Current Affairs The Far Left

[Bruce Wayne]

Socialists say “let’s be like Sweden and Norway”, countries who are not of the socialism of which they want, when the reality of socialism is Venezuela.....Socialists always decry the wealth gap, yet Russia and China are showing us just how big the wealth gap between the population can really be. Socialism is mainly about power to control the populace and to keep those currently in power in situ for as long as they can.........

It's hard not to think there is a large scale hypocrisy at work. It's been possible to voluntarily donate more of your income to the government for years and years, which if you believe they should be doing more you would think would be something that self-described socialists would do en masse. Yet last year, the FT reported that just 200 people have done so since 2000, with those contributions raising 8.3 million quid for the exchequer.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of people willing to live by their principles is it? Incidentally, Momentum alone are said to have 40,000 members, which puts the 200 voluntary donors to the government into a starker perspective as even if all of those 200 were dyed in the wool socialist Momentum members, it would represent 0.5% of the membership. A membership that believes the government should do and spend much more than it does right now. It should just do so with other people's money presumably.

 

[peteblue]

It's hard not to think there is a large scale hypocrisy at work. It's been possible to voluntarily donate more of your income to the government for years and years, which if you believe they should be doing more you would think would be something that self-described socialists would do en masse. Yet last year, the FT reported that just 200 people have done so since 2000, with those contributions raising 8.3 million quid for the exchequer.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of people willing to live by their principles is it? Incidentally, Momentum alone are said to have 40,000 members, which puts the 200 voluntary donors to the government into a starker perspective as even if all of those 200 were dyed in the wool socialist Momentum members, it would represent 0.5% of the membership. A membership that believes the government should do and spend much more than it does right now. It should just do so with other people's money presumably.

Socialists only believe in donating someone else’s money.......

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Socialists only believe in donating someone else’s money.......

It's probably an unfair and simplistic caricature, but it does create a dissonance between word and deed. I know a few people who identify as socialists who are very well off, which is fine, but their children go to incredibly expensive private schools, they have private healthcare and a number of staff for their home. I find it difficult to really understand how you can square such a lifestyle with your belief that society should be more egalitarian and the state should provide all such services.

I know anecdotes aren't especially useful, but I guess the point is that there are ways for people to give the government the money they claim it so badly needs, and yet they don't. They don't donate to pay down the debt or to their local hospital or school.

 

[peteblue]

It's probably an unfair and simplistic caricature, but it does create a dissonance between word and deed. I know a few people who identify as socialists who are very well off, which is fine, but their children go to incredibly expensive private schools, they have private healthcare and a number of staff for their home. I find it difficult to really understand how you can square such a lifestyle with your belief that society should be more egalitarian and the state should provide all such services.

I know anecdotes aren't especially useful, but I guess the point is that there are ways for people to give the government the money they claim it so badly needs, and yet they don't. They don't donate to pay down the debt or to their local hospital or school.

Indeed, and we have far too many Champagne Socialists who would like us to do as they say and not as they do........

 

[Ruairi77]

Socialists say “let’s be like Sweden and Norway”, countries who are not of the socialism of which they want, when the reality of socialism is Venezuela.....Socialists always decry the wealth gap, yet Russia and China are showing us just how big the wealth gap between the population can really be. Socialism is mainly about power to control the populace and to keep those currently in power in situ for as long as they can.........

Hang on, I'm totally confused, Norway isnt a socialist country but Russia is?
also you use China as an example of the wealth gap while ignoring the wealth gap in it's neighbor, the biggest capitalist democracy in the world?

Like most things, socialism and capitalism exist on a spectrum.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Hang on, I'm totally confused, Norway isnt a socialist country but Russia is?
also you use China as an example of the wealth gap while ignoring the wealth gap in it's neighbor, the biggest capitalist democracy in the world?

Like most things, socialism and capitalism exist on a spectrum.

If socialism is fundamentally the ownership of the means of production by the workers then there isn't a socialist country on earth is there?

 

[Ruairi77]

If socialism is fundamentally the ownership of the means of production by the workers then there isn't a socialist country on earth is there?

yea, I agree, and there isn't a totally capitalist country on the planet either. Everything exists somewhere between the two poles.
Scandinavian countries provide good examples of how socialist and capitalist principles can work together for the good of everyone.
Unfortunately Venezuela has fallen in to the hands of a totalitarian dictator. Of course socialism will fail in such circumstances, so will capitalism.
Cuba is a good example of a country relying too heavily on one idea and gradually coming around to introducing elements of the other.
The problem here in the states is that, thanks to post WW2 history, 'Socialism' is a pejorative term yet the same right wing people who don't want the government involved in their lives will venerate the military and call the public library a great American institution.

 

[verreauxi]

Socialists say “let’s be like Sweden and Norway”, countries who are not of the socialism of which they want, when the reality of socialism is Venezuela.....Socialists always decry the wealth gap, yet Russia and China are showing us just how big the wealth gap between the population can really be. Socialism is mainly about power to control the populace and to keep those currently in power in situ for as long as they can.........

Venezuela's government is pure power-hungry corruption that completely overtook any socialist ideals; it is a dictatorship that wasted their money. It has nothing to do with socialism.

 

[verreauxi]

Hang on, I'm totally confused, Norway isnt a socialist country but Russia is?
also you use China as an example of the wealth gap while ignoring the wealth gap in it's neighbor, the biggest capitalist democracy in the world?

Like most things, socialism and capitalism exist on a spectrum.

It is called cherry-picking. One could easily bring up Bolivia as a successful socialist-ish nation.

 

[Number_25]

If socialism is fundamentally the ownership of the means of production by the workers then there isn't a socialist country on earth is there?

I honestly expected far better from you.

 

[abelard]

If socialism is fundamentally the ownership of the means of production by the workers then there isn't a socialist country on earth is there?

Quite. In other words, the term in this sense is totally irrelevant to any discussion of contemporary British politics.

Yet somehow that never stops those who pride themselves on high-minded objectivity and reason from regurgitating it along with so many Daily Mirror headlines, the instant anyone gauche enough not ingratiate themselves to Davos dares suggest moderate reforms bringing British policy back in line with every other more successful country...

...to say nothing of the more successful moments within Britain's own recent past.

The Tories need to get over Thatcher
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/the-tories-need-to-get-over-thatcher/

A lot of attention has been given to the new think tank, Onward, that claims it will win back Britain for the Conservative Party by targeting disaffected Blairites and young people. There is, however, one part of society conspicuously missing from its remit: the poorest. The group’s founder, Neil O’Brien MP, claims that Corbyn is ‘crackers’ and his policies, including nationalisation of infrastructure ‘need deleting’.

At no point does Onward – or any of the other right-wing think tanks that have launched – seem to question why Corbyn’s policies are so popular throughout the country. Nor do they wonder whether any Conservative government has made them work before. Has anyone employed by these new think tanks considered challenging the Tory orthodoxy that state-run railways are bad, or wondered if it is in fact such a great idea to sell off Britain’s housing stock without adequately replacing it?

A Conservative government should want to improve the railways and build more homes. It is only when seen through the filter of Thatcherism that the terms ‘nationalised’ or ‘state-led’ seem dirty. These think tanks look to the victories of Margaret Thatcher, when instead they should turn to the Conservative Party that existed before her. Unfortunately, these views now seem to have been discarded as ‘crackers’.

‘[A Conservative Party] dominated by second-class brewers and company promoters – a casino capitalism – is not likely to represent anybody but itself.’ While a little rude, the above statement in response to the government’s programme of punitive austerity still resonates. But it is not recent. It was written in 1936 by a man who later led Britain into one of its most prosperous periods in history: Harold Macmillan. Macmillan championed what he called ‘The Middle Way’ which relies on a principle that stood for many years until the advent of Thatcher – that the Conservative Party is a party of paternal socialism.

In 1951, Macmillan was summoned by Winston Churchill for a meeting. Churchill had just been elected Prime Minister on the promise to the nation that housebuilding would be ‘a priority second only to national defence’. He appointed Macmillan as Housing Minister and warned him: ‘It is a gamble – it will make or mar your political career but every humble home will bless your name if you succeed’. Succeed he did, with the government building 300,000 houses a year. As Prime Minister he continued this, destroying Britain’s final slums and rehousing millions. No modern politician Conservative or otherwise has come close to such an achievement.

Housing supply is now at an all time low, caused in no small part by Thatcherism. Despite such a poisonous legacy, it is almost heretical within the Conservative Party to criticise Thatcher. Believing in what she stood for is in effect the party’s shibboleth. But it is a shibboleth that prevents the Conservatives from examining a crisis that they are set to stumble into, one that will be more catastrophic than Brexit.

The Tories seem blind to the gaping divide between Britain’s property-owning classes and those without. Millions have made asset gains based on the bad policy of Thatcher and her successors, and no Conservative dares challenge this. If groups like Onward and other conservative thinkers do not convince their party to admit these mistakes and return to governing for all, then there is a generation of electoral disaster awaiting the Conservatives. There is only one way Theresa May can defeat Jeremy Corbyn: by recognising that many of his policies are fundamentally conservative.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I honestly expected far better from you.

That's the dictionary definition isn't it?

 

[abelard]

I define "Socialism" as "only those countries where it has failed." Therefore Socialism had demonstrably failed.

Immaculate logic, that. Right up there with "All unmarried men are bachelors."

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Quite. In other words, the term in this sense is totally irrelevant to any discussion of contemporary British politics.

Yet somehow that never stops those who pride themselves on high-minded objectivity and reason from regurgitating it along with so many Daily Mirror headlines, the instant anyone gauche enough not ingratiate themselves to Davos dares suggest moderate reforms bringing British policy back in line with every other more successful country...

...to say nothing of the more successful moments within Britain's own recent past.

I agree that labels are seldom helpful, other than in providing the newspapers with a simple moniker to attach to people and ideas. Equally however, when a term has such fuzzy values associated with it, it does beg the question why its supporters would bother using it? If the socialist ideal in the Marxist sense is no longer relevant, what's the point in using the term?

 

[JimmyJeffers]

I agree that labels are seldom helpful, other than in providing the newspapers with a simple moniker to attach to people and ideas. Equally however, when a term has such fuzzy values associated with it, it does beg the question why its supporters would bother using it? If the socialist ideal in the Marxist sense is no longer relevant, what's the point in using the term?

I think it’s most commonly used now as a label of being in opposition to neoliberalism.