(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

So the latest thing going the rounds is "OMG they're using socialism on us!" The idea has permeated the web and become one of those things that nobody questions.

Newsflash, guys. Okay, the government may have bought some assets, but calling that socialism is like calling it Christian worship when a man stubs his toe and shouts "JESUS!!!" Socialism is when the government owns and administers the means of production and distribution for the benefit of the people and as the normal state of affairs. Buying up a bunch of dodgy loans to save your venture-capitalist friends from having to face the consequences of their greed may be many things, including but not limited to unconstitutional, impractical, hypocritical, desperate and just plain stupid, but socialism in any meaningful sense it ain't, and calling it such is simple scaremongering, because for some reason Americans are more terrified of socialism than of, oh say, theocratic despotism.

To be fair, I'm sure Bush and his friends would much rather have simply handed over the original $700bn to the bankers with no strings attached (it's the American way), but something prevented them. I don't know what.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

We're still growing up. I think it's leftover from conflation of "socialism" with "the red menace". People forget that public schools, roads, police and fire departments, and the like are "socialism".

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes and yes.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

calling that socialism is like calling it Christian worship when a man stubs his toe and shouts "JESUS!!!"

Best. analogy. ever. I shall use it forthwith.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Please do. And thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

There's this idea going around that Gordon Brown is either (depending on your political prejudices) a) the demon king ripping off his mask of benevolence and revealing his horns or b) the long-lost True King who had hidden in the heart of the enemy from whence he springs to lead us to the true Jerusalem....

Me, I just think he's making it up as he goes along.

And I wonder what the government line at the next election will be?

"We may have gone along with all the Tory policies that lead up to this point but you can trust us more than you can them to put it right!"

Which is bizzare and unbelievable (though true) expect that the Tories can do nothing but shout "It's their fault! Trust us! Forget that David Cameron was pushing sub-prime mortgages as a Good Thing just a short while ago..."

I'm expecting any day now to step out of the shower and be told that everything since 1979 has been a hideous dream and I'm now in my twenties again... (An aging git can hope...)

M. Cule
At Procrastination Central

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Oh gods, I wish. As long as I still get to meet the Countess in 1980.

You made me smile....

[earth-wizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah... listening to FOX.news you'd think the sky was falling with socialists.

Nationalisation by the Bush regime, of course, does not mean real ‘socialism’. Their aim is to use the state’s resources, including a massive increase in public debt, to stabilise capitalism and prepare the ground for a recovery at a later date. Moreover, millions of working-class families have been ensnared by crooked finance companies into the subprime mortgage trap, and many are now losing their homes. Millions will face unemployment and poverty wages as the financial crisis pushes the US economy deeper into recession.

Real socialism would mean the taking over of the finance sector and the commanding heights of the economy by a government of the working class, to be run democratically under the control of those who produce the wealth. Democratic planning would replace the anarchy of the market. Production would be to meet the needs of society, not the profits of the few. Nevertheless, as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels pointed out, even nationalisation measures carried out by the capitalist state for its own ends demonstrate the redundancy of private ownership and the possibility of an alternative, more advanced economic system.

PAULSON CLAIMS THAT people do not care who owns the banks. Millions of homeowners, however, will care that the government is using taxpayers’ money to bail out the banks which have sold and securitised toxic mortgages while millions are facing penal interest rates and the threat of foreclosure. In fact, millions of Americans are already incensed at Paulson’s plan.

Community organisations, unions, and all those who defend the interests of working people should demand that, instead of the nationalisation of finance capital’s toxic assets and bad debts, the banks and financial institutions (insurance companies, hedge funds, etc) should be nationalised and run in a democratically planned way under workers’ control and management. Compensation for small shareholders and depositors should be on the basis of need only.

Re: You made me smile....

[keristor.livejournal.com]

PAULSON CLAIMS THAT people do not care who owns the banks.

True in my case, I don't care who owns them. I do care when the government decides, without consulting me (or other taxpayers) to pour thousands of (pounds/euros/dollars) of my money into baling out their friends. Or for that matter into illegal wars...

It is neither socialism nor capitalism, and certainly is nothing like free market (which would let the owners of the banks go to the wall, and let their creditors demand their money back out of the bankers' own pockets).

(Oh, and Zan: seconded the best analogy vote...)

[lutos.livejournal.com]

I'm really enthused by your latest ranting posts concerning the Bush disaster, the election soap, the economic crisis and related topics.
Please carry on like this, you're speaking for me, too, but unfortunately I do miss all the words to describe these horrid absurd ongoing things accurately.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

>Americans are more terrified of socialism

We are? Why is Obama -- the putative "socialist" -- ahead 10-11 points in the major polls this morning? Why does 538 give McCan't a 5.8% chance of winning? You're listening to pundits and saying that's all Americans?

Americans are 300 million+ individual people. To generalize about all Americans is as inexact and logically/ethically wrong as to generalize about all the members of any group. I'm far too stupid to assume that I alone am wise enough to see what the blind masses will not. I think most people have more than a clue. And yes, I likewise refuse any quotations by H.L. Mencken.

[meritmaat.livejournal.com]

Of course it is simplyfying and, stricly speaking, wrong to generalize a whole group of people.
Yet, to even call Obama a "putative socialist" is an indication of how little the general American public knows of and how much they fear socialism (as I presume the attribute "socialist" come from his political enemies). To European ears, to hear a Democrat to be called a "socialist" is highly amusing.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I say "putative" because the right-wing pundits have been calling Obama "socialist" not because he is seen as one. As for "European ears", I always seek to be polite enough to allow the denizens of any culture the right to judge and define their own culture. It's not for me to say. Among my people, it's generally considered VERY rude to criticize another culture. I'll just say, yet again, that the only truly ignorant people are the ones who ascribe certain qualities to all the members of any group -- be they gay people, black people, Europeans or Americans or what-have-you. Such generalizations usually say more about the percipient's need to demean than it does any outer reality. ;)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Hi, and welcome to my LJ. I don't think I've seen you here before, so it's possible that you don't know me very well.

Of course it would be very stupid to assume that all Americans believe, or are scared by, any one thing, and of course I make no such idiotic assumption. I am, however, not taking my impression from pundits, but from my experience of American culture, gathered over a great number of years, not merely the last few weeks.

It seems hardly deniable that when the right-wing pundits call Obama "socialist" they intend it to have a similar effect to calling him "Muslim" or "terrorist," and it seems quite likely that they imagine they have some reason to assume that it will have such an effect. And, in some quarters, as I have seen, it has indeed; although the comments I've seen have not referred to Obama, but to the bailout measures as I said. And, yes, I find the overreaction a little ridiculous, but I do not actually imagine that all Americans feel that way.

Regular visitors to my little nook are quite aware that I have nothing but the greatest respect and fondness for America as a nation, for its people, for its history, and for the many ways in which it has benefited the culture of the world. As for its current administration, the Republican party in general, extremist Christian fundamentalism, or laissez-faire capitalism in any form, I am afraid I reserve the right to be very rude about them in my journal whenever I choose, because I think they deserve it. And if you think that's bad, you should hear me on the subject of our pathetic excuse for a government in Britain.

I hope that has cleared things up a little.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

We have a lot of flist members in common so I've seen your posts before. I've never responded until now.

"Republican" is a self-selected culture and an abysmal one (self-selected cultures aren't representative of a generalized people pool). With a few exceptions (Chuck Hagel, for one), they have become the party of sociopathy -- Grand Old Psychopaths. I also have a great respect for genuine American history and culture (I'm a John Adams buff, as you might have guessed) which has nothing whatsoever to do with this band of theocratic thieves and liars who've taken over our government over the last thirty years. We're very much in agreement on all that.

I've just friended you back, btw.

[meritmaat.livejournal.com]

let me give you a hug *hugs*

[pwilkinson.livejournal.com]

That right-wing characterisation of socialism has been going around for a very long time. It seems to have originated sometime around 1870, when a group of Austrian economists redirected their pro-capitalist (and interestingly proto-information theoretic) critique of the control-freak bureaucratic/managerial style of the Austrian Empire against the then-new theories of Karl Marx. For their successors, Marxism, and by extension socialism, became the main target - so "socialist" became their way of referring to any measures or policies at which their critique could be aimed.

But what this does mean is that, according to their views, the founders of socialism should not be taken to be Owen, Proudhon, Marx, Morris or Lenin - but Frederick the Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria.