But we need to get this huge problem away that always a power hungry dictator gets to power and then it turns into just any dictatorship!!! And not socialism!
Yeah! And we need to do it in a way where the incredibly rich and powerful who have a vested interest and desparate need for us to fail won’t kill our movement! In the past and present, any socialist movement was met with
death squads
propaganda
military invasions
assasinations of heads of state
funding, arming, and training the opposition
economic sanctions
so, so much propaganda
all funded by the absurdly wealthy to make nations fail and make them more amenable to re-exploitation by the owning class.
Any ideas on how to defend ourselves against this phenomenon which occurs over and over again?
About the dictatorship problem: How about instead of rallying around a single leader to lead the movement, we set a truely democratic system from the start, council leadership and not a single person.
Short a federation parlament system like switzerlands from the start!
And thats why, among other reasons i am against revolution to archiev socialism. Because there the undemocratic side will have no issue overthrowing a new democracy if they dont like the election outcome (lenin is a good example)
No revolution also solves the death squads and mostly military invasions. Speaking about a place where democracy is already in place in some form and that has strong allies ofc. If change democraticly cant be archieved revolution for democracy is ofc a neccassary first step.
Funding from outside, like russia and china are doing, must be met with laws against MPs being able to earn extra income or get gifts next to their MP revenue.
And a strong seperation of power.
Against real militairy invasion im afraid the only solution is allies…
Propaganda can only be countered threw education.
But most importantly it is unity of the movement and rooting out antidemocratic advocats from the beginning.
The first steps for a workers movement to succeed is to meet the people on their level! Trade Unions! Organizing the workforce to fight for better working conditions. And this doesnt work only for work, but also renting. Its scary how union membership are dropping.
I am currently preparing to start a study why selfishness rises, solidarity and union membership declines (in germany)
Its all easier said than done but i really belief that we are on a breaking point of the old system, the people are mad and the card deck soon will be reshuffled. Only question is: who will come out ontop for the next era. fascists or worker democracys…
Only together can we, the people, the workers, change the course of history, for us and our desendence. Its a hard, never ending fight but the only other option is becoming enslaved and losing what is remaining of the harvest our ancesters fought and died for.
This huge problem stems from “we need”. Collectivism leads to hierarchy, because a collective isn’t semantically compatible to one person. A collective can’t be responsible, a collective can’t make a decision, a collective can’t think, a collective can’t speak in one voice. But collectivism means trying to treat a collective like one person. Leading to dictatorships.
I’m fine with the idea of a coop for a business. There are people whom I’d want to associate with. There’s a little catch - we all do different things in different areas. And those who do the same things in the same areas as me whom I know - those I wouldn’t want a coop with. I mean, OK, possibly I would.
average US corpo is just 1 vote 1 share, just right there it’s more equal representation than the US government has been for it’s entire existence.
And an individual can hold multiple shares. So some have more votes than others. That’s not democratic in any way.
throw in shit like recalling/installing new c-suites etc.
That’s a lot harder than you make it sound. That dysfunction is the main executive pay relative to performance has massively inflated over the years: accountability to shareholders in matters of compensation is piss-poor.
Finally, someone had to say it. While capitalism is far from perfect, I’d rather have billionaire capitalist assholes that I can then call on their bullshit than so-called ‘socialism’ which is just the pretty way to call a dictatorship. Show me one ‘socialist’ country that has thrived. One, come on.
OK, I can name one. It’s Israel. Before 90s it was (administratively, politically, socially) socialist (not like marxist, but with collectives and communes and kibbutz, and much of economy being state monopolies). One reason after 90s everything changed about it was because there were certain reforms which, eh, significantly raised level of life, making all the old institutions unpopular. So it’s no more socialist in anything.
A-and, of course, the part about collectivism was present. Some things I’ve heard about Israel before 90s emotionally reminisce USSR. Sort of a procrustean bed of a society, if you don’t fit it’s your problem.
Calling pre-1990s Israel socialist is like calling the Confederate States of America democratic.
Yeah, it was, except for a large disenfranchised population. If you count them as people too, then it’s not. And don’t come back at me with false distinctions about what was “Israel proper” versus the bantustans-- oh, sorry, “occupied territories.” Those places have no real sovereignty.
Occupation is a normal legal term and its presence doesn’t limit calling the system inside “Israel proper” socialist.
I think that to properly limit the difference we should compare how these all came to exist.
CSA were a split off part of a state created by rich landowners, and so it was a republic of rich landowners. Nothing surprising in that.
South Africa was part of the British Empire where natives were considered inferior from the very beginning, and their “bantustans” were sort of British traditional “to each his own” decorations, similarly to how even in the British Isles technically they have a United Kingdom and even Wales is not the same as England and so on, but in fact it’s more or less one state. Tradition.
While Israel was initially a bunch of Zionist settlements on sparsely populated land, like Tel-Aviv and such, which didn’t have much of said disenfranchised population and had lots of socialist traits in organization. Also among Zionists in the beginning of XX century the left part was far more numerous and popular than the right part (which has captured dominance in Israel since about 80s), especially after WWII, these things tend to make effect. That left part basically had just one Zionist idea - that Jews should have a nation-state in Palestine, all the rest was pretty normally leftist for the time (a bit obsolete by now, with planned economy traits and collectivism and so called meritocracy and so on).
Then that bunch of settlements in the war of 1948 became state of Israel. And then in subsequent wars it captured/occupied territories, without expelling much of populace. Which then lived under occupation status.
So the difference is that for Israel occupied territories were really occupied territories. There’s a clear difference between Tel-Aviv and Haifa on one side and Hebron on the other. While in South Africa bantustans were sort of big zoos\reservations with people set here and there through its territory, and CSA was in its entirety a republic of rich landowners.
Always.
But we need to get this huge problem away that always a power hungry dictator gets to power and then it turns into just any dictatorship!!! And not socialism!
Yeah! And we need to do it in a way where the incredibly rich and powerful who have a vested interest and desparate need for us to fail won’t kill our movement! In the past and present, any socialist movement was met with
all funded by the absurdly wealthy to make nations fail and make them more amenable to re-exploitation by the owning class.
Any ideas on how to defend ourselves against this phenomenon which occurs over and over again?
About the dictatorship problem: How about instead of rallying around a single leader to lead the movement, we set a truely democratic system from the start, council leadership and not a single person. Short a federation parlament system like switzerlands from the start!
And thats why, among other reasons i am against revolution to archiev socialism. Because there the undemocratic side will have no issue overthrowing a new democracy if they dont like the election outcome (lenin is a good example)
No revolution also solves the death squads and mostly military invasions. Speaking about a place where democracy is already in place in some form and that has strong allies ofc. If change democraticly cant be archieved revolution for democracy is ofc a neccassary first step.
Funding from outside, like russia and china are doing, must be met with laws against MPs being able to earn extra income or get gifts next to their MP revenue. And a strong seperation of power.
Against real militairy invasion im afraid the only solution is allies…
Propaganda can only be countered threw education.
But most importantly it is unity of the movement and rooting out antidemocratic advocats from the beginning.
The first steps for a workers movement to succeed is to meet the people on their level! Trade Unions! Organizing the workforce to fight for better working conditions. And this doesnt work only for work, but also renting. Its scary how union membership are dropping. I am currently preparing to start a study why selfishness rises, solidarity and union membership declines (in germany)
Its all easier said than done but i really belief that we are on a breaking point of the old system, the people are mad and the card deck soon will be reshuffled. Only question is: who will come out ontop for the next era. fascists or worker democracys… Only together can we, the people, the workers, change the course of history, for us and our desendence. Its a hard, never ending fight but the only other option is becoming enslaved and losing what is remaining of the harvest our ancesters fought and died for.
This huge problem stems from “we need”. Collectivism leads to hierarchy, because a collective isn’t semantically compatible to one person. A collective can’t be responsible, a collective can’t make a decision, a collective can’t think, a collective can’t speak in one voice. But collectivism means trying to treat a collective like one person. Leading to dictatorships.
You talk as if with corporations a single person can be held responsible…
You can have syndicates and get close to socialism
Thats then syndicalism which is a form of socialism
Yeah but only when it’s the dominant form of doing business? We have a bunch of them in my country but we’re definitely still capitalism.
Syndicates existing doesnt mean the country isnt syndicalist. What i tried to say is that if syndicates were in charge that were syndicalism.
I am assuming syndicates as used by you means collection of workers aka a trade union/workers union.
Show me where.
My country has a bunch of syndicates, even some big coops, it’s not uncommon in Europe. You just need the legal structures for it.
Syndicates and coops are fine, just show me how you do that with power. Police, financial regulations. That usually doesn’t work so well.
Even in late USSR coops were a thing and could function, while everything was falling apart. It’s just that the pressure of power matters.
Let’s start with normalizing it for businesses like game companies! Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!
The idea that it should be all or nothing is at best defeatist and at worst dangerous - lest you end up with USSR Communism indeed.
I’m fine with the idea of a coop for a business. There are people whom I’d want to associate with. There’s a little catch - we all do different things in different areas. And those who do the same things in the same areas as me whom I know - those I wouldn’t want a coop with. I mean, OK, possibly I would.
shit, the average public corporation is a more representative democracy than the US’s actual government is.
With voting power weighted by the amount of money they have invested.
Kind of like the way the US actually works.
I had to scroll back up to make sure I was stilling the same thread
average US corpo is just 1 vote 1 share, just right there it’s more equal representation than the US government has been for it’s entire existence.
throw in shit like recalling/installing new c-suites etc.
far more responsive/equal form of government than the clown show that is US “democracy”
And an individual can hold multiple shares. So some have more votes than others. That’s not democratic in any way.
That’s a lot harder than you make it sound. That dysfunction is the main executive pay relative to performance has massively inflated over the years: accountability to shareholders in matters of compensation is piss-poor.
Finally, someone had to say it. While capitalism is far from perfect, I’d rather have billionaire capitalist assholes that I can then call on their bullshit than so-called ‘socialism’ which is just the pretty way to call a dictatorship. Show me one ‘socialist’ country that has thrived. One, come on.
OK, I can name one. It’s Israel. Before 90s it was (administratively, politically, socially) socialist (not like marxist, but with collectives and communes and kibbutz, and much of economy being state monopolies). One reason after 90s everything changed about it was because there were certain reforms which, eh, significantly raised level of life, making all the old institutions unpopular. So it’s no more socialist in anything.
A-and, of course, the part about collectivism was present. Some things I’ve heard about Israel before 90s emotionally reminisce USSR. Sort of a procrustean bed of a society, if you don’t fit it’s your problem.
Calling pre-1990s Israel socialist is like calling the Confederate States of America democratic.
Yeah, it was, except for a large disenfranchised population. If you count them as people too, then it’s not. And don’t come back at me with false distinctions about what was “Israel proper” versus the bantustans-- oh, sorry, “occupied territories.” Those places have no real sovereignty.
Occupation is a normal legal term and its presence doesn’t limit calling the system inside “Israel proper” socialist.
I think that to properly limit the difference we should compare how these all came to exist.
CSA were a split off part of a state created by rich landowners, and so it was a republic of rich landowners. Nothing surprising in that.
South Africa was part of the British Empire where natives were considered inferior from the very beginning, and their “bantustans” were sort of British traditional “to each his own” decorations, similarly to how even in the British Isles technically they have a United Kingdom and even Wales is not the same as England and so on, but in fact it’s more or less one state. Tradition.
While Israel was initially a bunch of Zionist settlements on sparsely populated land, like Tel-Aviv and such, which didn’t have much of said disenfranchised population and had lots of socialist traits in organization. Also among Zionists in the beginning of XX century the left part was far more numerous and popular than the right part (which has captured dominance in Israel since about 80s), especially after WWII, these things tend to make effect. That left part basically had just one Zionist idea - that Jews should have a nation-state in Palestine, all the rest was pretty normally leftist for the time (a bit obsolete by now, with planned economy traits and collectivism and so called meritocracy and so on).
Then that bunch of settlements in the war of 1948 became state of Israel. And then in subsequent wars it captured/occupied territories, without expelling much of populace. Which then lived under occupation status.
So the difference is that for Israel occupied territories were really occupied territories. There’s a clear difference between Tel-Aviv and Haifa on one side and Hebron on the other. While in South Africa bantustans were sort of big zoos\reservations with people set here and there through its territory, and CSA was in its entirety a republic of rich landowners.
Does it involve letting the party work with industrial unions, rather than the state?