What might a 'genuine left' program look like?

1) Immediate passage of a reinforced version of FDR's "Economic Bill of Rights" - the unconditional right to food, shelter, health care, education, and security in old age or infirmity (for continuity with "Democrats" - you know, FDR).

2) The universal right and obligation to work, at a reasonable standard of wages.

3) The evacuation of all U.S. Overseas military bases and territories, the elimination of that greater part of the defense establishment devoted to anything but national defense, and the immediate dismantling of all "intelligence agencies, foreign and domestic.

4) The immediate nationalization of all defense related industries.

5) The immediate nationalization of all banks and financial institutions, all energy related companies, all power generation and transport, and all other industries of strategic significance.

6) The confiscation of the property of all speculators, lobbyists, corporate criminals, and those who have let industrial, agricultural, and commercial properties fall into disuse and disrepair. The immediate confiscation of the property of those who have transferred commercial ventures or capital overseas.

7) The dismantling of the judicial and penal systems, the nationalization of all private aspects of those systems, the immediate review of all laws and criminal penalties, and the reduction of the prison population by 80% within 2 years. The immediate elimination of capital punishment.

8. The creation of the organs of "peoples power" with full plenary rights at every level of the society at each job site and important jurisdiction, the replacement of municipal authority by such and the rapid creation of a single system of laws, obligations, and responsibilities.

9) The creation of a peoples militia which will consist of the entire people armed and the transition of all extra police and para military functions to that body.

After that we can catch our breath and decide what we really want to do next.

Courtesy Anaxarchos

I'm blindpig and I approve this message.

:D

but without an ill tempered behemoth breathing down it's neck.

I just hope this doesn't happen.

there are prisoners & guards, "ins" & "outs," power hierarchies in general.

All the corporate swindlers and functioning sociopaths would just move into government positions and shock-doctrine us into stalinsm.

irrational left? More likely.

What's irrational? Thinking that the Man's gonna let you win his fixed game, that's irrational.

I'd vote for it, Anaxarchos.

I'd call about a third of those points "left" - the rest, not so much.

#6 is simply punitive, expressing a need to punish somebody for something. That's really not a "leftish" sort of sentiment.
#7 makes no sense - it might with a little work, but not as written.
#8 and #9 are inherently contradictory: if you create "organs of peoples power"(that's what the folks who wrote the Constitution were doing, btw) and create a single system of laws, etc., then you can't have an entire society of armed individuals who have personal responsibility for policing that society.

The problem with anarchy (which is what you are really suggesting) is that it never takes into account that some people will always take advantage of the system. This system depends on every person's better nature to avoid disorder. That's why they don't work.

This looks more like a marxist dictatorship.

There's a bunch of people out there calling themselves anarchists that Bakunin would have for lunch.

It should fight against centralized corporate power AND centralized governmental power. You've got a good grasp of one but not the other.

Your comment gets to the heart of the matter for me.

them interchangeably, & neither is synonymous with "controlled non-democratically by a small group," which is what you imply with your useage.

nationalize = transfer ownership to the nation. the question is, who's doing the nationalizing, & in whose interest?

it could be the result of democratic processes & result in democratic ends, e.g. in the unemployed autoworkers of detroit running shut-down plants, exactly as you tout in your recommendation of the film "the take".

Incidentally, in that film unemployed workers undemocratically, "dictatorially," "stole" other people's property - you have no problem with that, it seems....

strain at a gnat & swallow a camel...?

but from anarchistic point of view "democratic centralism" (both representative system and dictatorship of majority) is indeed centralism. From anarchistic point of view there is no real difference between decentralism and democracy - where wider decisions are reached by dialogue and consensus building.

And as any (nation) state or similar hierarchic structure is by nature centralized one, it is easy to see that "nationalized" and "centralized" are practically synonymous.

But "fourth world" stateless nations is not what nationalism usually refers to, but to (first world) nation states.

straight-line correspondence between ideology & outcomes.

Certain observers seem to feel if you post a label on something, you're thereby able to predict the future or explain the past, as if history were determined by what people say or said. But it's not.

History is determined by what historians - if we define that group as people - say and said.

There is no "objective" history independent of historians - except "objective" history dependent on objective historians.

history is - and based on whose writing?

But what is "that history" that people do, other than what's written? Narratives of oral traditions, myths etc? When and how does history emerge as history?

The Greek word ´historizein´ means ´to tell a tale´, so what could non-narrative silent history refer to?

what's done, & it's complexity?

But what is not told, is not history. At least, not history in any meaningfull sense.

My idea about anarchism is "anarcho-primitivism" or to be more exact, Garden Earth. And I did have Bakunin for lunch, after having Marx and Trotsky for starters.

The left, by definition, always has to throw the people a few bones. Can you really compare a Communist state even to a fascist state for sheer anarchy? Never. However evil.

Pinochet's and the Argentinian junta's regimes - they were barely-diluted anarchic regimes. Heck, the Patriot Act, torture and exectutive orders don't exacly reek of democratic government and the rule of law, do they?

I don't think you can defend that without asserting a hostile definition of "anarchic". Real anarchists are the most cooperative, lawful people you'll ever find.

"Freedom is the absolute right of all adult men and women to seek permission for their actions only from their own conscience and reason, and to be determined in their actions only by their own will, and consequently to be responsible only to themselves, and then to the society to which they belong, but only insofar as they have made a free decision to belong to it." Mikhail Bakunin

Getting there is where Marx and Bakunin part ways, and people have been splitting hairs on that ever since. Those differences are important but no reason for either faction not to unite against the common enemy.

its that once absolute power is given to an individual, or small group of individuals, it takes another revolution to get power back to the people. So no, its not about splitting hairs. Its about a basic ideological belief that centralized power in the hands of government, any government, is the problem as much as anything else. Dictatorships always result in evil, communist or capitalist.

And who is talking about setting up an individual or small group of individuals as dictators? Did you read that in the OP?

takes a powerful dictatorship.

Hell, the United States itself has "nationalized" industries, even if only temporarily, due to need, and I wouldn't call us a dictatorship, even with Bush as president right now. Other nations have nationalized industries, in Europe for example, and retained their democratic structures just fine. One does not follow the other.

is not the same as putting all the banks, most employers, and entire financial system under state control, as the OP suggests.

1. They end up dead.
2. They succeed, but they live long enough to be the hero turned villian.

My suggestion would be to set up a separate but public banking system paid for by taxes to compete with private banks. This public bank would aim funds at the building of infrastructure, maintenance of infrastructure, and the establishment/consultation of labor co-ops.

The goal would be to set up a co-op sector within the economy where ownership of enterprises is collectively owned by their respective employees. There will also be a private sector with traditional firms, but the goal here would be to give workers a true choice between working in the private sector or in the co-op sector with fellow workers.

This is the reality that some marxists stuck in theory refuse to confront.

Your idea sounds like a good one.

It takes the will of the people.

Let alone how much it is ignored in our current political system.

Its hard not to notice that state-controlled economies coincide with states that control almost everything else in society too. I'm talking about the real world here, not imaginary marxist theoryland.

And that's still not a real point.

It seems that there's a reluctance among self declared leftist to recognise the accomplishments of real, on the ground socialists societies. Why is that?

Can you give examples of a revolutionary government that took total control of the economy and yet didn't take control of other aspects of society and result in a dictatorship? USSR? Nope. China? Nope. Cuba? Better but still a dictatorship.

So no, I don't believe you can seize the banks, most industry and have a top-down command economy and call it anarchism or anything other than dictatorship. If you want something like anarchism then lets talk about ways to have companies that are majority owned by those who work there, or by its customers, not the government. Once you give total control to a government you rarely get it back. That's how the real world works. I'll give credit where credit is due with Cuba but I'm not some ideologue who refuses to see flaws of left wing governments.

Nationalization still puts power in the hands of a few people, but in government instead of industry. If you want a economy truly owned by the workers, something less like a dictatorship of the proletariat, then require all publicly traded US corporations to be majority owned by its workers, who would then vote for the board of directors. Require all companies to have a union and allow workers to vote on company policies at their annual meetings. That brings the principles of democracy and popular control to the economy rather than dictatorship and top-down management. There are ways of doing things without a Stalin or Castro.

Corporations have total control over our government. But maybe that is because there are not ways to do things without Haliburton and Blackwater?

Any ideology, any political movement can lead to tyranny, but the program that bp posted here is vastly less prone to leading to tyranny than the libertarian doctrine that dominates our modern politics is.

Do you really imagine that Russia or China or Cuba would have not been authoritarian and tyrannical in any case, regardless of the supposed ideology of the rulers? You claim a cause and effect relationship, but have given no evidence to support that.

had an ideology that promotes a dictatorship of the proletariat. If their revolution had a true focus on putting power directly in the hands of the people, which most marxists don't really believe in, then it might not have happened.

No, I don't think any ideology can lead to tyranny if the focus of that ideology is specifically about decentralizing power and giving it to the people directly. And just because libertarianism is bad doesn't make state-centered top-down socialism good.

Are you saying there's something inherent about China, Russia and Cuba that made a dictatorship inevitable? I don't agree with that at all. I don't understand that kind of thinking. I don't think dictatorship is some kind of force of nature that's bound to happen.

Revolutionaries from an ideology that believe in dictatorship get to power and consistently give us dictatorship. What more cause and effect do you need? I don't know how it can be more obvious.

I don't know that your asseration, that marxist don't really ascribe to that concept, is correct, at least not in reference to the author of the OP. It is the end game, the society of consensus. I wouldn't describe myself as a marxist, though I am blown away by his and Engels work and have great respect for the commies. See, thing is that they can actually get shit done, what victories for the people have anarchists produced lately? And I say that as someone who has great respect for Bakunin.

Yeah, looks like the commies in China have gone sideways, but as TA pointed out, you are not necessarily describing a cause/effect relationship. Cuba is doing the best it can under difficult circumstances, still it is the most livable country in Latin America for the common man. The police presence is minimal, less that NYC, less than where I live. The people are happy, unlike the people that I've observed in certain countries of the region allied to the US.

it probably would have been deleted by an administrator anyway.

- is that they are constantly up against the extremely powerful interests of big capital, which is backed up by the military might, covert ops, propaganda machines, etc of many western nations and global financial interests like IMF and World Bank, so imo it is no wonder that they become isolated and led by a 'dictator'. This is not meant to excuse totalitarianism by any means, just an effort to put these criticisms in perspective.

This thread is very interesting so thanks for starting it.

That is a very important point, purposefully ignored by the standard narrative and by people who ought to know better.

Living in a capitalist society it is hard to get away from the dominant ideas of that society, which are necessarily those of the ruling class. One does not have to whitewash the problems and difficulties of those societies in order to analyse how they developed. In addition to that most do not realise that much of the vitriolic propaganda directed against socialism from the beginning of the Cold War and alive and well today was lifted directly from the Nazi intelligence/propaganda apparatus. Anything but socialism!

is the same tactic Bush uses to take away our freedoms and liberty. I don't find it any more convincing when Castro does than when Bush does it. Its an old tactic and it doesn't become acceptable simply because its done by someone we like like a little more.

that bush made up a bunch of shit, whereas the historical record is rife with the continual hostility of the capitalist powers towards the socialist state.

As far as Cuba goes, you might learn something about the country, you might also consider that the revolution is still a work in progress. One of the problems with the anarchist view is that they seem to think that a clap of the hands is all that it takes to effect an egalitarian society after the revolution. This is hopelessly optimistic, as much as I would like it to be so.

Bush did not make up 9/11. The people attacking American troops are not made up. Its very easy to use a real external threat as a justification to abuse power. Its not acceptable for either Bush or socialist leaders to do it.

What you're describing is the same rationalization every marxist government eventually uses to stall democracy and avoid giving power back over to the people. You're revealing the fundamental flaw in marxism that always leads to dictatorship. You either believe in giving power to the people directly or you see it as a threat to your revolution. Most marxists see handing power over to the people as a threat and don't trust the people to resist pressures from the outside capitalist forces lined up against them. That's exactly why marxist revolutions inevitably end up being authoritarian and anti-democratic. I'm not willing to make excuses for that.

In case you didn't notice the US has invaded and occupied the country of those who are attacking US troops. In case you didn't notice the US has been killing people and robbing them of their resources and labor since the beginning. Be it mihop, lihop or no hop, people will strike back. Guess you're ok with Homeland Security and Fisa. Fact is that you and your ilk are not revolutionaries, you are preventers of revolution, as complicit as the Democratic Party in maintaining the status quo.

Get rid of the avatar, radical activist my ass. If you were a real anarchist you'd be in the streets of Denver right now. Anarchists are revolutionaries, not defenders of the status quo.

Read what I wrote again.
Just because terrorism is real doesn't mean I approve of Bush's reaction to it, such as FISA and invading Iraq.
And just because capitalist nations like the US are a real threat to socialist countries doesn't mean I agree with how every socialist country reacts to that threat.

I'm consistent. I'm against governments that abuse freedom and don't respect the power of the people to govern themselves, either capitalist or socialist. That's consistent radicalism. You sound like the early American marxists who ended up regretting their blind support for soviet russia after they learned of how the dictatorship was abusing people. And of course, there were communists who always made excuses no matter how much they learned of Stalin's abuses of power. Don't count me in that crowd.

fucking bravo! :applause:

a picture of a huge asshole would work well.

the last vestige of a desperate, confused, and sophomoric mind. Did that Gramsci I recommended for you teach you NOTHING?

That's really hilarious coming from you. Goodness knows you've never personally attacked anyone. I bet you set the record for the number of total posts to posts deleted ratio at DU. Why don't you just stay away from me and my threads, OK?

Many anarchists more interested in theory than practice hugely underestimate how slow and difficult it is to build intentional anarchistic communities from the bottom - such as "ecovillages" as seeds of a future for the post collapse human ways of life.

Also many well meaning anarchists make the mistake of fighting the system, which is clearly suicidal and will destroy itself best without any help from the "enemies of the system", instead of trying to find ways to get out of the system and ways to be left in peace by the system.

What does that mean? Did I miss the part where this became a popularity contest? We're not talking about the Democratic primary here ;)

It's not about "liking" one leader or another, it's about evaluating our economic system, learning and discussing other options.

And as blindpig said above, there is a difference between blaming an (imaginary) external enemy a la bush vs. recognizing what corporate and military imperialism has done to destroy people, land, nations...in the name of profit for western corporations.

about a popularity contest because you seem willing to make excuses for leftist leaders who abuse their power and I'm not. I don't forget my principles for a leader just because they're anti-capitalist.

Terrorist attacks are not an imaginary threat. 9/11 happened and there really are people attacking American troops. Bush is manipulating a real threat to seize more power. I don't find that tactic acceptable for either Bush or Castro.

I have tried to provide some context but not to excuse anything. I tried to make that clear. I think neither Castro nor Chavez are role models for socialist leadership.

Second of all - regarding your second paragraph - at the very least can you define "terrorist attacks" so I know what you are talking or should I just consult the Bush Family Dictionary of Propaganda? "9/11" happens every year between 9/10 and 9/12. Your passive phrase "9/11 happened" is confusing. If you really want to make a point come right out and make it. Are you implying that any of our military action in the middle east is an appropriate response to the World Trade Center bombing?

And (geographically) where are the American troops getting attacked? Who is attacking who, really? (Again, before you go accusing me of hating troops or whatever reactionary thing please understand I am not excusing violence, just trying to put things in a clear context - I think American troops are getting screwed by our own gov't as much as the American worker is getting screwed by the corporation).

Last, I think you need to change your signature line and avatar. The irony is making my eyes burn.

is a pretty obvious and straight forward statement. It is not an "imaginary" threat as was claimed in another post. It means that leaders often take real events or threats and use them as justifications for their own abuses of power, that may be more egregious than the threat itself.

My avatar is perfect. I'm against governments who deny their people freedom, democracy and liberty, whether its in socialist or capitalist nations. My concern for a persons right to govern themselves does not make exceptions for socialist countries.

Say what you mean please - it didn't just 'happen' spontaneously. What is the real threat you refer to? Do you not see why the answers to these questions are relevent? (and no, I am not referring to any kind of conspiracy theories)

It's funny, I currently work in a warehouse and lately the running joke is "Oh look, that happened." Like when someone is moving an unwrapped pallet with a jack and a few cases of product fall off the top. Or if a driver half-asleep makes a pot of coffee but doesn't put the coffee pot in position and everything on the counter gets soaked in hot water. "Ooops, that happened" so as to not have to take the responsibility for the mess and the damage. But see, it's a JOKE. So it's tough for me to take you seriously when you keep saying it "happened" without explaining it. .

You and another poster suggested that Bush was responding to an imaginary threat as opposed to the real threat that socialist countries are facing. I pointed out that Bush is responding to real, not imaginary, threat, and that socialist and capitalist countries are equally capable of exploiting real threats to justify abuses of power.

If you want me to be direct my point is that the real threat of capitalist intervention against Cuban does not justify Castro's failure to allow more political freedoms and open elections. Just as the real threat of terrorism doesn't justify Bush's limitations of freedoms in the US.

If it's so obvious and comparable to the threat of western imperialism, it should be easy to spell it out, right? Pretend I've been on another planet for the last 10 yrs and describe to me what 'happened' on 9/11 and who made it happen, and what this very real ongoing threat is that you are referring to. And what harm this threat is capable of.

Is it "Muslim extremists"? or Saudi Arabia? or Iraq? or Afghanistan? Was it Saddam? Or is it Bin Laden? And how did the Taliban get so popular again? Oh yeah, THE US GOVERNMENT. C'mon, man.

Break it down for me or I'm done here. I can't discuss/argue with you if you can't even tell me what the hell you're talking about. Sorry.

If you prove that the threat of western imperialism is worse than terrorists attacking the US, what does that prove? Does that make it OK for authoritarian communist governments to deny their citizens political and social freedom? That's what the conversation is about.

What does it have to do with my point that its dangerous to allow heads of state to use foreign threats as an excuse to limit domestic freedoms? Do you find that acceptable or not? Why don't we just establish right now if you think that's an acceptable practice because you seem to have double standards about that depending on which leader you're talking about. I don't find it acceptable in any case for any leader but it seems that you do.

to the external threat of capitalism. You are the one who is insisting that these are comparable. I'm simply asking you to clarify this because it's not as simple as you try to make it out to be.

I don't know where these so-called double standards are, I think you may be confusing me with someone else because I haven't said anything about finding limiting domestic 'freedoms' an acceptable practice from any leader (also not sure how/why you posted 'freedoms' plural, it's either freedom or it isn't). From my first post in this subthread: "This is not meant to excuse totalitarianism by any means, just an effort to put these criticisms in perspective".

I'm just trying to have an honest conversation here but you have assigned some agenda to me so I think there's no point. No matter what I say you're going to hear what you want to hear and you're clearly not going to answer my question. Because you can't.

of using external threats as an excuse for increasing internal control because a poster used the threat of capitalist intervention as an excuse for lack of freedoms in marxist countries.

If you aren't trying to excuse totalitarianism then I don't know where we disagree. It seems that you have assigned me some agenda that I never took up.

sponsored military coup.

:applause:

history did not begin on September 11, 2001 and that there are many other significant 9/11's if you stop looking through Eurocentric eyes.

of dates for 9/11/01 wasn't accidental, pinochet's operation condor being linked to europe's gladio & its false flag "terrorism")

No, I'm not following you there.

the coup that deposed Allende occurred on another 9/11. Is it possible you intended your post to reply to some other post?

is fine. But at some point we have to separate marxist theory from the reality of marxist governments as they exist. The two are very far apart and that reveals fundamental flaws in the theory.

At some point every marxist revolution rationalizes dictatorship and anti-democratic actions by blaming outside forces and counter-revolutionaries. But as I wrote in another post, blaming an external enemy is what every authoritarian dictator does from Hitler to Stalin to McCarthy to Saddam to Castro to Bush. You either find that acceptable in all cases or you don't. I don't.

I think what marxists and anarchists have in common is that both are valuable allies when you're fighting oppression in government or society. But I wouldn't put either group in charge of creating a new government. That's where their theories become impracticable.

or read about the factory reclamation movement then check it out. It provides a template for a worker-owned, decentralized economic system that doesn't require a top-down command economy. Nor does it require a violent revolution if you have a government that simply allows the movement to grow.
http://www.thetake.org/

Zapatista rebellion, which opened up the whole Latin America pink tide of "21st century socialism" and anti-globalization movement of the Social Forums etc etc. Practically all of post soviet anti-capitalist fight is deeply affected by the outburst of energy and vision and attitude created by the Zapatista rebellion.

Compare that to Maoist guerillas getting rid of the mad King of Nepal who slaughtered the whole royal family and establishing another parliamentary "democracy".

FDR's "Economic Bill of Rights" - yep, look out folks, they want a dictatorship!!!

Don't we already have enough people red-baiting over in the opposition party?

and one of the great fatal flaws of marxist theory. A government cannot simultaneously be of the people and be a dictatorship. A dictatorship will always eventually end up primarily serving the interests of the dictator. To even suggest that a dictatorship or oligarchy will willingly slowly give up its own power is an idiotic denial of human history and behavior.

The only rare exception that comes to mind is Gorbechev.

that you can't.

who IS "the proletariat" might be the first question. the answer would be - about 90% of the population.

There's no such thing, never has been, and never will be.

Am I supposed to engage in an imaginary concoction of what one might look like if we suspend the laws of reality and human nature? Should I reference who gave what definition at which international comintern? What's the point of that? Middle class marxist intellectuals have been engaging in the longest circle jerk in human history. I like to deal in the real world.

Initially you said:

"They got dictatorships because their revolution had an ideology that promotes a dictatorship of the proletariat. If their revolution had a true focus on putting power directly in the hands of the people, which most marxists don't really believe in, then it might not have happened."


IOW, you 1st say communist revolutions became dictatorial (by which you mean totalitarian one-man/one-party rule) because communist ideology promoted that, i.e. "dictatorship of the proletariat" - in contrast to what they MIGHT HAVE done, i.e. put power in the hAnds of "the people".

But when I ask you to define "d-o-t-p," you blow off the question & say 'd-o-t-p' is impossible because of "human nature."

i notice elsewhere you say the main use of communist/anarchist groups is to pressure existing power - but you'd never support putting them into power themselves.

kinda funny logic for a guy sporting a che avatar.

"Roman dictator was a political office of the Roman Republic. Roman dictators were allocated absolute power during times of emergency. Their power was originally neither arbitrary nor unaccountable, being subject to law and requiring retrospective justification."

and the "dictator" is "the proletariat," i.e. the majority of the population, organized in its own interest.

the "emergency" is the transition to communism, which necessarily requires breaking the long-established power of the ruling/ownership class, as an organized class which previously ruled the majority of the people in its own interest.

haven't had any problem appropriating the modern meaning.

that moot the point that democracy is desirable, that everyone should participate in their own governance?

your talking points are all over the place, & pretty much standard "communism = stalin" boilerplate, "che".

You point out two instances where I said essentially the same thing.

What's human nature is not that dictatorships will happen, but that dictatorships will serve themselves and seek to maintain their own power once created. A DOTP is impossible because dictatorships will seek to serve their own interests rather than that of the people generally.

If you want a government that serves the proletariat generally then dictatorship is the wrong word for it, and it will not be run by a small group or individual.

totalitarian, one-man/party rule), as opposed to a democratic (people's rule) ideology.

then you say rule "by the people" is impossible, because of "human nature".

sorry marx didn't have you around for vocabulary consultation in 1850. He had a classical education instead, & was only the product of his deficient upbringing.

rule by the people is impossible. Someone else did. I wrote that a dictatorship of the people is impossible, and that dictatorships don't willingly give up their power, according to human nature.

Post 43:

"They got dictatorships because their revolution has an ideology that promotes dictatorship of the proletariat. If their revolution had a true focus on putting power directly in the hands of the people, which most marxists don't really believe in, then it might not have happened."


But the "ideology" of "dictatorship of the proletariat" is in fact about transferring power from a small group, the bourgeosie, to a large, majority one, the proletariat, aka "The people".


Then when asked what dictatorship of the proletariat means, you say (post 82):

"Its an oxymoron, and one of the great fatal flaws of marxist theory. A government cannot simultaneously be of the people and be a dictatorship. A dictatorship will always eventually end up primarily serving the interests of the dictator. To even suggest that a dictatorship or oligarchy will willingly slowly give up its own power is an idiotic denial of human history and behavior."


By which you contradict your initial statement. The "ideology" DOES promotes "Dictatorship of the majority/working people" ("putting power in the hands of the people"), you acknowledge.

But now you say this is impossible. Solely because of the use of the word "dictatorship," which the leaders of the time understood quite differently from you.

So if the revolutions became non-democratic, it wasn't because of their ideologies, which were rather democratic, in point of fact.

The conversation would be much easier if you adopted the same definition the rest of the English speaking world uses.

I still see no contradiction in my statements. There is no such thing as a dictatorship of the majority. Dictatorship by definition is government by the few or one. Communism in practice (regardless of some theories) promotes authoritarian government. That transfer of power to the many never happens. Dictators by nature serve themselves and don't give up power to the majority without a new revolution. There's nothing contradictory about any of that.

So Mao, Lenin and Catro were democratic? Good luck convincing me of that. Discussing the imaginary theory of communism is useless if you ignore the reality of communist revolutions, which are typically dictatorships (using the widely accepted meaning of the term).

If you want to transfer power from the few to the many then communist revolutions have proven to be spectacular failures at doing so. Has any philosophy in the history of the world ever had so many good intentions on paper that resulted in so much pain and misery in practice?

in translation from 1850's german, from a classically trained, upper-class writer, with a full set of connotations you know nothing of -

& considering none of the revolutions you're speaking of occurred in "the english speaking world," & considering the various revolutionaries took the phrase in translation themselves, & interpreted in terms of their own historic frame of reference -

what makes you think the definition "the english-speaking world" (which is not, itself, a linguistic monolith, over time OR space) "uses" is even close to what the makers of revolution imagined it to be?

Your initial assertion was: communist revolutions turned "dictatorial" because revolutionary ideology promoted "dictatorship" (totalitarian rule by a small elite) - specifically, in the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat".

This contention I challenged, not the straw men you set up in your post.

If "dictatorship" means "totalitarian one-man/small clique rule" - no, it obviously can't mean rule by the majority.

Which ought to make you wonder - why would Marx write "dictatorship of the proletariat" - when the proletariat was not one man, or a small clique?

But stick with your personal 2008, US dictionary. It's universally valid, through all time & space, i can see you're too bright to let me pull the wool over YOUR eyes.

"The term "dictatorship" describes control by an entire class, rather than a single individual (dictator rei gerendae causa). According to Marx, the bourgeois state, being a system of class rule, amounts to a 'dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.' When workers take state power into their hands, they become the new ruling class and rule in their own interest, temporarily using the state machinery to prevent the bourgeoisie mounting a counterrevolution.

Although Marx did not plan out the details of how such a dictatorship would be implemented, he pointed to the Paris Commune as a model of transition to communism. He stated that:

“ The Commune was formed of the municipal councilors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally workers, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.<1> ”

This social order with its emphasis on recallable delegates and maximal public participation in governance has many similarities to the modern conception of direct democracy.

Friedrich Engels, in his 1891 postscript to The Civil War in France, stated that "Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

He criticized what he saw as corruption among politicians and stated that "the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts — administrative, judicial, and educational — by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time.

And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion."

He also stated that the state is "at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap."<2>


But you're so clever, you "know" "dictatorship" ALWAYS means exactly what it means to you.

What it meant to its originator & those who followed - irrelevant, didn't exist.

It ALWAYS meant "Stalin".

Sure, "Che".

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:D40IXUj67e8J:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat+marx+%22dictatorship+of+the+proletariat%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

again, I don't find discussing marx particularly useful or relevant to actual communist revolutions since they don't bare much in common.

subsequently shown to be wrong.

"oh, it's irrelevant."

means of production in an industrial economy is characterized by the simple fact that their income is derived from their labor (and not from owning businesses, or they would be the 'bourgeoisie'). 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' is more of a metaphor than the actual imposition of an authoritarian dictatorship. By metaphor, I mean it is a figure of speech denoting that decisions about the productive capacity of an industrial economy should be made by the industrial proletariat and not by the bourgeoisie.

Right now, we have a 'Dictatorship of the Bourgoeisie'

May 1, 2005 when I saw 500,000 Latinos march for immigrants' rights. It was an awe-inspiring sight and, for the first time in my life, I felt as though I had seen the current 'proletariat' in the flesh. Still get shivers (the good type) thinking about it. Had those 500,000 decided to act collectively that day, beyond a symbolic march . . .

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."

It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just."

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

mlk

Villaraigosa, was so terrified of the proletariat that he hid out in a LAPD command bunker 20 floors beneath the surface throughout much of that seminal day. Eventually, Villaraigosa was coaxed out of his Cheney-hole to address the crowd of 500,000. There's probably a good saying in Mexican Spanish for this type of person. One thinks of "Pinche Villaraigosa," but I'm not sure that catches the flavor exactly.

1. Dictatorship of the majority - ie. direct democracy (cf "all the power to the soviets).

2. Dictatorship of the industrial workers - peasants can go fuck themselves.

As for Russian revolution, it is clear that in the Kronstadt slaughter of the Navymen hero's of the Revolution and in the slaughter of Nestor Makhno's anarchistic peasant army Lenin and Trotsky chose the latter definition, which is nothing but chauvinist bigotry of the technocratic mindset putting man above nature.

one interprets "dictatorship," "proletariat," & further back "power," "democracy," "rule," etc.

Which reinforces the point: there's no straight-line correspondence between revolutionary ideology & outcomes. Which is exactly according to Marx.

That is what defines an "authentic revolutionary moment" (<-term picked from Zizek): genuine unpredictability.

What is more important that Zizekian postmodern dreams about "authentic revolutionary moments" is how certain ideologies affect the present. The Trotskyite (=orthodox Marxist) party I was once (shortly) a member of, was (as I found out) totally committed to the orthodox ideology of "dictatorship of the industrial workers" and all the technocracy and contempt for tree huggers and gardeners and other enemies of technocratic modern society that flows from the premiss of "dictatorship of proletariat".

I didn't become more cynical, just more realistic. And it is realism speaking when claiming that e.g. shamanistic work with spirit world is politically much more effective than any eurocentric ideology. :)

Look at the bourgeoisie revolution (i.e. France) revolution (toppling of regime)- the "terror" (destruction of social relationships underpinning the previous regime) - thermidor (creation of a new establishment, however the new establishment serves the interests of the new dominant class) Now the measures to which the revolution must go in the terror and thermidor stages vary depending on situation. In the USA's experience the terror was light because the Feudalist system had not been established in the colonies to the extent that it had been in France. Not only did the terror need to be so extensive in France, but in order to deal with foreign invasion they eventually became a dictatorship under Bonaparte. In the USSR the same sequence occured, except that their Bonaparte (Stalin) actually ended up winning his wars

that made a dictatorship inevitable?"

Yes, none of them had ever had a real democracy.

two noted dictators.

Cuba is certainly an example of that.

Well, I'm off the map of eurocentric definitions and maps and I don't have any problems of recognising the accomplishments of socialist tide in Latin America and I hope them all the best. That doesn't affect the criticism of them still sticking growthism and enviromental insanity.

Very much with you on that, thing is, getting rid of capitalism is job one. As is meeting the needs of the people, though certainly not in capitalist terms. These things take time, to be sure, taking the capitalist modes of production en masse didn't turn out so well, but lessons have been learned. Consider Cuba, where great strides have been made.

Simply by eliminating the capitalist's practice of overproduction will be a boon, a part of rationalizing the economy.

The Op is about getting the capitalist monkey off of our back, do that and we can work out the rest, without that we are doomed to environmental horror, a greatly diminished world.

without doubt our children and their children are doomed to enviromental horror and consequent violent reduction of human population. Capitalism is just the most extreme form of exponential growthism, technocratic socialism and anarchism are only lesser eurocentric or technocratically "civilized" evils.

I'm a fundamentalist totalitarian - about natural gardening. Garden Planet. Paradise on Earth, no matter how many generations that will take, healing the planet and through that, also the human soul.

years since we've seen a Republic. All we have had thrust on us have been hierarchical domination models run under various guises and names.

The original model for the US was potentially the triumph of individual liberty over the parasites, but we were not vigilant and let them sneak in and regain power after only 30 years or so. Just like today, we were warned time and again and chose to ignore the warnings because to act would be difficult and require sacrifice.

We seem to be much happier with bread and circuses while others decide for us.

But of course Bakunin was right - in light of history - remarking to Marx that taking over the state instead of dismanteling it (or letting it become dismantled) leads to corruption. And history also shows that (corrupted) socialists/communists have betrayed anarchists by rule, after and even during the fight against common enemy. Despite that, it was anarchistic Zapatistas who created the La Otra campaign and common front and I'm all for trying to expand on that experience.

Same old "we, the cadre, the intellgentsiya, will run everything in your name. It's for your own good, of course. We'll hand it over once you're ready for real communism, but you can't be trusted with it at the moment. And meanwhile we need special accommodations, privileges, etc because our work on behalf of the proletariat is so onerous. But everyone is still equal, don't worry about that. The only difference is that we few are a little bit more equal.".


(Of course, the Bakunin quote isn't so hot either. I've always thought Ameringer's comment was about right: "A rather amusing term, 'forward-looking', because virtually all of the forward-lookers I have met since {leaving Munich} have been so busy looking backward that they couldn\'t even see what was taking place under their very noses. Anarchists look back to Bakunin and Kropotkin. Socialists look back to Marx and Engels.")

And, where do you disagree with Bakunin's quote? Simply writing it off as old thinking doesn't say much.

not looking back as though at a golden age ("ahrr, yer can't get the brains today for that kind of thinking, yer can't"), not looking at today as though this is all there is, but looking toward a better future, built on the lessons rather than dogmas of the past.

As to the Bakunin quote, I suppose it sounds a little too Invictus-y to me.

Unless we're planning to strive for a Hobbsean "state of nature", which is what that quote sounds like, then I'd think we'd do better to have less of the "I'll decide absolutely everything for myself" and more "Let's agree a group of rules we can all live with". No?

In Bakunin's time, someone who wanted to completely reject all social strictures could go off to Siberia (or the US west, or Oz, or Africa) and nobody would care apart from the Buryats, Apache, Abos, or Zulu et al. Today, that's not possible. So we'd have to make certain changes if we wanted to open a sort of Heinleinian Coventry for Bakuninist anarchism (though did Bakunin himself ever do more than talk that game?).

He was imprisoned at the Peter and Paul Fortress, which cost him his teeth and debilitated him for life.

He manned the barricades at the Paris commune.

He was the real deal.

I'm going to be provocatively honest and say that I find Owen and the weavers of Rochedale to have been much more real than Bakunin ever thought of being. They put their energies into building a piece of an anarchistic way of life. They foreshadowed Bucky Fuller's urging that people waste no energy trying to fix an existing system, but build a replacement and let the old one die of disuse.

The world is filled with proof that any vandal or fool can tear down even something that's endured a thousand years. Or get wrecked trying, of course. But it's damned hard to build up something that will last past six months. Probably that's why for every artist there are a million critics - destruction is easy, creation hard.

I see that quote as placing the responsibility for one's self where it belongs. Or, more realistically, where it is. On the individual.

If one chooses to live in a society such as ours, then one chooses to abide by society's rules..or protest them and refuse and accept the consequences.

If we agree on a set of "rules" and choose to live by them, fine. If not, we can either move on, try to change the rules, or simply refuse to obey.

Which is the case in any society. I see Bakunin's statement as a challenge to the individual not as some Utopian ideal.

It's just a different way of organizing society, as far as I'm concerned. A way without "ten who toil while one reposes".

So the idea of "protest {society's rules} and refuse and accept the consequences" is outside my understanding. Maybe that's why I have a hard time accepting that the "tear it down" kids are anarchists, since anarchism to me is marked by peaceful cooperation, not chaos.

So are you and I at odds over this?

Gandhi and Tolstoy were Anarchists who believed in non-cooperation with a corrupt system. Which is what I believe is the sane way of looking at and dealing with society.

Just because society, even "democratic" society believes, and agrees, that a certain way of doing things is sensible (i.e. preemptive war) doesn't mean that I have to go along with it, or agree with it and that I may even choose to resist it.

I don't see Anarchism as another form of government that would build a fanciful Utopia of smiling workers singing while they labor. Rather, I see it as individuals, alone, or cooperatively, doing their bit voluntarily to make society livable and keeping the bosses in line by saying "no" when necessary. Even if it's just one "no".

If I don't like something that's being done (e.g. your preemptive war example), I don't usually ascribe my objections to my anarchism because very often quite a lot of other people, who aren't anarchists, also dislike whatever it is.

My impression (without having closely studied the relevant history) of Gandhi and Tolstoj is that their non-cooperation was a form of theater (Gandhi's far more so than Tolstoj's, who really does seem to have given up a huge amount of privilege). Both could have done more, but at the expense of no longer being public figures. For Gandhi, that would have subverted his main goal which was freedom from Britain.

I'm not sure how to interpret your "smiling workers" comment. How can someone be an anarchist without working toward a state without a ruling class? A state where, indeed, smiling workers could sing while they labor -if they feel like it! Isn't your anarchism all about not having a ruling class?

I'm all in favor of smiling workers. But, having been a worker for most of my life I found the smiles a little hard to come by, most of the time. (Save payday)

I think that the best we can hope for is a benevolent government, or leaders, organizers, or whatever moniker the bosses have.

I don't ascribe my objections to the antics of the ruling class to Anarchism, or any other "ism", I ascribe them to my personal distaste for the bigshots throwing their weight around at the expense of the victims.

I don't view Anarchism as a political philosophy so much as a personal one. Which just makes sense to me in that politics always involves the bestowing of power.

I lay no claim to being "pure". I pay my taxes, even though I disagree with how much of the money is spent. I refused to extend my enlistment to go to Vietnam..but I would probably have gone if ordered to. I protested the war, but ran like a stripey assed zebra when the cops started swinging their batons. I still vote even though the effect is negligible and the result is inevitably a confirmation of Lord Acton's axiom.

I feel no urge to save the world or install a new "Golden Age". I just try to do my appropriate "bit" to make things a little better for the world. We could all do "more", but we are all human. A fact that I'm more, or less, comfortable with. (Old age has it's benefits but arthritis is part of the "less comfortable" aspects of humanity).

I don't think we disagree on much.

Marx's late thought belies the boilerplate charges of 'statism' and authoritarianism. Here's a dissertation on Marx's reflections on the Iroquois.

http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/marx_iroquois.html

The many Marxists I ran across in the '60s, and my own brief flirtation with it, missed that part of Karl's later writings.

In Aymara language forward is where the past is bodily situated - the space in sight. Future is situated behind the back, the space out of sight.

Also, morphosyntax of Aymara together with its inherent 3- (or 4-)value logic makes lying maybe not impossible, but much more difficult than in European languages

why not start extreme left and see if we can actually end up somewhere left of center? Just a thought on strategy.

That's the problem with this basically.
People can include revisionists and counterrevolutionaries also in some definitions.
Revisionists and counterrevolutionaries aren't big eyed beans from Venus after all, they're people.

Judging by your avatar, definition of people as "our tribe/language community" is quite natural, implying that others outside the tribe or language community are somewhat less people. It's not a biological definition of course - which in itself is of course just one culturally dependent definition.

What is certainly true is that (indo)europeans form a language community that excludes other language communities from the realm of "real people" - who can become real (second rate) people only through "modernization process" into the European Borg of Universal Manifest Destiny.

The commies vs. anarchists debate is of course purely eurocentric one. Russel Means has set a very good criterion on European revolutions: only way to really judge them is how they affect non-european peoples. What is interesting is that the new "leftist" revolution in Latin America is very much a non-european project (most notably Zapatistas and Bolivia) where classical eurocentric definitions and borderlines need not and do not apply.

He's about halfway down that list himself - why not just relocate to Venezuela?

OBLIGATION to work? That's a nonstarter for a lot of people, right there alone.

Under what legal authority would you implement #6?

Lastly, and most importantly, are you aware of a document called the Constitution? You might refer to it, as most of your plan runs counter to it.

Obligation to work - "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."

To implement #6 see #7 & #8.

Concerning the Constitution see #8.

?

Better luck with FREEDOM from work. Meaning, for example, no strict division between leisure and labor. "Work" in capitalistic and socialist form of production is inseparable from slavery.

3) We should not leave Korea, Germany, Japan or Afghanistan for starters. There are others, but right there those are prime examples of places we SHOULD stay.

4) This is ludicrous. More regulation on lobbying and a more transparent and strict bidding process would be a better solution

5) There are some valid points to nationalizing power generation, but history has shown STRICT regulation at the state level a better solution. The 'all other industries of strategic significance' is nuts. You'd nationalize everything that way. I prefer capitalism with socialism level programs and taxes on top of that.

6) 'confiscation of the property' = EPIC FAIL

7) Why?

8) This was tried in Libya. It failed. That's because this is silly. Even more so in a country as big as ours. It would lead very quickly to an oligarchy.

9) Lynch Mobs

And assuming the OP merely worded it badly, instead of saying something like 'the right to be able to find work with wages able to support and individual' or something like that.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

The point being that all will be provided for but that none will subsist on the labor of others.

It is only fulfilled within the framework of a society where unalienated labor has become "life's prime want" for its own sake. It is not coercively imposed upon the public.

In communism, there is no "obligation" to work. The entire point is to emancipate labor.

not opposed to all forms of civic obligation on the grounds of their being 'slavery' by any means, I would guess. Or maybe you advocate getting rid of trial by jury, because the civic obligation to do jury duty is 'slavery'?

advocate getting rid of trial by jury. I favour death sentence. Meaning: if member of an intentional community constantly acts antisocially and makes life hell for others, expell that type from the community by community decision - which equals death sentence to that sociopathic individual.

I thought WW II and the Cold War were over by now. :shrug:

:shrug:

The one we have is a lot better. For some of us.

in the OP. I mean for fuck's sake, under that moronic list, organizations like NRDC and Planned Parenthood would be largely neutered. They lobby. A lot. And that's just one little point. Who decides whose property is taken? How is it decided? What is derelict agrigcultural land? How does one go about reducing the prison population by 80%?

I'm certainly for nationalizing some industry. But to the extent proposed? No thanks. I'd like to see us close most overseas bases, but not neccessarily all.

You don't start negotiations with your final position.

"I wouldn't go that far" in real world practical political terms means "don't go anywhere at all and leave things the way they are."

While we all cringe and cower in terror over the thought of some fantasy about communistic dictatorships, the country moves farther and farther and farther to the right, the Constitution is eroded more and more, and control over our government and our lives by corporations grows and grows.

We have a very extreme right wing political faction in power, yet we are still worried about and guarding against some imagined left wing tyranny?

Nothing remotely resembling the New Deal will ever happen in this country is we insist on keeping our political views always slightly on the conservative side of the mainstream politicians. That isn't being "realistic" it is self-fulfilling prophecy. Every "realistic" move to the right we make, the easier it is for the extremists to take the country farther and farther to the right.

of tyranny as something inherently right wing or left wing. I'm no more turned off by one than the other. And your comment about negotiation make zip sense in the context we're speaking of.

Who is promoting tyranny? As you say, tyranny is tyranny, it is not an ideology.

My comment about negotiation may not make sense in the context you are insisting on - that left equals tyranny.

about your politics.

No, it's not a totalitarian nightmare for me. I go to my peace & justice meeting and say what I please. I protested in DC against thewar without bodily harm. I type whatever I damn well please on the internet. I vote for my socialist Senator. Sorry to dissapoint you, but I'm a progressive/liberal and I'm not persecuted.

But no matter what you say or where you say it, it makes no difference in how the system works (though it might make all the difference in whether you go to prison, lose your job, end up on a surveillance list, etc). That's totalitarianism.

"None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe themselves free." Goethe.

The system you live in is the most totalitarian ever, and you fail to see that.

Yeah. The U.S.S.R under Stalin and Germany under Hitler were just so much less totalitarian than the U.S. in 2008. That's why I'm fucking represented in the Senate by a socialist and two flat out progressives. What a joke you are.

I'm referring to totalitariasm of global capitalism (aka corporate fascism) of today. Check your etymological dictionary as to what "totalitarian" (<-total) means and try thinking instead of parroting.

Nationalism makes you just stupid ad hominem guy, take a pill.

I can't hear you.

What do you mean by that? A right to work is fine, but a universal "obligation" to work sounds very creepy...

your financial portfolio - i imagine.

my mind went kind of loopy when I read, "The universal right and obligation to work"

#2 wasn't too bad although who defines a "reasonable" standard of wages?

#3 is fine in principle but you get crazy with the dismantling of the intelligence agencies. Massive reorganisation and robust safeguards, certainly but we do need the functions those agencies provide.

#4 - define "defence related".

#5 - Now you're into dictatorship territory. No arguement on power and energy since the free market is incapable of working on essential services (electricity, gas, water, mail and these days, phone) due to the captive nature of the market (i.e. you can't do without those services when the price gets too high). Banks and financial institutions, we can quibble about but "strategic significance" could mean anything.

#6 - Just no. Prevent further exploitation by all means but siezing private property is a no-no unless a crime has been comitted and you can't apply criminal charges retroactively.

#7 - forget it. Imperfect as it may be (and I'll give you that a full review is needed), the rule of law has served us well for 700 years and can be fixed relatively simply. I'd also disagree with the imposing of a hard figure to be released from prison. Also, surely the justice system is already nationalised? Certainly, it is here (England).

#8 - What does this even mean? We already have a single system of laws, obligations and regulations, it's called the law. If you mean the whole nation should share a legal system instead of the individual states, I'd agree.

#9 - Works in theory but even the Swiss (who have a similar system) require a small standing army to act as trainers, administrators and so on.

Ugh.

of that shit really happen.

I'm not even gonna waste the keystrokes picking that steaming pile apart.

Working men and women should not have to suffer like they're doing right now. The cost of goods and services rise constantly, but wages never do. Does America REALLY need more homeless people or do we want a productive work force? The choice is up to the men with the money.

But the rest of your program? Sorry, capitalism works - when it's run correctly and regulated well (i.e. the corporations cannot be trusted to regulate themselves). Any "genuine left" platform I'd endorse would not call for the dismantling of capitalism; it would call for the laws that are already in place to be enforced better.

How is it working for all of you right now?

on our government as things exist now, how do you imagine we can get better enforcement of the laws that regulate them?

There is a sort of symbiotic relationship going on there between the corporations/industry and the politicians (and let's be fair - of both parties really). How do we the people get in there to get some accountability and integrity in the regulating agencies?

I understand your sentiment about regulating capitalism but more and more I am realizing that the power of money makes that impossible.

You should really spend more time thinking about that rather than just believing it because someone told you it was true.

The nature of capitalism is to be greedy without limit, destroying whatever stands in the way of it making another penny on the dollar. There are NO inbuilt mechanisms to keep its greed within bounds; the opposite, in fact: it's a positive-feedback system in which the worse it gets, the worse it *can* get.

Which means that it makes as much sense to keep capitalism around as it does to keep a vicious animal on a chain in a corner of the living room, feeding it up to make it stronger. There is absolutely no benefit you can get from that animal that can compensate you if you or a loved one accidently gets within reach of its fangs or claws. And, of course, the animal only has to get lucky once - you and yours have to be lucky all the time.

sell you the rope to hang him with."

:hi:

:D

not the topsy-turvy fanstasies of the far right at.all.:

"First, while he celebrated truly competitive capitalism (KM: nothing more than the immemorial Christian axiom that Grace builds upon Nature), he didn't trust capitalists very much (KM: understatement of the millennium). Consider these quotes:
· "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."

· "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." (KM: first two bullets, long-winded way of calling them chronic recidivists and arch-criminals, under no circumstances to be trusted anywhere near government)
Second, he believed that workers deserve a living wage:
· "It is but equity ... that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerable well fed, clothed and lodged."
Third - and here's a real shocker - he believed that the wealthy should pay more in taxes:
"The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state."
Fourth, he believed in the necessity of public investments in infrastructure and public goods. He spoke of the duty of government to support "public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain."

If he were alive today, he would probably consider education and health care as examples of this kind of public goods.

Smith and his Scottish Enlightenment allies were not ideologues and were better psychologists than those today who view humans as organic calculating machines. They were pretty, well, enlightened. They recognized that a good society and a healthy capitalist economy depended on a shared prosperity.

As his dear friend the philosopher David Hume put it in 1752, "Every person, if possible, ought to enjoy the fruits of his labour, in a full possession of all the necessaries, and many of the conveniences of life. No one can doubt, but such an equality is most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less from the happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor."

Here's the link:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/23/4046/

http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/

Stratified Random Sampling or Pure Periclean Democracy ("By Lot") at its finest.

It's a little bit of fantasy and a whole lot of crazy, IMO...

to put it mildly.

I would be happy with:

1. a single payer, national healthcare system

2. Media consolidation and fairness laws

2. ERA amendment (including GLBT equality)

My left program:

1. A restoration of tax progressivity so that the top 25 percent of national income (not 25 percent of income earners!) is subject to the same share of the total tax burden that it was prior to 1981.

2. A restoration of "spend against the wind" fiscal policy, with special grants available to state governments to practice countercyclical spending.

3. Strict enforcement of labor laws and union organizing rights, plus felony criminal statutes against the use of firings as an anti-union tactic.

4. A system of hourly wage supplements and tax credits for living-wage employers so that today's working poor are brought up to a healthy standard of living with minimal economic side-effects.

5. Make student loan repayments 150% tax deductible, while increasing subsidies for tuition with the goal of reducing tuition by 40% in the next 10 years.

6. Establish a mixed system for universal health care that forces private companies to approve all applicants and charge equalized premiums while allowing all Americans to buy into Medicare, with generous subsidies for lower-income singles and families.

7. Increase tax credits and subsidies for renewable energy programs, as well as the use of tax incentives toward building more energy-efficient communities (mass transit incentives, mixed zoning incentives, etc.) The key idea is that incentives can be used to bend market behavior toward various social and environmental objectives.

8. Eliminate all no-bid defense contracts and demand competitive bidding in all industries until the "marginal economic profit" is reduced to zero.

9. Everything else that the left stands for goes here: gay marriage rights, comprehensive sex ed, civil liberties, troops out of Iraq, department of Peace, etc. (sorry but I like to focus on the economic platform since that is my specialty)