"Obama is a radical far-left socialist!" Really?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm a Socialist and I'm pretty sure that Obama isn't one. Of course he may have been (in some way or other) when he was younger, but then that's hardly an unusual pattern. Let us not forget that his flagship healthcare reforms were significantly less radical than Lloyd George's 'Ambulance Wagon', and that DLG (though a great man and all that) was no socialist.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

sbane, I get the difference between a **European socialist country and the US**. European socialist parties aren't quite the same as they were in the 1960s trying to nationalize every industry they could get their hands on and trying to figure out every way they could increase people on the government payrolls.

What the hell? The 1960s were the golden age of technocratic Revisionist social democracy; people like Wilson, Erlander and Brandt didn't even really believe in nationalisation, except when absolutely necessary. The belief (put as crudely and as simply as possible) was that you could use the booming and semi-planned capitalist economy to fund Socialism. This is basic stuff as well...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...you would be an idiot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

sbane, I get the difference between a **European socialist country and the US**. European socialist parties aren't quite the same as they were in the 1960s trying to nationalize every industry they could get their hands on and trying to figure out every way they could increase people on the government payrolls.

What the hell? The 1960s were the golden age of technocratic Revisionist social democracy; people like Wilson, Erlander and Brandt didn't even really believe in nationalisation, except when absolutely necessary. The belief (put as crudely and as simply as possible) was that you could use the booming and semi-planned capitalist economy to fund Socialism. This is basic stuff as well...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...you would be an idiot.

Coming from you that hilarious.

Yes, I think that determining whether someone is or is not a socialist based on what percentage of GDP they think should be in the public sector is, well, idiotic.

Are you going to address the point I made about Socialism in the Sixties or not?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No its not its quite sensible actually!

There's something inherently amusing about people who complain that other people are irritatingly vague and never back anything up and, yet, never, ever back things up themselves... especially when their claims are so odd.

So, then. Why do you think it is 'quite sensible'? I am, as it happens, a Socialist myself and know a large number of other Socialists. I don't think any of us define our beliefs based on the percentage of GDP in the public sector. Care to enlighten us as to why we are all so very wrong?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Harold Wilson, Tage Erlander and Willy Brandt are hardly random or even unrepresentative examples. Wilson and Erlander hardly nationalised anything (and both ran their respective countries for quite a while; 'quite' being a euphemism in the latter case) and I'm not entirely sure if Brandt ever actually nationalised anything (or if he did it was insignificant in the context of his wider political programme). The dominant ethos of social democratic parties in the 1960s (stretching way out into the 1970s in the case of some) was to to use the proceeds of managed capitalist growth to fund technocratic socialist projects and to boost the standard of living. The decade in which these parties stood for nationalisation in a big way was the 1940s, when capitalism had been discredited in the popular imagination as a result of first the Depression and then the War.

This is all very basic.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually the criticism of you stands.

I suppose it does if the person making the complaint in the first place is the one called upon to uphold it.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Nothing on this site is at all practical, darling.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Why ever not? I might even enjoy myself.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

One or two, but then that's hardly important to my views overall, for what that's worth.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And what would a 'quantitative definition' of 'socialist' be? I can't think of any definition of 'socialist' that covers Obama.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's a shame.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That would be why I mentioned the Prime Minister of Sweden 1946-1969, and the Chancellor of West Germany (1969-1969) who was also the Chairman of the SPD 1964-1987 and the Vice Chancellor 1966-1969.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And how do you define these two groups?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Indeed, this is so. But if the Party is in power, then it is usually the PM that decides policy, to a large extent, and generally the leader is at least vaguely accountable to the rest of the Party. Wilson, incidentally, was the candidate of the left-wing of the Labour Party in the 1963 leadership election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

But that's silly because there was a major difference between the sort of policies advocated by these parties in the 1940s and the 1960s.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I've been doing it here for over eight years now, so who knows.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sibboleth, would you define class action lawyers as production?

I try not to think about lawyers, actually. What has that got to do with anything?

Incidentally, is it possible that you had never actually heard of Brandt?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In the past I've read a decent amount of post WWII European history doesn't mean I remember every Prime Minister, President, and Chancellor over that whole period. To be honest I recognized the name, but couldn't attach it to really any detail.

Considering that Willy Brandt was one of the most important European political figures of the second half of the twentieth century that's... um... actually pretty pathetic. You probably shouldn't be holding forth on this subject if the name 'Willy Brandt' doesn't ring any bells.

Should I also assume that you thought that 'Tage' might have been an English name?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is really quite bizarre behavior, but I suppose you think it is in some way intelligent. If you must know, I queried the question because it didn't seem even vaguely related to the matter at hand.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To you maybe!

No... I think that it is safe to say that the importance of Willy Brandt to post-war European political history is something that there is a bit of a consensus about. And that, as such, perhaps you should refrain from writing from a position of assumed authority about socialist politics (however defined) if his name causes no bells to toll in your cranial cathedral.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, you seem to have assumed it was British, because otherwise your post makes no sense. So... did you think it was a Scottish name? Welsh? Irish?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Can I have a translation of that?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm done with you talking 'at me' and not answering a question because your either incompetent or scared $hitless to answer anybody else's questions.

Bought a mirror lately, doll?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Technically it is an economic activity, but it is not production in a physical sense. Is that an acceptable answer?

Now; will you make an effort to engage with the things I wrote?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The knowledge that Wonkish has never heard of Kafka, or, apparently, Willy Brandt, is very telling.

not exactly common knowledge this side of the pond.

That's really not an excuse if you are holding forth on socialist politics in the 1960s from a position of appointed authority.