NAZI GREENS - An Inconvenient History • Martin Durkin

a reply to: daskakik

collectivism noun col·lec·tiv·ism kə-ˈlek-ti-ˌvi-zəm
: a political or economic system in which the government owns businesses, land, etc.
Full Definition of COLLECTIVISM

1
: a political or economic theory advocating collective control especially over production and distribution; also : a system marked by such control
2
: emphasis on collective rather than individual action or identity

First Known Use of COLLECTIVISM

1857

It doesn't seem like a controversial term or at least, I have only ever heard that definition challenged on ATS by you and one other person.

originally posted by: NihilistSanta
I was going by the above. So do you think collectivism is a voluntary proposition? As I have stated I think the premise is flawed from the onset in that it relies on forcing people to share which again is contrary to the spirit of sharing.

This is from Rand

Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.”

I said greater good but common good is pretty much the same idea. Not mocking it just putting it out there as food for thought.

If personal property is marginalized or abolished then the concept of sharing is even more ridiculous because how can you share what you do not own. That is how at its most basic collectivist ideas are presented that it is a social contract where we are all sharing for "the greater good".

You do know that the USSR had a constitution?

Article 10 of the 1936 USSR Constitution stated:

ARTICLE 10. The right of citizens to personal ownership of their incomes from work and of their savings, of their dwelling houses and subsidiary household economy, their household furniture and utensils and articles of personal use and convenience, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, is protected by law.

Now let's be honest, maybe they were as bad as keeping things to the letter of the law as the US but, I don't see where personal property is marginalized or abolished.

a reply to: NihilistSanta

OK, but it can still be taken at its broader meaning.

a reply to: greencmp

The second entry seems to fit what I'm talking about.

a reply to: daskakik

They also used that constitution to restructure so that there was only one system and one party. Sounds pretty authoritarian to me. IT was propaganda. They opened everything up because there was no opposition because opposition was stamped out. This lead to kangaroo courts and other proceedings. If we are being honest we cannot pretend that they actually enshrined those rights or upheld them.

From the Wiki - 1936 Soviet Constitution

The constitution repealed restrictions on voting and added universal direct suffrage and the right to work to rights guaranteed by the previous constitution. In addition, the Constitution recognized collective social and economic rights including the rights to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits. The constitution also provided for the direct election of all government bodies and their reorganization into a single, uniform system. It was written by a special commission of 31 members which Joseph Stalin chaired.

For the first time, the role of the Communist Party was clearly defined. Article 126 stated that the party was "vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state." This provision was used to justify banning all other parties from functioning in the Soviet Union.

Sounds awful familiar. We know how it turned out the same as it always does.

a reply to: NihilistSanta

I don't know. I never lived there. Propaganda is offered to everyone with the twist that our leaders want to give it.

I am going to break from the subject of collectivism and authoritarian states for a minute. I was thinking about the OP and was curious about what you think about the ideas of the early cynics like Diogenes (what we know and is attributed to him) and their original naturalist views and how they became more (for lack of a better term here) nihilistic or negativistic in more modern times. There seems to be some correlation between that and how extremist environmentalist come to view mans place in the world.

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: greencmp

The second entry seems to fit what I'm talking about.

But, wouldn't that mean that such a usage could only apply to apolitical human organization, that is to say, non-governmental agreements not characterized by collective control?

For example, the three of us deciding to get ice cream as a collective decision as opposed to the three of us deciding to own all or part or your ice cream parlor?

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: NihilistSanta
I was going by the above. So do you think collectivism is a voluntary proposition? As I have stated I think the premise is flawed from the onset in that it relies on forcing people to share which again is contrary to the spirit of sharing.

This is from Rand

Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.”

I said greater good but common good is pretty much the same idea. Not mocking it just putting it out there as food for thought.

If personal property is marginalized or abolished then the concept of sharing is even more ridiculous because how can you share what you do not own. That is how at its most basic collectivist ideas are presented that it is a social contract where we are all sharing for "the greater good".

You do know that the USSR had a constitution?

Article 10 of the 1936 USSR Constitution stated:

ARTICLE 10. The right of citizens to personal ownership of their incomes from work and of their savings, of their dwelling houses and subsidiary household economy, their household furniture and utensils and articles of personal use and convenience, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, is protected by law.

Now let's be honest, maybe they were as bad as keeping things to the letter of the law as the US but, I don't see where personal property is marginalized or abolished.

This is why I am uncomfortable with the cavalier use of the term "rights".

In a liberal society, you have the right to property (which includes your physical self). I am wholly against the itemization of rights in this context (right to utensils, unbefinbelievable!) for the simple reason that every single one would have to be legislated in order to be realized.

If the underlying principal which upholds the general right to property is sound and true, no such specification is necessary.

It also presents the absurd possibility of the mistaken conclusion that the second amendment is just one of the many that we will have to pass in order to affirm our "rights" to many other such necessary tools.

I realize you're quoting the soviet constitution but this issue just keeps coming up.

originally posted by: greencmp
But, wouldn't that mean that such a usage could only apply to apolitical human organization, that is to say, non-governmental agreements not characterized by collective control?

I think it would be the other way around. We would be calling most everything collective.

a reply to: greencmp

I was just pointing out how propaganda has shaped the ideas of US citizens about other places.

The USSR was a republic, it had a constitution, it was a confederated group of states. If we used the article in the OP as an example we could say that the USSR and the USA were the same. Then we could go round and round with you trying to point out the differences and I could put my fingers in my ears and chant "your splitting hairs".

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: greencmp

I was just pointing out how propaganda has shaped the ideas of US citizens about other places.

The USSR was a republic, it had a constitution, it was a confederated group of states. If we used the article in the OP as an example we could say that the USSR and the USA were the same. Then we could go round and round with you trying to point out the differences and I could put my fingers in my ears and chant "your splitting hairs".

The article said that environmentalists can be NAZIs.

Or, in other words, that environmentalists are not automatically good guys, just because they are environmentalists.

The article is not inconsistent with all environmentalists being NAZIs, but it doesn't prove that all environmentalists are NAZIs.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: greencmp
But, wouldn't that mean that such a usage could only apply to apolitical human organization, that is to say, non-governmental agreements not characterized by collective control?

I think it would be the other way around. We would be calling most everything collective.

I would still call most everything associative or cooperative.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

I'm not just talking about the article in the OP. I'm talking about the usual flow of these types of threads.

Of course the article is a non sequitur.

originally posted by: greencmp
I would still call most everything associative or cooperative.

And it would be both.

Do you think it would be mutually exclusive?

a reply to: daskakik

You can truly see no similarities in the philosophies, justifications or policies?

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: greencmp
I would still call most everything associative or cooperative.

And it would be both.

Do you think it would be mutually exclusive?

Cooperative does not mean collective.

originally posted by: greencmp
Cooperative does not mean collective.

Yes it does, if you use it in the broader sense.

originally posted by: greencmp
You can truly see no similarities in the philosophies, justifications or policies?

I'm willing to bet that neither of us knows what things were really like in the USSR.

You choose to believe your leaders and defectors who may have been guided in what they said.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: greencmp
Cooperative does not mean collective.

Yes it does, if you use it in the broader sense.

By broader sense, you mean the secondary definition in the dictionary.

And now collectives can be between two parties.

I'm not buying it and it doesn't seem to explain anything other than the fact that you believe that collectivism is universal.

You haven't said it explicitly but, I infer that any other type of human interaction must be exploitive.