Monday, December 1, 2008
City Those Capitalists Have Been Very, Very Bad...
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 2:39 PM
...so now you must by punished.
I'll admit that it's a little harder to dismiss those Freedom Socialists' flyers nowadays, seeing as our economic system is just as corrupt and unsustainable as the FSP has long insisted. But a Freedom Socialist today is like a hypochondriac who was just diagnosed with a terminal illness: Since we're all going to die eventually, sooner or later one of the hypochondriac's worse-case scenarios was going to come to pass. It doesn't mean the hypochondriac was right all along about everything.
Anyway, anyone who feels that he or she isn't suffering enough right now can subject themselves to a three-week discussion hosted by the Freedom Socialists. The conversation starts tonight at 7 PM at Kaladi Brothers Coffee (511 E. Pike).
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1
Pure socialism doesn't work any better than pure capitalism.
If only there was a political system that somehow used people's innate selfishness to make things better for everyone else, we'd be fine.
If only there was a political system that somehow used people's innate selfishness to make things better for everyone else, we'd be fine.
2
Sorry, this event conflicts with a seminar I'm attending based on another flyer, in which I will be earning an executive-level salary stuffing envelopes from home. Suckas.
3
Weren't the people who said there were no WMD's in Iraq also like hypochondriacs? It's just funny to me how pundits can inoculate themselves from being proven wrong again and again, and can insist that the ones who got it right time and again are kooks. I'm not saying everyone should run out and join up with this group, but I'd try to be a little less comfortable in who you listen to and who you dismiss.
4
The monetary system is Fucked. The socialists can't do much about that either, but that doesn't mean the system isn't fucked.
Go Project Venus!
Go Project Venus!
5
Last time I counted, SCCC had three different flavors of Socialists represented on campus. They have so far resisted consolidation. So yeah, the revolution might take awhile.
6
The capitalist economy could be collapsing, and that is very bad. But one answer is to introduce (more) 'complementary currencies'. They are working world wide, and they don't have interest or inflation. When the national currency (which also happens to accrete weath towards the wealthy) starts to fail, alternate currencies which benefit humans, not banks, are an answer.
7
In America as in Europe the governments of many countries are buying large stakes in the banking system .... to save it from the good old free free free to be greedy greedy greedy to the max system ....sounds a lot like a degree of socialist theory .. hey Dan, those bankers were so kind to all of us ... acting from their pure, I need ten more millions hearts ... your fears, and the right wing propaganda of decades and the fear of the BAD word has cost us all dearly.
Socialists in America talk the old rhetoric of change and revolution, but the fact is the moment has proven them correct in giant parts of our lives.
Where is our National health care plan?
Why are millions of Americans losing theri homes to poverty.
What happened to good management?
The far right has run the country into war, unemployment, poverty for millions more and a depression. Is it time for a new left movement?
Ronald Reagan lied, and so did the Bush family. Feeding trillions into the upper classes does not work. War is not our national salvation.
I think I will go take a gander, the crises are far from over.
Socialists in America talk the old rhetoric of change and revolution, but the fact is the moment has proven them correct in giant parts of our lives.
Where is our National health care plan?
Why are millions of Americans losing theri homes to poverty.
What happened to good management?
The far right has run the country into war, unemployment, poverty for millions more and a depression. Is it time for a new left movement?
Ronald Reagan lied, and so did the Bush family. Feeding trillions into the upper classes does not work. War is not our national salvation.
I think I will go take a gander, the crises are far from over.
9
People have to want their government. If their government and it's system of wealth doesn't work or provide, it must change. The people will change it. When the U.S. Treasury takes control of the system of wealth the way it has, we are already on a level of socialism. They can deny it all they want, the way they've denied we're in a recession (or depression) but the facts say differently. And it had better work whatever you call it.
10
Freedom Socialists are like Republican Socialists without the successful jobs from looting you paychecks and destroying the environment.
But they do have cool parties, mind you.
And if you've been to a Republican party, you know the Red Bushies don't have cool parties.
But they do have cool parties, mind you.
And if you've been to a Republican party, you know the Red Bushies don't have cool parties.
12
@3. Weren't the people who said there were no WMD's in Iraq also like hypochondriacs?
Yeah . . . I just recently discovered that little gem. I was floored. Did Dan eventually retract that? I know he didn't vote for Bush in 2004...
On topic: Socialists are actual social liberals, unlike Libertarians. They will vote in favor of legalization of drugs, gay civil marriage, and gun control. They won't--like Libertarians--sell out the First Amendment in order to "save" the Second.
Yes, their fiscal/economic plank probably wouldn't not work in our country. But smugly mocking someone else's chosen economic system when, Jesus Christ, Dan, you fell for every single line of bullshit the Bush Adm. was trying to feed us . . .
I'm still fucking speechless...
And, no, I'm not a Socialist.
Yeah . . . I just recently discovered that little gem. I was floored. Did Dan eventually retract that? I know he didn't vote for Bush in 2004...
On topic: Socialists are actual social liberals, unlike Libertarians. They will vote in favor of legalization of drugs, gay civil marriage, and gun control. They won't--like Libertarians--sell out the First Amendment in order to "save" the Second.
Yes, their fiscal/economic plank probably wouldn't not work in our country. But smugly mocking someone else's chosen economic system when, Jesus Christ, Dan, you fell for every single line of bullshit the Bush Adm. was trying to feed us . . .
I'm still fucking speechless...
And, no, I'm not a Socialist.
13
I'm sure most socialists would disagree if you said the collapse of the USSR was a failure of socialism. How then, can they say the current financial crisis in the US is a failure of capitalism?
14
13: Capitalism routinely fails and the state routinely bails it out. It's not like this the first time this has happened or anything. It's pretty common actually, it's just not usually on this scale. True socialism has failed, but social democracy, which most European "socialists" promote as an alternative to pure capitalism and pure socialism is alive and well, even if it's suffering from the market too.
15
People who say that our economic system is only failing *NOW* are people with enough economic privellege that they could ignore the ways it has always failed. For a large percentage of the American population, the system has *never* meant prosperity or anything resembling economic justice. But no one cares until the disaster leaves the ghettos and slums and communities of color and comes to white suburbia.
Dan, I love you, but you've got no class analysis. Your hypochondriac metaphor is bullshit. Human beings are not a singular body that, if one section is diseased, the rest feels the effect. The capitalist system of our country is fucking *built* on the poverty of other nations and has been for a very long time, even during the times when your family and mine have enjoyed comfort.
And YES to social democracy. I'm actually a communist, myself (libertarian communist, which is VERY different from the authoritarian Communism we all know and hate), but I think social democracy is the most viable next step in the direction of a just society.
Dan, I love you, but you've got no class analysis. Your hypochondriac metaphor is bullshit. Human beings are not a singular body that, if one section is diseased, the rest feels the effect. The capitalist system of our country is fucking *built* on the poverty of other nations and has been for a very long time, even during the times when your family and mine have enjoyed comfort.
And YES to social democracy. I'm actually a communist, myself (libertarian communist, which is VERY different from the authoritarian Communism we all know and hate), but I think social democracy is the most viable next step in the direction of a just society.
16
JMS - why do you put "socalists" in quotation marks? Are you implying that democratic socialism isn't real socialism?
Socialism is an economic theory, not a well-defined political system. Specifically, it is an economic system based around the redistribution of wealth according to people's needs and the needs of the community. The socialism that is commonly referred to as having failed is a specific kind of uthoritarian tyranny where all the economic decisions were super centralized (this never works because economies need to be determined by their participants in order to be flexible and functional).
I see people here using the term "pure socialism" to refer to this system, but that's inaccurate. "Pure socialism" would simply be any system where wealth is redistrubuted until all needs are met. This could just as easily occur democratically - indeed, I think it could only successfully happen that way.
And as for people who talk about "whether or not" we "should" have socialism in the US...WE ALREADY DO. Just not as much as western Europe. Also, whenever politicians talk about the importance of regulating capitalism...REGULATION OF CAPITALISM IS ALSO SOCIALISM.
Socialism is an economic theory, not a well-defined political system. Specifically, it is an economic system based around the redistribution of wealth according to people's needs and the needs of the community. The socialism that is commonly referred to as having failed is a specific kind of uthoritarian tyranny where all the economic decisions were super centralized (this never works because economies need to be determined by their participants in order to be flexible and functional).
I see people here using the term "pure socialism" to refer to this system, but that's inaccurate. "Pure socialism" would simply be any system where wealth is redistrubuted until all needs are met. This could just as easily occur democratically - indeed, I think it could only successfully happen that way.
And as for people who talk about "whether or not" we "should" have socialism in the US...WE ALREADY DO. Just not as much as western Europe. Also, whenever politicians talk about the importance of regulating capitalism...REGULATION OF CAPITALISM IS ALSO SOCIALISM.
17
Nonplussed - just FYI, the American Libertarian Party has co-opted the term "Libertarian." Everywhere else in the world, a libertarian is a breed of socialist, not a capitalist.
18
Brandon - the collapse of the USSR - like the problems in China and Cuba - are failures of *authoritarian* socialism.
I'm not all that familiar with the FSP, but if they're authoritarian socialists, I don't know how they defend their system, but that's what us libertarian socialists have to say.
I'm not all that familiar with the FSP, but if they're authoritarian socialists, I don't know how they defend their system, but that's what us libertarian socialists have to say.
19
Laurel:
I'm using quotations to differentiate them from socialist who advocate nationalization and state control of all means of production, not to disparage them. I am a social democrat.
I'm using quotations to differentiate them from socialist who advocate nationalization and state control of all means of production, not to disparage them. I am a social democrat.
20
@17. Thank you, Laurel, for your intelligent, rational posts. I used capitalized "Libertarian" to differentiate it from social libertarians. Yes, I meant the Libertarian Party in my post. Sorry for not being more clear.
21
Just to let everyone know, those of us at the first discussion Monday didn't "suffer" at all! It was good to take stock of what capitalism really is (constantly looking for more and more profits leading to more and more horrors for those of us not living in the upper strata), how sane and rational a planned economy would be (redistribute that wealth I say!) and how we can get there. We'll be back at Kaladi Brother's Coffee (511 E. Pike) at 7pm this Monday Dec. 8th (auto industry bailout and more) and the following Monday (15th). Hope to see you there.
22
When capitalism is crashing all around us--and stealing our jobs, pensions, homes, and futures--talking about an alternative system that puts our survival and the survival of the planet first seems like a very healthy discussion to have, whether in a coffee shop or here on the Internet. For those interested in another in-person opportunity, the FSP is holding a public forum this Saturday, December 6, at 7:30pm at 5018 Rainier Avenue S. The title is "A Marxist Looks at Capitalism's Meltdown." For details go to http://www.socialism.com/activities/wash…, or call 206-722-2453.
23
A question for Dan. If those of us who think that this corrupt, anarchistic, cruel and outdated system needs to be junked are "hypochondriacs", what do you call someone who keeps thinking capitalism is salvageable despite all the information to the contrary?
You should stop by the discussion group for a chat. It would be good to move beyond name calling and talk about what to do about the mess we are all in.
You should stop by the discussion group for a chat. It would be good to move beyond name calling and talk about what to do about the mess we are all in.
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