Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:No, I do not mean state ownership. Socialization of the economy, in this case, means that more and more the economy depends on the work of people in urban settings, people who are more educated than the average farmer and are connected to the world at large. It also means that the entire world needs to work in cohesion in order for the economies of individual countries to function. One of the most pressing examples of this is the dependence of the West on cheap, factory labor in foreign countries. Although some individual countries do not necessarily gear their economies towards production, and more just the manipulation of financial capital, this investment in third world countries itself creates a global marketplace. In fact, I think this answer covers my other implicit point that the so-called socialist countries that were formerly agrarian societies needed to fail and become capitalist in order for true global socialism to be possible, because self-sufficient production economies just do not develop fast enough compared to capitalist economies. But, the stability that socialism offers will be of utility to countries that have already developed a high standard of living and a high GDP. It is one of the reasons that many Marxists believe that socialism in one country could probably only work for America, because at this point the advantage of growth seems to be lower than the disadvantages that crises bring.
I am not sure why this is called socialization, although I know Marxists use the term this way. A basic principle of Marxism is that a certain level of technology gives you a certain kind of social organization. I believe Marx said something to the effect that the hand mill gives you the feudal lord, the steam mill gives you the industrial capitalist. To a certain extent this is true, but there are factors beyond the technological means of production. America was originally an agrarian society, but did not have feudalism. The South had slavery, a supposedly
older form of social organization. Geography explained the difference.
The existence of a world-wide industrial system requires some level of planning and cooperation. I have never understood why this planning and cooperation necessarily leads to
socialism. States everywhere have always engaged in some form of planning and administration, and corporate bureaucracies themselves perform similar functions on behalf of private interests. Cooperation occurs when it is in the interests of all parties and one party does not have overwhelming dominance.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:Global warming is indeed another good example of an increasing socialization of the economy. You're right, the solutions offered are useless, but you will notice that the actions of first world countries are partially being motivated by the inability to act of third world countries, which probably create just as much or more carbon emissions than the rest of the developed world. The EU too has employed the strategy of allowing developing countries to create more emissions than undeveloped countries. Facts are that the world will have to come to some kind of agreement on how to deal with global warning. These kinds of problems that create a global impact need a centralized, supra-national governmental body in order to be dealt with. If nationalism was the primary concern of the globe, everyone would just create more carbon emissions in order to be able to compete with other countries that are ignoring the problem.
Regardless of the form of the solution, I think it is perfectly demonstrable that it speaks towards the effect that I am talking about.
Global warming is a good example of a problem that requires international cooperation and planning. A global supranational government would be equipped to deal with the problem, but the problem is also one which could be dealt with by global negotiation and cooperation. The method would be less efficient, but these sorts of issues exist at the national level as well with federalized states compared to centralized ones. Even if we had a global government, it wouldn't necessarily be socialist at all. In fact, it would probably be repressive in order to protect the wealth of the most highly industrialized countries which would necessarily dominate such a system.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:I would love to purge modern leftism of its dense teleology. I do not much enjoy being lumped in with ignorant college students, liberal-feminists, potheads, and other degenerates/parasites that have infiltrated the left. But, you have to admit, this is not just a leftist phenomenon. It too has happened to even nationalists, social conservatives, and others that would normally be aligned with the far right. So we both have people on our side that are idiots, and neither of our mainstream iterations really speak towards how either of us truly perceive the world to be. So, when the right-wing brings out this criticism, it seems almost like attacking the left with a double-edged sword.
I don't think this responds to my criticism at all. You're not really making a case for why you think socialism will happen, hence I am reminded of Marxist teleology. I certainly would not attempt to paint you with the same brush I reserve for campus stoner morons and wild eyed minority activists.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:I think I covered this point enough above.
I don't want to be rude, but I don't agree. You gave no convincing explanation for why the USSR collapsed, despite having been a highly successful socialist state which had security from the capitalist world.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote: How does that change in socialism? It's not called "the dictatorship of the proletariat" because everyone gets to join. The proles qualify as the ruling class. Just as the bourgeoisie is the ruling class, even if not every member of the bourgeoisie is in power.
The proletariat is not the ruling class in socialism, not even in the early phases. In the revolutionary phase the ruling class consists of the highest levels of the communist party and military commanders. As socialism matures the ruling class expands to incorporate enterprise directors, high level civil servants, science academies, etc. The sorts of people in the ruling class and their functions are identical to the ruling class in capitalist countries, it's just that they usually have a lower standard of living. You could argue these people are proletarians, but that's like saying Jack Welch is a proletarian because he worked for a salary.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:The bourgeoisie comprises both the capitalist and political classes. Politics is built around benefiting the bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie, although even that alliance is slowly being degraded by economies of scale, which has the consequence of forcing capital into the hands of a few in order to be able to compete globally.
Besides, in capitalism money is everything. It only stands to reason that those who have money are probably in power, don't you think?
No, money is not everything in capitalism. You are ignoring non-monetary forms of status. Someone who works for a non-profit and draws a $70,000 salary has much higher status than someone who draws a similar salary from a corporation. To a significant degree power is captured by groups that invest the most effort in having it, and this effort takes non-monetary forms as well.
To give you an example from another field, there is a saying that history is written by the victors. This isn't true, it's written by historians. Until the 1960s Civil War historiography in the United States was dominated the lost cause narrative and the Dunning School, even though the North won the war.
Politics is built around people who spend a lot of effort on politics. This intersects with Marxist classes you named. People always complain about money in elections, but the sums are relatively small and the political classes are often trying to limit the influence of money. The media has much more influence over elections than money, just look at Steve Forbes for an example. To give you an example from my life, I have a lot more money than my friends who work in politics. However, because they direct most of their efforts to politics they have more political influence than I do. They also have normal views, and thus it is easier for them to politically influence the system because of basic ingroup/outgroup dynamics.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:Ideology is an unavoidable qualitative difference. In fact, you use a qualitative observation to discount ideology, which is sort of ironic since you could only accept your conclusion if the assumption that one should not care about ideology is contained within your ideology. Either way, it's pretty circular logic, don't you think? Besides, ideology here is being used to represent "motivations" or "causes". You cannot discount those, as they influence immensely how a system will handle a given problem.
I don't think this is true in the long term. After revolutionary fervor dies down, approaches are largely pragmatic. The approaches differ by culture and civilization. For instance, France and Russia are much more statist than America is. Some would call this ideology, but it runs a lot deeper than that--look at the common threads in approaches to government between the Russian Empire, USSR, and Russian Federation despite all three having different official ideologies.
I don't know if you've seen the film
Network, but there's a scene where the guy goes, "What do you suppose the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? No, they get out their linear programming charts and plan their investments,
just like us."
I think this actually supports the Marxist approach somewhat, because it shows how systems tend to grow in somewhat similar ways based on factors like technology and geography rather than according to ideology.
Cheesecake_Marmalade wrote:Well, I explained above that nationalism, after a certain point, becomes a hindrance more than it is a help. But specifically as it concerns socialist states, nationalism acts as an external and internal problem for socialist regimes. For instance, many socialist movements in Europe were squashed by nationalists, in Germany, Spain, Italy, and Greece. To some, it took the form of fascism. Then, there is the issue that nationalism not only motivates socialist countries to act against each other, as in the case of China and the Soviets, but it also creates animosity on a global level, as with the case of the Soviets/Chinese with America. Socialism has also been fought against by American nationalists attempting to protect global capitalists interests in Vietnam and Korea, as well as Cuba and other South American countries. Even those countries have been motivated towards isolationism by an odd mix of leftism and nationalism. Also, look at the case of Korea, where nationalism has led to a degenerate military state.
I think there is plenty of evidence that nationalism has hindered the global cohesion of socialism, and harmed the states that have participated in it. In any case, I think that nationalism and internationalism are specifically incompatible, and international co-operation is necessary in order to form a united, global proletariat, but I figured you wouldn't accept that as an answer.
Many socialist movements in Europe were crushed by nationalists, but many socialist movements were also crushed by other factors. In Western Europe the stunning success of postwar mixed economies basically eliminated the appeal of socialism, and socialist parties either disappeared or became liberal capitalist parties.
Anyhow, you'll note that functionally most socialist governments end up becoming nationalistic, whether or not socialism is abandoned. Almost every town of note in the former Soviet Union has a monument to the Great Patriotic War, and the monuments invoke
rodina, the Motherland. Not only is this because nationalism has a powerful emotional pull on people, but it's because the economic dynamics of socialism deemphasize international trade due to the need to use all available factors of production while emphasizing statism. Thus socialist states are in many respects a lot like mercantilist states were, only with a better standard of living for people on the bottom of society.
Nationalism and internationalism exist on a spectrum. Obviously the most extreme forms of nationalism are incompatible with extreme forms of internationalism, but there is no obstacle to moderately nationalist states cooperating with moderately internationalist states. After all, the whole point of internationalism is to solve global problems, and it's not like nationalist countries are unaffected by global problems. The international gold standard for instance was a highly effective global monetary system, and it was brought into being at a time when imperialism was at its absolute peak. Meanwhile the much more internationalist global order of today is unable to come up with a useful global monetary system at all, and most of the useful reform proposals are coming from Russia and China, countries not noted for their internationalism.