do feel interceded upon and gloriously so, by this god who's words they recklessly bandy about too often; who's world they ignore even more so on many occasions. And all for little more than passing what begins as an empty plate in the course of consternating the salvation of others.

[WilliamPitt]

97. A thunderclap.

Thank you for this.

[The Magistrate]

98. Thank You, Mr. Pitt

[Kurovski]

100. Kick. (nt)

[happydreams]

101. Hello...ah....Comrade?

While an eloquent post by DU standards, as so many other works written by those within the system (presumably you are a magistrate) it does not address the crucial issue regarding our economic well being; namely the concentration of wealth in few hands and how best to distribute that wealth more evenly. You merely restate what common sense dictates. The injuries and unfairness are, fundamentally, the result of that inequality.

Concentrated wealth is the quintessential problem. The threat to democracy and the public well being from the concentration of wealth is a warning echoed down through the centuries since this country was founded, but the concentration of wealth has continued. Those with the gold, do indeed, rule and make the rules to further their own interests.

We are now being made abundantly aware of this phenomenon.

What you have provided is standard philosophical fare, repeated many times though out history, Veblen, Dickens, and the various social critics that depended on the capitalist system for their bacon profited from dramatizing the results, but were far less interested, often disingenuous in exploring the causes. Veblen attributed those causes to inherited instincts or some other esoterica. Ideologues of the Right try to pin societies ills on un free markets that are due to violation of certain cherry picked principles that they themselves wantonly violate: fair play, competition (though monopoly has been the norm ), individualism (while really nepotism is more likely), equal opportunity (ludicrous pipe dream), and most important limited government (unless the capitalist/fascists are in power).

As the present crisis sharpens our focus, we must understand that it is this disproportionate wealth that underlies all of the other problems. Feudalistic and fascistic, fascism (Straussian) being a more virulent form of feudalism in that corporate/private interests control the government incognito (to the vast majority that is) while maintaining a veneer of respectability for that government based on the misconception that the people have freedom (free press, ,assembly, voting, privacy, etc.), and enemies of the state are omnipresent. Feudalism's ideal is to do away with government altogether that threatens their private interests. With an absence of government they claim the invisible hand of the market reigns. And so it has of late. In the Middle-Ages there was no over arcing governing body in Europe. The fall of the Roman Empire ended that. The Holy Roman Empire was wholly inadequate and became even less so with the Reformation. It is worthy to note that Religion seems to do well in barbaric settings as well as "civilized". A key observation in the fascist feudalism difference is how the fascists are all for small government until they get into power, then they expand government hoping for the "1000 year Reich". There undoing, as we are (hopefully)witnessing now, is their pigheaded belief in their own omnipotence. Predators do not make good adminstrators. They garner the support of the Libertarian elements when they are out of power and laugh them off once in power. When the democrats again get into power the Libertarians again, conciously or otherwise in league with the capitalist/fascists, go on the warpath against expanding government no matter to what degree that expanded government is serving the public interest.

What you serve up, sir, is a smorgasbord of feel good axioms of what should and shouldn't be similar in its pacifying effect as religion or some other opiate. To that end you can do much mischief for those who get tangled up in your convoluted prose.

Your take does not even address the issue of how to change the situation. The laws are written by the very people, the wealthy, whose injurious acts upon the public you wish, or claim to wish, to reign in and you do not state this. Your failure to address this oddity is one, as stated previously, that renders whatever else you propose meaningless intrigue if not disservice to the subject. It is an omission characteristic of your ilk, because you know that to address it will threaten the status quo that you are happily, at least for the present, ensconced.



A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we look a little closer at the connection between this latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crimes but also criminal law, and with this also the professor who gives lectures on criminal law and in addition to this the inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lectures onto the general market as commodities. . .The criminal moreover produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc.; and all these different lines of business, which form equally many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human spirit, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them.

—Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value

[Douglas Carpenter]

102. actually he does offer some ideas about how to change the situation

post # 74 does come to mind, for one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4294629&mesg_id=4308326


I have no idea really, but I doubt that "the Magistrate" is an actual Magistrate by profession.

I would not make it a habit to assume that someone who argues in favor of democratic-socialism or social democracy is in fact actually opposed to democratic-socialism or social democracy.

[The Magistrate]

105. Your Thoughts on Those, My Friend, Would Be Appreciated, Should You Find The Time

Obviously, they are not ideal, but presented only as initial steps on a long road, that might be practicable under present political and social conditions.

[Douglas Carpenter]

107. I wish the answers were more simple

But I do believe that the current economic crisis will provoke a lot of rethinking about how economy ought to operate.

Those naive souls who salivate at the thought of total collapse hoping somehow that will almost automatically lead to a more just order should remember how the great depression of the 1930's did not only create the New Deal in America and Social Democracy in Europe. It also lead to the rise of fascism, Nazism and totalitarian Communism. Wishing for bad times is as ill advised and as wicked as wishing for war. Those who "say they want a Revolution" should spend some time in places on earth during times of violent upheaval. Any romantic fantasies about workers and peasants uniting will be kicked out of them very fast.

Still current events have for all practical purposes discredited Reagan/Thatcher style deregulated capitalism and offers an opportunity for alternatives.

William Greider wrote an interesting book a few years back, "The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy" link: http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780684862200-0

Mr. Greider puts forward a number of proposals about how people can direct their financial power to basically purchase and take control of their places of employment. The current financial crisis may very well offer additional opportunities. One strategy he discussed is how private work based retirement pension schemes can provide a mechanism to in part or in whole accomplish this.

Another and equally important element in creating a progressive order involves simply creating a culture that simply thinks more democratically and altruistically; Gramsci 101. It is a sad reality that for much of the last 30 years or so, the right-wing have been diligently doing exactly the opposite. Although society has become more socially liberal over the past 30 years. Capitalist values and selfishness as a virtue seem to really dominate common thinking far more so than it did 30 years ago. There is no magic formula about how to change this. But it does seem that recent events in the financial world have provided a visible object lesson.

[The Magistrate]

104. Some People Seem Born To Grouse, Sir....

Some seem constitutionally incapable of finding and emphasizing areas of agreement with others, and dedicated to finding and maximizing points of disagreement. Such people are of no use in political action, and incapable of rousing much of a following in any direction they desire, though they can be of some use to their opponents, making as they do excellent foils, and serving as signposts saying 'mine is the wrong direction'....

It takes real skill to read through my modest effort above, and declare it written to strike a blow against the left, but we are fortunate to have your vigilance to guide us through these difficult times.

"Thye believed nothing they could not prove, and could prove everything they believed."

[happydreams]

106. Just the other day you replied to one of my posts in a very nasty

dismissive tone pompously saying I was incapable of understanding your divine wisdom. You are a bloviating ass in my opinion, but I didn't say that. So don't talk to me about being disagreeable for its own sake.

I disagree for the reasons stated and I'm beginning to think that all of this bloviating is just a passive-aggressive way of dismissing those who differ with you.

[TexasObserver]

120. Ah, THAT explains the pissiness! Carrying grudges from other threads is so cool.

[bridgit]

114. A reflexive moment in time to the question, "So tell me, when did you stop beating...

"your socialism?" on the part of the OP as well when offered not from within an academic vacuum but as a wordy, roundabout defense of Obama having to labor beneath such charges. So that "meaningless intrigue if not disservice to the subject" does seem a noteworthy surplus-value such as it is. Thank you for your post.

[TexasObserver]

119. Oh, righteous indignation, you have so many names!!

The business of governing is messy and inefficient. It's always easier to criticize than to do.

[Ishoutandscream2]

108. This thread is bookmarked

Brilliant op, and excellent observations all around. Those who keep shrilling out the "S" word need to take a look at this. Never mind, they probably wouldn't understand.

[KoKo]

109. "No damned nonsense about merit.. attends their position.."

QUOTE: From "Magistrate."

"In any society, it swiftly becomes the case that most who enjoy private ownership of large portions of accumulated surplus do so through inheritance, through accident of birth into a privileged class of owners. "No damned nonsense about merit" attends their position as those who possess, direct, and personally profit from, the accumulated surplus that is the heart of the society they exist within, or their position at the apex of it."

What about Fareed Zakaria and others?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4314245&mesg_id=4314245

[LeftishBrit]

112. Great post. THANKS!

[Kurovski]

115. Kick. (nt)

[Chovexani]

116. Always dropping knowledge, good sir. Wonderful post.

:thumbsup:

[Uncle Joe]

117. A most excellent post, sir

and for the most part a good thread, except for a few sad nightmares.

My only regret in being too late to recommend.

[The Magistrate]

118. Thank You, Sir!

"There will be a holiday in our street soon!"