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Originally posted by hawkiye
reply to post by ANOK
Like I have said you have to falsely redefine terms including anarchy to try and posit your false argument... Nough said
This shows a fundamental contradiction of capitalism: all of society is organized to produce goods and services; workers work “collectively” to build products, i.e., they work “socialistically,” but the vast majority of the wealth produced goes to a small minority of non-working, very wealthy shareholders. Thus, to correct this problem, the wealth produced by society should be distributed to those who create it, not funneled into the pockets of the rich. This would require transferring the vast majority of the productive machinery from private ownership of a few to the control of vast majority.
Robert Owen:
In many ways Owen is the father of two threads related to socialism. The "humanitarian workplace" -- that is, a business which provides to its workers medical care, clean conditions, encourages daily excercise, etc. as we see in, for example, Japan or in some European companies. He also helped begin the cooperative movement, non-profit and consumer and worker owned businesses.
Socialism is divided into three main trends : reformism, anarchism and Marxism...
Common ownership is not to be confused with state ownership, since an organ of coercion, or state, has no place in socialism.
Another reason why state ownership and socialism are incompatible is that the state is a national institution which exercises political control over a limited geographical area. Since capitalism is a world system, the complete state ownership of the means of production within a given political area cannot represent the abolition of capitalism, even within that area. What it does mean, and this has been one of the major themes of this book, is the establishment of some form of state capitalism whose internal mode of operation is conditioned by the fact that it has to compete in a world market context against other capitals.
Socialism, being based on the common ownership of the means of production by all members of society, is not an exchange economy. Production would no longer be carried on for sale with a view to profit as under capitalism. In fact, production would not be carried on for sale at all. Production for sale would be a nonsense since common ownership of the means of production means that what is produced is commonly owned by society as soon as it is produced. The question of selling just cannot arise because, as an act of exchange, this could only take place between separate owners. Yet separate owners of parts of the social product are precisely what would not, and could not exist in a society where the means of production were owned in common.
Public Ownership and Common Ownership
The acknowledged aim of socialism is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers. This aim is sometimes spoken of as public ownership, sometimes as common ownership of the production apparatus. There is, however, a marked and fundamental difference.
Public ownership is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body....
According to Marx, capitalism is merely a stage of historical development. It will eventually collapse under the weight of a laboring class (the proletariat) which increasingly becomes poorer and more numerous. The inconsistency of fewer and fewer people controlling more and more of the means of production will lead to capitalism’s collapse because eventually it will become too great an interference with production. At that time, the proletariat will create a rational society with no wages, no money, no social classes, and, eventually no state - “a free association of producers under their own conscious and purposive control.” McInes, Neil “Karl Marx,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volumes 5 & 6, MacMillan Publishing Co. (NY: 1967) p. 172.
Originally posted by Openeye
government which he believes is the most violent of all monopolies.
Government by in large is a democratically elected group of individuals who are the servants of the people and are accountable to the people who have given them the authority to govern. A corporation is a collection of unelected individuals who in a stateless society with no governing body to pass and enforce law, would be accountable to no one.
Now I am opposed to unreasonable unchecked authority, in fact I have a lot in common with a great many anarchists.
Well, is he not correct that government is "the most violent of all monopolies"? It is a monopoly - we do not have competing governments. It is violent - it is not people who declare the war.
I do not agree that government is largely "a democratically elected group of individuals". In the US we only elect a President and legislators - nobody else - and all of whom belong to two parties. Obama mostly continues or extends the Bush policies. Why? Because there is only one difference between the two parties, one plays good cop, the other plays bad cop.
They both work for the same power behind them. Democracy is a farce. Government and big corporations are equally controlled by a subtle, complete, pervasive power (see my signature). A "good government" would provide transparency and balance of power. Both of those are achievable but have constantly decreased since JFK.
Originally posted by ANOK
And yet again you fail to answer my question, how can anarchism be socialist by your definitions? Can't answer that question can you?
edit on 12/5/2012 by ANOK because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
That said there will also be quasi - governments or groups of people who make decisions in the communities as someone has to be in charge' even of workers in a worker owned business.
You seem to paint a picture that in a socialistic economy that everyone is compensated equally. That is not the case at all. People still would get compensated based on their contributions. The brightest and the best workers would enjoy elevated lifestyles
Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
The quasi government statement was simply that you can't get away from organization on some level so there is truly never real anarchy.
In the anarchist, Marxist and socialist sense, free association (also called free association of producers or, as Marx often called it, community of freely associated individuals) is a kind of relation between individuals where there is no state, social class or authority, in a society that has abolished the private property of means of production. Once private property is abolished, individuals are no longer deprived of access to means of production so they can freely associate themselves (without social constraint) to produce and reproduce their own conditions of existence and fulfill their needs and desires.
According to Marx, capitalism is merely a stage of historical development. It will eventually collapse under the weight of a laboring class (the proletariat) which increasingly becomes poorer and more numerous. The inconsistency of fewer and fewer people controlling more and more of the means of production will lead to capitalism’s collapse because eventually it will become too great an interference with production. At that time, the proletariat will create a rational society with no wages, no money, no social classes, and, eventually no state - “a free association of producers under their own conscious and purposive control.” McInes, Neil “Karl Marx,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volumes 5 & 6, MacMillan Publishing Co. (NY: 1967) p. 172.
Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks were a series of rebellions and uprisings against the Bolsheviks led or supported by left wing groups including Socialist Revolutionaries, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and anarchists. Some were in support of the White Movement while some tried to be an independent force. The uprisings started in 1918 and continued through the Russian Civil War and after until 1922. In response the Bolsheviks increasingly abandoned attempts to get these groups to join the government and suppressed them with force.
Originally posted by Openeye
I would agree with the statement that government is the "most violent of all monopolies", however the institutions authority on force is distributed by the people, because we elect the representatives who are imbued with that authority. An argument could be made that military officials are not technically elected by the people, but we again we elect the people who appoint them, they just don't seize power and brand themselves authority figures, if they did that we would live in a type of military junta.
Corporations however are accountable to no one, at least in a world where government does not exist. In a society that has a state, laws bind corporations to do business within the boundaries of consent. If a state does not exist, than a corporation is bound by no laws and could become a sort of unaccountable feudal organization which allocates resources by force, thus becoming no better than a tyrannical government.