Depends on your views on ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ I suppose; whichever one you think carries more weight is probably the more ‘ironic’ statement. Bloody semantics.

Unless I have remembered, (and most other people have quoted) erroneously, Adam’s hand wasn’t magic, it was invisible :p… which is obviously beside the point… there is as much in Adam Smith to inspire (n.b. not in the al-Qaeda sense) the ‘left’ as there is the ‘right’. Once again, always the trouble with these thinking types – people insist on pigeon-holing their asses.

It might help if you came with a term that didn’t utilise the names of two political parties – and didn’t embrace two concepts (liberalism and conservatism) that have never, outside the less than honest rhetoric of some very fringe figures, been associated with the notions you’re trying to define.

I figured leaving them in lowercase was good enough to ignore the political parties (who are obviously only ever ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ when it wins a couple more votes in the right places). As for the broader ideologies – back to the sodding subjective definitions. In the hasty context in which I used them, the conjoined term was meant to imply a form of govt that recognised its limits and left well alone (not to be confused with the actual laissez-faire of the past). Thanks to those pesky power-impulses, we’re never gonna see a genuine realisation of the term in the way I used it… everyone’s a Fascist/Socialist/idiot deep down :)

If you don’t think socialism can, do you think anything can? Socialism went a very long way to dissolving hierarchical structures, in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, during the C20th. Applied, perhaps differently, certainly more rigorously, it can go further, it can go all the way. A system of economic and social co-operation does not require hierarchies, and I don’t believe human nature does either.

Not entirely – you may be able to temporarily break ’em down, but human nature will build ’em right back up again. This is not, IMO, a bad thing. (But, please, let’s not open that can of monkeys). And ‘require’ is obv very different to ‘benefit from’. :)

ME: Tell people what to do and they’ll revolt, whether the person telling them what to do is an all-seeing God who knows what’s best for them or not.
GREGG: One would certainly hope so.

And yet, if you are to implement the more necessarily punitive measures of some form of ‘socialism’ this is exactly what you’ll be doing.

Britain spent forty years trying to realise a socialist order, a co-operative commonwealth (at least in theory).

Ah, post-war British economic history, another of my *glorious* study areas. Duller than socialism, all told. Damn that Bretton Woods. The whole mess is, IMO, too complex to possibly even think about positing the lot under ‘attempted socialist order’. Sorry.

Points accepted on some of LvM’s predictions… but no one has yet written a completely accurate book in this genre. The point I was getting at with the Noble quip was essentially ‘give an alternative to the problem of economic calculation.’

Mises was a ranter who told a certain group of powerful individuals what it wanted to hear. Some of his analysis of socialism is useful (and he does make some valid criticisms), but his analysis of capitalism is a myopic fantasy and his predictions about the future outcomes of both systems have proved to be completely inaccurate.

Don’t think he was that ranty – a vast chunk of the book is factual – and I don’t think I read it ‘wanting to hear’ anything in particular, but hell, I’ve probably been brainwashed by eeeeevils somewhere along the line :)

But yes, his predictions of capitalism were (like everyone else’s – inevitably given the whole dynamic-ness of poltico-economic structures?) a wee bit off. Irrelevant to the whole economic calculation point though – ultimately someone has to set and constantly update the price of everything.

the pendulum will swing the other way, as it did in the 1970s, and since nothing else is on offer, or likely to be, it will swing towards socialism. And socialism is a better system. But perhaps this swining is the end of history, perhaps we’ll spend the next few thousand years swinging between capitalism and socialism, or fudged transitionary phases to each.

And on the news tonight: human history is, and forever will be, in a big mess. :)

It’ll change now and then thanks to a few exceptional individuals. Fukuyama obviously isn’t one of them :)

It seems, to me, that a system based on co-operation rather than competition could be sustainable, and would not require the constant expansion that makes capitalism unsustainable. Indeed, such a system would be self-sustaining – it would not be liable to the violent shocks of the market, it would require and encourage continuing participation and so not follow the trend towards complacency. Maybe not, but I don’t see how it touches on ID.

I would suggest otherwise, and we’ll both no doubt claim ‘History’ as our evidence. Can’t personally see humanity standing still and starting to co-operate. Man has (and I think always will be) a competitive, weasly, back-stabbing animal of fairly insignificant intelligence who finds being a git easier than not. Might as well harness such stuff.

As for the ID comment – it was purely a reference to the ID argument of: “you haven’t explained that perfectly, therefore you’re totally wrong; it was God wot did it.” So just as that’s clearly an insufficient answer to the question of creation, “capitalism isn’t sustainable” is insufficient as to why socialism would be any better (with, in lieu of any other evidence, Marx’s assertion as the guiding light).

And breathe. And yawn. And sleep.

But you would at least agree it’s less ironic?

It might help if you came with a term that didn’t utilise the names of two political parties – and didn’t embrace two concepts (liberalism and conservatism) that have never, outside the less than honest rhetoric of some very fringe figures, been associated with the notions you’re trying to define.

More with the labels… there are about a million arguments in that one little statement, and if Amartyr Sen can’t conclude on any of them, I’m guessing no one can. Socialism has never (can never) dissolve hierarchical structures, except in terms of replacing one structure with another one.

If you don’t think socialism can, do you think anything can? Socialism went a very long way to dissolving hierarchical structures, in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, during the C20th. Applied, perhaps differently, certainly more rigorously, it can go further, it can go all the way. A system of economic and social co-operation does not require hierarchies, and I don’t believe human nature does either.

Tell people what to do and they’ll revolt, whether the person telling them what to do is an all-seeing God who knows what’s best for them or not.

One would certainly hope so.

Beautiful. No, really. However, before I accept this, I want some evidence. As I said to Phil E – an actual thorough refutation of what is contained in the vM link above (only needs slight modernisation) wins you a Nobel. Personally, if I had the resources inside me to win such a thing, I’d go and do it. It’d look well good on the CV

I’m certainly not willing and probably not able to produce a counter-point to the whole text, but I’ll take a bit of the conclusion:

“Wherever Europeans or the descendants of European emigrants live, we see Socialism at work today; and in Asia it is the banner round which the antagonists of European civilization gather. If the intellectual dominance of Socialism remains unshaken, then in a short time the whole co-operative system of culture which Europe has built up during thousands of years will be shattered.”

Mises wrote this work in the 1920s. Socialism was intellectually dominant in Western Europe, the Commonwealth and the Anglosphere, at least to the extent Mises describes, from the 1930s to the 1970s. That’s not a short time. The co-operative system of culture was greatly enhanced during that period – indeed, co-operation which had been theoretical or imagined before became concrete.

For a socialist order of society is unrealizable. All efforts to realize Socialism lead only to the destruction of society.

Britain spent forty years trying to realise a socialist order, a co-operative commonwealth (at least in theory). Society was not destroyed until it stopped trying to do that and turned instead to Thatcherism.

Factories, mines, and railways will come to a standstill, towns will be deserted.

For better or worse, socialism extended the life of Britain’s manufacturing base, its mines, its rail network and its provincial towns for decades – in some cases, for the best part of a century. Without public ownership and central planning, these things would not have survived the combination of the Great Depression and World War II, and may not have survived even without those disasters (the railways, for instance, have not functioned profitably as an enterprise for about a century). The remnants that still exist, of the railways, of manufacturing, of society outside the financial and service centres of the UK, exist because of public ownership, central planning, economic co-operation – socialism. The destruction of these things (the policy of letting them die), whilst it may have brought great benefit to a small elite, has been detrimental to the majority of people. Again, Mises’ predictions did not come true when we had socialist leaders, when we were moving towards socialism, when socialism was intellectually dominant. It is only since the pendulum swung the other way that we have seen any rise of the things Mises predicted would befall Europe and its former colonies.

Mises was a ranter who told a certain group of powerful individuals what it wanted to hear. Some of his analysis of socialism is useful (and he does make some valid criticisms), but his analysis of capitalism is a myopic fantasy and his predictions about the future outcomes of both systems have proved to be completely inaccurate.

because capitalism simply isn’t sustainable
Which means Socilism is?

Not necessarily, but the pendulum will swing the other way, as it did in the 1970s, and since nothing else is on offer, or likely to be, it will swing towards socialism. And socialism is a better system. But perhaps this swining is the end of history, perhaps we’ll spend the next few thousand years swinging between capitalism and socialism, or fudged transitionary phases to each.

Bit of the ID about that one, methinks. (Even if the authority of Marx is a tad superior to the authority of whichever group of chaps wrote the Bible).

I don’t think so. It seems, to me, that a system based on co-operation rather than competition could be sustainable, and would not require the constant expansion that makes capitalism unsustainable. Indeed, such a system would be self-sustaining – it would not be liable to the violent shocks of the market, it would require and encourage continuing participation and so not follow the trend towards complacency. Maybe not, but I don’t see how it touches on ID. It does seem clear that history is not over, that capitalism is not the end all. (If you do want a good example of ID, though, ponder Adam Smith’s magic hand.)

You’ll forgive me therefore, if having already discussed it with some bona fide intellectual lefty-luminaries, I continue to be somewhat flippant wit y’all.

Of course.

FWIW (which is obviously very very little) I’d say it was equally as silly, subjective and pointless. But, meh.

Why do people insist on sullying things with party-politics? I would never ascribe by hasty definition of what I classed as liberal-conservatism to any govt that I have any knowledge of. It’s impossible: the urges that put someone into power are not compatible with the urge to leave people the fuck alone.

Socialism is as near as politics gets to being libertarian, to increasing liberty (because it reduces and dissolves hierarchical structures)

More with the labels… there are about a million arguments in that one little statement, and if Amartyr Sen can’t conclude on any of them, I’m guessing no one can. Socialism has never (can never) dissolve hierarchical structures, except in terms of replacing one structure with another one. Tell people what to do and they’ll revolt, whether the person telling them what to do is an all-seeing God who knows what’s best for them or not.

The collective ownership of the means of the production (which is likely to become the dominant economic framework, in the UK and globally, in the next 10 or 15 years – what with the past three decades having proved Mises and his ilk profoundly wrong on just about every substantive point they ever made) is the only way to achieve self-ownership, to be free.

Beautiful. No, really. However, before I accept this, I want some evidence. As I said to Phil E – an actual thorough refutation of what is contained in the vM link above (only needs slight modernisation) wins you a Nobel. Personally, if I had the resources inside me to win such a thing, I’d go and do it. It’d look well good on the CV :)

because capitalism simply isn’t sustainable

Which means Socilism is? Bit of the ID about that one, methinks. (Even if the authority of Marx is a tad superior to the authority of whichever group of chaps wrote the Bible).

But hey, I’m bored of this: I spent far too much time at university (that would clearly have been better spent playing more football and/or drinking) writing a big ‘ol piece on whether Socialism contained the seeds of its own destruction. It bored me then and it bores me even more now. (And, presumably, this whole semi-semantical debate bores most people yet to sell their brains to groupthink plc.)

You’ll forgive me therefore, if having already discussed it with some bona fide intellectual lefty-luminaries, I continue to be somewhat flippant wit y’all.

Have a nice day peeps :D

The problem with this notion is that it comes back to what you said earlier in the post (and dismissed as crude and largely wrong) – that all politics is socialism. Taking away one freedom or another for little observable purpose is one of the things Labour learnt it had to do to get back into power, one of the things it learnt from Thatcher – Tonyism is constantly and consistently seen as Toryism, Blairism as Thatcherism, as much because of its stupid authoritarian tendencies as its stupid economic ones. The Tories have always been the more authoritarian of the two parties on offer – going right back to the 1680s – and if that’s no longer the case (and it’s by no means certain at the moment which party has the edge), it’s not because of any lingering vestiges of socialism in Labour, but because New Labour is so thoroughly modelled on the Tory Party.

You suggest that there’s a “liberal-conservative”, or at least non-socialist, stream that is less authoritarian, but this simply isn’t the case, as anyone who was conscious between 1979 and 1997, or has bothered examining the policies of the other parties, or has any knowledge of the history and evolution of socialism, can tell you. In terms of modern party politics, there is sometimes a bit of variation in precisely how a party is or intends to be authoritarian, but it all boils down to the same thing. Socialism is as near as politics gets to being libertarian, to increasing liberty (because it reduces and dissolves hierarchical structures). Scrap government altogether in some utopian Ayn Rand wet dream, and all you’ll do is enslave everyone to a handful of plutocrats and warlords – which is, after all, how things were before democracy came along – and those who advocate the abolition of government, consciously or not, advocate a system whereby the poor would (once again) be entirely subject to the authority of the rich.

The collective ownership of the means of the production (which is likely to become the dominant economic framework, in the UK and globally, in the next 10 or 15 years – what with the past three decades having proved Mises and his ilk profoundly wrong on just about every substantive point they ever made) is the only way to achieve self-ownership, to be free. Whether that ownership follows the pattern it followed before (of central planning and indirect control), or whether it follows direct worker control (either through democratic measures imposed by government, or through the evolution of shareholding and worker participation in management), socialism is the future (because capitalism simply isn’t sustainable) and will inevitably increase liberty. If someone else owns the means by which I make a living, then that person effectively owns me; only by owning an equal share in those means am I free from being owned myself. Pace Mises, socialism is what it has always been: the road out of serfdom.

To be fair, it’s nowhere near as silly, subjective or pointless as the term, “free market”, and significantly less ironic.

Just as you get angry/annoyed/mildly aggrieved that the definition of Socialism is still grounded in the collective ownership of the means of production, there are probably others who would take offence to it not being… Ah the joys of pointless nit-picking… where would politics be without it? :)

Can you cite the part where I talk (unironically) about the state – or any other ‘single entity’ – being responsible for price-setting? Talking about socialism these days is a bit like being a Quaker with an audience of atheists – people assume you’re in favour of things which you actually oppose as much as they do, and carry on assuming it even after you’ve told them otherwise.

As for ‘the principle of interference’, I think you’ll find there was a fair bit of that going on under Hitler, Franco and Peron, and very much for the supposed good of the people rather than for the benefit of the rulers. If you want to call New Labour authoritarian or argue that it has totalitarian tendencies, I won’t object. Come to that, if you want to go all the way and call the buggers Fascists I won’t be queueing up to complain. But ‘socialist’… I don’t think so.

To be fair(er) to vM, when he was writing, he was writing about the Socialism that was about at the time… i.e. the idea of a planned economy. As for me, I wasn’t basing any argument on a completely planned economy (that would surely completely degrade any thread of argument, flippant or otherwise). I was merely using the principle of interference as the base for the verbal vomit. The principles remain apt.

But either way, it boils down to the old argument of price-setting – do we want a single entity to do it, or the nearest approximation to ‘the people’ that we have to do it? Obviously we want something in between. Apparently the more ‘democratic’ method leans towards the former, which is why, I take it, Phil E’s definition struck people as a little odd.