Forum Post: "-ism"s create Schisms
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 10, 2011, 5:47 p.m. EST by riethc
(1149)
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I'm tired of hearing people talk about Capitalism vs. Socialism. As far as I am concerned, Socialism fully implemented, leads to oppression by the state and Capitalism, fully implemented, leads to oppression by the rich. Truth is, these theoretical states of Capitalism and Socialism have never fully existed in any system, and will never fully exist. Saying these "ism"s are like saying Upism vs. Downism: you never fully are "up" and you never fully are "down", it's only in relation to where you are at the moment.
So rather that waste our time with "ism"s, why don't we focus on American solutions, which means digging through our past, seeing what works and what can be applied to our current situation, shall we?
To ban words that end in "ism" is stupid. We need to communication and not to pretend to communicate. No bans on words. We truly do not have time to waste pretending that we are communicating. We need to thoroughly and deeply understand the problem we have in common ( those of us who have to work for a living). We come to OWS because we and/or our friends and families are unemployed, underemployed, about to lose jobs, homeless, about to be homeless, sick and in need of unaffordable healthcare, burdened by debt in the struggle to get education - the list goes on, you know the list as well as I. All of these serious problems have one root cause: our economic system. This is not the first time our economic system has shoved working people into bare tooth survival mode. It happened in the 1930s, it happened in the 1890s. This recurring stage of crisis is in fact a feature and not a bug in our economic system. We are wasting our time if we only focus on our central banking system, regulation of businesses or other side aspects. We need to understand the system and seek a better system. The system is capitalism and we are seeing it in a stage that is cruelly and unfairly painful to working people. Vast numbers of people in the USA do not understand capitalism. Karl Marx made a thorough and scientific explanantion of capitalism. His work can help us to understand capitalism.
I grew up as a child during the McCarthy era. I know that it has been tabu to have any intereset in Karl Marx's study of capitalism. Do not be afraid to ask questions, to be curious, to think critically, to explore, to learn and understand. If you have to trade your time on the labor market to put a roof over your head and feed yourself, your life actually depends on you understanding this economic system.
I was banning nothing. This forum is just full of bullshit about capitalism vs. socialism, like they are two static realities we can choose between.
What I'm saying is that people should define things, don't just use an "-ism"; because these "-ism"s create schisms, and we should be discussing real things.
Both Karl Marx and Adam Smith were bullshit artists, and people are still peddling their wares. The reality of the situation is that we have to work together to create a future, or we will all go down as the morons of history (if there is anyone in the future left to write that history).
thank you. this is what I've thought for a while now too. -isms are obsolete, irrelevant, only theories. forget about -isms, they distract us from the real stuff we need to deal with - a fair society. In theory, any -ism makes a fair society. In reality, no -ism does. People always try to take advantage of the weaker no matter how you rearrange the playground.
Not always but that takes thinking beyond -isms.
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I think we ALL (people, businesses, governments) should be Shakespearian-ism: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry"
(and "husbandry" means "work")
less of an issue is who we borrow from, who holds our debt. More of an issue is when we borrow, we are borrowing from future income, future productivity, and in the case of government we are borrowing on future tax collections.
Interest rates should be higher, much higher, to both discourage borrowing and to encourage savings. Savings are the foundation of a healthy financial system. When money is needed, savings can be used for equity investment rather than for loans.
For a start, we need to put an immediate halt on any additional government borrowing.
The government needs to be sovereign over it's own currency, that's the problem.
Hear, hear!
Unite together for common cause!
Yes, let's do it.
If this is something you believe in, then keep up the tide. Be proactive and reach out to people.
United we stand, divided we fall.
I was one of the people who started the occupation on Wall Street, so being proactive is what I have been doing.
Excellent, keep up the good work! None of us can do enough. Keep at it.
Too many wingnuts on this forum. They know nothing of geopolitics. We should be demanding Glass-Steagall and the nationalizing of the Federal Reserve, otherwise we are all dead meat.
Wingnuts are everywhere, it's a fact of life.
w/r/t to nationalizing the Federal reserve and the Glass-Steagall Act. Is that really in everyone's best interest? Is that something even the most hardcore Tea Partier and Anarchocommunist can BOTH get behind?
I think we need to be focusing on campaign finance reform and removing private interests from a public government. I have yet to hear from anyone who actively opposes this. A few have said they don't think it's attainable, but no one I've talked to actively opposes it. Baby steps. This movement is still in it's infancy. We need to accomplish something everyone can agree on before we start debating the more complex issues.
"Is that really in everyone's best interest?" Yes, definitely. If you pair this up with large gov't projects, the gov't can issue the necessary credit and get people trained and back to work. See: NAWAPA
"Is that something even the most hardcore Tea Partier and Anarchocommunist can BOTH get behind?" Is that a serious question?
It is an entirely serious question. I ask because we have both at my local Occupy protest. This is a non-partisan movement, is it not? If so, if we really want to claim to represent the 99% then we need to start first focusing on goals that entire 99% can agree on.
The 99% thing is just rhetoric. You can't get 99% of people to agree on political issues. The reason for that is usually epistemological, but sometimes emotional.
I'm away it's rhetoric, I've been on that side of that particular debate more than once today already. For that matter I will specify that I didn't really mean literally 99% if the population.
That said, I still have yet to hear anyone try to argue that that we don't need campaign finance reform in this country or that corporate influence is 'just fine' the way it is. Exactly 99%? No, but I bet we can get closer to 99% than 50%.
On a side note, epistemological- fun new word! ^_^
People need to have genuine leadership who can congeal public opinion, not bullshit about how everyone is a leader.
MLK did not take in everyone's opinions and create a consensus. He formed a consensus through his intelligence, genuineness, and appeal to a higher power.
I don't know if someone who got assassinated for his beliefs is really a great example, but that's semantics and I won't push it. I see and understand your point, MLK was a powerful leader.
I respectfully disagree with the notion that the Occupy movement needs leadership. It's my opinion that we, as a Americans, have been in a political malaise. We need to encourage people to think for themselves and speak up, (preferably in that order) not mindlessly fall in to party ranks. I'd be open to a spokesperson, hopefully one who was rotated out, but not a leader. You see, I've become a bit jaded with regards to following other people's causes.
Without a genuine leader or a handful of genuine leaders, then we don't really know what direction we are going in, leaving it open to manipulation and being directed by other means.
Open to manipulation and being directed by other means? Care to say more about that specifically?
Look into it yourself. You're on the internet.
Alright, well I guess that marks the end of our debate and we'll have to agree to disagree about it. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me though, I've enjoyed it.