rodshaw
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No doubt most people on this forum have had Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on the door. Last time a pair came round, for a split second we hit common ground. One of them thrust a leaflet under my nose and the conversation went something like this:
JW: Some people think the world is getting better, some think it’s getting worse and some think it’s about the same. What do you think?
Me: I think the world would be a far better place if we abolished the capitalist system and established a world where all resources are held in common.
JW (glancing at his mate): Well, I think we could go along with that.
Me: Well, you need to join the World Socialist Movement then.
JW: Ah well, we’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Me: I also disagree with all forms of religion.
Whereupon they scuttled off.
Ah well, at least whoever edited it down will have heard the full message. We can’t really hope for anything to get through when they cut each contribution down to about 5 seconds.
That’s right, keep the damn foreigners at bay. With all the security checks in place now anyway, it’s been bad enough getting in or out while in the EU.
I don’t get it – aside from it being bad for the general public going on holiday, surely this can’t be good for business travellers either?
“…no country in the world has ever claimed to have established communism.”
Whether they have claimed it themselves or not, they are/were seen as communist in popular eyes, rather than socialist, and in newspaper articles, TV programmes and the like, the word communism rather than socialism is generally equated with repressive state control.
Hi Johan,
I doubt very much the Netherlands would go bankrupt but unfortunately governments always put costs ahead of human health and wellbeing because they support the capitalist system which is based on profit-making and cost-saving.
But in the properly socialist or communist world that we advocate (for us the words are interchangeable) there would be no governments to tell us what to do. Instead, decisions would be made democratically by the whole community, based on the best evidence available.
In socialism there would be no money because all resources would be commonly owned. Health and wellbeing would be given priority and those who needed extra care would get it. There would be no monetary cost, and healthcare like everything else would be determined by people’s self-defined needs.
I have a suspicion that by far most people who profess a religion in the statistics are not very devout. They mostly do their worship for social/family or ‘just in case’ reasons.
Before world revolution can come about people’s ideas need to change on a huge scale. Otherwise it’s minority action imposed on the majority. There’s no way it will take people by surprise. That doesn’t mean we all have to be experts in political theory but people will certainy have to be aware of their position under capitalism and have the desire to change it.
The campaign for socialism might in the meantime take people by surprise if it ‘goes viral’ (when it might still be only supported by a minority). The change from a small minority into a substantial majority might happen very fast and leave some of us reeling – the capitalist class most of all, let’s hope.
”Now, when socialists are so very few, a higher degree of understanding of the workings of capitalism and the course of history are required of socialists (at least of organised socialists). This need not be the case when the socialist movement takes off and begins to become a mass movement.”
Maybe this would become true as the practice of socialism became more relevant than the theory. If you’re establishing more democratic workplaces, helping to get food to those who need it, building a more eco-friendly environment, etc., it doesn’t really matter what your religious views are.
But I don’t think membership would grow significantly, if at all, if we dropped the religion question. It would probably fall as some people would be bound to leave.
The Great Britain figure for no religion also went up significantly in that time. Same for the UK, if you lump no religion and not stated together.
But the figures beg the question – is the abandonment of religion by the majority a prerequisite for establishing socialism?
Interesting. One tends to think of London as being more ‘progressive’ than the rest of the country. This suggests that it’s more conservative.
Does it say whether the numbers of religious people are increasing or decreasing?
Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, has written a short book The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop it Happening Again, apparently containing scathing comments on how world governments have approached the pandemic. Too little too late, ignoring medical advice, scientists in thrall to the government, putting capitalism before needs, etc. etc. All things we would have predicted when it started.
How to stop it happening again? Pity people like him can’t just go that bit further and campaign for an end to the system itself.
Meanwhile, sport is making a comeback, driven of course by the money machine. The richer the clubs, the quicker they are coming back while the poorer ones will struggle. Football League 1 is at loggerheads over whether to continue or call it a day. The social distancing measures clubs have to obey are almost laughable. Footballers can celebrate goals by touching elbows. And on televised matches there will be the option of synthetic crowd noise.
Would it happen in a sane society?
