Demoralized socialist wonders who she can give her dreams to

[Nuclear Unicorn]

So fellow socialists have a thread here wherein the extol their faith in humanity to create what we long to see: fairness, justice, equality. I believe we have to have this faith because if people aren't good why bother giving them health care, fair wages, safe working conditions, peace and social equality? But we can't downplay the flaws of human nature and dismiss them.

We speak of capitalism as if capitalism created itself and not appreciating the fact that the humans they have so much faith in created capitalism.

Those factories owners making widgets for a profit will patiently watch as we implement our socialist ideal and they will go to the local planning board and use them same skills that got them investors to have the board appoint them factory managers.

And the new managers will be so grateful to the board they will invite the board members over to their homes--which are bigger than that of the average worker because they convinced the board they deserve a little bit more-and the board members will be so grateful for the party they will agree to "look into" charges filed by the workers that conditions are sub-standard.

And once the board members look into it they will declare nothing out of the ordinary is occurring and of course the factory manager will throw another party at his slightly bigger than before house (awarded because he now has a proven safety record) to thank the board members.

And when workers begin complaining about all the parties at ever bigger houses the board members will look at them and wonder why should they bother with the complaint. After all, the workers only have the wages set for them by the board, which is pretty much fair but its nothing like what the manager has and he has some awesome parties.

meh

The only thing that would happen is owner becomes manager and politicians becomes planners.

The workers will still be the workers and they'll still be screwed over by the people who crave the ability to control material assets and political power. Those people who gravitate to that level of control aren't going to just sit there while we try to leave them unemployed and they aren't going to have some epiphany and suddenly dedicate their lives to the wellness of man. And we can't scan people to see what personality type they possess and preemptively punish them ala Minority Report.

We can't find enough "good" people to fill all the positions of power for all time. If we could have we would have.

Worse still there are so many bad actors who are filled with ambition and greed they will always press themselves into the system. They won't just give us Wal-Mart while we boycott and shop elsewhere they will make Wal-Mart the official store of all good citizens and those other stores will be criminals seeking to undermine the workers. Why compete when you can just criminalize the other guy?

We have politicians that purr in our ears about justice and fairness while they themselves enjoy tax havens for their luxury toys. Sure its legal but that's because they wrote the law. And those are just the ones who claim to be on our side, never mind the ones openly oppose to us.

I believe in socialism, I just don't believe there are enough good socialists to make it work but I definitely believe there are enough greedy capitalists that will infiltrate a socialist structure to corrupt it and turn it into a tyrannical hell hole. Josef Stalin wasn't a socialist, he was a greedy, power mad personality who obtained absolute political power. If he hadn't had a socialist power structure to exploit he would have contented himself with a multi-national corporation...and he would have been damn good at it too.

[Brickbat]

1. "If we could have, we would have by now" is a terrible thing to believe.

It gets you nowhere. For crying out loud, what if the workers who organized U.S. Steel had believed that? Just because it's right doesn't mean some people don't want it. Just because it's right doesn't mean it's easy. And just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean that people who worship at the altar of profit won't stop at anything to get more profit.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. You're 99.873% correct. (you lost 0.127 points for the overly-massive pic)

We MUST do the right thing simply because it is the right thing.

I'm just wonder if grandiose, top-down schemes are the right thing.

Is there such a thing as decentralized, localized socialism where we do what we need/want while the rest tear themselves apart?

Can we build our own communities? If the TPers stand off in the distance pointing and laughing I'm OK with that. They'll see. The good ones will join us and the rest will earn what they deserve.

[Brickbat]

5. Yeah, I'm not sure why that's so huge.

Makes a good target, though.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. I understand your jest

but I'm not the biggest fan of violent political imagery.

I know you're just kidding though.

:pals:

[Gaedel]

11. Yes, a lot of utopian socialist communities

The US was a breeding ground for idealists starting up socialist communities based on an all for one, one for all philosophy.

Except those that were being subsidized by a very rich idealist, they came to grief for a number of very simple reasons:

1. Definition of "ability" and "need". The farmers in the community and the people who did the heavy lifting and manufacturing objected to the idea that people who "made music" or who did the "arts" deserved as much or more food and goods as did the people doing the hard work. As a result, farmers and craftsmen drifted away from the community and the remaining folks couldn't feed themselves.

2. Eugenics. One of the tenants of the utopian idea was in the "perfectability" of mankind and the communities often tried to control the marriage and breeding practices of the members. people bailed out for that reason.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Cancer cells too are superb at the game of short-term growth.

Every malignant tumor is a success story for the twisted DNA that produces it, at least until it kills the host. However, the existence of that twisted DNA doesn't provide an excuse for the body's immune system to give up on the fight. Capitalism is a pernicious form of social organization that increases the opportunities for malignant growth, wherein the growth steals the resources of the people for its own aggrandizement. Just as with the cancer, the short-sighted corporations end up killing their host. We need to evolve better forms of social organization to fight this evil. The ideals of socialism are beautiful and humane; the means for implementing those ideals are quite imperfect. Let us then dedicate ourselves to improving the mechanisms by which we move toward our ideals.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. But that's kind of my point

How do you keep the right tools out of the wrong hands and get it into the right hands?

We thought we were voting for the social justice of equal health care and instead we got handouts to insurance companies that use the IRS invade our lives and herd us at gunpoint into the insurance broker's office (you don't suppose those brokers are on commission, do you?).

We can sit here and say, "Eureka! We have the perfect plan!" So we bundle it up and send it to Washington.

And then what happens?

[Jackpine Radical]

6. I think there needs to be a sort of spiritual transformation

and a wholesale adoption of a new set of values. I don't know that this can be accomplished by purely political means; it's more a matter for educators, artists and philosophers. And yes, even as I write these words, I know how unrealistic they sound. Nevertheless, maybe it is that very appearance of unreality that keeps people from moving in that direction. People--hell, even monkeys--come with nervous systems that are pre-wired for empathy and I think it takes deliberate effort to suppress those natural tendencies and turn kids into egocentric little monsters. Certainly our current Race to Nowhere is perfectly designed to sabotage creativity empathy, and the like in our kids.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. But what about when man was a tabla rasa?

Once upon time there was no capitalism, just people. Man was part of nature.

Then some of those people weren't satisfied. They wanted bigger huts or got tired of eating the same ol' mastadon. Some got theirs by spear point others by connivance.

Maybe we do need an epiphany of sorts but it seems we already started that way and some chose a different path for themselves.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. I don't accept either tabula rasa or original-sin models

of human nature. We are neither blank slates nor tainted with evil at birth.

We are social creatures, pre-wired for modelling the bahaviors we see and for the capability to take the perspectives of others. Hierarchical, patriarchal class structures are a relatively recent abomination, going back no further than the invention of agriculture. It is time for us to move beyond that nonsense and get on with our social evolution.

[Greyhound]

10. You seem to be confusing Socialism with Soviet style authoritarianism.

Your case for the "bad guys" taking over is built on a false assumption.

Yes, there are always "bad guys", but they fear a socialist system because the system itself. Egalitarianism prevents the amassing of power and wealth through it's nature. Cooperative ownership prevents excessive profiteering because everyone shares in the proceeds.

And what they fear the most is that it makes it impossible to convince another that their time/skills/right to enjoying life are more valuable than yours.
:kick: