Forum Post: Want socialism now?
Posted 12 years ago on March 22, 2012, 11:57 a.m. EST by Craiggiedangit
(99)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Why not live on a commune? I live very close to one and have had the pleasure of meeting some very nice people that live there. The workers get to control the means of production and take an even share of the profits. Why not do this?
You're free to do that, if the lifestyle appeals to you. If the system works it may very well attract more followers and grow. While it grows you can work out the details of what to do with any individuals that take advantage of the group and don't work. Forcing an entire society to change because this works for a small group of individuals that are there by choice, is foolish.
I am not in disagreement with you, I am saying forcing an entire economy to become socialist has little to no chance of happening as it is. We need to start locally, setting a good example, and show the average person a better way of life.
Utopianism is a long dead concept and has absolutely nothing with displacing market relations internationally.
What are you saying? We can't start somewhere?
The place to start is where we live, with the existing social relations and the effort to transform those social relations. That is what is going on internationally. Ultimately that is what OWS is all about, though the struggle right now is most clear in the European periphery. In Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Spain. Especially, right now, in Spain which is preparing for a general strike. That is hitting capital where it hurts, which going off and starting a hippie commune somewhere will never do.
How much of what is happening in Europe is to protect the flow of what the people see as free stuff from the government? We can talk about the greedy bankers, but the people have their own greedy desires too. The health care, retirement packages, welfare, subsidized housing, none of it is truly free.
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That's just the point. We (the working class) need to take responsibility for the crisis and do everything we can to deepen it and bring down the system. We need to demand more, more, more until the system simply can't supply it. We need to stop blaming the bankers and take responsiblity. It is we who are bringing down the system and we should be proud of it. They accuse use of being lazy. Damn right we are lazy. Fuck um!
I'll admit that you bring a fresh idea. But is it really that simple?
Of course it's not simple but taking ownership for the crisis rather than laying it off on someone else, really is a different approach and what is most important about it conceptually is that when we do that we no longer see ourselves as victims, but in control of the situation.
Interesting approach to solving the world's problems, make them worse and hope when the dust settles people will put some effort into the rebuilding.
These are not "the world's" problems in some abstract sense. These are crises in capitalism. These are crises in the bourgeois order. The worse things are for capitalism, the better they can be or may be for the rest of us. While "the mutual destruction of the contending forces" is a very real, problematic and tragic outcome, it does not follow that what helps the present social order helps us all.
What do you see as coming out of all this?
OWS is both a very tiny movement and a very new movement. It is still barely in its infancy. I suspect that most of the people in this nation are hardly aware of the existence of OWS, much less what it is all about. Many people who contribute to this forum seem never to have been to an occupation or a general assembly and even though they often say they are supportive of OWS I am not sure that they are at all clear about what it is they are supportive of.
That said, OWS has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world and it has energized virtually every other social movement in the nation from the labor movement to the civil rights movement to the women's movement and the gay rights movement to the environmental movement and more. It has essentially helped to create entirely new movements against foreclosure and student debt.
It has created the first alliance between sections of organized labor and the radical intelligentcia since the 1940s. It has energized thousands of people to get up away from their TV screens and computers and go out into the streets and engage with each other. That, it seems to me, are quite significant accomplishments for such a young and small movement.
It is hard to know where it will go next, excepting that short of the establishment of a genuine police state I do not think it will disappear because its grievances are systemic, not cyclical and as such they are not likely to disappear. Right now OWS is really to young and too small to offer much in the way of a positive program, much less implement such a program. Right now, what it can do is say to the ruling circles (that are naturally round about) BASTA! ENOUGH!
Thank you for sharing your views with me.
Just trying to break the shackles of capitalism. Dust or no dust.
It actually is refreshing, assuming it's honestly meant. If it's an opinion widely held by OWS it certainly explains their reluctance to do anything to improve the republic we have.
Yes , there is an overall disappointment with the whole system. Although many components have value, they also contribute to the things currently are. It's a sad state when we are willing to sink the very ship we are standing on just to end the misery on board.
There are some that feel that way in any society. I think the availability of social media makes the numbers look bigger then they actually are, but that's just my opinion.
A collapse may come, but the potential level of destruction makes me question the morality of of such a plan. Not that it matters to me, I'm of the opinion that the level of misery in this country isn't anywhere near where it would have to be for a collapse.
If collapse does come, it may be the armed doomsday preppers, separatists, and right wing militias that run things not the direct democracy anarchists. A case of beware of what you wish for.
The collapse will come from an unsustainable capitalist system. The tax collecting debt system is also unsustainable and has just about run it's course. Soon we will be entering a new system as this current system will inevitably fail. Misery or no misery, the ship is sinking.
The collapse will come from an unsustainable capitalist system.////////////////////The collapse will come if Obama gets four more years and implements his socialist communism regime
I agree with your first sentence. Capitalism is unsustainable.
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You need to see someone in the mental health field.
My remarks above are not original to me. They are based on the comments of sociologist John Holloway in his concluding remarks at the Left Forum on March 18. I found them quite inspirational and interesting in how he turned conventional logic on its head. Like queers who don't deny their queerness or freaks who don't deny their freakiness, it seems to me that we (the working class) should take responsibility for bringing down the system that is exploiting us. And BTW, I worked for 5 years as a mental health counselor.
Who cares what other people are doing? If we want to control the means of production, we can. That is what socialism is about. I'm not talking about starting a hippie commune, there are plenty of communal villages already started.
You are essentially saying we need to be worrying about what others are doing instead of what we are doing. That is a recipe for an un-peaceful world, and what social conservatives are constantly saying.
Whether we are talking about Marxist or working class notions of solidarity, or anarchist notions of mutual aide or primitive Christian notions of universal brotherhood, we live in the world together. We are our brother's keeper. It is not just for altruistic reasons. We cannot hide from the problems of the world created by capitalism and our relationship to it whether that be global warming or world imperialism or a myriad of other problems facing the world because of capitalism and that will face us no matter where we go.
How can world imperialism affect us if we stick together and grow our own business together? We will collectively become the imperials. Things are swinging our way, people are starting to see our way of thinking more. Please don't ruin any good will toward this movement with ideas about causing a collapse in society. Even if you mean them well, it will still harm the movement because people won't understand.
How horrible. OWS clearly wants to end imperialism, not become part of it. OWS has made very few political statements, but the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City is very clear in its opposition to imperialism and colonialism. It is the megacorporations, in their struggle to defeat us, that are the seeds of their own destruction. Our movement, which is still too small to do much beyond saying NO! BASTA! call move that process along by demanding more than this dirty rotten system is capable of providing.
Patience is a revolutionary virtue. It will undoubtedly take decades and perhaps several lifetimes to rid the world of this horrible system.
JuanFenito must have stretched your leg about 6 feet.
Exactly. Capitalism might be leaving, but it is certainly going nowhere anytime soon. Why should spend my life fighting for a payoff I will never see? I can rid my life of capitalism tomorrow by moving to the commune near me, which is something I am considering. Who cares what anyone else has? It doesn't matter, I will be living in a micro-sphere economy where I am protected from imperialism. The people riding the system like a broken hobby horse will be as members of a foreign country to me. Does it matter what rich people in Canada do? Heck no. Will it matter any more what rich people outside the commune do? No again.
I am not advocating us become imperial dogs, but merely having wealth does not make someone bad. In many cases, you need to become the beast in order to defeat it. Control the wealth first, then use it to defeat the system that gave it to you. Michael Moore is doing what I am describing, why can't we all be like him? Please tell me you don't begrudge him his wealth.
Thirdly, I wasn't even really referring to any one person controlling wealth, I mean all of us collectively, the way it is supposed to be. We can grow our communes to be large like corporations, and show the average worker a better way of life. Why not?
You really should change your user name more if you don't want to be recognized.
Craiggiedangit is a troll mocking my username.
Ahha! I got it and you are obviously correct. Sorry.
because thats impossible to do on a national scale. it works in small communities where everyone has shared interests but why would i give things up so washington state (thousands of miles away) can have a new bridge. besides, name one successful socialist nation?.......you can't because there isn't one. all socialist countries are horrible. EX. north korea, cuba, myanmar all are terrible places to live. the topic of china always comes up. china has a communist government but a free market economy. so it is not socialist. No nation has ever had successful socialism. Capitalism and competition have led to the highest standard of living in the history of man kind. they are the way of the future
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The economy is all-encompassing. Creating co-ops and solidaric communes etc is great and I hope they grow, but it can't stop there. The overwhelming wealth and power is still concentrated on the finacial elite who control the economy and our lives; this must be addressed and dealt with.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/our-democratic-deficit/
It will be addressed, when people see how well we are able to stick together and produce things more efficiently and harmoniously in a collective environment. As it gains popularity, the wealth and power will be back in the hands of the people, collectively, where it should be.
As it is now, the average person is happy with being a wage slave. We need to set a better example and show them a better way. Only then will they fight alongside us. As it stands now, socialism has a very poor chance of suddenly becoming the economic system of the country.
""NATO is staging "Massacre of Christians in Syria by Muslims", by bringing Al Qaida and other radical Islamists to Syria, in order to initiate a war, where they can nuke Iran, give a lesson to rising China, control Middle East oil resources, and allow some people to print as much money as they wish by using petrodollars, so they can control the society and the world through their wealth and power. This will also allow capitalism to continue by breaking the Eastern and the Socialist spirituality which is growing around the world and which is the biggest threat to capitalist ruling elite. ""
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Because we are living in the city of rats, where everybody trying to snatch their piece in competition race. i work by hours with group of people. everybody have solid schedule. everybody do the same thing. Mostly time people trying to do only their part of job, and they makes it easy way (for them self) Easy way not always right way. and if you have done the mistake everybody calling for you to fix it, instead of fixing it by them self? Why certain individuals have to correct team work(somebodies mistake for instance)? why not?
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