rodshaw
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Heritage lines, on the other hand, are well organised, clean, and run almost entirely by volunteers who love what they do. The trains go nowhere and you catch them just to go there and back to see how far it is.
I agree we can’t create a blueprint but it doesn’t mean we can’t speculate in threads like this.
I think there will be a huge difference in sporting and other behaviours between early socialist society (maybe the first generation or two, or maybe just the first few years, when a load of baggage will have been inherited), and a more developed, confident society where more people are born into it and the hangovers from the past are largely forgotten.
The first generation of people to be born into a socialist society will have a totally different outlook on life.Arguably, with concerns about the effects of heading in football and suchlike, and clampdowns on ‘professional’ fouls, sport is becoming less violent even in capitalism. But it has many nasty sides, all a result of its ultra-competitive nature, due to the expectation of profits.
Women’s football has been a breath of fresh air but as it gets milked more and more it will become as cynical and nasty as the men’s game can be.
I think people do have a natural competitiveness, some more than others, and like to pit their skills against one another. In socialism, sport and other games would probably be an ideal outlet. And there’s bound to be the odd fracas in the heat of the moment.
But no VAR please. Or offside.Arguably in a socialist society traffic would be nowhere as near as bad as it is now. Life would be less frenetic. Built-up areas might be a lot less busy. Much more use would be made of ‘public’ (i.e. communal) transport. Instead of multiple cars parked outside every home and on every street doing nothing most of the time there would presumably be local car pools and more taxi-like services.
That’s not to say loonies wouldn’t still exist who liked to travel at irresponsible speeds and generally make nuisances of themselves. In fact with no threat of imprisonment or a fine, this small minority of prats might increase in number.I must say I was surprised by the 29% figure, although it was only out of a sample of 1004 – a far cry from 16 million! But I like to think it represents a glimmer of a shift in mentality.
Another aspect to production in socialism is that it wouldn’t be a throwaway society. Things would be built to last so there wouldn’t be the mountains of waste we see now. The impetus to maximise profits by making ever newer models wouldn’t be there, so nor would the manufactured desire to trade in or chuck your old stuff away simply because it’s old hat. I would think that anything that was produced intentionally with a short lifecycle – medical packaging, for example – would be recyclable or easily and safely broken down.
In my area there are the usual random houses bedecked with bunting. My granddaughter came home from school today having made a crown out of paper and wearing a union jack coronet.
The lady across the road from us has invited my wife to a coronation party on Monday. Then on Tuesday she’s going to a coronation lunch organised by the local parish council and has been asked to wear something red, white and blue.
Naturally I’m not being expected to join in either event.The BBC tries to be so pally with its viewers and spends a lot of airtime vaunting itself and its wonderful programmes. And yet is there any clearer example than the Lineker fiasco that it is an organ of the state, implicitly supporting the government’s dreadful policy? It dresses up acts of censorship and gagging with its line of supposedly being impartial and all-embracing. And all the while at least one of its top nobs is publicly donating to the tories.
Not that it would make much difference if it were Labour.I have read three of his sci-fi books and they were very entertaining, especially Perdido Street Station. All about wacky dystopian worlds though and I can’t remember anything about socialism/communism in them.
Good for him, although he does seem to support various left-wing, i.e. non-socialist, organisations. From Wikipedia:
“Miéville is active in anti-capitalist politics in the United Kingdom and has previously been a member of the International Socialist Organization (US) and the short-lived International Socialist Network (UK). He was formerly a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and in 2013 became a founding member of Left Unity. He stood for Regent’s Park and Kensington North for the Socialist Alliance in the 2001 United Kingdom general election, gaining 1.2% of votes cast. He published his PhD thesis on Marxism and international law as a book in 2005.”
Ah well, there’s always dark energy and dark matter, which some scientists theorise are occupying that space which we consider vacuum and nothingness. Otherwise they don’t think there’s enough ‘stuff’ in the universe to explain why it’s expanding.
So we can certainly have a concept of nothing but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the universe is full of it.There’s also the multiverse theory, by which there is an infinite number of universes each of which reflects a different set of actions and choices. It’s just that we can’t perceive them. So there’s at least one where you ‘chose’ to have tea instead of coffee for breakfast, at least one in which you never existed because your parents never got together, and no doubt several versions of socialist societies.
All highly speculative of course, but subject to serious scientific thought nonetheless. It would suggest that all possible choices are actually made. Where exactly it leaves the notion of free will I’m not sure.
