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Forum Post: Trotsky on What a Socialist America would look like

Posted 11 years ago on April 27, 2012, 1:46 p.m. EST by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Leon Trotsky was a founder of the Russian Revolution and critic of Stalin. He claimed Russia was no longer socialist once Stalin came into power. He wrote a letter explaining why socialism in the US would be vastly different than socialism in Russia since Russia was a backwards, medieval, undeveloped society:

.

If America Should Go Communist

Should America go communist as a result of the difficulties and problems that your capitalist social order is unable to solve, it will discover that communism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance.

At present most Americans regard communism solely in the light of the experience of the Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the Soviet Union.

They fear lest communism should try to fit them to a bed of Procrustes, and they point to the bulwark of Anglo-Saxon conservatism as an insuperable obstacle even to possibly desirable reforms. They argue that Great Britain and Japan would undertake military intervention against the American soviets. They shudder lest Americans be regimented in their habits of dress and diet, be compelled to subsist on famine rations, be forced to read stereotyped official propaganda in the newspapers, be coerced to serve as rubber stamps for decisions arrived at without their active participation or be required to keep their thoughts to themselves and loudly praise their soviet leaders in public, through fear of imprisonment and exile.

They fear monetary inflation, bureaucratic tyranny and intolerable red tape in obtaining the necessities of life. They fear soulless standardization in the arts and sciences, as well as in the daily necessities of life. They fear that all political spontaneity and the presumed freedom of the press will be destroyed by the dictatorship of a monstrous bureaucracy. And they shudder at the thought of being forced into an uncomprehended glibness in Marxist dialectic and disciplined social philosophies. They fear, in a word, that Soviet America will become the counterpart of what they have been told Soviet Russia looks like.

Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II. Yet communism can come in America only through revolution, just as independence and democracy came in America. The American temperament is energetic and violent, and it will insist on breaking a good many dishes and upsetting a good many apple carts before communism is firmly established. Americans are enthusiasts and sportsmen before they are specialists and statesmen, and it would be contrary to the American tradition to make a major change without choosing sides and cracking heads.

However, the American communist revolution will be insignificant compared to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, in terms of your national wealth and population, no matter how great its comparative cost. That is because civil war of a revolutionary nature isn’t fought by the handful of men at the top – the 5 or 10 percent who own nine-tenths of American wealth; this handful could recruit its counterrevolutionary armies only from among the lower middle classes. Even so, the revolution could easily attract them to its banner by showing that support of the soviets alone offers them the prospect of salvation.

Everybody below this group is already economically prepared for communism. The depression has ravaged your working class and has dealt a crushing blow to the farmers, who had already been injured by the long agricultural decline of the postwar decade. There is no reason why these groups should counterpose determined resistance to the revolution; they have nothing to lose, providing, of course, that the revolutionary leaders adopt a farsightcd and moderate policy toward them.

Who else will fight against communism? Your corporal’s guard of billionaires and multimillionaires? Your Mellons, Morgans, Fords and Rockefellers? They will cease struggling as soon as they fail to find other people to fight for them.

The American soviet government will take firm possession of the commanding heights of your business system: the banks, the key industries and the transportation and communication systems. It will then give the farmers, the small tradespeople and businessmen a good long time to think things over and see how well the nationalized section of industry is working.

Here is where the American soviets can produce real miracles. "Technocracy" can come true only under communism, when the dead hands of private property rights and private profits are lifted from your industrial system. The most daring proposals of the Hoover commission on standardization and rationalization will seem childish compared to the new possibilities let loose by American communism.

National industry will be organized along the line of the conveyor belt in your modern continuous-production automotive factories. Scientific planning can be lifted out of the individual factory and applied to your entire economic system. The results will be stupendous.

Costs of production will be cut to 20 percent, or less, of their present figure. This, in turn, would rapidly increase your farmers’ purchasing power.

To be sure, the American soviets would establish their own gigantic farm enterprises, as schools of voluntary collectivization. Your farmers could easily calculate whether it was to their individual advantage to remain as isolated links or to join the public chain.

The same method would be used to draw small businesses and industries into the national organization of industry. By soviet control of raw materials, credits and quotas of orders, these secondary industries could be kept solvent until they were gradually and without compulsion sucked into the socialized business system.

Without compulsion! The American soviets would not need to resort to the drastic measures that circumstances have often imposed upon the Russians. In the United States, through the science of publicity and advertising, you have means for winning the support of your middle class that were beyond the reach of the soviets of backward Russia with its vast majority of pauperized and illiterate peasants. This, in addition to your technical equipment and your wealth, is the greatest asset of your coming communist revolution. Your revolution will be smoother in character than ours; you will not waste your energies and resources in costly social conflicts after the main issues have been decided; and you will move ahead so much more rapidly in consequence.

Even the intensity and devotion of religious sentiment in America will not prove an obstacle to the revolution. If one assumes the perspective of soviets in America, none of the psychological brakes will prove firm enough to retard the pressure of the social crisis. This has been demonstrated more than once in history. Besides, it should not be forgotten that the Gospels themselves contain some pretty explosive aphorisms.

As to the comparatively few opponents of the soviet revolution, one can trust to American inventive genius. It may well be that you will take your unconvinced millionaires and send them to some picturesque island, rent-free for life, where they can do as they please.

You can do this safely, for you will not need to fear foreign interventions. Japan, Great Britain and the other capitalistic countries that intervened in Russia couldn’t do anything but take American communism lying down. As a matter of fact, the victory of communism in America – the stronghold of capitalism – will cause communism to spread to other countries. Japan will probably have joined the communistic ranks even before the establishment of the American soviets. The same is true of Great Britain.

In any case, it would be a crazy idea to send His Britannic Majesty’s fleet against Soviet America, even as a raid against the southern and more conservative half of your continent. It would be hopeless and would never get any farther than a second-rate military escapade.

Within a few weeks or months of the establishment of the American soviets, Pan-Americanism would be a political reality.

The governments of Central and South America would be pulled into your federation like iron filings to a magnet. So would Canada. The popular movements in these countries would be so strong that they would force this great unifying process within a short period and at insignificant costs. I am ready to bet that the first anniversary of the American soviets would find the Western Hemisphere transformed into the Soviet United States of North, Central and South America, with its capital at Panama. Thus for the first time the Monroe Doctrine would have a complete and positive meaning in world affairs, although not the one foreseen by its author.

In spite of the complaints of some of your arch-conservatives, Roosevelt is not preparing for a soviet transformation of the United States.

The NRA aims not to destroy but to strengthen the foundations of American capitalism by overcoming your business difficulties. Not the Blue Eagle but the difficulties that the Blue Eagle is powerless to overcome will bring about communism in America. The “radical” professors of your Brain Trust are not revolutionists: they are only frightened conservatives. Your president abhors “systems” and “generalities.” But a soviet government is the greatest of all possible systems, a gigantic generality in action.

Click here for Part 2:

http://occupywallst.org/forum/trotsky-on-what-a-socialist-america-would-look-lik/#comment-718316

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[-] 2 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

PART 2:

The average man doesn’t like systems or generalities either. It is the task of your communist statesmen to make the system deliver the concrete goods that the average man desires: his food, cigars, amusements, his freedom to choose his own neckties, his own house and his own automobile. It will be easy to give him these comforts in Soviet America.

Most Americans have been misled by the fact that in the USSR we had to build whole new basic industries from the ground up. Such a thing could not happen in America, where you are already compelled to cut down on your farm area and to reduce your industrial production. As a matter of fact, your tremendous technological equipment has been paralyzed by the crisis and already clamors to be put to use. You will be able to make a rapid step-up of consumption by your people the starting point of your economic revival.

You are prepared to do this as is no other country. Nowhere else has the study of the internal market reached such intensity as in the United States. It has been done by your banks, trusts, individual businessmen, merchants, traveling salesmen and farmers as part of their stock-in-trade. Your soviet government will simply abolish all trade secrets, will combine all the findings of these researches for individual profit and will transform them into a scientific system of economic planning. In this your government will be helped by the existence of a large class of cultured and critical consumers. By combining the nationalized key industries, your private businesses and democratic consumer cooperation, you will quickly develop a highly flexible system for serving the needs of your population.

This system will be made to work not by bureaucracy and not by policemen but by cold, hard cash.

Your almighty dollar will play a principal part in making your new soviet system work. It is a great mistake to try to mix a “planned economy” with a “managed currency.” Your money must act as regulator with which to measure the success or failure of your planning.

Your “radical” professors are dead wrong in their devotion to “managed money.” It is an academic idea that could easily wreck your entire system of distribution and production. That is the great lesson to be derived from the Soviet Union, where bitter necessity has been converted into official virtue in the monetary realm.

There the lack of a stable gold ruble is one of the main causes of our many economic troubles and catastrophes. It is impossible to regulate wages, prices and quality of goods without a firm monetary system. An unstable ruble in a Soviet system is like having variable molds in a conveyor-belt factory. It won’t work.

Only when socialism succeeds in substituting administrative control for money will it be possible to abandon a stable gold currency. Then money will become ordinary paper slips, like trolley or theater tickets. As socialism advances, these slips will also disappear, and control over individual consumption – whether by money or administration – will no longer be necessary when there is more than enough of everything for everybody!

Such a time has not yet come, though America will certainly reach it before any other country. Until then, the only way to reach such a state of development is to retain an effective regulator and measure for the working of your system. As a matter of fact, during the first few years a planned economy needs sound money even more than did old-fashioned capitalism. The professor who regulates the monetary unit with the aim of regulating the whole business system is like the man who tried to lift both his feet off the ground at the same time.

Soviet America will possess supplies of gold big enough to stabilize the dollar – a priceless asset. In Russia we have been expanding our industrial plant by 20 and 30 percent a year; but – owing to a weak ruble – we have not been able to distribute this increase effectively. This is partly because we have allowed our bureaucracy to subject our monetary system to administrative one-sidedness. You will be spared this evil. As a result you will greatly surpass us in both increased production and distribution, leading to a rapid advance in the comfort and welfare of your population.

In all this, you will not need to imitate our standardized production for our pitiable mass consumers. We have taken over from czarist Russia a pauper’s heritage, a culturally undeveloped peasantry with a low standard of living. We had to build our factories and dams at the expense of our consumers. We have had continual monetary inflation and a monstrous bureaucracy.

Soviet America will not have to imitate our bureaucratic methods. Among us the lack of the bare necessities has caused an intense scramble for an extra loaf of bread, an extra yard of cloth by everyone. In this struggle our bureaucracy steps forward as a conciliator, as an all-powerful court of arbitration. You, on the other hand, are much wealthier and would have little difficulty in supplying all of your people with all of the necessities of life. Moreover, your needs, tastes and habits would never permit your bureaucracy to divide the national income. Instead, when you organize your society to produce for human needs rather than private profits, your entire population will group itself around new trends and groups, which will struggle with one another and prevent an overweening bureaucracy from imposing itself upon them.

You can thus avoid growth of bureaucratism by the practice of soviets, that is to say, democracy – the most flexible form of government yet developed. Soviet organization cannot achieve miracles but must simply reflect the will of the people. With us the soviets have been bureaucratized as a result of the political monopoly of a single party, which has itself become a bureaucracy. This situation resulted from the exceptional difficulties of socialist pioneering in a poor and backward country.

Click here for PART 3:

http://occupywallst.org/forum/trotsky-on-what-a-socialist-america-would-look-lik/#comment-718318

[-] 2 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

PART 3:

The American soviets will be full-blooded and vigorous, without need or opportunity for such measures as circumstances imposed upon Russia. Your unregenerate capitalists will, of course, find no place for themselves in the new setup. It is hard to imagine Henry Ford as the head of the Detroit Soviet.

Yet a wide struggle between interests, groups and ideas is not only conceivable – it is inevitable. One-year, five-year, ten-year plans of business development; schemes for national education; construction of new basic lines of transportation; the transformation of the farms; the program for improving the technological and cultural equipment of Latin America; a program for stratosphere communication; eugenics – all of these will arouse controversy, vigorous electoral struggle and passionate debate in the newspapers and at public meetings.

For Soviet America will not imitate the monopoly of the press by the heads of Soviet Russia’s bureaucracy. While Soviet America would nationalize all printing plants, paper mills and means of distribution, this would be a purely negative measure. It would simply mean that private capital will no longer be allowed to decide what publications should be established, whether they should be progressive or reactionary, “wet” or “dry,” puritanical or pornographic. Soviet America will have to find a new solution for the question of how the power of the press is to function in a socialist regime. It might be done on the basis of proportional representation for the votes in each soviet election.

Thus the right of each group of citizens to use the power of the press would depend on their numerical strength – the same principle being applied to the use of meeting halls, allotment of time on the air and so forth.

Thus the management and policy of publications would be decided not by individual checkbooks but by group ideas. This may take little account of numerically small but important groups, but it simply means that each new idea will be compelled, as throughout history, to prove its right to existence.

Rich Soviet America can set aside vast funds for research and invention, discoveries and experiments in every field. You won’t neglect your bold architects and sculptors, your unconventional poets and audacious philosophers.

In fact, the Soviet Yankees of the future will give a lead to Europe in those very fields where Europe has hitherto been your master. Europeans have little conception of the power of technology to influence human destiny and have adopted an attitude of sneering superiority toward “Americanism,” particularly since the crisis. Yet Americanism marks the true dividing line between the Middle Ages and the modern world.

Hitherto America’s conquest of nature has been so violent and passionate that you have had no time to modernize your philosophies or to develop your own artistic forms. Hence you have been hostile to the doctrines of Hegel, Marx and Darwin. The burning of Darwin’s works by the Baptists of Tennessee is only a clumsy reflection of the American dislike for the doctrines of evolution. This attitude is not confined to your pulpits. It is still part of your general mental makeup.

Your atheists as well as your Quakers are determined rationalists. And your rationalism itself is weakened by empiricism and moralism. It has none of the merciless vitality of the great European rationalists. So your philosophic method is even more antiquated than your economic system and your political institutions.

Today, quite unprepared, you are being forced to face those social contradictions that grow up unsuspected in every society. You have conquered nature by means of the tools that your inventive genius has created, only to find that your tools have all but destroyed you. Contrary to all your hopes and desires, your unheard-of wealth has produced unheard-of misfortunes. You have discovered that social development does not follow a simple formula. Hence you have been thrust into the school of the dialectic – to stay.

There is no turning back from it to the mode of thinking and acting prevalent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the old race of Europe’s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its original filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new breed of men – the first worthy of the name of Man.

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Trotsky the dreamer. But he had a lot of valid things to say like:

"Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II. Yet communism can come in America only through revolution, just as independence and democracy came in America. The American temperament is energetic and violent, and it will insist on breaking a good many dishes and upsetting a good many apple carts before communism is firmly established. Americans are enthusiasts and sportsmen before they are specialists and statesmen, and it would be contrary to the American tradition to make a major change without choosing sides and cracking heads."

[-] 2 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

He led the revolution that changed Russia from a feudal society to a democratic one. So he was more than a dreamer.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom : Yes, that may be so. The tragic part was that he understood that if the revolution did not sweep the imperialist countries it would be lost. Stalin was more "practical" in that he apparently could see that this just wasn't in the cards anytime soon. To think that revolution was imminent in England, Japan and the US was a dream.

[-] 3 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

I believe FDR forestalled a revolution in the United States by his implementation of moderately socialist programs that benefitted the proletariat: unemployment insurance, Social Security, heavy bank regulation, the CCC, and WPA--the latter three all since dismantled.

Oh, yes, the 1% are now trying to eliminate the first two with outrageous claims about their expense, when to a large extent, they are self-supporting and would be fully self-supporting if the income caps for deductions were removed on both.,

[-] 2 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

The one percent feel more confident now that the USSR is gone and "communism" is no longer a threat to them. So, they go hog wild.

[-] 2 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

The "Red Menace" kept the proletariat in check with fear of some unspeakable, alien threat, but for as long as the USSR at least threatened worldwide socialist action, the bourgeousie walked softly.

DemandTheGoodLife... is correct Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin all believed an industrialized nation provided the ideal breeding ground for a true socialist revolution and its prolonged success.

[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

Fox put "Independence Day" a movie about fighting evil aliens

on loop repeat during the Iraq War

,,,,,,,,,,

"24" a show where the hero uses torture to stop terrorist

was also very pushed on Fox

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Rupert Murdoch is a master of mass media and conditioning the slack-jawed, knee-jerk right wingers.

Most of the so-called "conservatives" would have opposed the Boston Tea Party on the basis that it offended the majority of the population. Revolution is offensive; the displacement of a ruling authority does not come without struggle.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

"Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin all believed an industrialized nation provided the ideal breeding ground for a true socialist revolution and its prolonged success."

Yet the revolution has taken place in very backward countries where it cannot mature in a healthy way, in a way that would attract a plurality of citizens of advanced imperialist countries.

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Early Marxists like Trotsky and Lenin believed that a successful socialist state required a materially productive nation in which to build. As a matter of fact Trotsky blamed the rapid degeneration of socialism in the Soviet Union on "the dynamics of historical forces," one of which was the backwardness of the Soviet Union, not much more than a feudal state at the time of the revolution.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Marx believed that too, yet WWI brought an earth shaking revolution to a benighted backward impoverished prison house of nations called Russia. Go figure.

[-] 2 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Such is life; the unexpected becomes the expected.

[-] 2 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

According to Marxism, socialism happens after capitalism. Marx predicted that the developed countries like the US would have the socialist revolution since you need an advanced productive capacity to make socialism possible. So there was a question as to whether you could make socialism work in an undeveloped country like Russia.

However, I would not characterize socialism in the US at the time as a dream. The US was going through the Great Depression, so socialism had a lot of mainstream popularity. And if FDR didn't introduce the New Deal, capitalism would not have survived. I believe the US would have went socialist. The US certainly wasn't any more unlikely to have a revolution than Tsarist Russia.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

"And if FDR didn't introduce the New Deal, capitalism would not have survived. "

If ifs and buts were candies and nuts what a wonderful world this would be.

[-] 0 points by craigdangit (326) 11 years ago

So you are against the New Deal...?

[-] 0 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

I would have preferred socialism to the new deal. The new deal gives a small fraction of the benefits you would get from socialism. Capitalism doesn't work.

[-] 1 points by craigdangit (326) 11 years ago

Please define "work"...

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

work is expending effort doing something productive.

[-] 1 points by craigdangit (326) 11 years ago

Sounds like capitalism. People provide incentives for each other through mutual trades to accomplish things that are beneficial to each other.

[-] 2 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

That is not capitalism. That is innate human cooperation. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production which enables you to allocate income based on bargaining power which results in ever increasing concentrations of income.

You don't need capitalism in order to have "people provide incentives for each other through mutual trades to accomplish things that are beneficial to each other."

If you look at the system I advocate, by clicking here (which is just democratic market socialism which people have advocated for 100+ years from Albert Einstein to Martin Luther King, jr. to George Orwell), it looks and operates almost identically to what you would consider capitalism. The difference is that we are able to allocate income based on hard work instead of bargaining power so that the economy works well for everyone, not just a very small few at the top.

[-] -3 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

FDR was a socialist. All his alphabet soup programs did nothing to save America. What did save America was WWII.

[-] 3 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

FDR was not a socialist. He saved capitalism. He didn't replace capitalism with socialism. Here is a quote from the post:

"In spite of the complaints of some of your arch-conservatives, Roosevelt is not preparing for a soviet transformation of the United States."

[-] -2 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

All of FDR's programs did nothing to drop the unemployment rate through the 1930's. He did not save captialism, WWII did. FDR hated the Supreme Court, he wanted to add more judges that he knew would back him and his social programs. His first appointment to the Supreme Court was Hugo Black, a lifetime member of the KKK.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

How does a jobs program that directly puts people to work not lower the unemployment rate? That is mathematically impossible.

I agree the war also was a big contributor.

[-] 0 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

a healthy economy and strong job market comes from the private sector. It shows that the GDP is real. govt jobs just grow the govt.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

It is true that WWII is what finally got unemployment down to near zero. Unemployment did go down under the "alphabet soup" FDR programs but never went down to an acceptable level. Now WWII was a pretty big government program...

[-] 0 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

If hitler and tojo had not been around , trying to enslave and subjugate the entire free world, WWII would not have occurred.

[-] 1 points by ShubeLMorgan2 (1088) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Japan, Italy and especially Germany would have chafed under the domination of the Anglos and French and one way or other would have tried to turn the tables.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Govt jobs also grow GDP. Police, bridges, roads, medical research, basic science research, they all contribute to our overall production. They are goods and services people want to consume.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

let's give praise to the kingdom of private owners

[-] -1 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

Lenin led Russia to a democratic society? Where did go to school?

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

We are talking about Trotsky, not Lenin. And yes it was a democratic, socialist society before Stalin killed Trotsky and all of Stalin's dissenters and turned the revolution into a totalitarian dictatorship.

[-] -3 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

Trotsky was a Marxist. Marxism is anything BUT democratic.It is an idealistic system that never worked. The classlesss society quickly become dictatorial.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

You should turn off Rush Limbaugh and get yourself educated. You may find out that people have been exploiting your ignorance.

Marxism is a critique of capitalism and an analysis of the historical development of society. It has nothing to do with being democratic.

Stalin's Soviet Union was a totalitarian dictatorship. That has nothing to do with socialism or what Trotsky advocated or what the October Revolution wanted to achieve.

You can have a dictatorship in socialism or capitalism. That doesn't mean all socialists or capitalists advocate dictatorships or that socialism and capitalism always end up in dictatorships.

[-] -1 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

Read your own post. YOU said that is was " a democratic socialist society"

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

What you are not understanding is that Marxism is not a political system. It has nothing to do with whether a country is democratic or not. Calling someone a Marxist says nothing about whether they believe in democracy. Marxism is not a "system."

[-] -1 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

marxism is a philosophy that became a political system.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

You need to read a political science book.

[-] -1 points by behindthemask (-124) 11 years ago

Now you've nailed it the progressive / socialist / Marxists have been rewriting history ( text books ) and you have been paying big bucks for the Texts and classes that have warped your mind . . . There is Big (capitalism) money in 4oo dollar text books revised each year to prove America is a failure . . .and you think you have an education

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Marxism is not a political system. Most Marxists are usually socialists or communists, both of which predated Marx and his philosophy. Socialism and communism are both poltical systems that may or may not have anything to do with one's philosophy or beliefs.

If you bother to read the Bible, the early Christians established and lived in a communal society after the death of Christ. You'll find that in Acts and 2 Thessalonians.

[-] 0 points by behindthemask (-124) 11 years ago

The Pilgrims were socialist . ..lived in a commune . . .most starved to death because some deemed themselves too elite to work and other got tired of supporting their lazy butts.

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Capitalist societies have also failed; failures of isolated societies do not disprove the ideology. The problem in any society is, when possible, to work around the ideological stumbling blocks. Right now in our society the biggest problem is the inequality of wealth, which is one of the major, inherent problems of capitalism.

Our society has failed the proletariat, who only now are becoming aware of how poorly they have fared since about 1980. Real wages for the lowest-paid earners have dropped since then, while even college-educated people have gained only marginally.

The only people that have really gained are the very wealthy. You can check the facts yourself. I'll be glad to provide the links.

[-] -2 points by behindthemask (-124) 11 years ago

OWS organizer, Harrison Schultz is a genius . . .everything is free . . .just grows out of the ground "Organically" . . . This nut gets a chance to be heard ( radio Hannity ) by15 million ... And sounds like an angry speed freak . . . So far wasted 200k on an education that ultimately won't get him a job ANYWHERE and the TAX payer will be forced to pick up the tab.... His parents must be SO proud . . .

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 11 years ago

Thanx for this interesting historical perspective. For more contemporary analysis, please also see :

per aspera ad astra ...

[-] 0 points by brightonsage (4494) 11 years ago

What a verbose waste of time.

[Removed]

[-] 0 points by Frog12 (0) 11 years ago

Communism does not proved liberties and freedom. It kills and maims both those great ideas. China, why do you think all these Tibetan Monks are lighting them selves on fire, they kicked all the people out of their homes to make the building for the Olympics. North Korea is so horribly bad and shity. Cuba, Chavez made the place into on of the most poverty stricken countries ever. China is only in a good economic situation because everyone borrows form them and they are a trade asset. Exactly why if Communism is so good did they get rid of it. The title Soviet America about makes me want to throw up.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

None of the countries you mentioned are communist. You don't even know what communism is.

They are communist in the same way that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is democratic and a republic.

[-] 1 points by Pequod (17) 11 years ago

Please provide us with an example of a socialist country of 200 million population and America's standard of living.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

No developed country ever had a socialist revolution. They just have varying degrees of socialism. However, the country with the most socialism, Norway, is also the richest. They have the most productive workers in the world by a wide margin:

http://www.bls.gov/ilc/intl_gdp_capita_gdp_hour.htm#chart04

[-] -1 points by Pequod (17) 11 years ago

I knew you would cherry pick Norway, which is why i asked you to keep your examples to countries over 200 million in size. And I also set a trap, into which you blindly fell.

Norway gets fully a third if its revenue fron oil. Its the 5th largest exporter in the world. It doesnt fear oil like we do in the US but its massive oil revenues, per capita, allow it to have such a high per capita output. It has ZERO to do with socialism and all to do with mining and oil. EPIC FAIL and i hoisted you on your own petard, although i did warn you.

EPIC FAIL. Repeat after me: EPIC FAIL.

Now give me an example of a 200 million population vountry with a flourishing economy and a socialistic system, please or your whole post is an EPIC FAIL.

Here are the most socialistic countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_countries

See any paradises among them?

Again: you equal EPIC FAIL.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

"I also set a trap, into which you blindly fell."

Hey Scooby Doo, I hate to break the news to you, but all countries have natural resources. If socialism worked the way you claim, Norway would have squandered those resources because the workers were too lazy or because they had no incentive to work, or all the profits would have been pocketed by Norway's evil totalitarian dictator.

But since socialism works, and since it works better than capitalism, Norway made productive use of its resources and enabled their entire population to benefit.

Your arguments are not any less moronic by repeating EPIC FAIL.

[-] -1 points by Pequod (17) 11 years ago

Listen, Goofy, Norway has the equivalent of 25 million barrels of oil daily for the US.

Norway has 13% on disabilty and 24% on welfare. That means over 1/3 of the people dont work.The only way they can do that is with disproprtionate natural resources.

You are the lamest of the lame. Btw Japan has no natural resources as do many other countries.

If it works so well why are 24% on welfare?

you are truly a moron.

[-] 1 points by Frog12 (0) 11 years ago

So North Korea isn't Communist? China isn't Communist? Cuba isn't Communist anymore but got messed up real bad because of it. Communism is horrible for the people of a country. Ya the whole idea of Communism with equality and workers is great but it has never happened for a long period of time. Communism is just absolutly horrible.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Communism is a hypothetical stage society will reach once it develops the technology to eliminate scarcity. Once you eliminate scarcity, and have super abundance, you don't need money or property or government.

Without scarcity, you no longer need to ration goods and services with money, people can take all they want. And automation is so advanced, all the jobs nobody wants to do are done by machines, so you don't need to pay people to work.

No society has ever achieved communism. We do not have the technology to achieve it. But I think we may eventually will.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

capitalism steals ideas for profit

[-] 0 points by Frog12 (0) 11 years ago

Capitalism doesn't kill, torture, force the amount of baby's someone can have, kick people out of their homes simply for a huge building for the Olympics, destroy all ideas of civil liberties, provide a huge amount of aid and relief all around the world, protect the largest shipping lanes throughout the world, kill and oppress Christianity, be so oppressive people light themselves on fire to protest and slaughter its own people for protesting, and cause shit for the rest of the world. Capitalism doesn't steals ideas for profit, that is ours twisted liberal view on it. It provides someone the ability to earn their way and contribute by paying taxes while not funding huge wellfare systems where no one ever has to work hard for everything and everyone gets everything for free.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

I'm so glad. we are not like those people

I was faughed at for saying that about Brave New World in high school

[-] 1 points by Frog12 (0) 11 years ago

Yeah that's basically what the whole point is. That is what Communism breeds.

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 11 years ago

lol

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

And yet American Business has exported jobs to China to support a country of such large abuses of their population. So that those businesses can hire less American workers and make a "killing" on their profits. Yep ya really gotta love the greedy corrupt assholes of this world.

[-] 0 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

And you bring up Trotsky on this forum why? As if we couldn't guess.

[-] 2 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

It provides perspective for people who think socialism means a Stalin totalitarian dictatorship.

This letter came up in another comment I made, so I figured I would post it.

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

Oh, okay.

[-] 0 points by ComplexRead (4) 11 years ago

This country will never go commi this is a republic.

[-] 2 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

Where have I ever said I though this country should go "commi?"

I am a Jeffersonian Democrat. Please actually learn something before spreading your assumptions around like chicken manure.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

As a Jeffersonian Democrat, do you want to bring back slavery and have the US expand its territory by invading foreign countries and deny women the right to vote and give up our advanced productive economy for a return to an agrarian society?

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

What a stupid qiestion.

As a Christian do you want to bring back the days of the inquisition, and of burning witches at the stake?

Of course, I'm not assuming you're a Christian, far from it. The question's hypothetical.

[-] 0 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

I would ask you the same question if you joined a religion that advocated an inquisition and burning witches.

Religion's ideas belong in he dust bin of history just like Jefferson's.

Why would you call yourself a Jeffersonian Democrat if you don't agree with what he advocates?

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

You don't have a clue to what Jefferson advocated, as your comment above clearly shows.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Which one of those things did Jefferson not advocate?

He owned slaves, invaded the West to expand the country, didn't want women to vote and was opposed to industry because working the earth doing agriculture was more godly.

The guy was a creep. He would be locked up if he was around today. He lived off the backs of hundreds of slaves. He is part of the original 1%.

[-] 1 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

Yes, in fact I'm sure in your virew all of Americas founders were creeps, and next you'll be reminding us that Hitler was a vergetarian or something.

Jefferson freed his slaves when he died, which is why the right (reich) always accuses him of leaving nothing to his decendents (slaves were what most people had their money invested in then (they weren't as hypocritical then, by the way. When you buy an ipod or a pair of undeware it's probably produced by slaves, and when you buy it you are profiting on them.) Woman's sufferage wasn't even an issue then, so had he advocated it he would have just been laughed at, and industry may have been untimately inevitable, but he was against it for the very reason that it would bring too much wealth into the hands of too few and overthrough democracy.

Wonder where he got such a crazy idea?

You see, you just cherry pick a few things about him, don't compare him to others of his time, and then exaggerate the negatives.

Just like . . . . A TROLL.

How surprizing.

Oh, and George Washington had wooden dentures (the un-american slime.) I'll admit it now so you don't bring that into it.

[-] 0 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

"I'm sure in your virew all of Americas founders were creeps"

All the major ones were and anyone who is against a society where there is a 1% would agree. I would perhaps make the exception with Paine. He was the one who rallied the 99% on behalf of the 1% for the revolution.

But he was ostracized after the revolution for being too radical. His radical ideas are similar to the ideas the 99% are fighting for today. He wanted to redistribute wealth so that the economy was fair and worked for everyone.

.

"next you'll be reminding us that Hitler was a vergetarian or something."

I find it odd that someone in 2012 would refer to themselves as a Jeffersonian Democrat given his outdated and inhumane views.

I don't know what you mean by the Hitler reference. But Hitler had a lot of good ideas. He wanted extensive social welfare programs for the poor and unemployed. But I wouldn't call myself a Hitler socialist and just ignore the whole rest of what he advocated!

.

"Jefferson freed his slaves when he died"

Gee, how noble. What about not having slaves when you are alive?

.

"Woman's sufferage wasn't even an issue then, so had he advocated it he would have just been laughed at"

So Jefferson really wanted women to vote, but he couldn't come out publicly with this view because he was afraid of being laughed at!?!? You can't be serious!!

He wasn't afraid to go to war over his views. But if England threatened to laugh at him, he would have been against the revolution?

If you believe that to be true, why would you even want to align yourself with a person who has such a weak moral character that they lack the conviction or bravery to speak against a social wrong?

.

"he was against [industry] for the very reason that it would bring too much wealth into the hands of too few and overthrough democracy"

So you want to abolish industry and you think people will be better off without it because there will be less inequality? That is about as radical a view as you can get. I think you would find life brutish and incredibly difficult without the conveniences of a modern developed society.

.

"You see, you just cherry pick a few things about him, don't compare him to others of his time, and then exaggerate the negatives."

Not everyone was pro slavery and against women voting and pro imperialism and anti industrial progress. But he was and this is the person whose views you align yourself with.

Do you hold these same views?

If yes, you are just as despicable as Jefferson.

If no, why would you align yourself with someone who advocates it? That makes absolutely no sense.

.

"TROLL"

A troll is not someone who calls out members on a forum for having despicable views about slavery, imperialism, women voting and industrial progress.

[-] 0 points by GypsyKing (8708) 11 years ago

Whatever.

[-] -1 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

Nothing is wrong with socialism, it's just that it hasn't been implemented by the right people.Same old story, same failed systems.

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

In order for socialism to work, it needs to be implemented by people who are actually implementing socialism. It does not matter who those people are.

If you implement a totalitarian dictatorship and you call it socialism, you are not getting socialism; you are getting a totalitarian dictatorship.

[-] -1 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

everyone that tries socialism thinks that everyone else that has implemeted it just didn't do it right and that THEY know how to do it. forget it. it doesn't work

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

So according to your logic, I guess democracy doesn't work since the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a complete disaster.

According to your logic, the only thing that matters is what you call yourself, the policies you implement are unimportant.

[-] -2 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

the United States is not a democracy, its a constitutional republic. any country can give itself any name they choose to,what they do politically is another story.

[-] 1 points by shoozTroll (17632) 11 years ago

That's correct, so we should just hand it over to Goldman Sachs!!!

Just cut out the middle man!

[-] 1 points by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom (3360) from New York, NY 11 years ago

everyone that tries a constitutional republic thinks that everyone else that has implemented it just didn't do it right and that THEY know how to do it. forget it. it doesn't work

[-] -2 points by cooperbl (-88) 11 years ago

nice try but the USA is THE constitution republic that the rest of the world would be better off with if they emulated it.