There are occasions when a comment is made on this post that I think needs to be more widely shared. A person who posts under the name Geearkay made such a comment yesterday. In response to a suggestion that socialism is a threat he or she said this, which I felt worth making the basis for broader discussion:
As for the Socialism aspect, I think you may be confusing Socialism with the perceived definition of Communism, i.e. everyone receiving the same reward no matter what they do. That's utter nonsense, of course… not only is it unfair and undesirable, it's unworkable.
What I mean by socialism — and this goes to the heart of my decision to stay in public service when I could double my income in the private sector — is that I believe that life should be fair and compassionate to all. Nothing more or less than that. There is enough food, there could be enough housing, there are resources enough in this world to make sure that everybody has enough to eat, a warm and comfortable place to sleep, a change of clothes and access to Strictly Come Dancing (other forms of entertainment are available — but you get my meaning). So…
I believe all children, regardless of race, religion, culture or socio-economic background should have the same chances in life. The same options of education, the same level of healthcare provision and the same love, nurturing and help through into young adulthood. No child should be cold or hungry or homeless. Once everyone has had the same start in life, then let your competition in the Great Game of Adulthood begin.
I believe that all adults, regardless of how they fill their days, are deserving of respect. There is no reasons for society to look down upon or look up to any single person or group of people. We will do that individually — we all harbour our prejudices and favours — but society (which oftentimes will be synonymous with “The State”, reflected through “The Media”) should regard all citizens with the same level of respect — and that level should be set high. As adults, some will do better in The Great Game than others, whether that means making more money or advancing in their chosen field or being parents or whatever it is that they choose to do. That's just the way of things. However well or otherwise an adult does (by whatever metric is most appropriate), should always run second to the respect that society at large shows them. And at no point need anyone be hungry or cold or homeless.
And finally, we should honour our elders and let them live out their days in as much peace and happiness as they wish. Our elderly have done their bit for the species and deserve their piece of the pie. Call me selfish cos I dearly hope to be old one day… but I wish the same for you, so I suppose it's OK.
So, I am intensely relaxed about the amount people can earn whilst working, yet I remain a committed socialist. I don't think a part-time shoe-shine boy should earn as much as a Consultant Oncologist… and neither would the shoeshine boy, if he was honest. It's all part of The Great Game. But whether you win or lose at the game, there should always be respect, compassion and a basic standard of living below which none should fall.
That's my view of Socialism. Please tell me what's so offensive about it?
The floor is yours.....
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“So, I am intensely relaxed about the amount people can earn whilst working, …”
I’m intensely WARY of the amount people can ‘earn’ particularly when they are in the position to effectively set their own remuneration.
Within the private sector, the argument goes this is nobody else’s business, but it impinges on expected salaries in the public sector too through the benchmarking process.
We have people in ‘top jobs’ now in the public sector getting remuneration for responsibilities they do not, in reality, carry. Their responsibility in may cases is no more than to administer the budget they are allocated by central government.
We repeatedly see that even private sector boards are well remunerated for what can only be considered to be abject failure. We have become accustomed to throwing money at people who have chutzpah (aka bloody cheek) and little else by way of qualification or experience.
Otherwise I approve the tone and content of this piece.
Another consideration is the immunity offered by limited liability in private sector organisations. When the government (usually described as the taxpayer) has to pick up the tab for corporate failure on eye-watering scales it becomes very much part of everybody’s business.
The private sector does not operate in a hermetically sealed bubble.
Agreed. While it may be appropriate to be “… intensely relaxed about the amount people can earn whilst working, …”
as a writer, singer, actor, or may be even footballer, although there is a case for capping ticket prices on the basis of median local income, the same is not true for many professions where high salaries are typically no more than rent-extraction by a power elite.
I can see zero justification for why the ratio of say CEO pay to median pay has increased over the last few decades, and all the evidence suggests that this increase has become a drag on, rather than a driver of prosperity.
Agreed
Interestingly hardly anybody recognises that the higher the level of an income stream the more likely a substantial part of that stream will get locked away inflating asset prices which in turn makes purchase more expensive for those on lower income streams. So whilst it is unnatural for human beings not to recognise the need for differentials in income streams reflecting ability and responsibility it is fraught with potential for divisiveness should those differentionals be too high and especially when a society lacks rules to allow a majority to have a say in the remuneration levels of the few as well as their own.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/16/ceo-worker-pay-ratio-america-first-study
When I worked with the TUC I argued for action on pay more than ten times U.K. median pay. I still think that reasonable.
I agree with most of the sentiments, apart from the inequality of remuneration principle. Research has suggested that hunter-gatherer societies were (and some still are) highly egalitarian. It was when humans became farmers and created a surplus that unequal “rewards” became “normal” as some powerful individuals grabbed a disproportionate amount of the surplus. And so it continues with ever greater inequality on a seemingly unstoppable trajectory.
A fair, compassionate and just society (as the writer wants) cannot exist when we have the levels of unequal income and wealth in today’s UK and elsewhere.
Danny Dorling has a very good chapter (6) in “Do we need economic inequality” on unequal rewards and suggests 1:8 as a reasonable ratio. I would prefer 1:4 like the Ecology BS. I don’t think this is “nonsense” and Dorling explains why in greater detail nailing many of the myths that support unequal rewards.
I am with Danny
In addition to just sitting next to him for much of yesterday
I would entirely agree with the above; but so would 95% of my right wing, non-socialist friends.
its probably better defined as humanity. My view is that a socialist approach is a better way to get there – I know others think differently
At an informal level ‘most people’ probably would agree with the fundamental principles expressed. What’s not to like? However ‘Socialism’, as it is understood today in its modern historical context, is a broadly-based political movement that directly challenges the more narrow, solipsistic Capitalist ‘formula’ as a better way to deliver these principles in order to achieve the greater good & well-being of society. It’s the delivery system rather than the ideals themselves that is at the core of the dialectical differences that have shaped today’s global society.
When we have over 150 years of inspired original thinkers to draw upon, there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel. Of course the most influential is Marx (not forgetting Engels) whose unique insights are proving to be as relevant today as they were during his life-time.
While one could spend the rest of one’s life reading & viewing the legion different interpretations available in cyberspace, as a modest diversion from tomorrow’s very non-Socialist extravaganza 🙂 I offer 3 brief YouTube presentations highlighting the essentials, which I post in full awareness of their academic limitations:
What is Socialism? A Short History – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaAXW_Krmis
What is Socialism – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQQtbBYvDs
What is Capitalism – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azVxrMIxbJU
There are plenty more where they came from.
I may contribute to this debate in due course
I have always had major reservations about calling myself a socialist because I think the term too materialist to now be of use
That is why I do not think Marx et al entirely useful now
Actually, Richard, I agree with you. I’ve never called myself a ‘socialist’ in the political sense. But since you put the word in the headline, I was simply attempting to put ‘Socialism’ into a practical historical context. Marx couldn’t possibly have taken on board the global issues that have evolved since his contribution to the debate. But I do think his fundamental analysis regarding ownership and surplus value constitutes a valid building block for a new dialogue; i.e. it’s not a bad starting point.
The challenges confronting humanity have been growing exponentially since the end of the 19th century – not least the inability of the prevailing economic ideology to deal with the integrity of the environment. Since Marx challenged Capitalist dogma there hasn’t really been a significant new ‘idea’ that will help us towards delivering the quality of life necessary for a sustainable and harmonious future. I think you’d agree that it’s time is well overdue and that we urgently need a new socio-economic paradigm which goes beyond what even the more benign aspects of ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ can deliver. It’s why I originally joined the then Ecology Party back in the 70s because it proclaimed it was the only political party that encompassed a ‘spiritual’ dimension. Sadly it’s not a word the Green Party would dare use today – a reflection of the degree to which the ego-driven financialisation of everyday life has permeated public consciousness.
I have always liked Satish Kumar’s anti-Cartesian take on where we are: “Look at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me ‘unrealistic’ to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept.”
This is what I was looking for, albeit perhaps too pragmatically, in my book The Courageous State
People seem too insistent on what their rights are rather than what their duties ought to be in society.
Rights should flow from duties performed well , otherwise they are not worth having.
You mean all rights are conditional? Really? Conditional on what? And why?
Was it not clear?
Rights should be earned by being prepared to perform the duties of citizenship. To society and the world. We would all be better off if we thought of our duties as a human being. If we discharge our duties, our rights will follow. If we neglect our duties and insist on our rights, those rights will escape us.
Oh dear….what a very warped view you have of life
So, children have no rights?
And what of those with disabilities?
Or the elderly?
What about those who have no employment as there is no work to be found?
And who is it who polices our duties? Is this a secret police?
And what do we do with those without rights as you define them? Cull them?
Would you like to explain a little more?
Instead of hiding behind hypothetical children, it is your views I am after. Do you demand rights, making the performance of duty dependent on them? Putting yourself first and society second?
Consider two individuals. One sits in his chair and demands his rights, the other performs the duties he feels in his heart will make the world better.
Who in your view is doing more for society?
As for further explanation, my earlier comments were quotes from Mahatma Ghandi.
If I had to chose his philosophy of life or yours, it would be an easy choice.
I note you did not answer my quite reasonable questions
Please do so or I will not be engaging
On the contrary; my thought has tended toward the idea that if you remove people’s rights they are much less likely to be willing to undertake societal duties.
Why should they?
My right to life would thus flow from what? That I respect Mrs Queen? (as one daft example – I don’t BTW).
How about voting rights? What duties would you have to perform well to have voting rights? (be a member of a politicla party?)
To me socialism is the ownership of land and capital by those who use them – the opposite of capitalism.
So far as high salaries are concerned, they are mostly economic rent and should be taxed at a high rate.
I agree with the sentiment of Geearkay’s post, but I become hung up on where to draw the line between what everyone deserves (Geearkay suggests food, housing, warmth, a good start in life) and what is reserved for the few (great wealth).
The idea that no one should be left hungry or homeless comes from a sense that (1) no person would deliberately choose such a life, (2) their situation must therefore have been imposed by forces beyond their control, therefore (3) that person should not be held as the only one responsible for their miserable circumstances and given some help.
But none of us are fully “responsible” for our ultimate situation in life. If we have done well it is as a result of some or all of the following factors, none of which we had control over: luck, inherited natural talent; inherited wealth; nurturing environment; or broadly personality traits (a mix of inheritance and nurturing) which are conducive to success. We do not choose our willpower, we do not choose our level of determination, or how charming or confident we are. All of the traits that supposedly make a ‘self-made’ person are, in essence, wonderful gifts that anyone, given the opportunity, would love to have, but life doesn’t work that way. No one chooses to have a fatalistic, pessimistic attitude which leads to a series of dead end jobs. No one chooses to be a little less intelligent than average. No one chooses to miss out on chance encounters that could have made their career.
Does the shoe-shine boy deserve less than the consultant oncologist? The only justification for different remuneration is not a moral one (would the shoe shine boy, if he could do it all again with the right set of circumstances, be a worse oncologist?) but rather because different levels of financial reward tend to be fairly effective at encouraging productive behaviour in a wider population. That is a superficial but fairly decent justification: we all benefit when people engage in productive activity, so money is a good way of encouraging that behaviour. But let’s not kid ourselves that any person ‘deserves’ any more than any other.
If we could put a wonder-drug in the water supply to artificially produce the same mental incentives towards productivity that money does now, we would all be much better off. All the productive work would get done, but we wouldn’t have to worry about the rampant inequality.
That might make a decent sci-fi plot, actually…
What you are saying, I think, is pragmatic compromise is required
Tax has a key role to play in that
he he.. Strictly Come Dancing…!
Socialism is simply a carollary of democracy. It really is that simple.
I have always thought Bill Shankly had it right. Everyone working for each other. Everyone sharing the rewards. It needn’t be any more complicated than that.
@ Peter Knowles
There’s only one thing worse than rights without responsibilities and that’s responsibilities without rights.
You wrote:
“If we discharge our duties, our rights will follow. If we neglect our duties and insist on our rights, those rights will escape us.”
Nice idea, if very naive. But I’m afraid history does not agree with you. It’s when people mindlessly perform duties, often without question, that rights escape them. No section of a society ever gave another section rights. Rights — all down the ages — have had to be fought for tooth & nail. Some even sacrificed their lives to help establish the principle of rights. The Peterloo massacre is just one incident amongst many.
In a previous post on this thread you wrote:
“People seem too insistent on what their rights are rather than what their duties ought to be in society.”
The operative word above being ‘seem’. I would argue that more people most of the time are unaware of what few rights remain to them than the other way round. The coalition government cut the grants given to the Citizens Advice Bureau by over 50% precisely because they didn’t want people taking advantage of those pesky ‘rights.’
You don’t specify what rights people are too insistent on demanding, but Compo claims and Health & Safety spring to mind. I wouldn’t fall for the nonsense spouted in certain newspapers if I were you… not good for the blood pressure.
Such papers love to report how some single mum on benefits is suing a hard-working library on ‘elf & Safety’ grounds because she tripped over a misbehaving child; her own child!
Or about some bloke suing an Oxford choir for trauma and distress caused to his daughter when they turned her down because she wasn’t a good enough singer. What these newspapers never report is that such nonsensical claims don’t even make it off the starting blocks. How else could such rags whip up faux tut-tutting outrage against ‘rights’ and ‘elf & Safety’ otherwise?
You also wrote:
“Rights should flow from duties performed well , otherwise they are not worth having.”
Not worth having? Says who and why? And just what duties does a person have to perform to your approved level of enthusiasm and correctness for them to have a right to a fair trial, say?
Are rights to be graded? Full rights for those performing their civic duties well, middling rights to those performing them indifferently and low or no rights to those performing them badly?
Is a fine upstanding citizen to be granted the right to be free from the fear of torture, but an alcoholic wastrel is not? That sounds like an extreme example but it’s not. Other societies, in other times, thought precisely that.
And just who decides what duties are to be performed and to what level? Once upon a time it was the civic duty of every parishioner to attend church on a Sunday or else they were fined.
Young men eschewing their civic duty not to sow their wild oats too openly and enthusiastically were forced to wear a white shroud outside their local church as penance. Needless to say this practice was dropped when the clergy realised this punishment was viewed as a badge of honour by such reprobates. A bit like myself being forced to confess my sins every Friday when I was kid. We used to hold competitions on who could get to say the most Hail Marys and Our Fathers by blagging a load of rubbish to the priest. The kid who won got to be the Cock of the Playground for that week.
I’m sure you’re a very nice man but, by god, I’d hate to live in your version of society. Oh, hang on…. I already do. And what a joyless, petty, pusillanimous society we’re turning into.
However, I may not agree with you and your views, but I’ll march with you to have the right to hold them. Would you march with me to hold mine?
Well said
Nothing is offensive. Indeed, it is all most admirable. Unfortunately, the “Great Game” is not all that it is cracked up to be. Neither, sadly, are we humans …
That is why we need Principles, not “values”, to live by.
And while I completely agree with everything that you have expressed, it is my fear that you have not gone far enough.
Equality is my aim. Perhaps forever to be striven for, and never to be achieved. But I would argue that it still should be our aim …
But what do you mean by equality?
I aspire to it but as Geearkay said, do not think total financial equality reasonable as a goal, and think other dimensions at least as important
What do you mean?
I mean for Equality to apply to all parts of our lives: law, health, education, housing and finance, as well as general respect. Perhaps, in those first five things, it becomes less and less easy. But the first three could without huge stress, be made slam dunks. The third, to take some of the examples above, could get to a ratio of of 1 to 4, while finance I would hope for 1 to 8, but would accept 1 to 12 as a staging post.
As to respect, well if we could really achieve that, I suspect that all the rest would follow naturally. But the preoccupation with status by some of us, renders that one perhaps the most intractable …
There is no excuse for access to law, housing and education to be unequal in our society.
Good quality housing could be available for all.
And finance? Exclusion is commonplace and unforgivable in the sixth richest nation on earth.
How to address these issues? If we agree these are amongst the ways inequality must be tackled (adn I do not ignore the other dimensions around respecting difference for a moment) then agreeing how to do this is vital.
I hope that we can agree on how to do this. Certainly, your work on tax will be amongst the basic building blocks of such an agreement.
But so will the need to change ownership of the basic fundamentals – natural monopolies, if you will.
And, in my opinion, Mutualism will need to be resuscitated, as will proper Co-Operative Ownership.
And Banking must suffer root-and-branch reform.
I agree with all that
We already have laws that mandate equality of opportunity and long may they be perfected.
But with laws mandating equality of respect we would have to start by changing our definition of respect:
“a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.“
Is unearned respect really respect or is this philosophy just another way of mandating equality of outcome?
Why give up on our human endeavor and perfecting our laws mandating equality of opportunity?
@Waggler
I disagree with your definition of respect. I think you’re confusing two entirely different things, admiration and respect.
I may admire Charlton Heston’s chiselled good looks and magnificent set of shoulders, which he no doubt worked very hard to achieve for my, and others, delectation. But I have no respect whatsoever for his views on gun control and his homophobia. All things considered, I think he’s a bit of a div all round. But my less than respectful opinion of CH doesn’t stop me from admiring his terrific shoulders when he was younger despite being a rubbish actor (IMHO) to boot.
Conversely, I greatly respect Jeremy Corbyn for his consistency over the years for sticking to his views (many of which I do happen to agree with, so that helps!) and for the sheer stoicism and patience he’s displayed after being under the most virulent and sustained attacks by the MSM I have ever witnessed a politician be subjected to.
But I don’t admire him because he’s too wishy-washy and, I suspect, a wee bit closed-minded. He’s a pretty good orator (I witnessed him speak at an impromptu rally held on a beach where I live in the run up to the 2017 GE) but he’s no Bevin. Plus he’s downright awful at PMQT; not good in a leader of the opposition.
I thoroughly disrespect Theresa May and cannot find one single trait in her to admire. She’s a power hungry hypocrite of the first degree. She may be a vicar’s daughter and attend church every Sunday, but she’s also one of those so-called Christians who do not possess so much as a milligram of true Christianity within them.
For me respect is not so much earned as it is lost. I automatically respect all that I meet for the first time until they do/say something that makes me think twice about that automatic respect. But we all have our off days, so I’ll put my respect on hold until their future actions confirm my automatic respect or lead me to withdraw it. That’s not quite the same as earning it. I’d hate a world where we are respect slaves (a recipe for conformity perhaps?) on a par with being a wage slave.
If more people had my attitude towards respect then that ‘Skivers V Strivers’ rhetoric towards the unemployed & disabled (with pensioners soon to join them under Universal Credit rules) could never have taken hold to the extent it has in the UK to justify so-called Austerity policies. Many such policies have led to peoples’ deaths, and untold, not to mention totally unnecessary, suffering. This really is England…Now!
That upholding principal of all justice, law and order — innocent until proven guilty — no longer holds sway in the UK. Now that’s what I call real disrespect on a massive scale, and all the more insidiously powerful because it’s hidden in the main. Images of frogs and pots of gradually heating up water pop in to my mind’s eye.
First they came for…. Blah, blah, blah.
“… a bit of a div”. I don’t think I’ve hear that word since my husband passed away 13 years ago. A woman after my own heart;o)
Sarah,
That is not my definition of respect. It is from a dictionary so that makes it our definition of respect.
Instead of saying respect perhaps you meant love?
Is there a difference
Listen to Louis Armstrong
Or yesterday’s sermon
Well, you are wrong about PMQs. But don’t take my word for it, even The Guardian, a notoriously Corbyn-hating paper, gives him those. He also has a great way of feeding the publics’ questions into PMQs.
I am glad to say, that there are now many decent Democratic Socialists in Parliament, and I admire and respect them all.
Two weeks does not a summer make
Communism according to Marx was the society in which the State had withered away and whose ethos was “from each according to their ability to each according to their need” Marx saw Communism as a state beyond Socialism.
Socialism I now think is the necessary precondition to a free democratic and compassionate society, where class war is being waged against the powerful by a combination of the working class and its allies
Instead of 1940s Labour top down Nationalise and leave the bosses in control a State Capitalism called Socialism copied from the Stalinist USSR. Socialism aims for a Democratic decentralised cooperative syndicalism where Banks, Industry and Commerce are owned run and controlled by the people who work and use them Where Water Food Health Housing Travel & Education are a right and where “the free development of each is the prerequisite for the free development of all “ Where society is geared to produce cooperation education and peace
Imagine a world at peace where we help each other solve the problems and challengers of this reality
An Egalitarian Internationalist Solidarity society not a militaristic competitive looters playground
As for Mahatma Ghandi he was a racist, a Hindi Caste system enforcer and a man whose myth obscures his real life. The first campaign run by Ghandi in South Africa was to demand Banks had entrances for Whites Indians and Blacks so that he did not have to mix or be associated with Blacks . He went on hunger strike to stop Dalits representing themselves and he slept naked with two young girls to test his ability to control his sexual urges Read Arhandatti Roy on Ghandi
To me Karl Marx got the potential faults in capitalism right. And I’m sorry to disagree with you Richard – his analysis of that is still relevant today as a result because much of what we live with today is a result of the destructive forces he identified in capitalism.
All Marx did was identify – through keen observation and reflection – what a good (real?) economist REALLY should do, human behaviour around this thing called money. In my view, all Marx was arguing for was for a fairer distribution of the fruits of labour. Is this not one of the pre-eminent problems of modern times? Try telling the millennials that it is isn’t.
When Marx then strayed into political economy and started to talk of workers rising up where I draw the line – well that may have been appropriate in Russia which had a small, detached elite living well in a huge country (bigger than the West could ever imagine) – but it does not translate so well into modern times. However, the turning away of people from established political parties and voting for people like Trump and UKIP seems like a form of revolution to me and somewhat vindicates Marx but in a way that I’m sure he’d find very puzzling – as do the rest of us!
More fairness – that is what socialism is for me actually – not inequality – which is just a technical term describing the differences between numerical values (no disrespect to Danny Dorling and others) and is just as materialistic way of looking at the problem as socialism. Fairness as a concept is more keenly felt by real people in society because as Geerakay correctly identifies it is not about people wanting everyone to be paid the same – that is unrealistic and plain silly – and people know it.. The Tories have successfully used ‘fairness’ well to argue for giving those on benefits less. Progressives have to reclaim ‘fairness’ and use that concept to win voters over – and right quick.
Another aspect of socialism that I like though is the value it places on people above the need for so called financial ‘efficiency’. Social markets attempt to balance human need with those of capital in order to create a win-win. The society we live in today is not like that. It saves cash to pass onto to rent seekers and throws the human lives that were supported by the stolen money onto the scrap heap and then moans about keeping them alive. And even tries to give them less to live on year on year – wanting to take more away from those who have already lost out. There is nothing fair about that.
The other thing about socialism is how it is still slagged off 40, maybe 50 years since neo-liberalism came to a head as if it were still the dominant force in our societies when it is not. Professor Paul Spicker tells how he regularly goes onto Wikipedia to update the entry on socialism and finds that his efforts are repulsed (edited out or not accepted). Socialism is still portrayed as a threat even though it is neo-liberal thinking that is making life unfair – but to whom? I think that we know.
Great to see you on here PSR.
I am really not sure we are that far apart. If socialism is a fair distribution of the rewards of labour, count me in. I do not disagree for a moment, and never have.
And I have no hesitation in accepting a Marxist view that capitalism has all the seeds of its own failure inherent in it: the existing form of capitalism has this by the bucket load, of course.
What I find interesting is your distinction on inequality: I accept that very often we are discussing numeric issues and even definitions here. But is there a real alternative, not lea`st given the scale of the issue being faced?
I stress, I know that fairness is vastly more than a financial issue. I too want it, but is it wrong to discuss numerics so long as a higher goal is in mind?
That would be fine – so long as we do not hasten to follow St Augustine’s advice: “Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Give me chastity and continence, but not just yet)!”
– Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
😉
🙂
I’m with you on this PSR (and welcome back).
Just one more point that I believe to be crucial to the debate. Having set out the basic principles of a ‘socialist’ society, what is then required are the tools to deliver. And, as you say, Marx’s revolutionary rally cry is a reflection of the Imperial age in which he lived, with Russia representing the extremes in Europe.
Today we have the opportunity offered by the insights into monetary policy offered by MMT, which liberate a (progressive) currency issuing government to set in place the practical policies and mechanisms required to achieve socialist objectives without pitchforks.
Coming form a quite different discipline, the inspirational ‘guru’ Alan Watts made this prescient observation some 50 years ago! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeLh29-scdk.
Good to see you PVSR. You say the Tories have captured “fairness”. That seems to me the weakness of discounting “inequality” as just numbers. I suggest they have trashed the word “inequality” so some are afraid to use it – “the politics of envy” they call it. Rubbish, it’s an excuse for the grotesque unequal and unfair division of rewards.
More egality, I say, what’s wrong with that? Even with more socialism why should some be able only to scrape by while others can afford multi-million pound weddings?
I would also like to see developed a theory of what the State owes it citizens, beyond “Defence”, “freedom from arbitrary arrest” – and the other usual suspects. Things like decent housing, the right to employment, a properly funded health service, a pension people can live on, free, reliable, comfortable, accessible public transport, a clean environment, good leisure facilities and so on.
Welcome back PSR.
Your contributions are always worthy of reading and digesting. I don’t know why you don’t comment often now but I hope to see more of them and more often than of late.
I second that
Pilgrim Very Welcome Return says:
“…The other thing about socialism is how it is still slagged off 40, maybe 50 years since neo-liberalism came to a head as if it were still the dominant force in our societies when it is not….”
Very true. There is a younger generation that has been sold the Thatcherite/neoliberal ‘Winter of Discontent’ narrative and swallowed it whole.
Re Marx and violent overthrow ‘the rising up’: I guess we have to accept that Marx was a man of his time (as indeed was Gandhi as referred to in this thread). We are hamstrung, always, by having to live in our own time and that is only ever our possible starting place.
re reward for labour, we also have to reward responsibility. Currently the respect for the responsibility of the boardroom has gained much traction, especially where the responsibility is not truly shouldered when things go pear-shaped, that we see gross imbalance. We are too ready to accept that controlling a large budget is the only significant hallmark of responsibility.
We live in an age of very confused priorities, blinded by the dazzle of money for its own sake, well, that and the power it bestows.
“Marx and violent overthrow” – but he said much more than that. Yes, we are all creatures of our time, but the greatest thinkers, like Marx, were also prescient. Smith is another example, once you strip away all the self-serving accretions and interpretations from hangers on (just like Marx & Christianity as you point out). Mariana Mazzucato refers to Smith frequently in her latest book, so powerful are some of his observations.
One wonders how many read these people in the original, rather than relying on (often misinterpreted) soundbites?
I quite agree, G.
And I am myself a sinner, in not having read much (not nearly enough) of these original works.
“…you may be confusing Socialism with the perceived definition of Communism…. What I mean by socialism ….. is that I believe that life should be fair and compassionate to all. Nothing more or less than that.”
Again, the “wrong type of socialism” argument. One economic fact proven again and again by evidence. No socialist regime has ever not started with aims everyone would agree with, and then ended up clinging to power and killing its own people. None. Ever.
Oh don’t be crass
Socialism is democratic – and we can have it that way
Your argument only shows what, and there is no point beating about the bush here, just what a stupid person you are.
Presuming what is being discussed is akin to a single party state is asking to assume all Tories are fascists
They aren’t
And nor are socialists anything but democrats
“Socialism is democratic”
Where?
You think Corbyn is overthrowing democracy?
I think you’ll f7nd he thinks he’s a democracy
So did Attlee
My understanding is that it’s not the principles Socialism that’s at fault, rather it’s those who chose to falsely implement them for their own ends who are at fault.
If those principals were introduced and democratically administered for the good of all it could work. It is always destroyed before it gains a foot hold.
There have been attempts at delivering socialism but they are usually beaten down by neoliberal, world powers like the UK and the USA who detest the idea of losing what they have.
As Nye Bevan said “Controlled poverty is what the Tory wants, not the abolition of poverty.” I suggest they hold the same views about democracy.
I think that conclusion fair
@ Hugo Mudro
When asked if Christianity worked, the then Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple allegedly replied; “I don’t know. It’s never been tried”. The same could probably be said of true Socialism. However, as with Christianity, modified applications have not been without some degree of success, viz. 1960’s Social Democracy, which certainly delivered better outcomes for the general populace than what preceded it and has come since. And as with Christianity, dilution (or misunderstanding) of the core message will limit the depth and efficacy of the intended result.
An American bishop gave quite a good talk on socialism today, or so I am told
@ John D
“And as with Christianity, dilution (or misunderstanding) of the core message will limit the depth and efficacy of the intended result.”
Much of what we regard as Christianity was created (‘subverted’) by St. Paul. It was largely the efforts of Paul which created the Church we have known.
Added to which, of course, any kind of creed can and will be twisted to suit those who see advantage for themselves or their circle. Politics and religion have always been intimate bedfellows.
“You think Corbyn is overthrowing democracy?
I think you’ll f7nd he thinks he’s a democracy
So did Attlee”
150 years since Capital and that’s all you can come up with? I think that proves the point.
The list on the other side of the argument based on experimental evidence is a little longer.
Would you like a list of the murderous right wing regimes?
This is utter nonsense , as I said earlier
You are wasting my time
“Would you like a list of the murderous right wing regimes? ”
Who said right wing? You said this was socialism vs. capitalism.
As you can’t answer the point is proven and I’m wasting my time.
That is deeply perverted thinking
@ Hugo Mudro
It strikes me that you’re making a very common mistake by assuming that if a country calls itself socialist that it must be representing socialism, and enacting its principals as commonly understood, and very well described by Geearkay. Further, that if that country is awful and a failure then so must socialism itself be awful and a failure.
By that naming logic are the Republicans of the USA communists because China calls itself the Peoples Republic of China?
Are both the Republicans and Democrats of the USA openly raving dictators because North Korea’s official name is the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea?
Closer to home is Great Britain, officially titled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island, actually united other than in name only?
I bet you a solitary rubber glove that you’re the kind of person who denounces socialism outright because Hitler’s ruling party called themselves National Socialists.
To misquote Shakespeare: A rose is but a rose by any other name. To use another more modern expression: If something looks like a chicken, clucks like a chicken and walks like a chicken then it probably is a chicken. Unless the said chicken is actually a penguin with a rubber glove on its head of course!
However, the aforementioned penguin – a jewelry robber in this case – may have disguised itself as a fine upstanding, law abiding chicken by wearing a rubber glove on it’s head, but it’s STILL a degenerate penguin.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/91367eac-0f85-4b49-a432-737cf7333a15_l.jpg
Bit of a leap comparing thieving/deceiving Plasticine penguins to murderous regimes calling themselves any combination of socialist/democratic/republic, but the misnaming principal still holds.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but are not countries like Sweden, Denmark and Holland called Social Democratic countries despite having monarchies?
Confusing things are names.
So politically Jesus is a Socialist? Sounds fine to me.
I believe a fundamental issue is not being discussed here which adds a further dimension to the debate.
One of the key failures behind the redistribution of wealth is very simply the world is still adapting to the change from traditional labour (manufacturing etc) to a world dominated by technology.
Nobody can deny this and it has a huge impact on job creation, communities and society as a whole.
In my very humbled opinion, it is very difficult to focus on how best to redistribute wealth when we as a society do not yet quite know how wealth will be made in the future to redistribute.
This is the problem with focussing on a Marx philosophy, it implies a mass workforce all feeling that the rewards for their labour are not being fairly met. That’s not the issue, the issue is that the nature of work is changing and in some industries there is no work anymore at all.
Mark Stevens says:
“One of the key failures behind the redistribution of wealth is very simply the world is still adapting to the change from traditional labour (manufacturing etc) to a world dominated by technology.”
To a degree Marx was in a similar position of regarding a world where labour was shifting from the land to the factory. I know it’s not quite the same but it raises some parallel issues.
The “mass workforce all feeling that the rewards for their labour are not being fairly met.”
Is still very much an issue. Enormous numbers of people work really quite hard for no pay because they do things valuable to society, but which we do not respect as valuable in monetary terms. And the corollary applies; we pay some people very highly for doing work we would cheerfully not have done at all.
There may be inspiration in Marx, but there won’t be a blueprint.
Universal Basic Income and the Job Guarantee are two very hot topics of discussion that address this issue. We are a very long way short of a consensus on how either or both could be introduced, or what the downsides might be, and we indeed may well come up with some other way of dealing with what are inevitable changes in our whole attitude to and the nature of work and reward.
Mainstream media discussion tends towards peremptory dismissal or doom saying.