What is socialism?

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Sawfish said:
I could see this working on a very small and intimately connected scale, extended family for sure, but even at the clan level could it work without central leadership?
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I've always said that the only time in history that socialism ever really worked was far before the term even existed.

When we were still hunter gatherers, in groups of typically no more than 25 individuals. Almost all of them relatives. They all had common needs and goals. Mostly survival, getting enough to eat that day. Not getting eaten by wild beasts.

But scale it up to a nation of 10s or hundreds of millions of people? No, it will never work, it cannot work. It needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history forever, lest we recreate the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and Mao's atrocities, or Pol Pot's Khrmer Rouge horror.
 

Sawfish said:
Yes. As I wrote it I could see that there was no parallel to "ownership of means of production" at this scale.

I can see that "communism" is used to refer to both the social philosophy AND states like the former USSR and China.
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OH, but this is my point. There has been no communist society. The USSR and China were not communist societies. They were revolutionary societies ruled by a Marxist party that called itself a “communist party”. BTW, the way that came about is interesting. First there were socialist parties. And in the early 1900s a split developed. There were those who advocated a peaceful transition obtained by election of socialists to government positions. But the other faction advocated violent revolution and said the ruling class would never allow a peaceful transition. Eventually those who advocated violent revolution split away from the socialist and the socialist parties, calling themselves “communists”.

Now, our US propaganda looked at that and didn’t care for nuance. The USSR and China, since they were the product of communist parties, were called “communist countries” and “communist societies” because of the type (“communist”) of party that ruled. But they were never actually communist societies because that, by definition, would mean they were stateless and classless.
 
Hyperion said:
I've always said that the only time in history that socialism ever really worked was far before the term even existed.

When we were still hunter gatherers, in groups of typically no more than 25 individuals. Almost all of them relatives. They all had common needs and goals. Mostly survival, getting enough to eat that day. Not getting eaten by wild beasts.

But scale it up to a nation of 10s or hundreds of millions of people? No, it will never work, it cannot work. It needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history forever, lest we recreate the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and Mao's atrocities, or Pol Pot's Khrmer Rouge horror.
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The whole topic is really interesting. It's a recognition of good in humanity--sharing equally, cooperatively--but smacking in to the brick wall of recognition that these very positive human motivations work in either families, or with strangers only when you have huge, huge and repeated surpluses.

In the world I've lived in, if I was this generous and waited for reciprocation, I'd seldom get it except from family. To do unreciprocated sharing among strangers, I'd be reducing my own chances of success, and my family's.

So until I can can be assured of reciprocal behavior, I can't afford to be that generous.

Maybe if another 2k years people like me might be able to put that concern aside, but not me, and I'm a long way from it.

I mean, by now I know what makes me tick, and I'd be a poor candidate for participation in a large scale collectivist society. I would have to be coerced.

It's just how it is, for me.
 
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Hyperion said:
Yeah of course. I'm just an uneducated hick who knows nothing. Yet somehow I know that Marx was a total loser who came up with an idea that eventually led to the deaths of tens of millions of people in a quest to make something unworkable work. And yet, there are people who still cannot just let it go and want to believe it will work no matter the mountains of dead bodies proving it will not work, and is a very dangerous idea that only leads to poverty, misery, and death.
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LOL!!!!! I have a clue for you: Marxist analysis has nothing to do with what happened in Stalin's Russia: it's like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain.

But Marx’s term for socialism? It’s in most of his writings. And it’s one of the basic facts about Marxism. You don’t know, huh?
 
Hyperion said:
I've always said that the only time in history that socialism ever really worked was far before the term even existed.

When we were still hunter gatherers, in groups of typically no more than 25 individuals. Almost all of them relatives. They all had common needs and goals. Mostly survival, getting enough to eat that day. Not getting eaten by wild beasts.

But scale it up to a nation of 10s or hundreds of millions of people? No, it will never work, it cannot work. It needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history forever, lest we recreate the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and Mao's atrocities, or Pol Pot's Khrmer Rouge horror.
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Yeah, you’re the expert sociologist who knows these things better than the rest.
 
Farrah Nuff said:
Socialism, that's when people make a conscious effort to get along better, isn't it?
It doesn't seem like it's anything to worry about. People won't ever want to live harmoniously.
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/17/what-termites-can-teach-us

"Some have seen in termites a darker vision for humanity, a warning rather than a guide. The early-twentieth-century American entomologist William Wheeler began as a believer in the political example of termites and ants, detecting in their colonies a Deweyan ethos, both communitarian and democratic. But, by the late nineteen-twenties, Wheeler had begun to worry that the social insects represented a sort of evolutionary cul-de-sac, which foretold “the eventual state of human society”: “very low intelligence combined with an intense and pugnacious solidarity of the whole.”"
 
Anybody notice the American taboo at work here today?

For those who don’t know about this, it’s the trend and trick of suppressing conversation, discussion, and honest exploration of ideas about socialism by spewing boilerplate, bullshit, nonsensical accusations about gulags and running out of other people’s money and foolishness about “human nature” in order to make anyone daring to bring up the subject feel stupid. The plan is to make them turn tail and run away to save what face they can. That is the American taboo. And it’s in play here today. And it’s a childish ploy, but common.
 
Nemo2 said:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/17/what-termites-can-teach-us

"Some have seen in termites a darker vision for humanity, a warning rather than a guide. The early-twentieth-century American entomologist William Wheeler began as a believer in the political example of termites and ants, detecting in their colonies a Deweyan ethos, both communitarian and democratic. But, by the late nineteen-twenties, Wheeler had begun to worry that the social insects represented a sort of evolutionary cul-de-sac, which foretold “the eventual state of human society”: “very low intelligence combined with an intense and pugnacious solidarity of the whole.”"
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Termites can't teach us anything. Why even just on this site, there are tons of people who know all there is to know already.

There's no shortage in sight of people who know it all. Termites, hah! They don't even know what's good to eat!
 
Senter said:
Anybody notice the American taboo at work here today?

For those who don’t know about this, it’s the trend and trick of suppressing conversation, discussion, and honest exploration of ideas about socialism by spewing boilerplate, bullshit, nonsensical accusations about gulags and running out of other people’s money and foolishness about “human nature” in order to make anyone daring to bring up the subject feel stupid. The plan is to make them turn tail and run away to save what face they can. That is the American taboo. And it’s in play here today. And it’s a childish ploy, but common.
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I mean, you're free to say/think that, of course, but if this refers to me, I disagree. We've been engaging in a mutual exploration of the nature of communism.
 
Senter said:
Anybody notice the American taboo at work here today?

For those who don’t know about this, it’s the trend and trick of suppressing conversation, discussion, and honest exploration of ideas about socialism by spewing boilerplate, bullshit, nonsensical accusations about gulags and running out of other people’s money and foolishness about “human nature” in order to make anyone daring to bring up the subject feel stupid. The plan is to make them turn tail and run away to save what face they can. That is the American taboo. And it’s in play here today. And it’s a childish ploy, but common.
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Only in America?​
 
Here's an interesting thought...

For a free market type society, has any government ever had to force their populace to participate in this, aside from a short transition period from protected markets/planned production?

For a collectivist type economy, has any government not had to enforce adherence if there is any access to free market (foreign sourced) production?

What i'm exploring is the idea that you have to force collectivism, but that for free market, it's what people tend to do without being forced, and especially in exchanges with foreigners.
 
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