kenax
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checked outhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/capitalism-socialism-how-we-live-and-how-we-could-live#5and just thought i'd mention that your table of content links at the beginning is not working properly because all those links have #1 at the end, meaning they link always to the first chapter.
nope, never said that this tool needs to be limited to political decisions. it's just a discussion and voting mechanism and can be applied to anything. unfortunately i now live in the philippines but perhaps next summer will make a brief visit to the UK to visit my cousin in London while on my way to Czech, perhaps i could squeeze in a visit to one of your meetings. thank you for the discussions.
nope, here for the first time. my name is Karel Kosman and my company's name is kenax, which i usually use as a username. you can search on the web for those names and you will see they are connected. i was merely trying to get the word out about my direct democracy site and thought it might be a useful tool for socialism as well. along the way got caught up in a good discussion. i plan to read the last two suggested articles. my main motivation is i've grown sick of the system and wars and just throwing in my two cents to try and make a positive change.
thank you for the nice words Robbo. i guess socialism got the most bad wrap because of the capitalists who bought into media and helped propagate the red scare, to encourage people to embrace capitalism as some sort of gauntlet of freedom while communism represents repression (which it did).meanwhile, in communist russia, they basically used the same tactics but limited their pictures of the west to the worst slums. i remember when my parents finally brought their grandparents to the west and they were utterly amazed at the massive stockpile of food in your average grocery store. in any case, i'm still curious about practical implementation. for example, at one point it was said it could not exist if any country adopted capitalism. this would require a worldwide revolution, and i doubt it wouldn't be bloody. i would think it would be a good idea to lay out some sort of a "ten point plan" of how this is supposed to come about. perhaps start on a grass roots level, perhaps akin to the Hamish in north Alberta, Canada, who for religious reasons don't want electricity or any of the gadgets and just live together like a community in kibutz style. if enough of such communities were built from the ground up, with grassroots interest, then i could imagine a world transition/revolution could take place. secondly, even if this first stage was successful, i still do not understand how the day to day functionality would work. running several online business, i guess i look at things from a practical perspective. let me explain. first of all, i am a one man show. i taught myself programming, web design, search engine optimisation and many things. i do not have any employees, so i guess i could be considered as one "owning the means to production". because of my webpages customers write to me asking me to organise boat tours for them. i pick someone who is available, and after they confirm their availability and interest, and after the customer pays the deposit (my remuneration if all goes well), i send to the customer the contact detail to the boatman and they take care of the rest. so the boatmen are basically freelancers like myself and are free to turn down any offers. like when i was translating for the past 25 years before i found this "job". what i don't understand is how my service could possibly exist in a moneyless society. why should i bother with all the effort if i could just go fishing and grow my own vegetables on this lovely little remote island i live on in the Philippines? why would the boatman bother hosting the guests if he doesn't feel he'll get a larger lcd movie screen out of it, or possibly larger boat? who's going to pay for the gas? it seems that your system of presuming everyone is going to work voluntarily will inevitably turn into blocks and blocks of people waiting for the next ration of toilet paper. and i cannot imagine a service like mine even existing (except perhaps for the ruling elite, as they always seem to crop up like mushrooms after rain, no matter what system is devised).again, i do not wish to be cynical or negative or provocative, but this discussion truly does interest me. Endnote: actually, speaking of the Philippines, i imagine it quite may have been your socialistic ideal before the Spaniards came, who invaded the 7,107 islands and conglomerated the many tribes under the name of King Philip of Spain at the time so that it could incorporate the region into the system of world colonial rule by the europeans, them fighting against one another and plundering the world's resources for their advantage in competition. Even on the island where i live, most of the people are simple fishermen, living from the ocean and land. all these tribes probably lived in harmony, different tribes populating different beaches or islands, everyone here is so relax its not funny. they might have been happy going on like that a thousand or more years. but if the world was like that, i doubt there would be any smartphones or the technologyy that represents such convenience for us, for better or for worse. In any case, i'm placing my faith in 3d printers and technology to free us from the tyranny of the capitalists. definitely think we live in very interesting times.
okay, i read the two articles and checked out the video and would like to respond as follows. first of all, i believe we have similar intentions to the degree that people should not have to suffer in poverty while others get filthy rich. in this respect i found jesse ventura's proposal (which he got from someone else) that there be a cap on income, the rest going to taxes. such as 100 million bucks a year. cannot that be enough for anyone? is not a billion bucks a year in income totally obsene when we consider so many starving people around the world, who could all be well fed on just US's military monthly budget in Iraq of some 80 billion dollars (not sure if i remember all the statistics correctly). or apparently in denmark, if you are of certain wealth, taxes might be 105%, meaning you pay out more in taxes than you actually earn. if a person is wealthy he should be happy enough. the problem with the ruling class is based on human nature. these driven, shrewed, highly motivated and often very intelligent and not so honest people become obsessed with a craving for more power, while most of us are happy with some job and loving their families in the evening. those who are obsessed with power can easily despise the poor or common joe. my parents are very driven and i can see how they despise to see lazy people freeloading off the social net in canada while they work hard.so yes, 8 billionaires controlling so much wealth is a crime, i agree, i just cant see the practical implementation of a purely socialist society. without currency? how are we supposed to trade? such as one's labour for a dozen eggs? in your video was surreptiously inserted "people will volunteer their labour". Really? why? what is their motivation? this is why i brought up envy. maybe it's similar to a kibutz, although i have never experienced it myself. i honestly do not want to argue or anger anyone here. i am truly enjoying the discussion.
okay, will read your two articles, thank you. just one thing i would like to clear up, by envy i was referring to laborours working in a socialist factory. i was not at all referring to workers in the west. for example, for 25 years i translated. never liked the job but i liked being able to work at home and on my own time, not having to spend an hour in rush hour getting to and from work, or working in a regimented schedule with some boss breathing down the back of my neck. i could take naps at home whenever i wanted to and work on my own schedule, as long as i got the job done by the deadline. and more recently it has enabled me to travel around the world, requiring only a laptop and internet connection. it's not a fun job, but i don't understand how such a job would function without monetary remuneration. by envy i was talking about people working in a factory, for example, and watching others (within the same factory) who might appear to work less and start to bicker about it. some have mentioned about doing away with money. i am curious what motivation there would be under socialism to perform crap jobs, like cleaning the garbage off the streets.
thank you for the feedback. if you have some articles explaining exactly what your philosophy is, and more interestingly for me, how you envision to implement it and some practical explanations how it should function in practice i'd be happy to read it, thank you
Marcos wrote:kenax wrote:– one always needs an enemy to control the people). the problem is that the elite also control the media and most people just believe it.That is called the capitalist press, that is the proper name, and they are doing their job in the proper way, now they used the euphemism of calling them the media. They propagate the bourgeoise ideologyThe Socialist Party press is different, we are doing our job which is to inform and educate the world working class
that is good, but please don't tell me that the press under communism is any closer to the truth. the main press agency there was called Pravda, which means "The Truth". What a total joke. when noam chompsky invited a bunch of Russian journalists to america, they were amazed that the media basically told the same lies, but that the general population actually believed that bs. in russia they said, if you want to make the people believe that, you have to rip out their finger nails. of course i'm not saying you all do that, but if you actually manage to somehow revolutionise the entire system and you do not have direct democracy, it will alway end up, in my mind, with the elite controlling things, and of course they will seize control of the media to enhance and better themselves. it is the nature of humans to want more. that is why i am for spreading the vote and doing more away with elite represenation.
Marcos wrote:kenax wrote:oh, and if i may just make one little addition, my name is Karel. kenax is my company name and what i generally use as a username on websites. Karel is a czech name and i grew up with two earfuls from parents who absolutely hate communism and even the russians. in any case, i have my own brain and do not need to be swayed by anyone. i run several online business and believe in the positive, innovative effects of free enterprise, but that a society should properly take care of the weak, but there should be SOME incentive for innovation, otherwise we get line-ups several blocks long just for toilet paper. anyway, thank you for the discussions and wish you success in all your endeavours.Where are peoples making a line to get toilet paper?
that's at least the story my parents said or what i heard about under communism in czech. without incentive for the means of production, people just get lazy me thinks and things start to rot from the inside out. i've traveled a lot around the world and i find that envy is predominant among most people. if you create a socialst system, people start to get jealous that someone else is working not as hard as them, and everyone starts competing against each other in terms of who can be the most useless and unproductive. as they used to say in czech to the communists: "you pretend to pay us and we'll pretend to work". the communists eventually had to bend so they started giving catholic land to the czechs for cottages in the country in exchange for a little more work. when i arrived to czech after the fall of communism, pratically everyone had an apartment in prague as well as a cottage in the country, with NO DEBT. they didn't even know what a mortgage was, amazing.
thanks. i don't believe everything i read but this concepts seems at least feasible, that Churchill, Roosevelt and I believe Stalin met together and drew on a paper napkin how they will parcel up europe, as part of the elitist game for general population control (in the west it was called the "Red Scare" – one always needs an enemy to control the people). the problem is that the elite also control the media and most people just believe it.and speaking of the "Red Scare", this is precisely the perfect argument for a fascist ultra cut throat capitalist system to scare people into believing that the corporations represent freedom and prosperity, blab blab blab. socialism is essentially still taboo in the US for this reason, ingrained into people's consciousness from youth. i fell for it myself back then.
oh, and if i may just make one little addition, my name is Karel. kenax is my company name and what i generally use as a username on websites. Karel is a czech name and i grew up with two earfuls from parents who absolutely hate communism and even the russians. in any case, i have my own brain and do not need to be swayed by anyone. i run several online business and believe in the positive, innovative effects of free enterprise, but that a society should properly take care of the weak, but there should be SOME incentive for innovation, otherwise we get line-ups several blocks long just for toilet paper. anyway, thank you for the discussions and wish you success in all your endeavours.
okay, but how do you propose to bring about this system, or even convincing most people that they would want it?on the other hand, i think that technology could help in this, such as 3d printers. i repeatedly hear here about the wealthy exploiting the workers, but with 3d printers, that technically could wipe out this relationship. and if you were to somehow bring about your pure socialist system, who would govern or decide on the means of production and how to go about it? i cannot understand how the direct democracy approach would be against this, especially if it could be adjusted to any regional level. such as concerning only the employees of a particular factory. it is just a tool to submit ideas and vote on certain "regions". This can be a stretch of beach, a particular city block in a city, an entire country, or as I mentioned, a factory. it is simply a tool to express ideas and vote on them and it seems to me that replacing that with some sort of representation can always lead to some form of corruption.
yes, the general population should be enabled to decide if it wants to go to war, not the elite few, who of course stand to profit the most from it. and what i am advocating is people administering over the resources, so i would assume direct democracy voting by all would be a useful tool in this endeavour
interesting articles. in the end, it seems to me that the direct democracy approach would be a useful tool in all this. it seems that if the socialist system is to depend on a representative system of government, representatives elected lets say every four years, there would always be a temptation by those in power to assign themselves greater advantage in one way or another. or that they could be influenced in some way to advantage the very smart in society. also, it seems that many in society would prefer to just hand over such matters to others, actually taking comfort in being herded like cattle, as long as they are taken care of and safe. which is why one idea i wanted to implement in the direct democracy platform is the concept of a proxy vote. for example, a grandma who is busy or not really interested in getting involved in voting on different issues hands her vote to her nephew, because she trusts his opinion. but at any time she is free to override his vote on individual issues, if she feels strongly about something. this in a way can be considered similar to the electoral representation, except that the proxy can be given to anyone, anytime, changed mid stream, overridden and so on, and is spread out much more, so more difficult for some ruling elected elite to bend things in their favour. and also, by electing once every four years, i think that psychologically it puts the masses into a sort of slave and acceptance role, as opposed to if they were actually engaged in submitting ideas and voting on them.
