Talk Elections

Freedom ideology or Horrible ideology or just too diverse to categorize?

Does it offer any real solutions to the problems we face today?

Horrible ideoology.

Option 3, of course. There's a massive difference between socialism in Sweden and socialism in Cuba.

Though, overall, I have a higher opinion of socialism than either capitalism or neo-mercantilism.

All reasonable political-economic ideologies have the latent potential to deliver "real solutions" to the problems we face today. Choosing one over others is just a matter of our moral preferences.

Emphasis on 'latent'. As practiced some are certainly more practicable and helpful than others.

Silly, misguided ideology. Believers are to be pitied and guided towards the light of liberalism.

Option 3, definitely.  There is a pretty huge difference depending on what time period and what movement you're talking about.  I'd have been a Saint-Simonian had I been alive in the 1820s, for example.  At least, I like to think I would...I think living in Bourbon France would've radicalized me to that extent.  In the UK of that period someone like me would likely become a Utilitarian Philosophic Radical...it's late.  Why am I thinking about whether 1820s me would be starry-eyed over the comte de Saint Simon or Jeremy Bentham?

Nordic Model- Very FI
Every single other form- HI

Freedom ideology (The Nordic version, that is).

Jaurès too?
And what about this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara)?

Good ideas, but he was a Tyrant.

Voted FI assuming we're talking about the principles behind it - public ownership, greater social equality, redistribution of wealth etc.

In the original meaning of the word, I concede. And It's probable He would transition to the common meaning, as other similar leaders on that conditions awfuly did, many of them to be worse than the plague. But as He fell before It, I regard him as a mega FF.
I still not know if You think Jaurès had a HI, too.

Social democracy - Freedom ideology
Democratic socialism - Mixed
Revolutionary socialism/Marxism/Marxism-Leninism/Communism - Horrible ideology

I self identify as a social democrat, so I might be a tad biased. :P

Which socialism? :P

Like capitalism, it is a terrible idea when brought to all its logical conclusions, and a very good one when conceived with some pragmatism.

You still don't understand what socialism is.

The world needs more of it

Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production by society. It is not a welfare state, it is not state ownership of a few industries, and it is not state capitalism.

Marxism is logical from analysis of material conditions.

Since I've not changed my mind from the last time we discussed about it, it means that you didn't manage to convince me.

Then the only explanation is that you're too dumb. After all, this is the great Xahar here.

Here I was going to say that he doesn't understand what capitalism is. Capitalism doesn't really have "logical conclusions."

Horrible, like all political "Ideologies".

Learning to let go of ideology is perhaps the greatest lesson I've learned, it allows me to think freely (kind of like atheism really).

Either way, the positioning of capitalism and socialism as though they're equivalent and diametrically opposed is incorrect.

I have never said that. "Diametrically opposite" obviously makes no sense in the context of ideologies.

If you actually think that... then... well... I'm afraid that I have some very bad news for you.

Capitalism is most definitely not an ideology, unless you're writing from a gloriously archaic Marxist point of view...

Are we talking about actual Socialism and not some American GOP boogeyman? Well in that case, then while some Socialist parties around the world are good, from an economic standpoint, it's hard not to see it as discredited.

Yes, the other thing is utterly uninteresting. Given that we cant have unlimited growth in the future for ecological reasons socialist economic thinking with an emphasis on distribution of resources and government planning may have a comeback at some point in the future.

Okay, maybe not the greatest lesson I've ever learned (brushing my tongue while brushing my teeth to give me fresh breath is probably the greatest lesson I've ever learned), but it's up there.

Obviously, not being beholden to a consistent pattern of thought has it's benefits.  You don't ever have to defend something for being "not (insert x here)".

An ideology is, in its essence, a logically consistent way of viewing the world. That's important.

Since 'what is socialism?' seems to be sort of the point of this thread, a post like that begs for some further explanation of your definition of socialism.

You are missing the most important part of the principle, democratic control of production which is probably the most Freedom part of the Ideology.Explain how democratic control of production is discredited?

I am pretty sure he was referring to centralized planning, which is not really democratic anyway.

Depends on what kind.
Communism (as in, what Marx actually intended by it) Misguided, unrealistic. 
Leninism: A failure
Maoism: A failure
Trotskyism: Loony
Stalinism: A perverse disgrace to true socialism, even more than the ideologies already mentioned. 
Democratic Socialism: Good, but without all the industrial nationalizations please, and with economic democracy in the private sector, rather than having central planning.
Social Democracy, traditional style: Very good.  In the Scandinavian form, it works quite well. 
Social Democracy, Third Way style: a sellout to win more votes, and an insult to true socialism.

It varies.

Marxism is loony and misguided, whereas Stalinist socialism is a HI.
Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism however are FI's.

This. However, sometimes I think we should read Marx again to pick some of his ideas, because we can't be considered lefties anymore... That after Tony Blair, Papandreu or even Zapatero.

If by 'democratic control' you mean central planning and/or abolition of private property...really? How is it not discredited?

Everyone (well, almost everyone) agrees central planning has been discredited, but a model with workers ownership - either alone or combined with community ownership (municipalities, cooperatives etc.) - has not. There are numerous potential problems with such a model, but since it hasn't been tried full scale in a whole society, you cant say it has been discredited.

Conversely, how is it that private privilege and control of others through 'property' not discredited?  We see the carnage all around us.

Oh, that might be the biggest increase in public welfare and the greatest eradication of poverty the world has ever seen which is playing its tricks. I understand that might be discrediting from your point of view, since you like the poor to starve and get shot, but not to most people.

Politicus, that a model has never even been tried is not a major strike in its favour. :P

Yes, nearly everyone, like you, believes that about the social order.  Looks rather like propaganda viewed from the bottom up though, n'est-ce pas?

No, thats obvious. But you cant say that it has been discredited.

Elements of it has been implemented in Israel - espcially in the 50s and 60s.
The whole concept of a decentralised Socialist market economy is interesting. It is remarkable  that the Left has mostly stopped advocating an alternative to capitalism (as opposed to market economy) after the collapse of the Soviet model, without trying to develop viable alternatives. 

If one were to ask my grandmother, who's sister died at childbirth, who never got to attend university and had to spend most of her life washing and cleaning by hand whether life got better over the last century I don't think she would consider it propaganda.

Your worldview is only possible to believe from a very privileged position (actually, not even then, since it requires severe delusion as well).

I would say that organizational experience in general pretty much discredits it, as does the reorganizing of production in general over the last couple of centuries.

Of course no one would define 'liberalism' as the rigid adherence to the economic policies of the 19th century.

Like I said earlier there are numerous potential problems associated with the concept, like how to benefit from economy of scale without destroying the democratic element, how to fire unnecessary/redundant workers and how to compensate public employees, who doesnt directly "produce" anything, that can be sold on a market.
But it is still surprising, that so few left wingers are working with the development of an alternative economic model.

Anyway it would be interesting if you could elaborate a bit on your two points. Too much guess-work when you present them in such an ultra short form.

Sorry, Gustaf, I had understood that in this thread we were being called upon to analyze systems of social control, not historical time periods.

The "decentralized model of Socialist control" has been tried, most notably in Yugoslavia, and produced this crap:

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Admittedly, it produced better results than contemporary fully centrally-planned systems, but that says more about those systems than "decentralized Socialist control."

The 'Yugo' was a good car, wormy, and more to the point it was anyway a near-exact copy of the Fiat 127 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_127), also a good car and the product of a capitalist economy:

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The car that scored last in the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey every year it was sold?  Whatever you want to believe, peebs.  (And Zastava had even worse quality control than "Fix It Again Tony").

Thats not at all what we are talking about here. Yugoslavia was not a democracy and its model was not market based (even if it did have some market elements).

No, if you read my post you will see that the point was that the Yugo was a copy of the Fiat 127, which did originate from a capitalist economy - Italy.

wormy, J.D. Power surveys American new car buyers, a group whose opinion has no bearing on whether a car is 'good' or not.  Its like asking the people leaving McDonalds to rate Michelin's stars.

Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot - while Italian and French automobile companies have poor reputations in America, they produced some of the most durable, cleverly designed cars in history.   And in point of fact their East European emulators did a much better job than they are given credit for - many East European cars were rugged and effective basic transportation.

Anarcho-syndicalism?  Considering that that's not at all what most people (even most socialists) think of when they hear "Socialism..."

New car buyers were the only people available to poll, since Yugos generally didn't make it to their second buyer (for that matter, most people leaving McDonalds would say that they were satisfied with their meal).  While I have seen plenty of Geo Metros and Volkswagen Rabbits and even Dodge Omnis on the road, I can't say I've seen too many Yugos (or French and Italian cars, for that matter).  The reason why is because they were pieces of crap that fell apart.  As for Eastern European cars, while copying 10-year-old crappy (and capitalist) econoboxes occasionally produced something semi-reliable, that would be cold comfort to the worker who had to save for ten years to afford one and then wait another decade for it to be delivered.

Anarcho-syndicalism is usually the first or second thing I think of first when I hear "communism," but I am actually pretty sympathetic to what Politicus has talking about here.

For instance, if you'll pardon me rambling for a few moments, the sort of socialism I've got in mind is not about nationalization or even having a bunch of parastatal industries. Instead I'd like to see cooperatives owned by their workers, and run either by those same people or by administrators and/or managers they elect, compete with one another in moderately regulated markets, while a social democratic welfare regime exists not to massively redistribute assets from the rich to poor for the sake of "equality of outcomes" so much as to guarantee a basic - not necessarily comfortable, much less lavish - level of human dignity, make certain strategic, long-term investments that the cooperatives themselves are unlikely to make out of rational self-interest (i.e. take externalities into account), and aim for increasing equality of opportunity so people who want to work hard can more readily do so, flourish from it, and in the process enrich society as a whole.

Meaningful human development - that which benefits and can be enjoyed by all without having to wait for new privileges to slowly "trickle down" - demands a fairer competitive environment. Also, I would want to mold a widespread perception of classlessness amongst the people (despite our inherent inequality) as part of a larger, secular approach to building solidarity and wholesome cultural values that are conducive to preserving a respectable work ethic. But to make it work, there must be incentives for good behavior. The Left must broaden its focus on social justice and caring for the victims of oppression to pragmatically include means of coping with the fact that part of human nature (regardless of ones socioeconomic background) is not exactly coated in sunshine and sprinkles. In a sense, though I'm bound to make many mistakes in my reasoning along the way, I want socialism to put markets to even better use than did liberalism or mercantilism before it. Past experiments have yielded valuable information that can be used for doing better next time.

Some people are probably going to say I am talking about social democracy, the Third Way, or some twisted form of capitalism, but I am more inclined to agree with Mr. Gorbachev, who once said, "The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism." Someday if people really want to tinker with collectivization again that's fine but for the time being I feel socialism - an economic system which as its highest priority is designed to have capital utilized so as to advance the material interests of all people - can best ensure the general welfare, deliver social rights, and provide life-improving opportunities to us by harnessing individualism, and better mediating - not trying to end - forms of conflict for control, and privilege-bestowing use, of capital.

Perhaps I don't make a whole lot of sense when I go on about such things though. I am not exactly known for neatly, concisely (or at times even coherently) expressing complicated thoughts - especially if I don't set aside hours to ruminate about it in advance. Oh well, I'm sure someone well tear me a new one over this tomorrow! O.o

Essentially, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of production requires quite a bit of hierarchy as well as clearly defined property rights.

I don't know if you're familiar with the old libertarian "Pen" thing where you analyze how many people contribute to making a pen. I think there is a youtube clip where Friedman talks about it. The point (no pun intended) of that is to demonstrate that production in the modern world is extremely complex. You have to combine hundreds of people to create the goods we use every day. Thus, these people have to be coordinated. The market has turned out to do a pretty good job of that - the oft-ridiculed invisible hand works quite well at coordinating people via prices into efficient production and cooperation.

Planned economies have turned out to do so much less effectively. It seems to me that it would be very unfeasible, under most circumstances, to produce things without either state imperatives or price mechanisms.

I think that what people like you envision is something like 10 people working on a field. But the global economy is extremely interconnected. The production chain of any normal good would include hundreds, if not thousands, of people spread all over the globe. They can't form a collective for production.

Actually no, the reason you didn't see them is because they sold a tiny fraction of the numbers of Geo Metros and Dodge Omnis sold.  You hardly ever saw them when they were brand new.  (don't get me started on Volkswagens - terrible cars).

However it is true that Eastern European, Italian, and French cars were not ideally suited to american driving conditions, and were also very ill-supported by dealer networks, repair shops, and parts suppliers.  Many of these cars had good reputations for robust durability back home where there was a support network, the roads were not heavily salted, and most driving was done at lower speeds on twistier roads.

The counter-part of Capitalism.

Would have its future, and the one of its declination, tied to the future of Capitalism and of its declinations then.

And since I don't give a lot of future to Capitalism...

Yeah, it's not as if they hadn't a wonderful design ^^:

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Very few French attempts in America, mainly Renault (I found all the cars they sold there here (http://youngtimerz.forumactif.com/t20-historique-de-renault-aux-etats-unis), scroll for pics), and the one I posted seems to have been the biggest attempt.

I wanted to vote "Option 3", but I voted "Option 1" as socialism infers the subscribers basic belief of an intrinsic optimism when it comes to humanity... which is where I see the human race naturally heading towards over the course of thousands of years (if we can make it through the age of culture/religious/political conflict while we have destructive weapons at our disposal).