Wez
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‘Wez, far from being sympathetic to us, it’s the Left who are responsible for damaging the word SOCIALISM so much that it’s well-nigh unusable.’
TM – I agree. However all of my friends are lefty/liberal types and we can tolerate each others politics because of the shared absence of racism, xenophobia, belief in religion, sexism, nationalism, belief in capital punishment etc. Does this make them more politically progressive? I know this means creating another thread if we are to continue the debate.
‘Lol. You have no case. That’s why there’re only seven of you. At some point surely it has to start sinking that maybe your ideas are quite simply…shit.’
We are the second oldest political party in the country and have seen literally hundreds of different Leftist parties/groups come and go having achieved nothing (except harming the case for socialism).
TM – the left were never progressive to me but I sometimes get the impression that comrades think that they were/are more sympathetic and thus susceptible to our case than the right.
Ex DJs ain’t gonna be left outta this jam…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btNbCUHAXvY
TrueScotsman turns out to be a true Tory with his love of leaders, authoritarian social structures and war. What a joke that he considers himself a socialist of some kind. He continues to do us service by reminding anyone who still believes that the left are ‘progressive’ in some way that many of them are reactionary to the core. Cheers TS.
In the Communist Manifesto Marx advocates state ownership to hasten the development of capitalism thus making socialism possible. Of course he did not believe that this was a form of socialism but in the case of Russia state ownership did accomplish an astonishing rate of industrial evolution that enabled them to beat Germany in WW2. In the 1960’s they were the first to launch a satellite, launch a man into orbit and, I think, send a probe to the moon so I don’t think your claim that they were stuck in the 1950s is entirely justified.
Is the term ‘Nazi’ anachronistic rather like the accusation of ‘Fascism’? What constitutes a Nazi in the 21st century? A belief in an absolute charismatic leader; a belief that foreign cultures are evil; a belief that only authoritarian structures (taking away freedom ) can guarantee freedom; a belief that the strong should inherit the world through militarism and war? All of these ideological elements are present in the decadent form of capitalism and are shared widely by governments and large sections of the global working class and are not restricted to the Ukraine, the USA and its allies.
The irrepressible Clare Daly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaLgDOG5BVM
Thomas – I’m not aware that the bourgeoisie even existed as a coherent class in 1381 – but, as you say, we need a different thread to progress that discussion.
Alan – I don’t see how the Peasant’s Revolt or the Diggers of the English Revolution represent ‘different courses (of history)’ potential or otherwise since the first was primarily a revolt against the poll tax led by the better off peasantry and the Diggers were utopian socialists that had no chance of succeeding under bourgeois rule. A brief look at the Taborites (of whom I know little) would suggest they were a pre reformation group like the Lollard Movement in this country whose cause would be furthered by the Lutheran Reformation which would, in turn, lead to the formation of nation states and the Protestant ideology which would fuel the Bourgeois revolutions. In none of these cases do I see the potential for instigating a change in the course of history but rather a necessary element within the course it took.
‘I’m sorry I bothered to give Alan my summary.’
TM – why? I found it an interesting debate. I don’t like the term ‘Eurocentric’ because it implies cultural bias or even racism. But historical facts are facts – would you call the belief that our species had its origin in Africa a form of ‘Afro-centrism’?‘We shouldn’t be too Eurocentric and appreciate that humanity could have taken many different courses, as it often did so.
I have always been interested in pre-capitalist developments such as the peasant revolts that used religion as its language. What if they had prevailed?’
Alan – what ‘different courses’ are you referring to? Some believe that the so-called peasant revolts (at least in this country) were precursors of the bourgeois revolutions that were to follow. Most of the leaders were of ‘the middling sort’ and we shouldn’t imagine them as all impoverished peasants. If this is the case then, in the long term, they did prevail.
‘Non-Europeans are then to be confirmed in their belief that we’re only interested in the West as the “centre of history” and its history as all that’s important. So you can agree with Marx’s dismissive phrase regarding centuries of Chinese stupidity, from which we saved them!’
Thomas – answer me this: ‘Did global capitalism have its origins in Europe? Is global capitalism the greatest obstacle to socialism both economically and politically? As the answer to both these questions is obviously yes then clearly that’s what socialists should examine, understand and explain. It has nothing to do with cultural ‘stupidity’ as clearly many cultures were far in advance of Europe in many and various ways down the centuries. But politically and economically the European model has become the dominant force in everyone’s lives. My understanding of the Marxian approach to the study of history is to distinguish elements of the past that were important in the development of the present and then to likewise try and define elements of the present that we can project as possible components of the future.
TM – As you say it might be of academic interest to an historian but not to a socialist when discussing politics. It doesn’t matter if China was feudal or not since the history of China did not create the development of global capitalism as did Europe. Because of the early political evolution of England (revolutions of 1642 &1688),and the industrial revolution that this made possible, England had the industrial/technological/military edge that enabled it to impose the capitalist mode of production on the world and/or show its superiority to the rising bourgeois classes of other European states who sought to emulate it. It is likewise of academic interest as to how the economies of the Americas would have developed without European contact but it is now of no political importance.
