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Thread: The so called "Free Press" (MSM) finally busted - and they can't wiggle off the hook now

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    Senior Member heyokah's Avatar
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    It seems that for many the difference between fascism and socialism is very hard to comprehend.
    Perhaps this will help.

    Last edited by heyokah, 28th July 2016 at 19:24.

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    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7SvB9qEpNQ


    Aragorn and bsbray, I really don't have accurate definitions to identify socialists or fascists. Thanks again.

    What is a Liberal? Are they the ones that identify with the 7 point definition as John Locke defines as essential for control of excesses of government on people?

    In the US, insofar as Democrats are identified as Liberals, that label is being improperly used, right?

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    Administrator Aragorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    Aragorn and bsbray, I really don't have accurate definitions to identify socialists or fascists. Thanks again.
    The two videos posted by heyokah in post #16 explain it very well.

    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    What is a Liberal? Are they the ones that identify with the 7 point definition as John Locke defines as essential for control of excesses of government on people?
    Here in Europe, the term "liberal" denotes the capitalist philosophy based upon the work of John Maynard Keynes.

    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    In the US, insofar as Democrats are identified as Liberals, that label is being improperly used, right?
    Yes, it is. In the United States of Acronyms, the term "liberal" is used to denote the members and supporters of the US Democrat Party because of its more progressive stance compared to the members and supporters of the US Republican Party — who are conversely dubbed "conservatives" — on account of certain ethical and social issues. Acronymian right-wingers also tend to broaden that brush a bit by applying the "liberal" moniker to anything that could in any shape or form be considered politically progressive, including ecologists, socialists, et al.

    Among Democratic politicians, there also appears to be a little bit of confusion on account of the difference between liberal and libertine. More often than not, they are of the latter persuasion — e.g. Bill Clinton.

    Hillary Clinton for example is definitely not a progressive politician, even though she is a Democrat. Her political vantages swing with the wind, depending on what she finds most opportune to support in light of her ambition to become the next resident of the White House. Among other things, it is well known that she is a racist and that for that reason alone already, she hates Barack Obama, but as a Democrat and as a presidential candidate, she cannot afford to profile herself as a racist in the media, and she is very well-aware of that.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Senior Member United States Chester's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    I'm highlighting a specific word here...



    It is most definitely not socialist, Sam. The form of government where corporations rule and where politicians are only puppets for those corporations, is called fascism, not socialism.

    Acronymians tend to associate the word "fascism" with Nazi-Germany, but Nazism was Hitler's own form of fascism — and national-socialism has nothing to do with socialism, for that matter. However, the USA — which is the driving force behind globalism — has for a long time already been a fascist nation in every sense of the word, albeit that some aspects of its fascist nature are somewhat shrouded. The following is a short list of elements typically found in fascism:

    • Corporatism. In an overtly fascist regime, there is only one political party, but in the USA, there are two official parties — anything else is called "independent" and doesn't count. Certain states don't even allow an independent candidate to run for office. And there's a reason as to why those people are called "independent", i.e. they do not belong to either of the two parties which are under full corporate control, and which are themselves legal corporations as well.

    • Militarism. The USA is an over-militarized nation. Being a member of the military grants one a higher social status among the population, and especially so if one happens to be a member of the US Marine Corps, which is considered an elite division of the US military. The US Marine Corps was specifically created so as to operate outside of the US borders, by the way, so it's technically not even a defense contingent. The higher social status of US military personnel is also merely a propaganda element, because once those troops come back home from having fought a war — and the USA is perpetually at war, either under its own title or under the cloak of NATO — they are coldly abandoned by their government.

    • Propaganda. The US education system is specifically geared toward indoctrination with propaganda, and given how the USA is entirely controlled by the corporations and devoted to capitalism, the Acronymian population is constantly being flooded with commercials, which are a form of propaganda as well. Furthermore, the US education system is so poor that the average Acronymian has virtually no knowledge of what is (really) going on outside of the USA.

    • Elitism and nationalism. American Exceptionalism is a very real phenomenon, and Barack Obama has himself openly stated on camera — during his speech at the West Point academy in 2015 — that he is a strong believer in American Exceptionalism, i.e. the belief that the USA is superior to any other nation in the world.

    • Emphasis on citizenship and patriotism, as motivational factors for participating in either the corporate world or in the military.

    • Appearances are more important than facts. The make-believe becomes the people's reality. Look at all the TV presenters with their fake hair, whitened teeth or fake boobs, or the amount of attention spent on celebrities in the media. The same tenet extends into the area of presidential elections. It's more about charisma and/or a candidate's affinity with a specific population group than about the candidate's political intentions.

    • Dictatorship. Even though the position of President of the USA is electable, the President will of course always be the serf of the corporations — that's what the bipartisan system was created for — and he (or she) has the power of executive to overrule the US Congress, as well as the power to suspend the US Constitution by declaring a nationwide martial law.

    • Surveillance culture. The NSA is operating outside of the law, and is even intercepting all kinds of IT-related equipment as it ships from the factory, in order to then have it modified and have backdoors installed at a third-party company, after which it is packaged up again professionally and transported to the retailers as it normally would have been.



    All of the above are the properties of fascism, Sam. And through the imperialism of American Exceptionalism and the military hegemony, that fascism is what drives the trend toward globalism.
    Aragorn, you did not read my post that you quoted.

    I will re-quote it here for you highlighting what I think you missed.

    Quote Originally posted by Sam Hunter View Post
    All I pointed out was that here was "proof" the general mainstream media is in bed with those who have the goal of globalization that manifests as a separate ruling (and/or wealthy and/or famous) small "elite" on top of the rest of the world which is made up of a single class all governed by a socialist form of government. Though this example involves the US, I find this the case throughout the western world and perhaps the rest of the globe (in general).
    I did not say "socialism" is what we have now (you accurately identified correctly what we do have now - at least this is mostly the case currently). I said what "they want" and what Caroll Quigley (among many other insiders) pointed out (in Tragedy and Hope) was the ultimate global goal.

    In addition we have Aldous Huxley showing the same type of end game goal (albeit via a fictional futuristic model) in Brave New World.

    I am just calling the spade a spade and just making sure my statements are properly understood.
    Last edited by Chester, 29th July 2016 at 02:41.
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    Senior Member United States Chester's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    I was thinking about this lately and supposedly, from what I have always heard and been taught, socialism is defined basically as the government taking control of and managing private businesses, while fascism is private businesses taking over the government. People can quibble about more complex definitions or focusing on other aspects of socialist/fascist regimes in history, and I remember we have talked about it before, when I posted a link to the fourteen points as outlined by some author. But both socialism and fascism are both very different from free market capitalism in that the government and corporate interests become aligned in both cases.

    In the case of Nazi Germany, we seem to have all been taught to quickly point out that Nazism wasn't actually socialism, despite having socialism in its name, but a form of fascism instead. I was never given very clear reasons on how Nazi Germany was not socialist so I started looking and it looks to me like a lot of nonsense. The Nazi party most certainly took strong control of its industries and economy in general, just as the Soviet Union did. They also instituted limits on the prices that could be charged for certain goods and on the wages that people could be paid. Just like in the USSR, the economy was totally controlled in Nazi Germany.

    Here is a pretty detailed article from the Mises Institute, which is some non-profit organization: Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian


    What really got me thinking about all of this was Hillary Clinton's form of socialism. The Democratic Party in the US has been moving more and more towards socialism at least since the 1940's when a lot of our welfare programs were created. That's not to say that some form of government assistance for the poor and elderly isn't a good thing to have, but it has been a disaster in the US that has destroyed inner cities because of the way it works. The fact is that a candidate like Hillary Clinton could take office and institution a form of government that could either be fascist or socialist at the same time, depending on what aspects of either that you consider, and this got me thinking that they really are not very different, if different at all.

    I know we talked about fascism maybe a month or so ago and I posted those 14 common points, but they apply equally well to the Soviet Union. We know that the USSR was a self-proclaimed Communist government. There seems to be really very little if any difference at all between what fascist and socialist governments implement in practice.

    So that leads me to the strong suspicion that the only reason we are told that the Nazis were not socialists, is because socialism is alive and well today in the globalist agenda and "someone" doesn't want people to be pointing out such dramatic examples of what it produces.



    And Communism, and all of those things you listed are faults that can be found equally among European governments that lean far to the left, that many in the US would consider socialist regardless of what they call themselves. Unfortunately I am beginning to see that the same thing is going on today as was going on in pre-war Germany, just in a more sneaky way, and it could be labelled socialism or fascism and either would work well enough.
    Precisely - and so its good to call a spade a spade (which is a local expression that means "to call it like it actually is).

    I don't have any answers but do well know that when the press is in bed with an elite that lies far behind (and above) the scenes, where democrat and republican are convenient labels to pin on fictitious foes all meant to create the illusion at the level of your average Joe that their vote matters. Why the press here obviously massively favors "the democrats" is part because they perceive their goal will be achieved faster by putting these leftists in power and keeping them there. So the whole point of the thread is that the press was "busted" where no one can deny their complicity instead of the mandate they are "the free press." I am unsure if democracy is the best possible system but what I am very sure of is that unless the press is free and reports everything without bias, democracy is undermined by the interests of those who pay off or are in bed with the press.

    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Well, no, if the government is taking over (all of) the private businesses, then that is state capitalism. In socialism, the state — which is formed by the people, not by the government, although in practice, it usually does boil down to that — controls the shared resources, but it does not preclude private initiatives. In true communism, everyone is an employee of the state, regardless of their occupation.



    I do not agree with the author of that article, because they are overlooking a number of important aspects on account of the distinction between Nazism and socialism. For instance, putting limits on wages and prices is not socialism, even though there is a superficial resemblance. In socialism, people are normally paid equal wages regardless of their profession. That was definitely not the case in Nazi-Germany.

    Adolf Hitler's role model was Benito Mussolini, but Hitler did use the cloak of socialism as a populist means for working himself into a position of power, and his own philosophy of ethnic purification ultimately superseded the original fascist model that Mussolini had implemented in Italy. For instance, Mussolini's Italy was not racist, whereas the Aryan race and the concept of ethnic purity were very important to Adolf Hitler.

    National-socialism only disguised itself as socialism, but it wasn't. First of all, there was no egalitarianism, which is what socialism is all about. Secondly, the Nazi party was an independent and private entity, and the SS and SA were private militias. Of course, with Hitler being a dictator, there was very little discernible separation anymore between the concept of government on the one hand, and Hitler as a person and the NSDAP and its subsidiaries on the other hand. De facto, it had all become the same thing. However, Hitler's economic policies should still be considered mercantile, not socialist, because it was decisively nationalist in nature without being egalitarian.

    True socialism, for that matter, is anti-authoritarian. From the moment on that authoritarianism is involved — as was the case in the Soviet Union — the government fails to be a representation of the people. Furthermore, humans being humans, even socialist and communist regimes are not immune to either moral and/or financial corruption. The Soviet Union, China, North Korea and North Vietnam have all been exemplary in manifesting such corruption.

    In addition to the above, a truly socialist nation will always have a hard time surviving — especially without suffering corruption — when it has to exist as an enclave within an otherwise capitalist environment, as the whole world has already long been. The trend of globalism officially takes that capitalist/corporatist reign to a whole other level again, but it is a fact that the whole world has already been under the rule of the petrodollar for many decades.
    I don't agree with almost everything stated in your post, Aragorn. But this does not make me right or you right. I humbly agree to disagree.

    BUT! Because I respect you, I will watch those two videos and maybe I will learn something I thought I knew but that I didn't actually know.
    Last edited by Chester, 28th July 2016 at 23:18.
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    Quote Originally posted by Sam Hunter View Post
    Aragorn, you did not read my post that you quoted.

    I will re-quote it here for you highlighting what i think you missed.

    [...]

    I did not say "socialism" is what we have now (you accurately identified correctly what we do have now - at least this is mostly the case currently). I said what "they want" and what Caroll Quigley (among many other insiders) pointed out (in Tragedy and Hope) was the ultimate global goal.

    In addition we have Aldous Huxley showing the same type of end game goal (albeit via a fictional futuristic model) in Brave New World.

    I am just calling the spade a spade and just making sure my statements are properly understood.
    It is exactly the persistent claim by those people who like "pointing out" — Joseph P. Farrell being or at any rate having been one of them — that there would be a socialist agenda playing out, which I was hoping to debunk with actual information on what socialism is and what it is not, Sam. No more, no less. I am a European, and over here in Europe, "socialism" isn't a dirty word like it is in the United States of Acronyms, as Richard D. Wolff so eloquently explains in the two videos posted by heyokah.

    I also always write my posts while keeping in mind that the person I'm replying to is (hopefully) not the only person who will get to see my reply. But then again, I've also already written very elaborate and — if I say so myself — thoroughly explanatory posts which not even the people who had started the thread that I posted them on cared to even look at. I suspect a psychological connection with the "Thanks" button problem.



    Humans are a funny species.





    Quote Originally posted by Sam Hunter View Post
    Precisely - and so its good to call a spade a spade (which is a local expression that means "to call it like it actually is).
    I am very familiar with the expression, but unfortunately, that which is being called a spade is actually a shovel. And, again, this was what I sought to point out.

    Quote Originally posted by Sam Hunter View Post
    I don't agree with almost everything stated in your post, Aragorn. But this does not make me right or you right. I humbly agree to disagree.

    BUT! Because I respect you, I will watch those two videos and maybe I will learn something I thought I knew but that I didn't actually know.
    I am hopeful that, after watching those videos, you will come to see the difference between spades and shovels, my friend.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Nowadays, the press reports according to what the editors and owners want. It's about money, plain and simple. We haven't had a free press most of my life. When the FCC did away with the major media ownership restrictions, it was a big nail in the coffin of real media competition. But even then, it was still about money and not about actual reporting and journalism.

    Do we really even have a fourth estate anymore?

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    When the FCC did away with the major media ownership restrictions, it was a big nail in the coffin of real media competition.
    Real competition is the real problem we have in this country across the board these days. "Real" competition doesn't exist. I have this ongoing argument with my father, a "self-made" baby boomer who honestly believes that capitalism still works, and that this is the land of opportunity where anyone can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." If that ever truly was the case, I don't believe it is even remotely true anymore. Tell that to people in extreme poverty, people who are the "wrong" gender or ethnicity. Tell that to all the small local business owners who were wiped out when Walmart came to town. Lol - tell that to any Democrat who tried to take on Hillary Clinton this year.

    The game is fixed. All the games are fixed.

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    My dad still believes it too. And he really did pull himself up by his bootstraps. But the baby boomers had opportunities coming up out of the sewers. There were jobs and new markets all the time. It's not like that now. Our fastest developing economic sectors require very specialized knowledge and there aren't any good paying basic jobs. People don't take responsibility. They just play the blame game.

    I can't begin to tell you how happy I am for my son being able to make his own way (for the most part) right out of college. It's gonna take him a while to establish his career, but he's en route. It takes a lot of worry off my shoulders.

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    Quote Originally posted by Rebel&Rocket View Post
    Real competition is the real problem we have in this country across the board these days. "Real" competition doesn't exist. I have this ongoing argument with my father, a "self-made" baby boomer who honestly believes that capitalism still works, and that this is the land of opportunity where anyone can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." If that ever truly was the case, I don't believe it is even remotely true anymore. Tell that to people in extreme poverty, people who are the "wrong" gender or ethnicity. Tell that to all the small local business owners who were wiped out when Walmart came to town. Lol - tell that to any Democrat who tried to take on Hillary Clinton this year.

    The game is fixed. All the games are fixed.
    Yes... and IMO, for what it is worth, the underlying (and far more important issue) is the degree of greed found within humanity where no matter what governmental system is in place, the masses are screwed.
    All the above is all and only my opinion. It may contain some sharing of components of my current operating strategy and some foundational components of my current world view - all subject to change and not meant to be true for anyone else regardless of how I phrase it.

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    I watched enough of the first video to realize it was a biased view and therefore hard to separate what may be actual truth from propaganda.

    But I am happy to have started this thread as I was led to the realization (speaking only for myself with regards to this being an opinion) that greed undermines any system and that greed is a result of a world view undermined by materialism as a metaphysics and cosmology.

    It is also my opinion that my world view which is best referred to as a "monistic idealism" has reduced my own greed levels.

    My "dream" is that folks look closely at their own metaphysical world views and consider the options carefully.

    No shovel or spade needed. No need for descending into an unwinnable discussion as to which system "is better."
    All the above is all and only my opinion. It may contain some sharing of components of my current operating strategy and some foundational components of my current world view - all subject to change and not meant to be true for anyone else regardless of how I phrase it.

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    Quote Originally posted by Sam Hunter View Post
    I watched enough of the first video to realize it was a biased view and therefore hard to separate what may be actual truth from propaganda.
    I'm sorry you feel that way, Sam, and that you didn't watch that video in its entirety, let alone watch both videos. I have watched them both, and I can find no bias in the man's presentation.

    The unbiased theory behind different political systems was part of my high school education, and as such, I know that everything Richard Wolff explains in those videos is historically correct, and far more correct than the general opinion among most Acronymians of what socialism is and what it isn't.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    I do not agree with the author of that article, because they are overlooking a number of important aspects on account of the distinction between Nazism and socialism. For instance, putting limits on wages and prices is not socialism, even though there is a superficial resemblance. In socialism, people are normally paid equal wages regardless of their profession. That was definitely not the case in Nazi-Germany.
    Is there any example of a socialist nation where everyone really is paid the same amount of money for the work they do? I'm just curious, because it seems to me like it would be a totally untenable position. If you pay someone who breaks his back doing manual labor, the same amount as you pay someone piddling around at a desk all day, it seems the incentive would be for everyone to get the most comfortable job possible. I would be curious how a nation could get this equal pay idea to work in practice without in some way compelling people to do the more unpleasant forms of labor.

    National-socialism only disguised itself as socialism, but it wasn't. First of all, there was no egalitarianism, which is what socialism is all about. Secondly, the Nazi party was an independent and private entity, and the SS and SA were private militias. Of course, with Hitler being a dictator, there was very little discernible separation anymore between the concept of government on the one hand, and Hitler as a person and the NSDAP and its subsidiaries on the other hand. De facto, it had all become the same thing. However, Hitler's economic policies should still be considered mercantile, not socialist, because it was decisively nationalist in nature without being egalitarian.
    Another thing to keep in mind with Germany as a case study is that it was a young nation at this point and had only been held together by authoritarian governments prior to the Weimar Republic. After that experiment with democracy (and apparently many Germans felt it was forced upon them after WW1) a lot of Germans weren't happy and wanted strong, authoritarian leaders to return and lead the country with more initiative. This had to have at least played a major part in allowing a dictatorship to develop so easily and blatantly, because many Germans were more comfortable with rule by a Kaiser anyway.

    The US is supposed to be egalitarian but most people realize by now that you have people like Hillary Clinton who can go around breaking laws pretty openly and not be held accountable for it, or Tony Blair in the UK if we consider a recent report there in relation to the Iraq War. I suspect most, if not all governments, regardless of system of government, are in a similar situation.

    True socialism, for that matter, is anti-authoritarian. From the moment on that authoritarianism is involved — as was the case in the Soviet Union — the government fails to be a representation of the people. Furthermore, humans being humans, even socialist and communist regimes are not immune to either moral and/or financial corruption. The Soviet Union, China, North Korea and North Vietnam have all been exemplary in manifesting such corruption.
    We need more examples of countries where socialism has worked wonders, I guess, to see what it ultimately produces.

    In addition to the above, a truly socialist nation will always have a hard time surviving — especially without suffering corruption — when it has to exist as an enclave within an otherwise capitalist environment, as the whole world has already long been. The trend of globalism officially takes that capitalist/corporatist reign to a whole other level again, but it is a fact that the whole world has already been under the rule of the petrodollar for many decades.
    What is it about capitalist practices that makes it so hard for true socialism to be successfully implemented?

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    Quote Originally posted by heyokah View Post
    It seems that for many the difference between fascism and socialism is very hard to comprehend.
    Perhaps this will help.
    I think it's not as difficult to find the differences in theory as it is to find the differences in what either system finally produces in practice: an authoritarian system featuring collusion between corporations, finance and government.

    Free market capitalism forbids government interference in business, and none of us experience that anymore. I think the government should interfere in businesses only to break up monopolies that have choked out their competition. Then if we enforced laws making sure things like bribery are not taking place (including "lobbying"), there is no reason why we can't break this collusion up and hold our political officials more accountable for ensuring fair competition.

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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    I do not agree with the author of that article, because they are overlooking a number of important aspects on account of the distinction between Nazism and socialism. For instance, putting limits on wages and prices is not socialism, even though there is a superficial resemblance. In socialism, people are normally paid equal wages regardless of their profession. That was definitely not the case in Nazi-Germany.
    Is there any example of a socialist nation where everyone really is paid the same amount of money for the work they do? I'm just curious, because it seems to me like it would be a totally untenable position. If you pay someone who breaks his back doing manual labor, the same amount as you pay someone piddling around at a desk all day, it seems the incentive would be for everyone to get the most comfortable job possible. I would be curious how a nation could get this equal pay idea to work in practice without in some way compelling people to do the more unpleasant forms of labor.
    I don't know of any concrete examples. Maybe Cuba, but I'm afraid I have very little information on that, given that Cuba has existed behind an embargo wall until very recently. So it has been very difficult — at least, for us here in Europe — to get any factual data from there. And the information about Cuba that does reach us through our mainstream news media over here is invariably biased in favor of capitalism. The last thing a fish would ever question is the water it swims in, and journalists are no exception to that rule.

    The biggest problem however with regard to the actualization of a truly socialist society lies in how people value money. If everyone is receiving the same wages, then ideally — note the emphasis — people would not be considering money a gateway to success anymore, because the path to individual success would not be based upon competition and would — again ideally — be provided for by the rest of society. In capitalism, money is the only gateway to success, and this is both enforced and manipulated through the creation of artificial scarcity.

    The key, as I see it, is to not have money be the motivator anymore for one's contributions to the functioning of society. Some people are better at doing hard labor because they have the physique for it, and they may not have any interest in, say, sciences, while they may even thoroughly enjoy doing hard labor. Others might be better at other things — e.g. doctors, scientists, teachers — and would be contributing to society in that manner. We're all individuals, and we all have to contribute in our own way.

    One of the problems that would-be socialist regimes have always created for themselves was the collectivist approach, where they didn't look at each individual's qualities and weaknesses, but truly regarded everyone as having the same qualities and weaknesses. And that is of course bound to fail. While there might be surgeons out there who also happen to enjoy farming or working on car engines, that certainly does not apply to all surgeons, if you know what I mean. So if you force surgeons, scientists and other academically inclined individuals to spend their entire lives working the potato fields, then you're going to breed dissent.

    Furthermore, collectivism is a consequence of setting the state before the individual, and that in itself is rather typical of fascism. "You have to be a good citizen and serve your country by doing what your country needs you to do" — note that it'll usually say "your country", rather than "the country".

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    True socialism, for that matter, is anti-authoritarian. From the moment on that authoritarianism is involved — as was the case in the Soviet Union — the government fails to be a representation of the people. Furthermore, humans being humans, even socialist and communist regimes are not immune to either moral and/or financial corruption. The Soviet Union, China, North Korea and North Vietnam have all been exemplary in manifesting such corruption.
    We need more examples of countries where socialism has worked wonders, I guess, to see what it ultimately produces.
    So far, true socialism has never successfully manifested itself anywhere in larger societies — maybe in a few local communities, but certainly not at a nationwide level. And the reason for that is — as Richard Wolff explains — that most socialist revolutionaries got stuck at the stage where the people cease control over the government, without having a plan on how to proceed from there. In the former Soviet Union, Stalin claimed a victory for socialism while all he had achieved was state capitalism, and to the best of my knowledge, no would-be socialist nation has ever passed beyond that stage of state capitalism.

    That, and then there is of course the corruption. Humans being humans, the system of quid pro quo has always stimulated corruptibility.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    In addition to the above, a truly socialist nation will always have a hard time surviving — especially without suffering corruption — when it has to exist as an enclave within an otherwise capitalist environment, as the whole world has already long been. The trend of globalism officially takes that capitalist/corporatist reign to a whole other level again, but it is a fact that the whole world has already been under the rule of the petrodollar for many decades.
    What is it about capitalist practices that makes it so hard for true socialism to be successfully implemented?
    Well, there are different factors at play in that regard. First of all, there's the problem which almost every nation in the world has to deal with, which is that you cannot subsist on national produce alone. You will always need some kind of international trade to bring in resources which are not available locally, and to export products of which there is a surplus locally. As such, a socialist nation would have to make concessions and conduct its international trading according to the principles of capitalism. Throw in a couple of embargoes and perhaps a couple of CIA/MI5/Mossad infiltrators, and there you have it.

    Or in the other case, you may have to let foreign (and multinational) corporations into the country, and then suddenly the products all become much more expensive, and when everyone has been working at very low wages, then the prospect of suddenly being able to get more money becomes very tempting. That's the moral corruption sneaking in, like a poison. That's also what happened in what was formerly called East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

    Would-be socialist regimes do recognize that temptation, and this is why they commonly resort to oppressive measures and to keeping the population dumbed down and indoctrinated through propaganda, as is for instance the case in North Korea, where there is a radio installed in every home, but it cannot be switched off and it cannot be tuned to anything other than the state-owned and propaganda-filled news service. This oppressive/repressive approach is of course utterly wrong, both ethically and strategically, because it only causes their impoverished population to yearn even more for capitalism.

    Thirdly, capitalism in and of itself inevitably leads to corporatism. Bigger corporations make life hard for the smaller entrepreneurs and end up assimilating those smaller enterprises. We see it all the time. Look at the car industry. How many different marques does General Motors own? Or FIAT? Or the Volkswagen Group? We also see it in the mainstream news and entertainment media.

    Ultimately, the bigger fish will always eat the smaller fish, and will then become even bigger fish. And then what you end up with is a monopoly. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, et al. They're all monopolists. And when you have such a monopoly — especially if it's a true and absolute monopoly, where there exists no competition in that specific field anymore whatsoever — then what you have is an economic coup d'état, where the corporation holds even the government hostage, regardless of what kind of government it is; it could be a socialist government, it could be a capitalist government, it doesn't matter. Because corporations operate like a clinical psychopath and they are driven by a solipsist greed and lust for power. Internally, virtually every corporation maintains all the traits of a miniature fascist state.

    The bottom line is that, no matter what financial-economic system you choose for your country, you can never get by without regulation. Without regulation, you're going to have the law of the jungle running amok in your society. But given how money is considered a gateway to happiness — and then I'm not even going to touch upon the really greedy and power-hungry psychopaths — it will always work as a temptation and/or a motivator for certain groups of people to want to have "more than the others".

    And that's because money, in and of itself, is a tool by which artificial scarcity can be created. If you take away the money but you don't deal with the problem of artificial scarcity, then something else will simply end up replacing money as the gateway. Before there was money, there were other forms of barter. Precious metals have always been such a tool, and in fact, what money is supposed to represent is a share in the nation's reserve of precious metals — and most specifically, gold.

    The solution is to come to a society where everyone is truly regarded as equal, and where materialism is no longer a consideration on account of one's commitment to maintaining the balance of society. And the only way to do that is to get rid of artificial scarcity. Because that's the root of all evil, in my opinion.

    Does that make me a socialist? I don't know. I like calling myself "a progressive" in that regard, so that I wouldn't have to label myself with the same stigma as what made all the so-called socialists here in Europe into hypocrites.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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