[philiphos]

Hi everyone, as the title says it's about the confession of the socialist entrepreneur Tony Benn. For quite a long a time I've thought about this Dilema, which has proven to be a false dilema, Socialism-Entrepreneurship, I consider myself a socialist as it says on this article I believe that essential national services such as energy, water, health, education and transport should be public owned, and recently I've been wondering about a public owned larger bank industry, not because the state is the upmost friend of all people but because these things I mentioned should not be run for profit-making but in the interests of the people; However I believe private enterprise it's an important factor to economic growth, not in a savage capitalist way where you just have to make a profit no matter the consequences, but in a socialist way where workers have their rights and fair share of the "pie" which would result in a smaller gap between CEO's and workers.... After reading this article I've reached the "answer", in fact there is no contradiction by being a Socialist and entrepreneur in fact they have a lot more in common then it would appear, both want workers to get paid decently, both seek innovation and both seek to improve the world...
As a proud Socialist and an Entrepreneurship apprentice this article has just made my day and I hope every Socialist-Entrepreneur gets delighted with this article as well....

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... principles

[Decky]

There is no such thing.

You can be a social democrat and an entrepreneur but you can not be a socialist and an entrepreneur (well not without being a raving hypocrite).

[philiphos]

There is no such thing.

You can be a social democrat and an entrepreneur but you can not be a socialist and an entrepreneur (well not without being a raving hypocrite).

I don't agree with you, there are kinds of socialism: authoritarian socialism, state socialism and redistributive socialism, I find myself in the last one the state should have a strong welfare state protecting private enterprise.....
Profit is not a sin if labour is paid decently and workers have their rights fulfilled...

[Goldberk]

Profit is not a sin if labour is paid decently and workers have their rights fulfilled...

You're not talking about socialism, you're talking about social democracy (a form of contradictory liberalism), profit may not be a sin but it is exploitation, and thus it is anathema to socialism.

[Cromwell]

I'm going to make a much more generalised comment than you might be after, as to your response and the article itself.

Two ideas are being linked together, here, disingenuously; the plight of the petty bourgeoisie and the profit-motive. They might seem inherently linked but they are not. The socialist is, in general, a defender of the shopkeeper and the craftsman against exploitation but he is not, or at least should not be, ever tricked into making any justification for the three evils of capitalism; profit, rent and interest.

I'm not trying to be too emotive when I use the term "evil". It is, of course, entirely plausible that the individual businessman, landlord or banker might be a decent person; he might be lenient in his terms of payment, good-natured and charitable. He might donate to good causes or, even, be a supporter of some kind of left-wing ideology.

The trouble is, you can't expect him to be so. Once you allow for capitalism to exist it is, inevitable, that those members of the capitalist class whose only goal is to maximise their personal wealth will get ahead. You can put regulations in place to lessen the effects of the exploitation but they'll just be undone, later, once a few shady men in smoke-filled rooms make a few big "donations" to this or that opposition party, or circumnavigated altogether through outsourcing or the importation of cheap foreign labour.

What you are looking to do is ameliorate capitalism but that's not a long-term solution, neither was it a long-term solution to ameliorate feudalism. Class struggle is endemic, throughout our daily lives we are bombarded with anti-social messages trying to stoke up hatred of benefit claimants whilst the rich avoid paying tax with nary a blot of ink from the press. Social democracy has been destroyed and its progenitor (the Labour Party) has gone over to the other side.

[philiphos]

I'm going to make a much more generalised comment than you might be after, as to your response and the article itself.

Two ideas are being linked together, here, disingenuously; the plight of the petty bourgeoisie and the profit-motive. They might seem inherently linked but they are not. The socialist is, in general, a defender of the shopkeeper and the craftsman against exploitation but he is not, or at least should not be, ever tricked into making any justification for the three evils of capitalism; profit, rent and interest.

I'm not trying to be too emotive when I use the term "evil". It is, of course, entirely plausible that the individual businessman, landlord or banker might be a decent person; he might be lenient in his terms of payment, good-natured and charitable. He might donate to good causes or, even, be a supporter of some kind of left-wing ideology.

The trouble is, you can't expect him to be so. Once you allow for capitalism to exist it is, inevitable, that those members of the capitalist class whose only goal is to maximise their personal wealth will get ahead. You can put regulations in place to lessen the effects of the exploitation but they'll just be undone, later, once a few shady men in smoke-filled rooms make a few big "donations" to this or that opposition party, or circumnavigated altogether through outsourcing or the importation of cheap foreign labour.

What you are looking to do is ameliorate capitalism but that's not a long-term solution, neither was it a long-term solution to ameliorate feudalism. Class struggle is endemic, throughout our daily lives we are bombarded with anti-social messages trying to stoke up hatred of benefit claimants whilst the rich avoid paying tax with nary a blot of ink from the press. Social democracy has been destroyed and its progenitor (the Labour Party) has gone over to the other side.

That's true, Neoliberalism has pushed all parties to the "Right side" of politics and there aren't that many differences between the major parties in almost every european country but the day will come when Social Democracy returns to it's glory and the wealthy get punished for all they've done to their country in a glorious judgement day

[Dagoth Ur]

Which, even if successful, will be eroded by a series of politicians and business interests until we are right back where we are now. I don't know about you but I'm not so sure the world can handle another century or two of capitalism and its cycle of right-left shifts.

[One Degree]

If you want Socialism to exist without Capitalism, then you need to breed new humans. The current humans have shown they are too lazy for pure socialism and too greedy for capitalism.
The answer is local socialism and inter community capitalism for luxury items only.
Citystates!

[Brother of Karl]

A socialist entrepreneur is a bit of an oxymoron, but other enterprising types can be socialists. You can be a true socialist and start many kinds of nonprofit organizations, depending on how they are funded. You can also start a worker owned co-op, where profits which aren't used to fund growth are distributed to the workers based on some metric for how much each worker contributes, or equally (this is probably a bad idea), or even in the form of stock options with certain restrictions (e.g. they can't pass it onto their children). The only restriction is that you can't take a disproportionate share of the profits for the amount of work you put into it, accounting for physical risk, educational requirements, etc.

[One Degree]

[quoteor even in the form of stock options with certain restrictions (e.g. they can't pass it onto their children)][/quote]
If the entire community is owned by the stockholders, and the amount of stock each can own is limited and there are a set number of shares, then many of the restrictions would be unnecessary. It would probably result in a form of primogenitor. Alternatively, it would probably be preferable for the stock to be purchased from a deceased person's estate or from a person wishing to leave the community and redistributed to lure someone to the community whose skills are needed by the community.

[Decky]

That's true, Neoliberalism has pushed all parties to the "Right side" of politics and there aren't that many differences between the major parties in almost every european country but the day will come when Social Democracy returns to it's glory and the wealthy get punished for all they've done to their country in a glorious judgement day

Social democracy can't adequately punish anyone.

[philiphos]

That's true, Neoliberalism has pushed all parties to the "Right side" of politics and there aren't that many differences between the major parties in almost every european country

but the day will come when Social Democracy returns to it's glory and the wealthy get punished for all they've done to their country in a glorious judgement day

[Social democracy can't adequately punish anyone.

It depends on the ones who're in charge and an alternative would be the Swiss semi-direct democracy....

[Decky]

The alternative would be a blend between the Soviet Union in the 50s and the UK in the 60s. It would be glorious.

[Cromwell]

The alternative would be a blend between the Soviet Union in the 50s and the UK in the 60s. It would be glorious.

Quite.

"Comrades, and Party Leader Gaitskell, if I lived in Britain I would vote Conservative!" - Nikita Khrushchev

I sometimes wonder what it would've been like to live during the post-war consensus. Unfortunately for me, I was born under John Major.

[Decky]

I sometimes wonder what it would've been like to live during the post-war consensus.

When you read about it... It's like reading some utopian science fiction novel. Full employment, people could just do fuck all at school walk out without a single qualification and walk right into a job. You would be well paid, everything was cheap, even the Tories had been forced to accept a lot of our gains.

It would never have lasted though. As long as the capitalists exist they will always be waiting in the wings to snatch away anything we win. The gains of democratic socialism are always temporary.

[Cromwell]

When you read about it... It's like reading some utopian science fiction novel. Full employment, people could just do fuck all at school walk out without a single qualification and walk right into a job. You would be well paid, everything was cheap, even the Tories had been forced to accept a lot of our gains.

Perhaps it's rose-tinted glasses but, to be honest, I suspect not; it was just for the briefest moment in British history, people acted like decent human beings and then, the generation that was raised under that system pulled the ladder up after them.

[youtube]G1ssGrq5S3w[/youtube]

It would never have lasted though. As long as the capitalists exist they will always be waiting in the wings to snatch away anything we win. The gains of democratic socialism are always temporary.

Yes, that's because it was built that way; the only thing holding it together was good-will. The Gang of Four bear the responsibility for that, however. The greatest enemy is the person you thought was your friend.

[leo_tolstoy]

There is no such thing.

You can be a social democrat and an entrepreneur but you can not be a socialist and an entrepreneur (well not without being a raving hypocrite).

you can be a socialist entrepreneur.
If you start a cooperative or commune that produced and sold goods you'd be a socialist entrepreneur.

[Potemkin]

Yes, that's because it was built that way; the only thing holding it together was good-will.

Precisely. The Keynesian post-War consensus in Britain depended on class collaboration. There was, however, no objective reason why the different social classes (who had always traditionally regarded each other, correctly, as enemies) should co-operate with each other. And no, "the greater good" is not an objective reason. Even Keynes admitted that there was no particular reason why the working classes should obey the commands of the upper-middle class managers and intellectuals such as himself. He just believed that, because of the force of traditional social deference, they would. Well, we all know how that worked out, don't we?

[KlassWar]

If you want Socialism to exist without Capitalism, then you need to breed new humans. The current humans have shown they are too lazy for pure socialism and too greedy for capitalism.
The answer is local socialism and inter community capitalism for luxury items only.
Citystates!

Not really: Communism is Soviet Power plus robotics . In the next three decades, modern robotics will make most forms of human labor obsolete, which means that there'll be little need for human productivity. We just need to overthrow the propertied classes before that happens, otherwise we'll face the grim prospect of a bourgeoisie that can exist without the proletariat.

[Cromwell]

Even Keynes admitted that there was no particular reason why the working classes should obey the commands of the upper-middle class managers and intellectuals such as himself. He just believed that, because of the force of traditional social deference, they would. Well, we all know how that worked out, don't we?

Indeed, it was both the best and worst thing to ever happen to the working class in Britain. Whilst its benefits were obvious, its problems were two-fold:

• It did not actually alter the fundamental relationship between the classes. Instead, the state acted as a custodian; industrial leaders were well compensated for nationalisation and, ultimately, all power rested with old elite in Westminster and, to a lesser extent, the middle class bureaucracy which the consensus birthed into existence. S.G. Hobson basically foresaw this exact scenario and described how easily it could be undone if the workers themselves, unionised, did not control the nationalised industries. Few people listened to him, however, because it hadn't happened before.

• It created a false political dichotomy between the left (pro-consensus) and the right (anti-consensus). So, when the system started to buckle in the seventies, the hard right was able to convincingly argue that the left was to blame; this had the opposite effect on the hard left of Labour which couldn't rebuild trust. Once the right had reasserted control, however, they were able to maintain the argument even well after it should have ceased to be effective.

The Gang of Four, I think, were uniquely responsible for that last point; they bought into that insane narrative and argued, fallaciously, that the new centre-ground was also anti-consensus. So, to the electorate, it looked like the left were stuck in the past because both those on the right and those in the centre were making similar arguments.