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Oligarchy; Small Groups of Multi Millionaires Funding Super Pacs
Topic Started: Feb 25 2012, 11:04 PM (1,873 Views)
Brewster
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Poor Chris, every time he posts, he demonstrates his ignorance about yet another word.

"Socialism" is not a four letter word, Chris. And it has a definite meaning - centralized government control of industry.

It make no claims to control individuals, or limit their freedom.

And there's nobody on this forum advocating even going THAT far.

It must be at least a little embarassing by now, isn't it Chris?
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Chris
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Mountainrivers
Feb 27 2012, 12:55 AM
Chris
Feb 27 2012, 12:28 AM
"Meaning is not the same regardless of your grand assertion that it is."

Huh, I made no such assertion, in fact asserted the opposite. We agreed context determines meaning, why now the obfuscation?

So what do your call your socialism?
I posted it above or in another thread this morning. "Contemporary social democracy", describes my political leanings.
"Contemporary social democracy"

Just another branch of socialism. I often refer to it as socialism lite. Evolutionary socialism might be better.

Social Democracy
Quote:
 
In contemporary uses, social democracy generally refers to advocacy for some form of regulation of the economy and support for a welfare state and ameliorative measures to benefit the working class within the framework of a market economy. Historically, social democracy is generally defined as a political movement that seeks to build an alternative socialist economy gradually through the institutions of liberal democracy.
Much more at the link.

To me social democracy, as socialism lite, is socialism that has realized it cannot sustain itself other than as a parasite of capitalism which it tried to manage politically, with the unintended consequence of crony capitalism.
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Chris
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Brewster
Feb 27 2012, 01:31 AM
Poor Chris, every time he posts, he demonstrates his ignorance about yet another word.

"Socialism" is not a four letter word, Chris. And it has a definite meaning - centralized government control of industry.

It make no claims to control individuals, or limit their freedom.

And there's nobody on this forum advocating even going THAT far.

It must be at least a little embarassing by now, isn't it Chris?
More insults from the master of insults.

""Socialism" is not a four letter word, Chris."

If you bothered to actually read what I post, rather than ignore it, that is what I have said many times.

"And it has a definite meaning - centralized government control of industry."

What I've said again. If you bothered to actually read what I post, rather than ignore it...

"It make no claims to control individuals, or limit their freedom."

Nor have I made that claim. If you bothered to actually read what I post, rather than ignore it...

"And there's nobody on this forum advocating even going THAT far."

Of course no one advocates THAT, your special pleaded straw man. What you and rivers and others here advocate is social democracy, socialism lite. If you bothered to actually read what I post, rather than ignore it...

"It must be at least a little embarassing by now, isn't it Chris?"

Is it, brewster? Or is your arguing from ignorance embarrassing? If you bothered to actually read what I post, rather than ignore it then you might not argue from ignorance.

But go ahead and keep it up, brewster, hoist your own petard some more.


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Mountainrivers
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Chris
Feb 27 2012, 01:40 AM
Mountainrivers
Feb 27 2012, 12:55 AM
Chris
Feb 27 2012, 12:28 AM
"Meaning is not the same regardless of your grand assertion that it is."

Huh, I made no such assertion, in fact asserted the opposite. We agreed context determines meaning, why now the obfuscation?

So what do your call your socialism?
I posted it above or in another thread this morning. "Contemporary social democracy", describes my political leanings.
"Contemporary social democracy"

Just another branch of socialism. I often refer to it as socialism lite. Evolutionary socialism might be better.

Social Democracy
Quote:
 
In contemporary uses, social democracy generally refers to advocacy for some form of regulation of the economy and support for a welfare state and ameliorative measures to benefit the working class within the framework of a market economy. Historically, social democracy is generally defined as a political movement that seeks to build an alternative socialist economy gradually through the institutions of liberal democracy.
Much more at the link.

To me social democracy, as socialism lite, is socialism that has realized it cannot sustain itself other than as a parasite of capitalism which it tried to manage politically, with the unintended consequence of crony capitalism.
You can choose to make up your own definitions, but they are incorrect as far as I'm concerned. I'll decide what I believe, not you or anyone else.
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Chris
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"You can choose to make up your own definitions, but they are incorrect as far as I'm concerned. I'll decide what I believe, not you or anyone else."

You're still arguing prescriptive definitions when what I am doing is giving descriptions names. Don't get hung up on the word, aguign about words all the time, arguing about arguing, look at the descriptions, and try to respond to that--or don't.


And, rivers, no one's trying to tell you what to believe, believe, and stand up for it.
Edited by Chris, Feb 27 2012, 02:03 AM.
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Stoney
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Mountainrivers
Feb 26 2012, 11:38 PM
Stoney
Feb 26 2012, 11:32 PM
Mountainrivers
Feb 26 2012, 11:24 PM
Stoney
Feb 26 2012, 10:35 PM
Mountainrivers
Feb 26 2012, 10:32 PM
Stoney
Feb 26 2012, 10:29 PM
Quote:
 
Social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality and involves a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution. These policies aim to achieve what developmental economists refer to as more equality of opportunity than may currently exist in some societies, and to manufacture equality of outcome in cases where incidental inequalities appear in a procedurally just system. The Constitution of the International Labour Organization affirms that "universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice."[4] Furthermore, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of the human rights education.


Wikipedia

That's the same things that Marx and Engels talked about, equal results instead of equal opportunity. Its still socialism/communism.
"These policies aim to achieve what developmental economists refer to as more equality of opportunity than may currently exist in some societies, and to manufacture equality of outcome in cases where incidental inequalities appear in a procedurally just system."

What do you disagree with in that sentence?
Aiming is always well intended. When government intervenes it always intervenes on the behalf of some and at the expense of others. Government cannot enhance equal opportunity. It can only diminish it. What it does for some it must take from others.

i
Do you only see the world in black and white? No in-betweens? When government does things, it usually benefits more people than it hurts.
Equal outcome and equal opportunity are black and white. There is no in between. One precludes the other.
If people truly had equal opportunity, there would be equal outcomes.
I can see where you'd say that we have different skills and backgrounds and ability and walk different paths and equate that to opportunity. I can see where you'd say that we have an obligation to provide the tools, the direction for success. But we all see success as something different. Some will sacrifice time with family and friends, relaxing on a beach or fishing with a child to pursue financial or power goals. Success to me is a modest living with the ability to explore this great land but its more important to spend time with family and friends to to be in the 1%. I don't think that makes me unsuccessful. At the same time I know that my goals took me in another direction than friends or school mates that view success differently. That doesn't give me the right to take the fruits of their work anymore that its their right to take mine.

So there's at least two problems with seeking equality. One, we don't have the same goals and equality of outcomes would suit almost no one. Two, if you try to make one person equal to another then you must take something from one person to give to another. That's immoral in the general sense of the word. If I see the plight of someone else as needy and give to that need that is charity. Charity and theft are not the same.
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Chris
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Equality of outcomes only makes sense in terms of abstractions like average Joe, and those perennials of class warfare the rich, the poor, the middle.
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tomdrobin
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Socialism and even communism appeal to a populace when they feel they are not getting a fair shake. When the wealthy begin using their wealth to gain unfair advantage for themselves, much like the gilded age. The best medicine for preventing the push for socialism is a just society. Not laizes faire capitalism whereby the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and suffer the abuses similar to serfdom.
Edited by tomdrobin, Feb 27 2012, 08:49 AM.
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Chris
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tomdrobin
Feb 27 2012, 08:49 AM
Socialism and even communism appeal to a populace when they feel they are not getting a fair shake. When the wealthy begin using their wealth to gain unfair advantage for themselves, much like the gilded age. The best medicine for preventing the push for socialism is a just society. Not laizes faire capitalism whereby the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and suffer the abuses similar to serfdom.
Socialism, communism are totalitarian, not populist movements.

"When the wealthy begin using their wealth to gain unfair advantage for themselves..."

Gained only possibly from corrupt government.

"much like the gilded age"

Debunked myth.

"The best medicine for preventing the push for socialism is a just society."

We agree...probably not, for to me that means take all the ill-gained, illegal power of government and return it to the people.

"Not laizes faire capitalism whereby the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and suffer the abuses similar to serfdom."

That's not capitalism you're describing, tom, that's mercantilism of feudal times, a forerunner to corporatism, Mussolini's name for socialism, what we now call crony capitalism.

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tomdrobin
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Because we live in an age in which workers are protected by federal and state laws as well as by sound business practices, it is hard for us to imagine a time when workers—especially unskilled, often immigrant workers—were completely at the mercy of their employers. (The plight of many illegal immigrant workers today may be comparable; however, without legal status, they have little recourse to assistance in case of unfair practices.) As we mentioned above, before the industrial age factories and workplaces were small enough that the owner knew everyone by name and often worked alongside his or her employees. The age of the modern factory and impersonal management changed all that, and the patent unfairness with which workers were treated became scandalous. For example, if a worker was injured on the job by faulty machinery, there was no mechanism for obtaining compensation. If a worker sued, he or she had to prove that it was not his or her own negligence that caused the accident. It is very difficult to prove a negative in such circumstances.

Historian Page Smith examines the industrial revolution in Volume 6 of his People's History of the United States and calls the events of that era “The War between Capital and Labor.” It is an apt title: the two sides were indeed at war, with armies of armed men fighting on both sides. The level of human violence and destruction of property did in fact often create warlike conditions, a situation exacerbated by the fact that many workers were Civil War veterans. They declared themselves just as prepared to shoot a corporate hireling as they had been ready to kill a Yankee or a rebel. America’s captains of industry, who themselves often rose from very modest circumstances, saw workers as commodities to be dealt with like any raw material. Cold, ruthless, calculating and impervious to the negative effects of what they were doing, they hired their own armies to deal with recalcitrant laborers. (See Page Smith, A People’s History of the Post-Reconstruction Era: The Rise of Industrial America, New York, 1984, p. xiii.)

The Workers

The worker in the Western World has a troubled history. Thomas Hobbes described life in nature as poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, short—and for many workers that was the case. Various political theories attempted to explain or find solutions for the plight of the working classes. Socialists saw evil as an inevitable result when capitalism was left to its own devices; Liberalism called for freedom from oppression, first from government, then from business; Communism—Marxism and Leninism—saw the history of man as the history of class struggle. Of those theories, Communism was the most attractive to the mass of workers who labored in daily to make America wealthy, but who controlled few of the benefits of that wealth. The ultimate goal of Communism was labor ownership of the means of production and a state run by the proletariat, theoretically in a classless society.


Quote:
 
Events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries support Page Smith’s assessment of the differences between working men and business owners as the “war between capital and labor.” The revolutions that spread across Europe in 1848, often accompanied by violence, led to militancy among labor leaders who advocated revolutionary labor reforms. Workers emigrating to the United States after the Civil War, perhaps encouraged by the demise of American slavery, brought radical social ideas with them. When the headquarters of the first Communist International was moved to New York City in 1872, labor movements in the United States became more radicalized. Both the National Labor Reform Party (1872) and the Workingmen’s Party of the United States (1876) were Marxist or Marxist oriented.


http://academicamerican.com/recongildedage/topics/gildedage2.html

Do you think it's just coincidence that the peak of marxist and socialist sentiments occurred during the era of the gilded age and the robber baron age?
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