For a few brief months, after the Soviet Union’s peaceful collapse, streams of vacuous babble about the “end of history” flooded the media. The Cold War ended so swiftly and effortlessly that simple minds were filled with dreams of unchallengeable power and eternal American world domination. According to the promoters of this idea, American-style capitalism fulfills human needs so well… return to article
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Reader Comments (55)Page 1 of 1 pagesThere are many statements in the article, which would serve fine - for purpose of demonstrating that the author is apologist of a discredited ideology. His statement that “Soviet threat was not that serious” is plain false. But the main idea of the article is:
“In retrospect, the Cold War seems more like a long detour from history”
Not quite so: The Stalinist/Maoist tyranny is perfectly logical continuation of the Marxist mindset, of the obsession of the Left with power.
There were somewhat less barbarous totalitarian regimes even in the Communist block, and socialist parties had governed in the Western Europe. But the point is that the socialist ideas got plenty opportunities already and the overall effect was almost always problematic in the long run, stifling - if not outright sinister.
Only after you renounce Marxist pseudo-scientific set of beliefs and place emphasis on individual rights (including the right to own and make profit - and preventing the government from taking upon the big daddy role), you can become a credible speaker for social progress.
[BTW - do you know why Marxists are pseudo-scientists? If they were really scientific social experimenters, they would try their socialism on dogs first.]
Posted by Tomas Vojkovsky on Jun 7, 2003 at 5:28 AM This writer like all Western leftists misses the key lesson from the Soviet experience, namely that if the state clamps down on pluralist arrangements for encouraging private innovation and deal-making (which in turn require freedom of ideas and freedom to organise) society as a whole stagnates. This is as sure a ‘scientific’ fact as anything in Leftist literature. It is not good enough to explain away the Soviet amd other ultra-etatistic regimes as ‘aberrations’ away from Socialism. At least the author correctly identifies the facile quality of current anti-capitalist and anti-US agitation. But he might think about the role of ‘The Left’ in producing such intellectually banal critiques.
Posted by slobodan on Jun 7, 2003 at 5:53 AM I think the people who’ve commented so far have missed the point of your article, which is that you’re not advocating Soviet-style socialism. They maintain that Marxism always leads to that kind of government. But for me that’s a bit like saying that capitalism ‘in extremis’ always leads to Nazism. After all, the Nazis were pro-capitialist, weren’t they?
But what’s most annoying about the first two letters is the lack of thought that is shown by the writers.Disclaimer:
I am not a Marxist.
What does that word mean anyway? I guess that you have some kind of materialist philosphy, perhaps a crude one.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 7, 2003 at 7:06 AM Oh yes, one more thing.
There is no ‘Left’ anymore, it’s completely disintegrated as an intellectual/political force and has been replaced by identity politics, deconstruction and other anti-Enlightenment trends.
One example of this is that stupid book called “Empire” by Negri and Hardt.
In face, political life in general has really ended.What a shame.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 7, 2003 at 7:11 AM I think the socialist/capitalist dichotomy would make more sense if, instead of arguing which one is best, look at which one has done the least harm. Which system has caused the fewest deaths through violence and starvation. Please don’t forget to tally the body counts of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. And to A. Coward, who thinks Hitler was a capitalist...everything from autobahn construction to rearming were dictated by Der Fuhrer. The Nazis controlled the economy, not the free market.
Posted by Jim Flanagan on Jun 7, 2003 at 1:02 PM What a crock. “History” doesn’t have a “movement”. Just more foolish reification of events post facto. When will they move on in their “thinking”.
The left is disoriented and disordered because it has no valid intellectual basis upon which to build any justification for the things it wants to accomplish: from each according to his ability to each according to his need.
It is absolutely correct that the left is constituted of apologists for identity victim politics and French-derived, value-relativistic theories.
The left must return to some definition of first principles upon which it could build a value system that people can understand and support.
Posted by Michael Hodges on Jun 7, 2003 at 1:37 PM > The Nazis controlled the economy, not the free market. <
Fascism is a corporatist ideology, holding that the state must mediate and smooth conflicts between labor and capital. Of course, more often than not, fascist regimes stifled labor organization, and certainly the relations between the Third Reich and the Ford Motor Corporation gives pause.
The “fascism = socialism” argument found so often on the Internet is ridiculous, given that fascism has at its heart hierarchical and inegalitarian principles!
Posted by No one on Jun 7, 2003 at 7:23 PM Oh, and let’s distinguish between Marxism as a descriptive, theoretical enterprise and program for social action. To the former belong people as disparate as the Analytic Marxists (anodyne Oxford dons, hardly illiberal) and Jurgen Habermas. To reject it without examination is absurd; to disrespect it after examination is dishonest. I hold neoconservatism in proper regard, disagree with it as I do, as a social democrat.
Of course, the social democratic tradition owes much to early Marxists, including Engels himself, August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, et al. In some sense I agree with the author, that Bolshevism tainted the proper development of socialism along a Western, social democratic course. That is, after Bolsheviks achieved state power, they became the point of reference for “actually existing socialism,” and other socialist intellectual projects, including such decentralized ones as guild socialism, fell by the wayside. The future of the left is in market socialism, I think.
Posted by No one on Jun 7, 2003 at 7:30 PM Should usual _In These Times_ readers be wondering, our libertarian friends are probably coming, as I did, from a link on Arts & Letters Daily (aldaily.com).
Posted by No one on Jun 7, 2003 at 7:32 PM The Nazis as capitalists.
I meant that they, I’m pretty sure, preserved private property rights, respected profits, broke unions and any independent workers organizations, didn’t expropriate property except for that of German Jewry, etc.
By the way, the idea of ‘free markets’ is an illusion. As Doug Henwood points out, they are costly and rely on the state for existence.
Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what Mr. Weinstein is trying to say.
Socialism = American democracy?
Anyway, the discussion seems diffuse.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 7, 2003 at 11:27 PM The socialist dream came to an end when Mises and Hayek proved that the socialism could never solve the economic problem of the division of knowledge.
Posted by PrestPundit.com on Jun 7, 2003 at 11:44 PM Anyone care to talk about the idea ‘fetishisation of commodities’?
Was Marx talking about consumer society as is understood today or something else?My solution to all economic problems? Glad you asked:
In general, everyone should do as the Dutch do, meaning the European Continental model of capitalism, not the Anglo-American model.
If only the French had beaten the Brits way back when.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 8, 2003 at 10:27 AM Socialist social-engineering solutions were introduced and amply tested in democratic countries from Sweden to United Kingdom – and the nature of problems was always the same - and quite separate from accidents of history, Stalin, Soviet block, Mao or Labour party. One certainly should not complain about lack of opportunities for trying “better living in socialism.” – it is too bad that this better living always turns into living under socialism.
It is about lower economic standards, more red-tape, vindictiveness and envy of success, wide-spread cheating on government - and turning people away from self-reliance and into infantile or resigned mentality. I experienced this firsthand. I should conclude my rant with two citations:
“In theory, centrally planed economy can become more effective than market competition, but until one finds the cause of government stupidity and cures it, all these grand economic development plans will sink in quicksand”
“When you are using your own money for yourself you can behave responsibly – but not when you are spending someone-else’s money for yourself. Government spending is about using someone else’s money for someone else.”
Posted by Tomas Vojkovsky on Jun 8, 2003 at 12:04 PM Although Bush and his cohorts are making plenty of mistakes these can’t be counteracted by the false promises of socialism. This childish assumption that the Soviet Union was just a detour on the right road to communism shows that you don’t have real experience under this yoke.
Posted by Henri Beyle on Jun 8, 2003 at 4:13 PM The delusion that there is a “progress” or direction to History proves its seductiveness in the article.There is no direction to history.A philosophy of Historicism assumes the unassumable, namely that technology’s future impacts can be predicted (impossible) or that technology’s effect on society can be ignored (idiotic). The only society that will prosper is the one that allows for the unfettered development of technology. That society is the capitalist one. Socialism cannot compete against capitalism because technological innovation, in and of itself, has no utility unless it can improve people’s lives. The only method of knowing whether or not an innovation improves peoples lives is the free market system, since it rewards through purchase and punishes through non purchase. Communism, the most dreadful “experiment” in human recorded history, attempted the impossible: a rich society made up of poor people, with no choice at all. And it predictably failed, for the ultimately simple reason that technology and all improvement in life cannot take place where choice of what to produce and what to consume guide the social matrix.
Posted by mark leo on Jun 8, 2003 at 6:16 PM Sorry..I meant, of course, to say where “ improvement in life cannot take place where choice of what to produce and what to consume does not guide the social matrix...”
Posted by mark leo on Jun 8, 2003 at 6:20 PM Further, and finally, I have always found it to be totally irksome how “Leftists” never-endingly declare their allegiance to the idea of historical inevitability, yet never seem to notice the contradiction of inevitability requiring totalitarian control , as it always does in their Paradaisical states. “Marching into the Future”, that idiot Socialist idea, has always meant simply this: Totalitarianism, Starvation, Oblivion.
Posted by mark leo on Jun 8, 2003 at 6:34 PM >The socialist dream came to an end when Mises and Hayek proved that the socialism could never solve the economic problem of the division of knowledge.<
See:
http://www.wiu.edu/users/miecon/wiu/yunker/postlang.htm
Posted by No one on Jun 8, 2003 at 6:38 PM >notice the contradiction of inevitability requiring totalitarian control <
Except when argued by Francis Fukuyama?
Posted by No one on Jun 8, 2003 at 6:39 PM Mr. Weinstein is correct when he states that American history is driven by the interaction between capitalist and socialist principles. It is a shame that he writes as if there is not room for a balance between both of them. Rather than stating a vision for the future, Weinstein has rearranged the same old clichÈs and all of their faulty assumptions for the next generation of Leftists. The Right didn’t win the Cold War; they just used it as a chance to oppress people. The Left was not wrong for not taking on the threat posed by Soviet Tyranny and for not supporting the key battles against it. The Right wants to take over the world and oppress everybody. The Right’s support of business means that not to support business is unpatriotic. The Left is weak because people are fed up with the Right, because the people are overworked, underpaid, and don’t even vote. I ask the Leftist regulars who read this tripe all of the time to broaden their reading lists and to challenge their assumptions.
Posted by History and Future.... on Jun 8, 2003 at 7:46 PM This discussion is realy pathetic. What are all these Von Hayekers and other right-wing slobs doing here?
I mean they’re so well-funded compared to the impoverished “Left” in this country, why can’t they piss in their own sandbox instead of ours?
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 8, 2003 at 11:26 PM Yes, comrade Anonymous Coward. There is no real discussion going on here - when everybody has a different opinion.
Unlike you, I did have the benefit of having lived under socialism for the worse half of my life. Despite of my doubts about most of what I saw in Left, I actually thought about myself as a “progressive” (whatever the word means now) until about the end of 2001. But if it is too upsetting for you to feel you backwater invaded, your smelly orthodoxies questioned, or - as you put it - “your private sand-box being peed upon”, you can always console yourself with the image of a bully (well-funded, to be sure, by the military-industrial complexes, oil companies, big tobacco, Mossad, Monsanto and the Attorney General) trampling on a starved tenured humanist as another example of temporary unfairness of the history, which is eventually going to vindicate you all, when the scriptures of Das Kapital show the revolutionary direction to the subdued masses. Working class will one day overthrow the greedy international corporations (and all their lackeys in their pay) and build a free, just, environmentally sustainable, affluent, educated, affirmative, healthy society, free of religion, exploitation and male chauvinist pigs. Where the government committees will guarantee once for all that there will be no oppression or a decadent bourgeoisie glitter.
Meanwhile, before you manage to grab on power, you can cheer yourself up a bit with good old classic music at http://agitace.by.ru/ (please don’t forget to sign the visitor’s book)
Posted by Tomas Vojkovsky on Jun 9, 2003 at 1:27 AM Mr. Vojkovsky,
I already said I’m not a Marxist, so everything that you’re making fun of in your last post has nothing to do with me.
I also think most of the people who’ve contributed here are not Marxist, nobody has defended the Soviet Union or the pre-1989 Eastern European govts. have they?Whether you like it or not, in the U.S., the ‘Right’ is extremely well-funded while unions and other ‘Left’ groups like “In These Times”, “The Nation” barely survive.
I really dont see how you can describe Sweden as socialist as you did, since Sweden is not socialist in any way. And saying Sweden and the UK are both ‘socialist’, well I’m not sure what to say about that either.
Anyway, thanks for the link!
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 9, 2003 at 8:07 AM Most of these comments by people that have not read the book seem only to prove my point: that the debate between pro and anti communists is frozen in an ideology that has no relation to the actual movement of history.
Yes, history moves. And capitalism
develops. So far, it has developed from mercantilism to industrialism to post-industrialism (or the consumer society). It does not, of course, develop in a straight line, nor in a manner presribed by any “movement.” Still, it moves.Anyway, read the book: thelongdetour.com
Posted by jim weinstein on Jun 9, 2003 at 10:10 AM Dr. Weinstein: A bad experience with Czech version of socialism does not make me an ideologue - but it offers me a perspective, which you may not have. I did not read your book and I consider your self-review to be a good summary. I found your ideas appalling and I tried to explain why. It does not help your argument (if you have any) to dismiss all comments in one broad stroke.
Communists were a threat - a totalitarian religious sect bent on taking over the World. They had enough troops in Europe to march all the way to Spain. The will they had always. With their paranoid mind-set, nuclear weapons and advanced rocketry, this threat created strange times - it poisoned a lot of things.
Some leftist people would never learn – doublethink is the only way by which they can sustain their rigid belief system. I had classes in Marxist economy and philosophy. I think the problem of the Left starts there, in grim and jargon-laden class-struggle based interpretations. There are no oponents in Marxism, only the enemies – serving the antagonistic classes. People have always one kind of reactionary agenda or other. This is a nasty mindset and it lives in Left up today. The biggest problem is the fascination of the Left with power – power to do good – which more than often makes a disaster. The “confusion” of the Left by the propaganda was not an accident of history – as Orwell remarked, the Left in Europe became pro-soviet only after Soviet Russia became fully totalitarian. (and powerfull). But we can see this in smaller, daily version too - in the delight of “progressive” activist in bossing other people around. No-one found a functioning model of perpetum mobile yet, and I think it will be equally hard to figure how to do involuntary re-distributions on massive scale while sustaining the spirit, productivity, motivation, individual rights and freedoms. This redistribution-based egalitarian agenda is a hopeless wreck and with the recent battles (racial, gender equality, environmentalism etc.) being won by the Left, there are not too many useful things that you really do. The academia Left is too comfortable and remote the problems of normal people to have helpful ideas. As I see it, there is no positive program or important thoughts on the left, which can be sold to the wide audience. For that, you would need more people like Cesar Chavez.
Posted by Tomas Vojkovsky on Jun 9, 2003 at 5:54 PM Dr. Weinstein: I agree that history not to ìendî as the famous book argues, but canít we continue with fresh ideas, rather than the same old discredited arguments? I donít think that your bookís thesis is clearly stated in your article. Do you defend this thesis with any more than the same old arguments of the radical left? Why should I read your book when your article fails to do any more than repeat the disastrous mantras of the past?
Mr. Coward: I may disagree with almost everything Dr. Weinstein has said and may even label them as clichÈs (fairly or unfairly is up to debate) but I have no reason not to presume that his morals and character are not of the same level as his high intellect. He has inspired a minor debate, to which you do no more than resort to name calling, insults and vulgar language. Instead of jumping to conclusions about other people and their philosophies why don’t you venture beyond your “sandbox” and read a little more of what others believe?
Posted by History and Future.... on Jun 9, 2003 at 6:56 PM Please place the picture of every leading Democrat presidential candidate on subsequent covers of your quaint little socialist publication.
The more the public knows these candidates by the company they keep, the more certain is President Bush’s reelection.
Posted by Rich Leonardi on Jun 9, 2003 at 7:30 PM I have often been attracted to the Left, but my attraction is almost always repulsed by the chasm between its lofty ideals and nitty gritty reality.
This essay had a lot of fine, sweeping, grand sentences, but its logic pales before its rhetoric—and as such the discussion was emblematic of the Left.
The Left, to many people, seems irrelevant.
A few succinct reasons why:
1) The income of workers today is immeasurably greater than what it was at the turn of the century and the portrait of a rapacious upper class and a toiling, tubercular proletariat just does not jive with the reality that most people apprehend. Most Americans are not in sweatshops, are not working more than 12 hours a day, and are not starving – in fact, the problem is all too often the vacuity of their lives and their inability to handle free time which prompts them to eat ceaselessly and has incited such an epidemic of corpulence. The biggest problem is not poverty – although it has been increasing for twenty years. The biggest woe is meaninglessness and emptiness.
2) The article accepted as a given that an expansion of democracy is a good thing, but some of us don’t see it that way. Years ago, Soren Kierkegaard advised us about the stunting effects that take place when men are leveled, when genius is curbed so that mediocrity might feel more at ease. When students who are barely literate clamor about their rights like a horde of vulgar fishwives, I wonder if the expansion of Democratic rights should be conditioned on an accompanying advance in intelligence, responsibility, and discretion. When Mayor Guiliani of New York was questioned by a young girl, who in a disjointed manner complained about the school system and its failure to teacher her and asked how one might spell the word intelligent, I longed for the corporeal punishment of Dickens. When I find that so many prospective voters are illiterate, and ignorant of economics, geography and history, I doubt the merits of expanding the franchise.
3) If the left wants to get someplace, it must speak differently. It must:
A) Speak in terse, firm sentences that know exactly what they want to say.
B) Make it abundantly clear how people are being abused even when they are not living in tenements – eg. the alienation of labor, etc.
Posted by David Gottfried on Jun 10, 2003 at 12:34 AM I have often been attracted to the Left, but my attraction is almost always repulsed by the chasm between its glorious ideals and nitty gritty reality.
This essay had a lot of fine, sweeping, grand sentences, but its logic pales before its rhetoric—and as such the discussion was emblematic of the Left.
The Left, to many people, seems irrelevant.
A few succinct reasons why:
1) The income of workers today is immeasurably greater than what it was at the turn of the century and the portrait of a rapacious upper class and a toiling, tubercular proletariat just does not jive with the reality that most people apprehend. Most Americans are not in sweatshops, are not working more than 12 hours a day, and are not starving – in fact, the problem is all too often the vacuity of their lives and their inability to handle free time which prompts them to eat ceaselessly and has incited such an epidemic of corpulence. The biggest problem is not poverty – although it has been increasing for twenty years. The biggest woe is meaninglessness and emptiness.
2) The article accepted as a given that an expansion of democracy is a good thing, but some of us don’t see it that way. Years ago, Soren Kierkegaard advised us about the stunting effects that take place when men are leveled, when genius is curbed so that mediocrity might feel more at ease. When students who are barely literate clamor about their rights like a horde of vulgar fishwives, I wonder if the expansion of Democratic rights should be conditioned on an accompanying advance in intelligence, responsibility, and discretion. When Mayor Guiliani of New York was questioned by a young girl, who in a disjointed manner complained about the school system and its failure to teacher her and asked how one might spell the word intelligent, I longed for the corporeal punishment of Dickens. When I find that so many prospective voters are illiterate, and ignorant of economics, geography and history, I doubt the merits of expanding the franchise.
3) If the left wants to get someplace, it must speak differently. It must:
A) Speak in terse, firm sentences that know exactly what they want to say.
B) Make it abundantly clear how people are being abused even when they are not living in tenements – eg. the alienation of labor, etc.
Posted by David Gottfried on Jun 10, 2003 at 12:34 AM I thought Mr. Weisntein’s article was excellent; there is a great continuity in the trajectory of the American left of which we should be both proud and more aware.
I would like to comment on (and to) the vituperative right-wingers who are drawn to comment boards like this. (They are especially annoying on Indymedia) GET A LIFE. If you wish to engage in an intelligent discussion of issues with us leftists, fine. But please spare us the high school quality polemics and idealism.
Posted by Jim Best on Jun 10, 2003 at 6:59 PM To Mr. Best,
Thank you! I thought I was the only one feeling that way. I didin’t know that they plague other discussion boards besides this one.
To the vituperative right-wingers:
If you haven’t read Mr. Weinstein’s book, you can’t comment on it and really should not be taking part in this chatroom.
Of course, we could pick another topic like:
Hitler was a capitalist and believed in free markets.
But none of you really responded when I mentioned that earlier, except someone said that Nazi Germany did not have free markets, everything was controlled by the state, which I don’t think was true, but anyway, I think it’s an interesting topic.
As for others, how about the ‘fetishization of commodities’ question? Did Marx predict consumer society? What did he mean anyway? This also relates to some things I read by James Twitchell, if anyone knows him.
Cheers,
A. Coward
(Anonymous Coward)
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 10, 2003 at 8:46 PM On the fascist side, the comment about restricting people’s right to participate in a democracy is so absurd. People with education and intelligence have a responsibility to be involved in their communities, but not to choose who is sophisticated enough to vote, serve on a jury, etc. As for Marx predicting consumer society, who knows? Iíd rather ask whether he predicted Soviet totalitarianism. As for “high school quality” of discussion, I consider that to be the mindless repetition of someone else’s disproven ideas. The “great continuity in the trajectory of the American left” breeds dependency, quashes freedom and often is condescending to the dignity and capabilities of the people the Left allegedly speaks for. Of course, a completely free market would do the same.
Comparing others to Hitler is no way to start a discussion, nor is calling them names or name dropping books without much reference to their content, as if the people you are talking to are unread. Suggesting a book, with reference to its content, as Dr. Weinstein has done in his article is a different situation.... It may even spark debate.
Oh, and on Sweden not being socialist in any way, it would take a pretty radical view of what Socialism is to reject Swedenís status as a Socialist state. Sweden has a complex welfare state that provides for its people. It maintains an expensive education system, extremely high taxes, and egalitarian attempts at the redistribution of wealth. It also has disastrous restraints of wealth creation for its people and a breakdown of the familial structure that holds most societies together. This is better than the Soviet horrors. Sweden is probably the best example of a Socialist state that is not totalitarian. But that speaks more for the responsibility of the leaders of Sweden for not fully socializing their state, than it does for their chosen system of government.
Posted by History and Future.... on Jun 11, 2003 at 8:38 AM In another words “if you find something wrong about ideas expressed in the above self-review article and feel like questioning them, it is not because of the ideas themselves are fishy, but because you have not read the book, remained an ignorant right-winger and have no part in a sensible discussion.” Bravo, comrades, be proud and be more aware of yourself. Perhaps you could password the discussion forums here, as to avoid uncomfortable comments disrupting your self-congratulatory book review and state of mind.
Also, you are quite right about calling our consternated comments “a high school quality polemics”. I agree that they are neither new nor very insightful – they just reflect a commonplace opinion about the radical Left to which even illiterate American high-school kids arrive with ease.
Posted by Tomas Vojkovsky on Jun 11, 2003 at 8:41 AM Several of your correspondents appear to have forgotten[or never known] that the “Nazi Party” was an abbreviation of “The National Socialist German Workers Party”.
Just another version of socialism.
Posted by dave fordwych on Jun 11, 2003 at 10:04 AM “Now, he argues, the humane social principles articulated by Marx and the leaders of the old movement can once again come to the fore in the struggle to realize the promise of American democracy.” Humane social principles by Marx?? Up my arse, dr. Weinstein. Did you actually read the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx? You must admit that commies did good in keeping their promise – their humane blueprint in Manifesto, delineated in a nice plain Mein Kampf-like style, got accomplished all right. The promised paradise did not arrive, but not for lack of trying – or a failure to follow these helpful guidelines about the Dictatorship of Proletariat written by Marx.
And the Left being “distracted by unproductive discussion about the nature of USSR”?: This was (or could have been, to be exact) the most important discussion about the Left movement – to see what went wrong and why. Why so many of leftists got so blinded by this ideology and their own thirst for power, and why they were abandoning their principles, transforming smoothly from freedom fighters into apparatchiks. Why the economy and history was taking decisively different course than predicted.
At the beginning of this discussion thread, I wrote that you are apologist for discredited ideas. Your analysis - about socialists being humanist guys (sidetracked a little by this soviet accident of history and cunning of reactionaries but achieving a lot nevertheless) and now being back on track and helping to shape the future - is clearly written for a very special audience. I did not read the book, but by your own review on it and by the blurb on the advert page it seems that one can get from this book about as much critical insight as from a story from Dr. Seuss.
Posted by Tomas Vojkovsky on Jun 11, 2003 at 11:43 AM Sweden is a social-democratic country with a strong welfare state, but it is not a completely controlled centrally planned economy like the USSR. How many state-owned corporations are their in Sweden? There’s a lot of private ownership in the economy, but there is also a strong state component as well. To me this is not socialism but social-democracy.
*sigh*, about the Nazis and free markets:
I’m not calling anyone a Nazi or comparing them to Hitler. I’m merely pointing out to you Von Hayekers and lovers of free markets that you have some company, namely the Nazis who, let me state it again, preserved capitalist property relations, increased profits, allowed free entry and exit to economic markets, broke unions and any independent worker organizations to the advantage of the bankers, industrialists, etc.
I guess what I’m really looking for is some subtlety and nuance in these discussions even from you my vituperative right-wing friends.
Interestingly, I could think of a couple of counter-arguments to my observation about the Nazis and free markets and the fact that none of you have really come up with anything means you must be really young or just new to your beliefs and not that well-read.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 11, 2003 at 9:53 PM The disaster of Sweden:
Poverty levels, illiteracy levels, murder rates are much, much higher here in the United States than in Sweden. People don’t starve or freeze to death in the streets of Swedish cities like they do here.
So much for the “catastophic restraints on wealth creation” in Sweden, History and Future.
I really couldn’t let that go by without comment.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 11, 2003 at 10:03 PM Yes, all of the free marketers bust all of your unions, particularly the evil leaders who limited the market to the master race. Fortunately you, the self-anointed voice for the tired, the poor huddled masses, will forever organize the workers to fight all of the fascist oppressors here at home. (The unions belong to you, right? Can you get my nephew a cushy job at the refinery? Or have all the unions been co-opted by capitalism and common sense?) I apologize because I am so evil and fascist, and I just canít help but to oppress you; it is my nature. Throw out Medicare, Social Security and Workmanís Comp., and damn the unions for creating weekends. I hear you shouting, ìHelp! Iím being oppressed!î No, it was just some second-rate whining. Iím sure your can lower the poverty rate, house the homeless, lower the crime rate, cure diseases, and just make us all better people. (Not me, Iím evil and oppress people. Iíll never change or help anybody.) I am also just as sure that the Cold War was an illusion, that the Soviets werenít really Socialists, and that you fought the Soviets tooth and nail. Now some theocratic fascists are attacking Western civilization, and they are with you, the proletariat, in the epic struggle against we (the free-market, freedom-loving fascists) who couldnít stop ourselves from offending their God and oppressing them. Go ahead and claim that they are rising up with you, at least until we defeat them and you can rewrite history and start your tired revolution over again. You are so worldly and educated and experienced; how could I not get in step with you? We who dare question your wisdom and authority must be local college kids without education or life experience. I guess we should turn over all of our money (and guns) to you because you know so much more, and there is no telling what we would do if left to our own volitions. If only I had your omnipotence. I will leave you to your insular and carefully nuanced comfort zone.
Posted by History and Future.... on Jun 12, 2003 at 8:14 PM H. and F.,
Just want to point out:
You didn’t respond to one of my arguments or statements,
NOT A SINGLE ONE.
Therefore,
YOU LOSE!
But your last sentence was nicely written, at least I enjoyed it. You may finish that master’s thesis(sp.?) yet.
Cheers!
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 12, 2003 at 9:55 PM A Coward
“...Nazis who, let me state it again, preserved capitalist property relations, increased profits, allowed free entry and exit to economic markets...”
Bullwaste, they did no such thing. In fact, although small businessmen supported them more than the large industrialists did, (http://www.historystudystop.co.uk/php/displayarticle.php?article=66&topic=m meu) their programs worked to eliminate economic diversity (which they regarded as “chaos") in favor of corporatist autarky. That is about as diametrically opposed to free-market capitalism as it is possible to get.
You couldn’t even pass an A-level history exam with that level of ignorance:
http://www.guiseley.leeds.sch.uk/Learning Zone/History/Nazi~economy.htm
Posted by E. Brown on Jun 13, 2003 at 9:41 AM No one,
“The “fascism = socialism” argument found so often on the Internet is ridiculous, given that fascism has at its heart hierarchical and inegalitarian principles!”
Try this out for size:
Posted by E. Brown on Jun 13, 2003 at 10:00 AM This is the “money quote” from the article I cite above:
“Fascism was a movement with its roots primarily in the left. Its leaders and initiators were secular-minded, highly progressive intellectuals, hard-headed haters of existing society and especially of its most bourgeois aspects.
There were also non-leftist currents which fed into Fascism; the most prominent was the nationalism of Enrico Corradini. This anti-liberal, anti-democratic movement was preoccupied with building Italy’s strength by accelerated industrialization. Though it was considered rightwing at the time, Corradini called himself a socialist, and similar movements in the Third World would later be warmly supported by the left.”
from “The Mystery of Fascism”
by David Ramsay Steele
Posted by E. Brown on Jun 13, 2003 at 10:05 AM “What are a few million dead Russians in a situation like this? Quite unimportant. This is just an incident in the sweeping historical changes here. I think the entire matter is exaggerated. “
Walter Duranty on the Terror Famine
Posted by E. Brown on Jun 13, 2003 at 1:53 PM E. Brown,
I was aware of Mussolini’s socialist roots and Sorel’s admixture of syndicalism and fascism, and his admiration for both Lenin and Mussolini. Thanks for the link, however; I’ll check it out.
For the most part, I was complaining about the simplistic association of dirigisme and the left, as if all that divides left and right is a matter of economic policy.
Not only are his assumptions as to readers’ knowledge incorrect, dave fordwych must think that the brutality of the GDR damns democracy.
Posted by No one on Jun 13, 2003 at 7:57 PM For a lefty econ prof on fascist central planning:
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/ prin/txt/comsysf/cs8.html
Posted by No one on Jun 13, 2003 at 8:13 PM Dear Tomas Vojkovsky,
I can’t argue with you about the book if you do’nt know what’s in it. I certainly agree with your view of Soviet communism. My point, however is that the Soviet Union was never a threat to Western capitalism. It was to weak, too backward, and too incapable of flexibility. Indeed, Soviet communism had more in common with tzarist political culture than with anything that pre-1917 socialists had in mind. The Soviet experience redefined socialism in the popular mind because, as they insisted it was “real, existing socialism.”
If you like Cesar Chavez, you should read the book. I think you’ll like it.
Jim Weinstein, Chicago
Posted by jim Qwinstwin on Jun 14, 2003 at 10:38 AM E. Brown:
I didn’t say the Nazis were free-market capitalists, but capitalists flourished under their regime, particularly the big industrialists, if I read the linked documents correctly.
Are you really telling me that small businesses weren’t allowed to be formed under the Nazi regime before the start of WWII?
How to summarize?
My original point about this was made in response to people saying that socialism/Marxism always lead to the Bolsheviks.
For me, this is an absurd statement, similiar to saying that capitalism ‘in extremis’ always leads to Nazism. Come to think of it, Nazism and capitalism(the private ownership of the means of production) seemed to have existed together quite happily.So if you Von Hayekers are allowed the statement that Marxism/Socialism always leads to the Bolsheviks, then I get to say that capitalism in crises(economic depression) always leads to Nazism.
QED
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 15, 2003 at 11:44 AM Well, it looks like the rabid right-wingers have gone away, so maybe we could talk about something else.
For example, has anyone read James Twitchell? He’s sort of a cultural critic, though I don’t think he’s a Marxist.
He’s written very interestingly about the collapse of the “highbrow”, “middlebrow” and “lowbrow” categories. Which after reading B.R. Myers book “A Reader’s Manifesto” has also invaded the world of books. It seems now there are only genre books and “literary fiction”. No distinction is made between high-art and low-art directly.
Which sort of leads me back to the ‘fetishisation of commodities’ question, which Twitchell also talks about.
Anyway, is anyone still out there?
Cheers!
A.C.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 17, 2003 at 4:46 AM By the looks of it, although nothing at all new, the right wing fascists i.e. “free-marketers” have been convinced what the master class have told them.
a: the Soviet Union was Left (and not just another variant of crony capitalism)
b: that they were ever a threat whilst the US went on a killing spree of millions of vietnamese, cambodians, salvadorans, guatamalans, chileans, timorese, philipinos, cubans, nicaraguans, the list goes on and on and on.
After Hitler, then US, only then Stalin.
Posted by hates american nazis on Jun 17, 2003 at 11:12 PM Discussion killed by rabid right-wingers(who REALLY don’t know how to think).
R.I.P.
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 18, 2003 at 9:42 PM “Ainsi dan la foret, ou mon esprit s’exile,
Un vieux souvenir sonne a plein souffle du cor!
Je pense aux matelots oublie dans une isle,
aux captifs, aux vaincus, a bien d’autres encore.”
Posted by A. Coward on Jun 18, 2003 at 9:53 PM “The socialist dream came to an end when Mises and Hayek proved that the socialism could never solve the economic problem of the division of knowledge.”
Yes, No One, this captures much in a nutshell. What remains of the dream is nostalgia, vacuous academic rants, or desperate sloganeering.
On the near horizon of history is the rapid transformation of the traditional human race into a complete anticlimax. No one can be ready for this.
AA
Posted by Alex Ashley on Jun 19, 2003 at 1:29 PM The following from Tomas in San Francisco seems to aptly describe
the much of the USA’s society today.
We find great disenchantment in our country, I believe due to the very freedom to have 30 different varieties of any item we seek to purchase in an attempt to reach a level of contentment which we won’t find because of the constant barrage of the “free” expression of some corporation trying to have us spend more money so the stockholders can seek their level of contentment by having and buying more of the products so many of us are producing, marketing, distributing, to sell to have more money to buy...ad in finitum.“One certainly should not complain about lack of opportunities for trying “better living in socialism.” - it is too bad that this better living always turns into living under socialism.
It is about lower economic standards, more red-tape, vindictiveness and envy of success, wide-spread cheating on government - and turning people away from self-reliance and into infantile or resigned mentality. I experienced this firsthand.”Hail free markets!
Posted by Dirk Ouellette on Jun 19, 2003 at 9:17 PM Dirk,
there’s nothing “free” about your markets. without your ugly state which is run by corporations there would be nothing. all the state does for them is to coerce the world’s population to toe their line whilst they commit heinous crimes against the rest of the world, so they can have their putrid belching cars and lavish homes. they’re about 1% of the population but eat up about 50% of the world’s resources, all by the toil of workers who get to live in slums and a buck a day. You’re gorgetting that your eden is built on the backs of the poor shlobs who aren’t powerful enough to defend themselves. if you had to live on a buck a day, i’m curious if you would still lionize the “wonders” of the free market. as they say, to the victor go the spoils. just don’t brag about it.
Posted by hates american nazis on Jun 19, 2003 at 11:31 PM A. Coward -
i’m sorry i killed your discussion But just for the record, i was being serious, not facetious. maybe next time i’ll put my thoughts down more aptly.
adieu
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