Socialism
I recently learned about Socialism after stumbling onto this video. After finding it interesting, I've finished reading this book for a bit more of the basics, Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein and The Soul of Man under Socialism.
This really has liberated my mind and answered a lot of the questions I've had about why the world runs as it is right now. Now I am reading the Manifesto of the Communist Party. I thought I'd say hi to any Socialist here in off-topic. PoE-TradeMacro - https://github.com/PoE-TradeMacro/POE-TradeMacro/ ExileTrade - http://exiletrade.github.io/ Last edited by ManicCompression on Nov 22, 2016, 5:10:02 PM Last bumped on Dec 1, 2016, 11:00:13 AM
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Unfortunately you are about to be disappointed when you realise that in practice socialism and in extend communism and even further left anarchism (and whatever else names people are giving to left-wing ideologies) are flawed in a very basic level, due to their structure that needs collective work, understanding and common goals/similar thinking by every single individual in order for the political and economic system to work.
Its indeed nice in theory but highly impractical to almost impossible to sustain because its based on people being equal economically, socially, educationally etc. Even in the Soviet Russia and their so called Communism the actual economic system was state capitalism, cause capitalism works and its easy to make it work no matter its own flaws. People were still proletarians working for the state, owning shit while individuals within that state had full ownership of otherwise "common" resourses. In other words glorified oligarchy. In a utopian society there would be no use of laws, no use of a state, no religions to impose edicts, no conflict of iderests, no differantiation of classes, no social structure etc. Everyone would feel and actually be in the same level (economically, socially, educationally etc) as everyone else working for the good of the community and in extend their country. Is that possible? Indeed it is. Is it probable, no it isnt, and it has to do with human nature and thus again the reason why actually left-wing ideologies wont work in the level they are supposed to. People will indeed keep trying to make those ideologies work in a practical level but they will fail again and again, until the point where with the help of the education and experience, every single citizen of a country trying to adopt said ideologies reaches a level were they no longer have certain traits of the human nature that make left-wing ideologies impossible to adopt and already solved every basic need for the population. Then and only then those ideologies can work at the level they are supposed to work. Another reason why they cant work is the constant population growth as well as the constant drop in number of the people who are actually interested in a participating in politics and civic life. When the basic elements of democracy cant work or malfunction you cant go further into politics and socialeconomic ideologies, especially the left ones cause they are BASED upon the majority of the people caring. As long as the social/economic/educational structure is shaped like a pyramid left-wing ideologies will never work in a practical level. As long as people dont care about civic life and politics the pyramid will always exist. As long as there are representatives for the people who dont care the people's needs and rights will never be really represented. Anyway enough rumbling, i tried to keep it shorty\ and light, cause generally politics and ideologies is something i dont stop talking about once i start. All those above are actually coming from a rather far left individual mind you, its just how things really are (un)fortunately. p.s. - if you are up for more reading i would suggest the work of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin Inundated with cockroaches, I am
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1609216 - labyrinth rework ideas/suggestions | |
" It is good to be open minded. But i would suggest you dont simply accept new beliefs, but analyze each and every aspect and ask yourself what are the repercussions of each and every aspect. The core issue i have with communism is that the incentives are not in place to promote innovation. Although I think capitalism is far worse in many ways. I would suggest some hybrid between the 2; offering the minimal requirements for living from socialism and granting a large portion of personal power as incentives to those whom contribute to society the most. A guaranteed minimum income and shared public goods. Yet personal property. A cap on the income of those whom dont produce items/services of functional utility. And automatic rewards for innovation, turning patents into publicly shared free information with compensation from the government rather than the current system of control which limits the use of said innovation. And further incentives for the automating of production from the government, with the aim of some day being utterly free of the bondage of labor. For years i searched for deep truths. A thousand revelations. At the very edge...the ability to think itself dissolves away.Thinking in human language is the problem. Any separation from 'the whole truth' is incomplete.My incomplete concepts may add to your 'whole truth', accept it or think about it
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Socializm or Capitalism, both enslave human in their own ways. There exists companies, where each employee is owner as well and everybody gets same share (yup, charwoman gets same money as driver or CEO). But till we will be using money or credit, there will be no freedom for man as problem are money themselves.. and more..
You can try to read about philosophy and how was developed through centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World Even I understand what you talking about, I would be careful to say hello to socialists.. Everybody who belongs to some group, has tendencies to convince others to join their matter.. :). And once man become part of group (or for example become engineer), he will die like part of group (or like engineer).. gl hf :) | |
If you take the time to read history you'll see:
everything we have in the western civilization was built upon Capitalism, our very laws, our societies our democraties, economies and industries everything is from Capitalism. Meanwhile, socialism always failed | |
" What is western world? | |
I've already laid out my 5 basic principles in this post (and one which follows shortly in the same thread).
That said, onto Einstein in 1949. I'll cover other readings in later posts (if I'm not lazy). "I actually agree with Einstein up to this point. Another work from around that time, The Fountainhead (1943), was also critical of the division between the self-driven aspects of man and the social aspects, which both see as widening with increasing dissonance. So both an advocate for socialism and one of its strongest opponents both saw essentially the same symptoms in the same era. Where they differ is diagnosis. Let's go on... "In the middle of a paragraph, right where I did a quote break, Einstein brings in the concept of selfishness as evil. The ego, a part of the self, as a jailer for... well, the rest of the self, I suppose. Given his anti-self position, it should surprise no one that blaming capitalism is his very next move. In contrast, Aristotle believed that self-love was not only important for personal happiness, but for helping other people as well. He said (paraphrased) that one cannot love another person more than one loves oneself. This perspective is the opposite of Einstein's; where Einstein sees love as a limited quantity, where love for the self spends love which could be spent on others, Aristotle sees self-love as the fountainhead from which love for others comes; he sees self-love as the means of production for the love of others. I find it amazing that Einstein wrote this, as it would seem that he, more than perhaps anyone, would understand Aristotle's point. Einstein's work in physics was such a magnificent gift to humanity. Did it come about as a consequence of Einstein's lack of love for himself? Did he spend all his love on others such that his inner egotist would free him from his prison? Did he find no form of intense, personal joy in physics? Did Einstein delve into the hidden truths of our universe, not out of love for knowledge, but out of love for his fellow man? The social stigma of self-love as sin was strong then (and not to be underestimated now). It was a sin, and for enjoying his own work, Einstein's superego chastised him as a sinner. There's a reason so many celebrities endorse selfless causes: they are wildly successful, and ashamed of it. Good social systems do not fight selfishness; they use it, in much the same way a hydroelectric power plant uses the rushing water of a river. Self-love is not our eternal enemy, but our greatest renewable resource. It need but be harnessed by the appropriate social infrastructure... which, given the symptoms Einstein described, wasn't happening. "Well, I definitely can't fault Einstein here. Good points. My only defense of laissez-faire capitalism here is this: the moment the elite grab the reins of government, it isn't laissez-faire anymore. A government which meddles in economic affairs, especially in a corrupt, biased manner, should no longer fit the definition. I think the key point of weakness is the bargaining power of labor. While it's true that "the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product," this doesn't mean labor couldn't demand more compensation for its contribution. The core issue has always been this: supply for laborers has always been considerably higher than demand, and that situation has been maintained by the "few hands." If there's always another laborer to replace you, it's difficult to successfully haggle for a better wage. The more oligarchal the ownership of capital, the easier it is to suppress competitors who would increase demand for labor. The elites win by keeping the people poor. That's a big problem, but his solution to it isn't ready yet... which, to Einstein's credit, he understands. "Good questions. Potentially questions without answers; the task may be impossible under socialism, requiring new theoretical constructs. But I am confident that, whatever the solution is, it will find a way to leverage individual self-love and self-interest in a new way, powering a new furnace of liberty that even all of the guns of the USSR couldn't set alight. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Nov 22, 2016, 10:24:44 PM
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@ScrotieMcB
Thanks for taking time to write up your reply. I'm currently reading up on self-love The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle so I can better understand; although I'm finding it difficult to read such text. Will take time to catch up. " When I read this, my understanding was that people are simply misguided on how to enjoy life and are imprisoned by this confusion. This video on Epicurus on how to enjoy life talks about this. From the other essay I linked: " PoE-TradeMacro - https://github.com/PoE-TradeMacro/POE-TradeMacro/
ExileTrade - http://exiletrade.github.io/ |
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If you want to get stuff, read Capital. It's the foundation. Will give you insights on the current economic situation, capitalism and the general course of development of human history too. Will also explain to you why all the socialist experiments in the 20th century failed and why Marx himself said he wasn't a communist in one of his letters.
The TLDR version: his theory has always been misunderstood and/or abused. You can't rush economic development and you can't get communism if you don't go through all stages of capitalism first. Trying to build communism in a country with a late medieval / early capitalistic economy is absurd by definition. It can also be summed up by the words of one of Lenin's teachers (forgot the name, my memory isn't what it was), who said Lenin liked many things in Marxist theory, but he didn't like the part where you have to wait if the conditions aren't right. That's why all countries in the former Soviet bloc adopted the so-called 'Marxism - Leninism', which basically said 'all Marx said was right and good, but we don't want to wait.' The Wheel of Nerfs turns, and builds come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the build that gave it birth comes again. Last edited by Bars on Nov 23, 2016, 2:25:05 AM
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" It's good that you are reading them with an open mind. My suggestion would be to continue your exploration of various different socio-political-economic systems. Then explore how versions of them were applied in the real world and what the results were. Depending on how much you already know, this might be a great time to do some thought experiments. Pick a country that you don't know much about that chose socialism, then find some older published books before they went socialist and during the early years. Then make some predictions of your own, based on what you read and your interpretation. Now, look up the actual history of what happened with socialism in that country and contrast it with expectations, and consider what might have impacted or helped the progression of socialism in that particular place and time. Do this with a couple other places and see if there is a pattern. Now look at current locations and make a few predictions in a notebook, and then watch as history unfolds. In any case - good luck with your exploration of new information! PoE Origins - Piety's story http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2081910
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