Just out of curiosity...

[Agnapostate]

Am I the only socialist on the board? :(

And yes, I mean in regards to real socialists, not inaccurate references to Obama and his ilk.

[darin]

Obama is a real socialist. There are varying degrees of socialism. Perhaps you're so far off the deep in with your love for piss-poor government systems you think anyone even SLIGHTLY more reasonable is not a real socialist.

[hjmick]

Am I the only socialist on the board? :(

And yes, I mean in regards to real socialists, not inaccurate references to Obama and his ilk.


Nah, there is at least one more, maybe two.

[PostmodernProphet]

Nah, there is at least one more, maybe two.

should we impose a quota?.......

[hjmick]

should we impose a quota?.......

Why bother? Besides, they're good for a chuckle.

[Agnapostate]

Obama is a real socialist. There are varying degrees of socialism. Perhaps you're so far off the deep in with your love for piss-poor government systems you think anyone even SLIGHTLY more reasonable is not a real socialist.

Socialism necessitates the collective ownership of the means of production, and Obama is thus not a "socialist," as he is inaccurately labeled. Obama is a liberal democratic capitalist. Ironically, liberal democratic capitalism is effectively a greater foe of socialism than the more rightist Anglo-Saxon capitalism because it possesses an ability to stabilize the capitalist economy somewhat through the utilization of welfare programs to maintain the physical efficiency of the workforce whilst subsequently appeasing worker militancy, preventing adoption of "subversive" ideologies. Hence, I'm all for a rightist victory. Their eventual destabilization of capitalism just might lead to the adoption of socialism. :salute:

[Mugged Liberal]

Socialism necessitates the collective ownership of the means of production, and Obama is thus not a "socialist," as he is inaccurately labeled. Obama is a liberal democratic capitalist. Ironically, liberal democratic capitalism is effectively a greater foe of socialism than the more rightist Anglo-Saxon capitalism because it possesses an ability to stabilize the capitalist economy somewhat through the utilization of welfare programs to maintain the physical efficiency of the workforce whilst subsequently appeasing worker militancy, preventing adoption of "subversive" ideologies. Hence, I'm all for a rightist victory. Their eventual destabilization of capitalism just might lead to the adoption of socialism. :salute:



To me your definition of a real socialist makes sense in a very old-fashioned political science sense, but you won’t get people to label you as such on this board. If you want them to pay attention to you, you must bait them, attack their motives, cast aspersions on their family, and generally abuse them. Then they will call you names a lot worse than ‘Socialist”.

Real socialism in your sense of the word is, to my mind, mostly irrelevant in these times. After all, there are no means of production in this country since we are pretty much a service and technology resource for the world. They produce and we consume. To expect that the large multinational corporations would allow anything close to ownership by the people of the means of production is just not realistic.

[Agnapostate]

To me your definition of a real socialist makes sense in a very old-fashioned political science sense, but you won’t get people to label you as such on this board. If you want them to pay attention to you, you must bait them, attack their motives, cast aspersions on their family, and generally abuse them. Then they will call you names a lot worse than ‘Socialist”.

Oh, I've gone that route before. I won't try it again unless provoked. :laugh2:


Real socialism in your sense of the word is, to my mind, mostly irrelevant in these times. After all, there are no means of production in this country since we are pretty much a service and technology resource for the world. They produce and we consume.

Perhaps not merely the conventional "means of production" (though the great engines of industry and agriculture would still qualify), but major productive resources and assets also.


To expect that the large multinational corporations would allow anything close to ownership by the people of the means of production is just not realistic.

The financial class is weakened by the current crisis, and would leap at an opportunity to obtain the fair market value of their rapidly dwindling property. The opportunity for nationalization and establishment of workers' and public ownership and control on a decentralized level is upon us, but such a solution is not within the realm of acceptable political action, due to the inane rantings of the free marketers...which remain ironic, considering the dependence of American capitalism upon economic planning.

[emmett]

Oh, I've gone that route before. I won't try it again unless provoked. :laugh2:



Perhaps not merely the conventional "means of production" (though the great engines of industry and agriculture would still qualify), but major productive resources and assets also.



The financial class is weakened by the current crisis, and would leap at an opportunity to obtain the fair market value of their rapidly dwindling property. The opportunity for nationalization and establishment of workers' and public ownership and control on a decentralized level is upon us, but such a solution is not within the realm of acceptable political action, due to the inane rantings of the free marketers...which remain ironic, considering the dependence of American capitalism upon economic planning.


Agno, please explain to me your signature. "Libertarian Socialist". As a Libertarian, and probably the board's most hardcore one, I am at a loss to understand what a Libartarian Socialist is.

Now understand, I'm not the wiz that many on here are so dumb it down for me. I've read many of your posts, well, probably all actually and have paid attention to your philosophy. Unlike some I don't get all "ready to fire" when confronted with dissenting opinions. I am of the belief that Socialists usually mean well in their intentions. They simply believe in a strategy of government to oversee the welfare of all. Its a nice idea but erases the responsibility factor from citizenship. Every example of Socialism I have ever examined resulted in what appeared to me to be a miserable existance for the people. Choices were eliminated, aspirations quelled and an enviornment created for the average person that compares with the term "mere existance".

I'm wondering if you have mistaken the word "Libertarian" for something else. I am of the belief that liberty has very little compromise. You can either be completely free or "something else". Socialism requires the complete control of the economic mechanism of a country. Libertarians believe and more so now than ever, that complete free market enterprise, even in regards to infrastructural services are the only way to make capitolism work. Personally, I believe the only thing the government should do is control the military. I don't even personally think the President should be Commander in Cheif in time of war.

So...if you would be so kind, please explain that term to me. How does Libertarian and Socialist fit together in any manner?

[darin]

I think socialism is brutal and heartless. Socialism brings down society and hurts it's members. Only the most-cruel of folk would adopt or encourage the policy.

[Agnapostate]

Agno, please explain to me your signature. "Libertarian Socialist". As a Libertarian, and probably the board's most hardcore one, I am at a loss to understand what a Libartarian Socialist is.

Now understand, I'm not the wiz that many on here are so dumb it down for me. I've read many of your posts, well, probably all actually and have paid attention to your philosophy. Unlike some I don't get all "ready to fire" when confronted with dissenting opinions. I am of the belief that Socialists usually mean well in their intentions. They simply believe in a strategy of government to oversee the welfare of all.

You mean my user title? I suppose I could make an attempt. The term "libertarian" was first utilized by anarcho-socialists to circumvent French anti-anarchist laws; the first written usage of the term is attributed to the French anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque in an 1857 letter that he wrote. Conversely, the U.S. "Libertarian" Party has only existed since the early 1970's, which effectively means that socialists used the term "libertarian" as a self-describing label a century before its misappropriation.

Accordingly, libertarian socialism currently describes anarchism, which is, as the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin put it, "the no-government system of socialism," as well as related minarchist and anti-authoritarian socialist philosophies, such as left communism, council communism, and related variants of libertarian Marxism. Libertarian socialism is thus broadly in conjunction with the principles described by Kropotkin in Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/kropotkin/revpamphlets/anarchistcommunism.html):


In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites for production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. And in common with the most advanced representatives of political radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the political organization of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying, by means of free groups and federations--freely constituted--all the infinitely varied needs of the human being.

Hence, the unfortunate reality is that "libertarian socialism" is libertarianism, and that the forms of "libertarianism" that incorporate capitalism as an advocated ideal are more accurately described as a particularly authoritarian form of propertarianism.

The reality is this: As I've previously noted, the economic framework of capitalism necessitates a scheme in which the private ownership of the means of production (acquired through a coercive process of "primitive accumulation") and consequent hierarchical subordination of labor under capital enables the extraction of surplus value from the working class in the production process through the use of wage labor and subsequent utilization in the circulation process in order to perpetuate a vicious cycle of capital accumulation. In visually pleasing terms:

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/ed4a754f.png

Moreover, capitalism is necessarily antithetical to freedom. The hierarchical organization of the capitalist firm (a necessary demand of the financial and coordinator classes), necessitates the subordination of workers under bosses and higher-level employers, depriving them of the right to democratically manage a major aspect of their own lives. Nor is answering "you can simply change jobs" a sufficient response to this criticism, because just as the right to migrate between an island chain of kingdoms but not outside of them would not free one from monarchy, neither can the right to select specific masters in a capitalist economy free one from that tyranny.

Nor are external economic conditions based on freedom, so long as privileged and elite segments of the population (namely the financial class, as they have more dominance than the coordinator class outside of the internal structure of the firm), to make decisions that affect the rest of the population without their democratic input. After the unjust consolidation of the means of production and the resulting power that comes as a result of it during a stage of primitive accumulation (the state had a major role in class creation), the financial class, characterized by a small and elite segment of the population is thereby able to use their control over the means of production to drastically affect the vast majority of the population in whatever way they please, which is obviously a significant rationale for collectivizing the means of production, decentralizing them, and subjecting them to direct democratic management.

In our present state of affairs, this private ownership of the means of production permits the aforementioned utilization of wage labor, which is a critical element in the coercive nature of capitalism. Since the means of production are privately owned, large components of the public have no alternative but to subordinate themselves under an employer. The best way to illustrate this form of authoritarianism is to use the "robbery analogy." If a person were to be violently tackled by an assailant and have his/her valuables torn out of his/her pockets, we would accurately call this a robbery. Now, if the assailant were to instead point a gun at the victim and demand that the valuables be surrendered, we would still call this a robbery, as coercion was used to gain the valuables, if not outright physical violence. The fact that the victim technically "consented" to surrender his/her valuables is not pertinent, since it was consent yielded while under duress.

The former example represents the direct tyranny of statism, often blunt, direct, and brutal, whereas the latter represents the more subtle tyranny of capitalism, specifically wage labor, in which a person technically "consents" to work for an employer, but does this only because he/she has no other alternative for sustenance.


Its a nice idea but erases the responsibility factor from citizenship. Every example of Socialism I have ever examined resulted in what appeared to me to be a miserable existance for the people. Choices were eliminated, aspirations quelled and an enviornment created for the average person that compares with the term "mere existance".

As I've mentioned here previously, I've rarely encountered socialists who claim that the USSR was a communist country; even many Marxists disavow significant aspects of the Soviet Union. My own objection to that inaccurate label stems from my own libertarian socialism, specifically anarchism. The Soviet Union effectively imitated Western capitalism in that it concentrated political and economic power in the hands of a ruling class (the Bolshevik party elite), rather than instituting any legitimate form of "collective" ownership or management, thus creating a critical conflict with and divergence from socialism, in that collective ownership is a necessary element of socialism.

For instance, Noam Chomsky retains a similar objection, as elaborated on in The Soviet Union Versus Socialism (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986----.htm).


When the world's two great propaganda systems agree on some doctrine, it requires some intellectual effort to escape its shackles. One such doctrine is that the society created by Lenin and Trotsky and molded further by Stalin and his successors has some relation to socialism in some meaningful or historically accurate sense of this concept. In fact, if there is a relation, it is the relation of contradiction...The Leninist antagonism to the most essential features of socialism was evident from the very start. In revolutionary Russia, Soviets and factory committees developed as instruments of struggle and liberation, with many flaws, but with a rich potential. Lenin and Trotsky, upon assuming power, immediately devoted themselves to destroying the liberatory potential of these instruments, establishing the rule of the Party, in practice its Central Committee and its Maximal Leaders -- exactly as Trotsky had predicted years earlier, as Rosa Luxembourg and other left Marxists warned at the time, and as the anarchists had always understood. Not only the masses, but even the Party must be subject to "vigilant control from above," so Trotsky held as he made the transition from revolutionary intellectual to State priest. Before seizing State power, the Bolshevik leadership adopted much of the rhetoric of people who were engaged in the revolutionary struggle from below, but their true commitments were quite different. This was evident before and became crystal clear as they assumed State power in October 1917.

Of course, Chomsky's article was written in 1986, so you might be inclined to respond that socialists only rejected the Soviet Union once its numerous failures were apparent. (Thought that would still conflict with your claim that socialists ignore the failures of their ideology.) But this claim applies only to certain classes of socialists, and certainly cannot include all. You might mention failures of the Soviet Union when conversing with a Marxist-Leninist, for instance. (And I have many times.) But that approach will likely do you little good in a discussion with those who espouse more libertarian variants of socialism, such as anarchists.

Indeed, legitimate socialists identified the Soviet Union as anti-socialist once they became aware of its authoritarian and statist nature, which might serve as a response to your possible claim that socialists only condemned the Soviet Union once its failures became apparent. For instance, the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin recognized the authoritarian, anti-socialist nature of the Bolshevik regime immediately after the Russian Revolution. In a 1920 letter to Lenin he writes this:


Russia has already become a Soviet Republic only in name. The influx and taking over of the people by the 'party,' that is, predominantly the newcomers (the ideological communists are more in the urban centers), has already destroyed the influence and constructive energy of this promising institution - the soviets. At present, it is the party committees, not the soviets, who rule in Russia. And their organization suffers from the defects of bureaucratic organization. To move away from the current disorder, Russia must return to the creative genius of local forces which, as I see it, can be a factor in the creation of a new life.And the sooner that the necessity of this way is understood, the better. People will then be all the more likely to accept [new] social forms of life. If the present situation continues, the very word 'socialism' will turn into a curse. That is what happened to the conception of equality in France for forty years after the rule of the Jacobins.

Kropotkin quickly recognized the state capitalist nature of the Bolshevik regime and the calamities that socialism would later face if the Soviet Union was identified as "socialist." Hence, it is not only Chomsky, nor even only Kropotkin or other anarchists, but all legitimate socialists who recognize the state capitalist nature of the Soviet Union. Kropotkin's prediction has of course proved to be correct, which is why "socialism" and "communism" are merely considered to be synonymous with the state capitalism of the Leninists and Stalinists of the Soviet Union.

Indeed, it could be argued that anarchists recognized the imminent failure of authoritarian varieties of Marxism long before the establishment of the Soviet Union or the Bolshevik party, as evidenced by anarchist Mikhail Bakunin's observations that "If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Czar himself" and "When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick." (Bakunin was Marx's chief foe in the First International, later to be expelled along with the anarchist contingent, marking the beginning of the divide between Marxist and anarchist socialism).

Marx himself cannot be entirely blamed for the state capitalist legacy of the USSR, of course, but it's worth noting that anarchists predicted that authoritarian elements would be able to base themselves upon Marxist principles and tenets. For instance, Bakunin wrote this in his 1871 manuscript Statism and Anarchy:


Idealists of all kinds – metaphysicians, positivists, those who support the rule of science over life, doctrinaire revolutionists – all defend the idea of state and state power with equal eloquence, because they see in it, as a consequence of their own systems, the only salvation for society...This fiction of a pseudo-representative government serves to conceal the domination of the masses by a handful of privileged elite; an elite elected by hordes of people who are rounded up and do not know for whom or for what they vote. Upon this artificial and abstract expression of what they falsely imagine to be the will of the people and of which the real living people have not the least idea, they construct both the theory of statism as well as the theory of so-called revolutionary dictatorship.

The differences between revolutionary dictatorship and statism are superficial. Fundamentally they both represent the same principle of minority rule over the majority in the name of the alleged “stupidity” of the latter and the alleged “intelligence” of the former. Therefore they are both equally reactionary since both directly and inevitably must preserve and perpetuate the political and economic privileges of the ruling minority and the political and economic subjugation of the masses of the people.

Now it is clear why the dictatorial revolutionists, who aim to overthrow the existing powers and social structures in order to erect upon their ruins their own dictatorships, never were or will be the enemies of government, but, to the contrary, always will be the most ardent promoters of the government idea. They are the enemies only of contemporary governments, because they wish to replace them. They are the enemies of the present governmental structure, because it excludes the possibility of their dictatorship. At the same time they are the most devoted friends of governmental power. For if the revolution destroyed this power by actually freeing the masses, it would deprive this pseudo-revolutionary minority of any hope to harness the masses in order to make them the beneficiaries of their own government policy.

We have already expressed several times our deep aversion to the theory of Lassalle and Marx, which recommends to the workers, if not as a final ideal at least as the next immediate goal, the founding of a people’s state, which according to their interpretation will be nothing but “the proletariat elevated to the status of the governing class.”

Though many now lament the consequences of establishing "socialism," it is and always has been anarchists who were quick to predict the inevitable failure of the establishment of authoritarian social doctrines masquerading as "socialism," and accordingly, it was anarchists who were the first to be eliminated after the establishment of the state capitalist dictatorship. It's thus rather absurd to lecture libertarian socialists about the alleged failure of their doctrine, as so many unfortunately do, and all in all, my belief is that the anti-socialists' desperation to cling to the falsity that the Soviet Union or its state capitalist ideology was socialist reveals the fact that they have no other arguments against socialism to provide.


I'm wondering if you have mistaken the word "Libertarian" for something else. I am of the belief that liberty has very little compromise. You can either be completely free or "something else".

By no means. As an anarchist, I'm effectively an extremely radical libertarian. For instance, in regards to my Political Compass score, I've only met one other person who's matched my perfect social libertarian score of -10.0, and to be honest with you, the test isn't calibrated to measure the true extremism of my civil libertarianism.

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/a7899002.png


Socialism requires the complete control of the economic mechanism of a country.

Socialism requires collective, democratic ownership and control of the means of production in some manner, a condition that is both necessary and sufficient for socialism. Whether such "control" is manifested through democratic markets or participatory economic planning, nothing short of a legitimate collective element can constitute socialism.


Libertarians believe and more so now than ever, that complete free market enterprise, even in regards to infrastructural services are the only way to make capitolism work.

Free markets are an unachievable and utopian fantasy that ultimately inhibit the survival of capitalism, since attempts to establish free markets will necessarily destabilize the capitalist economy. Even so, the markets that exist in a capitalist economy are and always will be inferior to markets that could exist in a socialist economy. As noted by Jaroslav Vanek, "[t]he capitalist economy is not a true market economy because in western capitalism, as in Soviet state capitalism, there is a tendency towards monopoly. Economic democracy tends toward a competitive market." Since market socialism is characterized by small, worker-owned and managed enterprises and labor cooperatives, effective market competition can be coordinated whilst granting effective equality of opportunity to participants.


Personally, I believe the only thing the government should do is control the military. I don't even personally think the President should be Commander in Cheif in time of war.

Military Keynesianism has certainly been the legacy of alleged free marketers, as we saw was the case with Reagan. Military Keynesianism will certainly be the dominant economic order when useful economic instruments are neglected by the government in favor of that variety of military buildup.


So...if you would be so kind, please explain that term to me. How does Libertarian and Socialist fit together in any manner?

I think I've given a fairly extensive introductory summary, but a more neutral point of view might be derived from the aforementioned Political Compass. Thus far, you've conflated socialism with state capitalism and have only been exposed to the variety of "socialism" that resides at the top left quadrant of this compass, labeled "state-imposed collectivism." (Though it's my personal opinion that this is an oxymoron and that "state-imposed collectivism" cannot legitimately exist, and is a mere fantasy that will bring about state capitalism).

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/a61bc580.gif

But you've not noted the possibility of the different variety of "socialism" that exists at the bottom left quadrant, labeled "voluntary regional collectivism."


Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities exisited in Spain during the civil war period.

Hence, the bottom left corner effectively consists of libertarian socialism and anarchism, which is as far from Soviet state capitalism as socialism in general is from Western market capitalism. In fact, they're effectively the opposite of each other in many significant ways.


I think socialism is brutal and heartless. Socialism brings down society and hurts it's members. Only the most-cruel of folk would adopt or encourage the policy.

I try and restrain myself from focusing on morality comments in favor of focusing on maximization of economic efficiency, but honestly, no shortage of strong moral criticisms of capitalism exists, whereas anti-socialist moral commentary is typically inaccurately applied to state capitalism, since socialism cannot be identified correctly. Capitalism's aforementioned adversarial relationship with freedom, liberty, and democracy certainly constitutes a severe moral failing. As for socialists? If anything, we're simply in favor of the reorganization of property rights to accurately reflect supply and demand criteria. And since the incorporation of autogestion (workers' self-management) will necessarily bring about significant productivity gains, objections to socialism have necessarily been whittled down to inaccurate mumbling about state capitalism.

[emmett]

You mean my user title? I suppose I could make an attempt. The term "libertarian" was first utilized by anarcho-socialists to circumvent French anti-anarchist laws; the first written usage of the term is attributed to the French anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque in an 1857 letter that he wrote. Conversely, the U.S. "Libertarian" Party has only existed since the early 1970's, which effectively means that socialists used the term "libertarian" as a self-describing label a century before its misappropriation.

Accordingly, libertarian socialism currently describes anarchism, which is, as the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin put it, "the no-government system of socialism," as well as related minarchist and anti-authoritarian socialist philosophies, such as left communism, council communism, and related variants of libertarian Marxism. Libertarian socialism is thus broadly in conjunction with the principles described by Kropotkin in Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/kropotkin/revpamphlets/anarchistcommunism.html):



Hence, the unfortunate reality is that "libertarian socialism" is libertarianism, and that the forms of "libertarianism" that incorporate capitalism as an advocated ideal are more accurately described as a particularly authoritarian form of propertarianism.

The reality is this: As I've previously noted, the economic framework of capitalism necessitates a scheme in which the private ownership of the means of production (acquired through a coercive process of "primitive accumulation") and consequent hierarchical subordination of labor under capital enables the extraction of surplus value from the working class in the production process through the use of wage labor and subsequent utilization in the circulation process in order to perpetuate a vicious cycle of capital accumulation. In visually pleasing terms:

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/ed4a754f.png

Moreover, capitalism is necessarily antithetical to freedom. The hierarchical organization of the capitalist firm (a necessary demand of the financial and coordinator classes), necessitates the subordination of workers under bosses and higher-level employers, depriving them of the right to democratically manage a major aspect of their own lives. Nor is answering "you can simply change jobs" a sufficient response to this criticism, because just as the right to migrate between an island chain of kingdoms but not outside of them would not free one from monarchy, neither can the right to select specific masters in a capitalist economy free one from that tyranny.

Nor are external economic conditions based on freedom, so long as privileged and elite segments of the population (namely the financial class, as they have more dominance than the coordinator class outside of the internal structure of the firm), to make decisions that affect the rest of the population without their democratic input. After the unjust consolidation of the means of production and the resulting power that comes as a result of it during a stage of primitive accumulation (the state had a major role in class creation), the financial class, characterized by a small and elite segment of the population is thereby able to use their control over the means of production to drastically affect the vast majority of the population in whatever way they please, which is obviously a significant rationale for collectivizing the means of production, decentralizing them, and subjecting them to direct democratic management.

In our present state of affairs, this private ownership of the means of production permits the aforementioned utilization of wage labor, which is a critical element in the coercive nature of capitalism. Since the means of production are privately owned, large components of the public have no alternative but to subordinate themselves under an employer. The best way to illustrate this form of authoritarianism is to use the "robbery analogy." If a person were to be violently tackled by an assailant and have his/her valuables torn out of his/her pockets, we would accurately call this a robbery. Now, if the assailant were to instead point a gun at the victim and demand that the valuables be surrendered, we would still call this a robbery, as coercion was used to gain the valuables, if not outright physical violence. The fact that the victim technically "consented" to surrender his/her valuables is not pertinent, since it was consent yielded while under duress.

The former example represents the direct tyranny of statism, often blunt, direct, and brutal, whereas the latter represents the more subtle tyranny of capitalism, specifically wage labor, in which a person technically "consents" to work for an employer, but does this only because he/she has no other alternative for sustenance.



As I've mentioned here previously, I've rarely encountered socialists who claim that the USSR was a communist country; even many Marxists disavow significant aspects of the Soviet Union. My own objection to that inaccurate label stems from my own libertarian socialism, specifically anarchism. The Soviet Union effectively imitated Western capitalism in that it concentrated political and economic power in the hands of a ruling class (the Bolshevik party elite), rather than instituting any legitimate form of "collective" ownership or management, thus creating a critical conflict with and divergence from socialism, in that collective ownership is a necessary element of socialism.

For instance, Noam Chomsky retains a similar objection, as elaborated on in The Soviet Union Versus Socialism (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986----.htm).



Of course, Chomsky's article was written in 1986, so you might be inclined to respond that socialists only rejected the Soviet Union once its numerous failures were apparent. (Thought that would still conflict with your claim that socialists ignore the failures of their ideology.) But this claim applies only to certain classes of socialists, and certainly cannot include all. You might mention failures of the Soviet Union when conversing with a Marxist-Leninist, for instance. (And I have many times.) But that approach will likely do you little good in a discussion with those who espouse more libertarian variants of socialism, such as anarchists.

Indeed, legitimate socialists identified the Soviet Union as anti-socialist once they became aware of its authoritarian and statist nature, which might serve as a response to your possible claim that socialists only condemned the Soviet Union once its failures became apparent. For instance, the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin recognized the authoritarian, anti-socialist nature of the Bolshevik regime immediately after the Russian Revolution. In a 1920 letter to Lenin he writes this:



Kropotkin quickly recognized the state capitalist nature of the Bolshevik regime and the calamities that socialism would later face if the Soviet Union was identified as "socialist." Hence, it is not only Chomsky, nor even only Kropotkin or other anarchists, but all legitimate socialists who recognize the state capitalist nature of the Soviet Union. Kropotkin's prediction has of course proved to be correct, which is why "socialism" and "communism" are merely considered to be synonymous with the state capitalism of the Leninists and Stalinists of the Soviet Union.

Indeed, it could be argued that anarchists recognized the imminent failure of authoritarian varieties of Marxism long before the establishment of the Soviet Union or the Bolshevik party, as evidenced by anarchist Mikhail Bakunin's observations that "If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Czar himself" and "When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick." (Bakunin was Marx's chief foe in the First International, later to be expelled along with the anarchist contingent, marking the beginning of the divide between Marxist and anarchist socialism).

Marx himself cannot be entirely blamed for the state capitalist legacy of the USSR, of course, but it's worth noting that anarchists predicted that authoritarian elements would be able to base themselves upon Marxist principles and tenets. For instance, Bakunin wrote this in his 1871 manuscript Statism and Anarchy:



Though many now lament the consequences of establishing "socialism," it is and always has been anarchists who were quick to predict the inevitable failure of the establishment of authoritarian social doctrines masquerading as "socialism," and accordingly, it was anarchists who were the first to be eliminated after the establishment of the state capitalist dictatorship. It's thus rather absurd to lecture libertarian socialists about the alleged failure of their doctrine, as so many unfortunately do, and all in all, my belief is that the anti-socialists' desperation to cling to the falsity that the Soviet Union or its state capitalist ideology was socialist reveals the fact that they have no other arguments against socialism to provide.



By no means. As an anarchist, I'm effectively an extremely radical libertarian. For instance, in regards to my Political Compass score, I've only met one other person who's matched my perfect social libertarian score of -10.0, and to be honest with you, the test isn't calibrated to measure the true extremism of my civil libertarianism.

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/a7899002.png



Socialism requires collective, democratic ownership and control of the means of production in some manner, a condition that is both necessary and sufficient for socialism. Whether such "control" is manifested through democratic markets or participatory economic planning, nothing short of a legitimate collective element can constitute socialism.



Free markets are an unachievable and utopian fantasy that ultimately inhibit the survival of capitalism, since attempts to establish free markets will necessarily destabilize the capitalist economy. Even so, the markets that exist in a capitalist economy are and always will be inferior to markets that could exist in a socialist economy. As noted by Jaroslav Vanek, "[t]he capitalist economy is not a true market economy because in western capitalism, as in Soviet state capitalism, there is a tendency towards monopoly. Economic democracy tends toward a competitive market." Since market socialism is characterized by small, worker-owned and managed enterprises and labor cooperatives, effective market competition can be coordinated whilst granting effective equality of opportunity to participants.



Military Keynesianism has certainly been the legacy of alleged free marketers, as we saw was the case with Reagan. Military Keynesianism will certainly be the dominant economic order when useful economic instruments are neglected by the government in favor of that variety of military buildup.



I think I've given a fairly extensive introductory summary, but a more neutral point of view might be derived from the aforementioned Political Compass. Thus far, you've conflated socialism with state capitalism and have only been exposed to the variety of "socialism" that resides at the top left quadrant of this compass, labeled "state-imposed collectivism." (Though it's my personal opinion that this is an oxymoron and that "state-imposed collectivism" cannot legitimately exist, and is a mere fantasy that will bring about state capitalism).

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/a61bc580.gif

But you've not noted the possibility of the different variety of "socialism" that exists at the bottom left quadrant, labeled "voluntary regional collectivism."



Hence, the bottom left corner effectively consists of libertarian socialism and anarchism, which is as far from Soviet state capitalism as socialism in general is from Western market capitalism. In fact, they're effectively the opposite of each other in many significant ways.



I try and restrain myself from focusing on morality comments in favor of focusing on maximization of economic efficiency, but honestly, no shortage of strong moral criticisms of capitalism exists, whereas anti-socialist moral commentary is typically inaccurately applied to state capitalism, since socialism cannot be identified correctly. Capitalism's aforementioned adversarial relationship with freedom, liberty, and democracy certainly constitutes a severe moral failing. As for socialists? If anything, we're simply in favor of the reorganization of property rights to accurately reflect supply and demand criteria. And since the incorporation of autogestion (workers' self-management) will necessarily bring about significant productivity gains, objections to socialism have necessarily been whittled down to inaccurate mumbling about state capitalism.


Interesting. I actually painfully read every word. I must say irt is a touch above my head to understand all of it but I did read every word. Twice actually.


I made one very important observation. Never did you mention the word "FREEDOM" and I got news for you sir, Libertarians that I know are pretty big on it!

Now maybe some frenchmen from the 1860's or whatever may have used the word Libertarian. Maybe they understood it to mean something different, as you obviously do but allow me to, and I certainly beg your pardon, to clear up a minor detail or two for you about the Libertarian Party that I have been amember of for 20 years.

The Libertarian Socialist you describe to me is a slave. You might describe "voluntary regional collectivism" as a Libertarian philosophy but I certainly do not agree. In your post, just as you did not mention freedom, you did not mention the word "Liberty". So to me what you are describing is indeed just Socialism. I care not to understand the complexities you mention if absolute freedom and liberty are not at the core of it.

In your analogy above you describe a person who has been robbed by being tackled and then another who has had a gun pointed at him as a lame way of explaining a "choice". You later say, and in a manner that tends to suggest that under free market enterprise that a worker has no choice in rather he can work for a company or not. He certainly does. He can also not work for anybody but engage in the attempt to own his own company that pays wages to others who display less aspiration. Therefore, these people are certainly NOT equal and should never be "forced" to be so, which is indictative of a system of Socialism.

There are many who welcome the challenge of free market capitolism. I do. I have been successful and experienced failure. I made my own decisions and am responsible for the outcome. In America we have the option of "choice". Socialism takes choices away. I understand the premise of what you speak: collective ownership etc,... I for one would not want that. It makes no sense to me to have an equal share of something that I work harder for than my constituant.

I would not insult your intelligence by offering any argument in reference to the failure of the Soviet Union. It speaks for itself. I hardly see that there was any "liberty" offered in a country where a person who wished to leave was a "defector". A treasonist in essence. Not for me, never.

Again I repeat, your entire explanation, which was superb in context, offers no mention of freedom or liberty. There is nothing "authoritarian" about the philosophy of Libertarianism I believe in my friend. You and I have two completely different ideas of it. "Coersive Process of primitive accumulation"! Really now. If I take the last dollars I have and exercise my free right to compete in the free market with a service or by producing a product that is in demand, I am not coersing anyone. They can choose not to purchase it. That is freedom.

Let me ask you this. Under a system which you describe, what would happen to people who were unwilling to work anywhere? I mean...let's face it. It happens.

Your quote, "markets that exist in a capitolist economy will always be inferior to that of what "could" be acheived in a socialist economy. I rather think the reason the US is the world's leading economy is because we just don't buy into that.

Every Socialist economy on earth has created an elite society within a society. Since you chose the Soviet Union, a failure, to illustrate so many of your examples, I will to. All I can say is, people there were very...very unhappy. Social Freedom is an issue to, not just capitolism or free market enterprise. My Libertarian Party believes the two go hand in hand. Complete and Absolute freedom cannot be acheived in any other way. It has never worked and never will. Your argument says almost the same thing in opposite. You claim that Free market Capitolism creates the same thing, an elite society within a society. Well, maybe you are right but it is by aspirations and choice. Something Socialism restricts.

Your post was excellent. If what you described is Libertarian Socialism...I want no part of it. What I described is "True Libertarianism". The only thing collective about is the absolute equal opportunity it employs to see that each person is guarenteed to get exactly what they earn. Government has no part in the personal lives of citizens. A Collective owned market sounds very government owned to me.

Thanks for the reply and again...excellent post.

[Agnapostate]

I had nothing so bold and lofty as changing your position in mind. I merely had the prospect of extensive and detailed examination of this topic in mind. In the words of John Stuart Mill:


[T]he only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.

We must necessarily consider conflicting and opposing viewpoints to better clarify our own.


Interesting. I actually painfully read every word. I must say irt is a touch above my head to understand all of it but I did read every word. Twice actually.

I made one very important observation. Never did you mention the word "FREEDOM" and I got news for you sir, Libertarians that I know are pretty big on it!

I mentioned the word "freedom" three separate times, referring to the constrictions imposed on freedom by capitalism each time I mentioned the term. Conversely, libertarian socialism is able to bring about freedom in a way that capitalism, with the effective coercion that it promotes through the utilization of wage labor, could never do. As noted by Kropotkin of anarcho-communism:


We are communists. But our communism is not that of the authoritarian school: it is anarchist communism, communism without government, free communism. It is a synthesis of the two chief aims pursued by humanity since the dawn of its history--economic freedom and political freedom.

Libertarian socialist political philosophy is based around that common principle. As consistent libertarian socialists, we'll necessarily oppose the establishment of private ownership of the means of production because we recognize that this inequality (bred of the aforementioned coercive phase of primitive accumulation), effectively makes the financial class the owners of the lives and fates of others and makes the coordinator class the managers of the lives and fates of others through the utilization of wage labor and unjust extraction of surplus value that was depicted in the illustration. We recognize that consistent application of the right to self-governance necessitates granting individuals control over external factors that could function as potentially coercive elements, and accordingly, collective ownership and direct democratic management of the means of production is the only means to eliminate the potential for such authoritarian coercion. As consistent libertarian socialists, we'll necessarily seek lives free of subordination under lords, masters, and similarly coercive forms of hierarchical authoritarianism.

All this, of course, is entirely separate from the efficiency gains brought about by socialist economic organization, due to its focus on autogestion and the manifestation of the principles of that practice through worker-owned and managed enterprises and labor cooperatives.


Now maybe some frenchmen from the 1860's or whatever may have used the word Libertarian. Maybe they understood it to mean something different, as you obviously do but allow me to, and I certainly beg your pardon, to clear up a minor detail or two for you about the Libertarian Party that I have been amember of for 20 years.

The Libertarian Socialist you describe to me is a slave. You might describe "voluntary regional collectivism" as a Libertarian philosophy but I certainly do not agree. In your post, just as you did not mention freedom, you did not mention the word "Liberty".

Just as I mentioned freedom several times, I also mentioned liberty twice, once in reference to the constrictions imposed on liberty by capitalism and once in quotation of Kropotkin in reference to the liberty brought about by anarcho-communism and related political philosophies. I've certainly described the moral failings of capitalism in regards to its adversarial relationship with liberty in some detail; you need to examine these words carefully and not simply cling to preconceived dogma. Be not an ideologue, but an empiricist!


So to me what you are describing is indeed just Socialism. I care not to understand the complexities you mention if absolute freedom and liberty are not at the core of it.

I'm afraid you may be reverting back to your inaccurate conception of state capitalism, which as I mentioned, is not a legitimate form of "socialism." Properly understood, the existence of socialism facilitates far more freedom and liberty than capitalism ever could.


In your analogy above you describe a person who has been robbed by being tackled and then another who has had a gun pointed at him as a lame way of explaining a "choice". You later say, and in a manner that tends to suggest that under free market enterprise that a worker has no choice in rather he can work for a company or not.

I never claimed that such would be the case under "free market enterprise"; I'll fully admit that free market enterprise would be characterized by voluntary and mutual exchange between informed parties in an open market. Unfortunately, free market enterprise does not exist, which is why reference to actually existing capitalism is necessarily of greater relevance. The analogy was intended to illustrate the coercive integration into the role of wage laborer that characterizes the experiences of many amongst the working class. Such individuals are robbed of liberty by capitalism.


He certainly does. He can also not work for anybody but engage in the attempt to own his own company that pays wages to others who display less aspiration. Therefore, these people are certainly NOT equal and should never be "forced" to be so, which is indictative of a system of Socialism.

But this relies on a utopian conception of political economy and markets, which is as effectively nonexistent as the neoclassical conception of perfect competition. Moreover, socialism is not intended to forcibly create an "equality of outcome" as is commonly misconceived, but rather, voluntarily create an "equality of opportunity" in its ideal form...and the failings of human nature will necessitate the implementation of something short of such an ideal.


There are many who welcome the challenge of free market capitolism. I do. I have been successful and experienced failure. I made my own decisions and am responsible for the outcome. In America we have the option of "choice". Socialism takes choices away. I understand the premise of what you speak: collective ownership etc,... I for one would not want that. It makes no sense to me to have an equal share of something that I work harder for than my constituant.

"Free markets" are an unachievable and utopian fantasy, and we thus have to continue referring to actually existing capitalism. You also seem to believe that socialism does not incorporate compensation differentiations in response to labor input differentiations. Such is not the case. For instance, various forms of socialism may retain a market and wage system, whilst communism, for instance, would retain compensation differentiations in response to differentiations in labor effort, so as to fundamentally assure that economic structures function "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."


I would not insult your intelligence by offering any argument in reference to the failure of the Soviet Union. It speaks for itself. I hardly see that there was any "liberty" offered in a country where a person who wished to leave was a "defector". A treasonist in essence. Not for me, never.

That's why I've specified that the Soviet Union was not a socialist country, but a state capitalist country, and that anarchists and libertarian socialists have rejected the authoritarian doctrines responsible for its construction and maintenance ever since the initial schism between Marxism and anarchism. Legitimate applications and implementations of socialism must be sought elsewhere.


Again I repeat, your entire explanation, which was superb in context, offers no mention of freedom or liberty. There is nothing "authoritarian" about the philosophy of Libertarianism I believe in my friend. You and I have two completely different ideas of it. "Coersive Process of primitive accumulation"! Really now. If I take the last dollars I have and exercise my free right to compete in the free market with a service or by producing a product that is in demand, I am not coersing anyone. They can choose not to purchase it. That is freedom.

The "free market" does not exist. I still can't help but laugh at the cries of "socialism" from American rightists, considering the current reliance of American capitalism on economic planning. Your example is somewhat crude anecdotal speculation; the coercive phase of primitive accumulation is an unfortunate reality. As I've mentioned previously, primitive accumulation refers to the process in which the means of production (or more technically, the productive resources that were the basis for modern, industrialized means of production), were placed under private ownership and control. This phase of economic history was characterized by coercive state prejudice in favor of certain groups and parties (the enslavement and later disenfranchisement of blacks in America is an obvious example), thus resulting in the ultimate conditions that prevail today, perpetuated by state protection of private property. As Marx commented in Volume One of Capital:


This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell on the human race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote of the past. In times long gone-by there were two sorts of people; one, the diligent, intelligent, and, above all, frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of economic original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means essential. Never mind! Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter sort had at last nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite all its labour, has up to now nothing to sell but itself, and the wealth of the few that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work.

The reality of this process lends great credence to Kevin Carson's observation in Studies in Mutualist Political Economy regarding the nature of primitive accumulation:


Capitalism has never been established by means of the free market. It has always been established by a revolution from above, imposed by a ruling class with its origins in the Old Regime...by a pre-capitalist ruling class that had been transformed in a capitalist manner. In England, it was the landed aristocracy; in France, Napoleon III's bureaucracy; in Germany, the Junkers; in Japan, the Meiji. In America, the closest approach to a 'natural' bourgeois evolution, industrialisation was carried out by a mercantilist aristocracy of Federalist shipping magnates and landlords.

What's most ironic is that this conflicts rather heavily with the nature of "just acquisition" that capitalist apologists (most notably Robert Nozick), claim must characterize market exchange.


Let me ask you this. Under a system which you describe, what would happen to people who were unwilling to work anywhere? I mean...let's face it. It happens.

I really wish that people weren't under the impression that socialism is based on the elimination of incentives and compensation. Such is far from being the case. The specific consequences for those able but unwilling to work would likely vary depending on the nature of the economic system in place. For instance, a market socialist economic structure would reduce or eliminate wages for such individuals, while a collectivist economic structure would eliminate shares or possibly voting power in a participatory scheme, while a communist economic structure would eliminate or reduce access to public goods and services in response. Perpetual apathy would likely be met with the consequence of expulsion from one's respective collective or commune. Anarchists and libertarian socialists have tired of the idle revelries of the financial class under capitalism, and would likely not tolerate and certainly not reward similar laziness in a socialist economic structure.


Your quote, "markets that exist in a capitolist economy will always be inferior to that of what "could" be acheived in a socialist economy. I rather think the reason the US is the world's leading economy is because we just don't buy into that.

Much of American success has come as a result of the economic planning and government interventionism that you disavow and claim that capitalist economic structure would function better without. The reality is that capitalism cannot survive without the state, the most obvious indication of such a reality being that the financial class would be quickly dispossessed of their ill-gotten gains without the state protecting the private and authoritarian ownership of the means of production. There is also some degree of relation to access to a sheerly high amount of productive resources and assets rather than the ability to utilize such access efficiently.


Every Socialist economy on earth has created an elite society within a society.

That's not the case. The legacies of the anarchist collectives of the Spanish Revolution, the Free Territory of Ukraine, the Israeli kibbutzim, the Paris Commune, and related entities that have incorporated elements of socialism such as the workers' management of Titoist Yugoslavia, the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, the "factory recovery" movement of Argentina, Freetown Christiania, and all the assorted worker-owned and managed enterprises, labor cooperatives and voluntary communes have indicated differently, though the first example must remain foremost, due to its regional influence and role in industrialized and urban society, as well as its incorporation of the participation of millions. I'll comment on the Spanish Revolution shortly.


Since you chose the Soviet Union, a failure, to illustrate so many of your examples, I will to. All I can say is, people there were very...very unhappy.

I'm aware of that, and I've explained rather extensively that the Soviet Union does not represent a legitimate establishment of socialism.


Social Freedom is an issue to, not just capitolism or free market enterprise. My Libertarian Party believes the two go hand in hand. Complete and Absolute freedom cannot be acheived in any other way. It has never worked and never will. Your argument says almost the same thing in opposite. You claim that Free market Capitolism creates the same thing, an elite society within a society. Well, maybe you are right but it is by aspirations and choice. Something Socialism restricts.

I said nothing of the sort, actually. I've continually attempted to stress the reality of the nonexistence of free markets, which may be ideologically pure, but have no practical value or application outside of the textbook. Unfortunately, you're again indulging in this utopian conception of political economy by continuing to claim that capitalism is based on "aspirations and choice," whilst simultaneously conflating socialism with state capitalism.


Your post was excellent. If what you described is Libertarian Socialism...I want no part of it. What I described is "True Libertarianism". The only thing collective about is the absolute equal opportunity it employs to see that each person is guarenteed to get exactly what they earn.

Considering the aforementioned role of primitive accumulation, as well as the major role of intergenerational monetary transfers in aggregate capital accumulation, it's really not accurate nor convincing to pretend that capitalism can bring about equality of opportunity in any conceivable fashion.


Government has no part in the personal lives of citizens. A Collective owned market sounds very government owned to me.

The perpetuation of capitalism will ensure more authoritarian and hierarchical establishments of effective "government" to a far greater extent than the abolition of the state, capitalism, and other excessively authoritarian orders would.

[Agnapostate]

In regards to a legitimate implementation of socialism, as opposed to the state capitalist legacy of the USSR, the most critical and widespread implementation of socialism occurred in the anarchist Spanish Revolution that occurred during the civil war period, in which anarchist participants attempted to establish "libertarian communism," successfully establishing what broadly amounted to anarcho-collectivism in most cases. As always, a visual presentation is in order! :salute:

VUig0lFHDDw

During the Spanish Revolution, numerous reforms of a libertarian socialist (specifically anarchist) nature occurred by way of the wide influence of the CNT-FAI. As I've noted previously, it is most illustrative to turn to George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, an account of his service in the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification during the Spanish Civil War, specifically his experience in libertarian socialist Aragon. From this source, we can begin to understand the libertarian social nature of the anarcho-socialist urban collectives and rural communes in Spain.


I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life--snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.--had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master.

Since I've always noted that socialism produces efficiency gainst, it is necessary to note that productivity rates in Aragon increased by an estimated 20 percent. To honor the anti-socialists' exclusive reliance on Wikipedia, their article on the Spanish Revolution deserves to be quoted from. :thumb:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Revolution


The Spanish Revolution of 1936 began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in areas with heavy Stalinist influence. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivised and run as libertarian communes. It has been estimated by Sam Dolgoff, author of The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, that over 10 million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers...The communes were run according to the basic principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". In some places, money was entirely eliminated, to be replaced with vouchers; however, in practice these "vouchers" performed and functioned as money themselves. Despite the critics clamoring for "maximum efficiency" rather than revolutionary methods, anarchic communes often produced more than before the collectivization. In Aragon, for instance, the productivity increased by 20%. The newly liberated zones worked on entirely libertarian principles; decisions were made through councils of ordinary citizens without any sort of bureaucracy (it should be noted that the CNT-FAI leadership was at this time not nearly as radical as the rank and file members responsible for these sweeping changes).

Historian Antony Beevor makes similar observations regarding the extent of collectivization in anarchist Spain.


The total for the whole of Republican territory was nearly 800,000 on the land and a little more than a million in industry. In Barcelona workers' committees took over all the services, the oil monopoly, the shipping companies, heavy engineering firms such as Volcano, the Ford motor company, chemical companies, the textile industry and a host of smaller enterprises. . . Services such as water, gas and electricity were working under new management within hours of the storming of the Atarazanas barracks . . .a conversion of appropriate factories to war production meant that metallurgical concerns had started to produce armed cars by 22 July . . . The industrial workers of Catalonia were the most skilled in Spain . . . One of the most impressive feats of those early days was the resurrection of the public transport system at a time when the streets were still littered and barricaded.

As does author Jose Peirats, who additionally notes the impressive social effects of collectivization.


Preoccupation with cultural and pedagogical innovations was an event without precedent in rural Spain. The Amposta collectivists organised classes for semi-literates, kindergartens, and even a school of arts and professions. The Seros schools were free to all neighbours, collectivists or not. Grau installed a school named after its most illustrious citizen, Joaquin Costa. The Calanda collective (pop. only 4,500) schooled 1,233 children. The best students were sent to the Lyceum in Caspe, with all expenses paid by the collective. The Alcoriza (pop. 4,000) school was attended by 600 children. Many of the schools were installed in abandoned convents. In Granadella (pop. 2,000), classes were conducted in the abandoned barracks of the Civil Guards. Graus organised a print library and a school of arts and professions, attended by 60 pupils. The same building housed a school of fine arts and high grade museum. In some villages a cinema was installed for the first time. The Penalba cinema was installed in a church. Viladecana built an experimental agricultural laboratory.

The collectives voluntarily contributed enormous stocks of provisions and other supplies to the fighting troops. Utiel sent 1,490 litres of oil and 300 bushels of potatoes to the Madrid front (in addition to huge stocks of beans, rice, buckwheat, etc.). Porales de Tujana sent great quantities of bread, oil, flour, and potatoes to the front, and eggs, meat, and milk to the military hospital.

The efforts of the collectives take on added significance when we take into account that their youngest and most vigorous workers were fighting in the trenches. 200 members of the little collective of Vilaboi were at the front; from Viledecans, 60; Amposta, 300; and Calande, 500.

It is estimated that eight to ten million people were directly or indirectly affected by the Spanish anarchist collectives. Author Leval has estimated 1,700 agrarian collectives, with 400 for Aragon, (although other estimates have been above 500), 900 for Levant, 300 for Castile , 30 for Estremadura, 40 for Catalonia, and an unknown number for Andalusia. He estimates that all industries and transportation were collectivized in the urban areas of Catalonia, (and indeed, 75% of all of Catalonia was estimated to have been collectivized in some way), 70% of all industries in Levant, and an unknown percentage in Castile.

The victories and social and economic benefits promoted in the Spanish Revolution through the implementation of libertarian socialist ideals, such as the establishment of syndicalism, voluntary association, and workers self-management strongly suggests that anarchist and libertarian socialist theories and practices are of a practical nature.

Other broadly successful examples of libertarian socialism include the Paris Commune, the Free Territory of Ukraine, the Zapatista municipalities of Chiapas, the Israeli kibbutzim (which I saw ignored earlier in this thread), etc. Successes of democratic socialism may be found in the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, as well as through microeconomic analysis into the superior efficiency of worker-owned enterprises.

There are other examples that can be referred to, such as Cuba and Titoist Yugoslavia, though I'm personally not of the opinion that they exemplify the libertarian social values that ought to be a critical component of any socialist revolution and political and economic order.

Regardless, it is undeniable that socialism has been been implemented successfully in the past, and empirical evidence has borne out the superior efficiency of participatory, collective management. Laissez-faire capitalism, on the other hand, has never been successfully implemented, and the shoddy forms of capitalism that exist cannot claim the same efficiency record as socialism, to say nothing of their deleterious social consequences.

[5stringJeff]

Am I the only socialist on the board? :(

And yes, I mean in regards to real socialists, not inaccurate references to Obama and his ilk.

Joe Steel, I believe, is as socialist as you, although more Stalinist than you are.

[Yurt]

do socialists, or whatever variant you claim to be of socialist...

believe every worker should have the same pay?

who runs the government? same pay as non government, same say?

[Agnapostate]

Joe Steel, I believe, is as socialist as you, although more Stalinist than you are.

Nothing's more anti-socialist than a Stalinist, but I understand that rightists' arsenals would be very empty if they lacked the ability to conveniently refer back to state capitalism frequently.


do socialists, or whatever variant you claim to be of socialist...

believe every worker should have the same pay?

There's no common answer to this question amongst "socialists." It's often fallaciously assumed that socialists seek to establish equality of outcome, and therefore compensation differentiations are eliminated in a socialist economy. This is effectively untrue for all forms of socialism, though methods of compensation vary depending on the form of socialism practiced.


who runs the government? same pay as non government, same say?

I oppose the existence of what's commonly labeled the "government." I'd effectively describe myself as an anarcho-communist in favor of the variety of social and economic organization described by Peter Kropotkin in Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/kropotkin/revpamphlets/anarchistcommunism.html). As he writes:


Anarchism, the no-government system of socialism, has a double origin. It is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economic and the political fields which characterize the nineteenth century, and especially its second part. In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites for production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. And in common with the most advanced representatives of political radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the political organization of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying, by means of free groups and federations--freely constituted--all the infinitely varied needs of the human being.

[Yurt]

There's no common answer to this question amongst "socialists." It's often fallaciously assumed that socialists seek to establish equality of outcome, and therefore compensation differentiations are eliminated in a socialist economy. This is effectively untrue for all forms of socialism, though methods of compensation vary depending on the form of socialism practiced.

so you have no clue....thanks



I oppose the existence of what's commonly labeled the "government." I'd effectively describe myself as an anarcho-communist in favor of the variety of social and economic organization described by Peter Kropotkin in Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/kropotkin/revpamphlets/anarchistcommunism.html). As he writes:

so.....you support what is "uncommonly" labeled the government?

how can arnarchy exist within a communist government? seems like you're spinning words to fit your agenda and if words dont' fit, you make up words that fit your agenda.

[emmett]

You know I admit, some of this stuff is interesting but I'm not sure Kropotkin was in possession of enough foresight to envision a 21st century and increment his ideas into a philosophy conducive with it's requirements.

Anarchism basically means to have no rulers. It's derived from a greek term..anarchos. I understand that. Libertarians are not anarchists as suggested (as I deduce it) from agnopostate's writing. Libertarians believe in the rule of law and understand the need for management of infrastructure and limited government for the purpose of maintaining law etc,... We do believe that all services should be privately contracted, user fees should replace taxes of all kinds and that there should be no laws that restrict ppeople from making their own decisions.

I have a real difference of opinion from the history books regarding the use of the term Libertarian. I'm aware of it's definition prior to usage by Americans in the 70's, being basically a parity to the term anarchism in a collective sense. Individualist Libertarianism cannot be Socialist in the way I understand it. Collective Socialism does not address "liberty" issues, the right to choose or rights to own property. Anarchism is confusing...very confusing. Even anarchists argue among themselves about it's true meaning and applications to social welfare.

An American Libertarian is somewhat of a different creature than the definitions of Libertarian from the 1700's. For me it is pretty simple. Libertarianism is about free will. In essence the ability to choose ones own path, be responsible for ones own actions and not held accountable for things that are out of their control. I believe I am a self determining being, with a certain right to choose what I do. Collectivism tears at this God given right. Socialism is Collectivism. To me, an American Libertarian has nothing to do with this philosophy. Choice is destroyed when overseeing is implemented. Every time a new law is made, choice is taken away. A person can throw any term they want at me but a Libertarian in this country stands for Liberty and free will, the right to choose ones own destiny and moral responsibility to do it correctly.

[emmett]

Agnopostate...you have stimulated some great debate my friend. Very interesting. I still disagree. What you are advocating is abelief from the 1700's. This is the 21st century.

[Agnapostate]

so you have no clue....thanks

Try again. You've not actually specified any particular socialist economic model; there are numerous forms of "socialism" that exist, each with different forms of compensatory schemes. For instance, market socialism retains wages and small competitive enterprise, collectivism may utilize shares or some similar compensation scheme, and communism revolves around compensation differentiations in response to labor input differentiations. It's the all too prevalent fallacy that socialism is aimed at establishing "equality of outcome" that is apparently clouding your analysis.


so.....you support what is "uncommonly" labeled the government?

how can arnarchy exist within a communist government? seems like you're spinning words to fit your agenda and if words dont' fit, you make up words that fit your agenda.

More inaccurate reference to state capitalism of the Soviet variety. I don't support hierarchical and similarly authoritarian forms of social and political organization, and the greatest agents of such organization in these modern times are the state and capitalism. The mere abolition of either, however (supported by propertarians and Marxists, respectively), will result in a consolidation of power by the other agent and intensification of centralized tyranny.

Hence, I oppose the existence of both the state and capitalism, and organization in horizontal federations of decentralized collectives and communes managed through direct democracy. So I support socialism (specifically communism), established without a state, or anarchist communism. But since I don't think this a feasible prospect, I'd support a libertarian form of market socialism achieved through nationalization or some similar vein, which is admittedly a harsh departure from the agenda of most anarchists.


You know I admit, some of this stuff is interesting but I'm not sure Kropotkin was in possession of enough foresight to envision a 21st century and increment his ideas into a philosophy conducive with it's requirements.

I am of the opinion that he was, first considering his excellent insights into and predictions of the corruption of socialism that the Bolsheviks' establishment of state capitalism would cause, as well as those of their generally authoritarian political program. Then one might consider his astute observations into the role of evolutionary biology on human nature (as chronicled in Mutual Aid), and frankly, the broad components of his political philosophy that remain applicable today.


Anarchism basically means to have no rulers. It's derived from a greek term..anarchos. I understand that. Libertarians are not anarchists as suggested (as I deduce it) from agnopostate's writing. Libertarians believe in the rule of law and understand the need for management of infrastructure and limited government for the purpose of maintaining law etc,... We do believe that all services should be privately contracted, user fees should replace taxes of all kinds and that there should be no laws that restrict ppeople from making their own decisions.

Modern members of the Libertarian Party and sympathizers of that agenda would be more accurately described as propertarians than libertarians, I'd say. I'd agree that they are most certainly not anarchists; however, anarchism is itself a form of legitimate libertarianism (libertarian socialism). There are other forms of non-anarchist libertarian socialism that exists that are more minarchist in nature, however, and advocate a minimal state or something near it rather than the abolition of the state. Left communism and council communism would be prominent examples, for instance.


I have a real difference of opinion from the history books regarding the use of the term Libertarian. I'm aware of it's definition prior to usage by Americans in the 70's, being basically a parity to the term anarchism in a collective sense. Individualist Libertarianism cannot be Socialist in the way I understand it. Collective Socialism does not address "liberty" issues, the right to choose or rights to own property. Anarchism is confusing...very confusing. Even anarchists argue among themselves about it's true meaning and applications to social welfare.

Even individualist and market forms of libertarianism were traditionally socialist. Individuals such as Benjamin Tucker and Josiah Warren, for instance, were not the intellectual godfathers of Murray Rothbard and his ilk. They described themselves as socialists and opposed many of the authoritarian elements of the establishment of wage labor. Proudhon's mutualism is also an important example of a form of market anarchism/libertarianism that is socialist in nature rather than capitalist. Moreover, property rights are not eliminated in a socialist economy; it's merely that the socialist will commonly focus on personal possession and use value and will simply have his or her opposition to the private ownership of the means of production inaccurately misconstrued as opposition to all forms of "property rights."


An American Libertarian is somewhat of a different creature than the definitions of Libertarian from the 1700's. For me it is pretty simple. Libertarianism is about free will. In essence the ability to choose ones own path, be responsible for ones own actions and not held accountable for things that are out of their control. I believe I am a self determining being, with a certain right to choose what I do. Collectivism tears at this God given right. Socialism is Collectivism. To me, an American Libertarian has nothing to do with this philosophy. Choice is destroyed when overseeing is implemented. Every time a new law is made, choice is taken away. A person can throw any term they want at me but a Libertarian in this country stands for Liberty and free will, the right to choose ones own destiny and moral responsibility to do it correctly.

We need do nothing more than return to the form of coercion made possible through the consolidation of ownership and management of the means of production, major resources that affect the external conditions of numerous individuals in numerous ways, and then examine the establishment of wage labor and the authoritarianism that occurs in the conventional capitalism firm and the manner in which the capitalist bosses are often kinfolk of political tyrants in working class environments, to see the ultimate role of capitalism in inhibiting and destroying freedom and the right to choose one's own destiny. Socialism's necessarily participatory element simply bestows upon individuals the basic right to make decisions about one's external surroundings and environment in a democratic setting, rather than have distant and impersonal members of the financial and coordinator classes act on crude whims that often function as impositions upon those who lack their exuberant privileges.


Agnopostate...you have stimulated some great debate my friend. Very interesting. I still disagree. What you are advocating is abelief from the 1700's. This is the 21st century.

1700's? Kropotkin's correspondence with Lenin that I mentioned was conducted in the early twentieth century, and the aforementioned Spanish Revolution occurred during the 1930's, after significant industrial development had occurred. Conversely, free markets have never enjoyed existence in an industrialized society, and the "near free markets" that Murray Rothbard enjoyed pointing to excitedly (Iceland, the Wild West), are more worthy of a label of antiquity.

[Psychoblues]

Did you ever, in even your wildest imagination, expect anything honest from these dittohead lockstepping societal dropouts, aggie?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!