Things the Right get right

[Mr. Tea]

Apologies for a drive by:

Saying you don't have an alternative / "there is no alternative" is no longer tenable. We're seeing a huge shift in the mode of production, economic growth, automation, climate change, migration etc which in combination mean that the existing neoliberal order cannot survive. So we may see the emergence of a new way of organising the planet in our lifetimes (or certainly in this century). Clearly, all of these options will have downsides on paper. As there is no perfect way of organising the planet.

Also, whilst we can agree that human nature is not set in stone and is actually a creation of the society that shapes people, it seems likely that a proportion of the population will always be complete cunts.

So where does that leave us? I'll be completely honest here, we are probably fucked. The most likely new way of organising the planet is some technocractic form of fascism. Compounds for the rich elite in an area which is shielded from the eco-catastrophe. A periphery of people like security guards and non-robot employees in other areas. And then everyone else - at best with some kind of minimal universal basic income.

In this situation it doesn't seem too zany to be thinking about alternative models. And of course it is easy to knock alternative models and pretend that everything is going to be fine. But it won't be. So your options are to accept that or try and do something about it.

That all sounds fine. I'm just puzzled as to why some people still want to use a term with as much historical baggage as "communism". Why not come up with a new term that doesn't instantly conjure associations with Stalin and Mao?

 

[john eden]

Sure, but there's a difference between this, and a world where the most powerful man is subconsciously acting out his own childhood trauma on the entire world (even for Donald, there's a reason he's a cunt). This is not a person who is happy in any regard - a traumatised and traumatising narcissist on an epic scale.

And that difference might well be the difference between the survival of this world and armageddon.

Absolutely. So we need a world where:

Far fewer people are traumatised.
Power is not concentrated in the hands of one man.
Flourishing of humans and the natural environment is encouraged far more than competition for profit.

 

[baboon2004]

Don't know, would have to see the study.

But you can bet everything you have that a UK with a (still) broadly socialised health system will be a whole lot more satisfied than a UK with a privatised health system, for example.

 

[baboon2004]

Absolutely. So we need a world where:

Far fewer people are traumatised.
Power is not concentrated in the hands of one man.
Flourishing of humans and the natural environment is encouraged far more than competition for profit.

Couldn't agree more. And (2) and (3) flow very naturally from (1).

For me, (1) is only achieved when the definition of trauma becomes one of a spectrum, rather than the pathologising us and them narrative that keeps on persisting re mental health, and which prevents change.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Don't know, would have to see the study.

But you can bet everything you have that a UK with a (still) broadly socialised health system will be a whole lot more satisfied than a UK with a privatised health system, for example.

Well duh, obviously. But the UK has never been a socialist country. Even back in the 1960s it was still a capitalist country, it just had a top tax rate of 90%. I guess there was a certain amount of state-owned industry back then (although I'm never quite sure where the line is drawn between 'socialism', in that sense, and state-capitalism) and the welfare state wasn't being torn up and tossed aside, so 'social democracy' is perhaps the correct term.

 

[john eden]

That all sounds fine. I'm just puzzled as to why some people still want to use a term with as much historical baggage as "communism". Why not come up with a new term that doesn't instantly conjure associations with Stalin and Mao?

All terms have baggage. Would "eco-anarchism" or "pro-working class municipalism" be any better?

No they wouldn't - you'd just be arguing the toss on here about an anarchist you once met who said that it was bad that people used soap or ate crisps. And you'd say anarchism is worthless and naive because it's never been tried.

And I'd mention the communes in the Spanish Civil War and you'd say oh but they didn't last very long did they and wasn't there a priest who got duffed up and anyway it all got defeated by fascism so that is definitely what will happen because all of the factors are exactly the same and nobody can learn from the past.

And if we called it djsjajdxhushuvcbusdbujdfbguisfd you'd just be saying well that sounds just like communism to me, why can't you just be honest about it, is it because you are actually Stalin.

So we cannot try to visualise:

1. Things which have been tried and failed.
2. Things which have never been tried.

Where does that leave us?

 

[droid]

Here we are, 1986 study based on 1983 data of pretty much every socialist country at the time.

All the metrics are better. Staggeringly so in some cases.

 

[baboon2004]

@Tea No 'duh' about it at all - if it was that simple then everyone would be voting for a party that defends it.

Social democracy: "a socialist system of government achieved by democratic means"

 

[john eden]

Couldn't agree more. And (2) and (3) flow very naturally from (1).

For me, (1) is only achieved when the definition of trauma becomes one of a spectrum, rather than the pathologising us and them narrative that keeps on persisting re mental health, and which prevents change.

Yes absolutely.

 

[baboon2004]

Therapeutic socialism

 

[Mr. Tea]

Here we are, 1986 study based on 1983 data of pretty much every socialist country at the time.

All the metrics are better. Staggeringly so in some cases.

Well then why do people risk their lives travelling from Cuba to the USA but not vice-versa? Why did people get shot trying to scale the Berlin Wall from East to West, not West to East?

 

[yyaldrin]

kinda obvious no that the bourgeoisie fled cuba?

also, some people do want to go to cuba
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/...nts-cant-get-without-breaking-law/1019093001/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/05/cuba-healthcare-refugee-american-dream

 

[baboon2004]

that's one point, other is the illusion of capitalism - it has very good PR. What do you think happens to the many thousands who try to reach the US every year - do you think they find a better life? I can't find it right now, but there has been research with migrants (who have risked a lot on the journey), and many regret it.

Also to do with the way the world financial system is set up, and remittances from shit jobs in the West being worth more than similar salaries in country of origin. Doesn't mean those people are any happier - they're sacrificing themselves for the sake of family back home.

In Cuba's case, the US anti-free trade embargo (selective as ever in its capitalism) and its economic effects probably contributed - poor countries are poor because they are made/kept that way by rich countries.

 

[Mr. Tea]

All terms have baggage. Would "eco-anarchism" or "pro-working class municipalism" be any better?

To be honest, yeah, probably. Eco-anarchists haven't killed 20 million people lately (or ever).

And I'd mention the communes in the Spanish Civil War and you'd say oh but they didn't last very long did they and wasn't there a priest who got duffed up and anyway it all got defeated by fascism so that is definitely what will happen because all of the factors are exactly the same and nobody can learn from the past.

OK, ignoring your disingenuous dismissal of the murder of thousands of clergy, monks and nuns as "a priest who got duffed up", clearly the Republican forces in Spain were both far preferable to Franco's forces and a long way from Soviet totalitarianism. The idea of communism in the sense of relatively small-scale, self-organizing communities is actually quite attractive to me. At the level of nation-states, not so much.

1. Things which have been tried and failed.
2. Things which have never been tried.

Where does that leave us?

My point is that something that looks like a 2 can easily turn out to be a 1.

 

[Mr. Tea]

kinda obvious no that the bourgeoisie fled cuba?

also, some people do want to go to cuba
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/...nts-cant-get-without-breaking-law/1019093001/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/05/cuba-healthcare-refugee-american-dream

Wealthy people flee Cuba on home-made rafts, do they?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balseros_(rafters)

During the 1994 Cuban Rafter Crisis, the most commonly observed raft from the US tanker Coastal New York was constructed of 2 doors atop large truck-tire inner tubes, with the doors connected by 2"x4" wooden beams. A rudimentary 2-3m mast was improvised that supported a small white cloth as a flag or banner that would increase the raft's visibility to vessels traveling nearby. The Coastal New York observed over 75 abandoned rafts in a 4-hour daylight period near the Gulf Stream off Florida's east coast.

Yeah, they sound bourgeois as fuck, don't they. :slanted:

 

[Mr. Tea]

In Cuba's case, the US anti-free trade embargo (selective as ever in its capitalism) and its economic effects probably contributed - poor countries are poor because they are made/kept that way by rich countries.

That argument applies to Cuba but not to the USSR and its satellites, which in theory was self-sufficient - "Socialism in one country".

 

[droid]

lol, I hope you're not falling for Tea's standard routine where he frantically sets up as many goalposts as possible when confronted with evidence he doesn't like and then runs between them when cornered.

 

[baboon2004]

That argument applies to Cuba but not to the USSR and its satellites, which in theory was self-sufficient - "Socialism in one country".

??? Right, so the West didn't exert financial pressure on socialist states in eastern europe....ok

also you completely ignored my other two arguments.

 

[john eden]

My point is that something that looks like a 2 can easily turn out to be a 1.

So we should never attempt to radically change the world, ever. And just accept the radical changes that are foisted on us.

A hundred thousand excess deaths because of austerity since 2008.
45,000 deaths annually in the US because of a lack of health insurance.
Life expectancy reducing in poorer communities for the first time in centuries.

These are just natural occurences, like flooding or the huge temperatures we are seeing this week.

And they are certainly better than being sent to Siberia by a man with a huge moustache, which is what will definitely happen to all of us if we try and restructure the world so that 95% of the population has greater collective control over their lives and the environment.

 

[Mr. Tea]

??? Right, so the West didn't exert financial pressure on socialist states in eastern europe....ok

I'm not sure I get you - surely the USSR had far more influence, financial or otherwise, on (say) Poland in 1960 that the USA did?

And again, at that time, were there people trying to get from Britain and France and West Germany to Poland and Hungary, or the other way around?

also you completely ignored my other two arguments.

that's one point, other is the illusion of capitalism - it has very good PR. What do you think happens to the many thousands who try to reach the US every year - do you think they find a better life? I can't find it right now, but there has been research with migrants (who have risked a lot on the journey), and many regret it.

Also to do with the way the world financial system is set up, and remittances from shit jobs in the West being worth more than similar salaries in country of origin. Doesn't mean those people are any happier - they're sacrificing themselves for the sake of family back home.

On the first point, obviously most immigrants to poor countries don't land a cushy job, and many get massively exploited, but I think you're doing them a disfavour by suggesting they've all been brainwashed by propaganda, especially given that many communist countries have extremely stringent controls on what information is allowed into the country, as well as ubiquitous negative propaganda about the USA on state media channels. If most of them found life was actually worse than where they'd left, they'd tell their folks back home (or simply return) and eventually they'd stop coming at all.

On the second, sure, many of them send money home, but then we're back to the question of why that would be necessary in socialist countries where apparently one's every need is met by the state.