As I’ve read criticisms of socialism, I thought I should read some advocates. This seemed promising: Bhaskar Sunkara, The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality
I will post a pro marxist argument but i dont support marxism because of the bias it faces from international media. They are fighting a losing battel against capitalism.If you look up the best governed state of india, youll find a state called kerala.My state is governed by democratically elected communist party,(electd 2017). They are probabaly going to lose the election next year, due to serious allegation against one of the ministers. After independence, india was ruled by Indian national congress for a long while, except for the state of kerala. Here we saw majority of marxist governments. Now its considered the best state in india(two subsequent floods, two subsequent pandemic, ie Nipha virus and covid, and still the state is far better economically. also the current state health ministery got recognized by UN for managing the pandemics). The only challenge to democracy came in 1960s when the Central government tried to ban the communist party (who won the election in the state level). The major opposition is the congress party. Corporate have a large influenze everywhere and it becomes easy for them to exploit the immense population of india for cheap labour if the government dosent have representation form Labour unions. Also here, the marxist government is a face against the religious politics.
Well, regarding the first three points, yes if they commit serious crimes. And, depending on how one looks at it, that might be seen as a Libertarian policy too, if we were to actually take the concept of personal responsibility seriously and removed corporate liability limitations. In this way, executives and shareholders would be considered personally responsible for everything the companies they manage and own caused, and therefore have a huge incentive to thread very carefully so as to never do anything in a rush that might have the slightest chance of killing anyone lest they were personally considered responsible in both civil and penal court. I'm a strong proponent of personal responsibility, so if this is what Sanders proposed in the US, such a position would indeed appeal to me.
About rent control, many countries do indeed have national laws governing that. Here in Brazil, for example, the agreed upon initial rent cannot increase in the following years beyond the inflation rate, and rent contracts have a minimum 3 year duration, automatically renewable. A landlord can regain their property if the tenant stops paying, or if they themselves want to use the property or sell it off, but if it remains available for rent, the current tenant has priority, with the rent increase limitation in place for as long as they keep renting. And in case the landlord wants to sell the property, the current tenant has priority in purchasing it as long as they accept paying the price the landlord is asking for the property, so that the landlord cannot pretend to sell it to expel the tenant then "change their mind" or whatever. This system works pretty well and there's no shortage of properties for rent, in fact, in many places there's an overabundance of properties for rent, and buying property for the purposes of rent continues being seen as one of the most profitable and safe long term investments. So, if Sanders defended something similar, I think it'd be pretty fine and unproblematic.
About nuclear power, that's a point I disagree with him, strongly. But is it something different from what other politicians in the USA do? As far as I know, at leat, no candidate from any US party defends truly expanding nuclear power, much less new technologies in the field. Has this changed?
I do not know much about European politicians. Do they call for putting Fossil Fuel Co executives in prison along with bank executives, do they compare pharma executives to murders, do they call for nationwide rent control even while supporting NIMBY's, do they call for closing existing nuclear plants and banning new even while calling AGW an existential threat (to what is unclear humanity? the USA?)?His ideas on many other things go well beyond how, say the Danish government governs.
I'm sure I've read statements by Engles along the lines of what I said, but anyway as you say western social democrats were anti revolutionary, and much socialist policy found its way into the western world to the point where the modern western world, normally referred to as capitalist and anti-socialist, is actually quite socialist. The renaming of things is a reason it's difficult for many to see what socialism is. The scope of capitalism expanded to include much of socialism to the point where there isn't much definition space left for socialism to fit in.
"Marx and Engles said that in countries with enough democracy, revolution would be worse than using democratic processes to implement more equality, workers rights, etc."
Are you sure? If we read, for example, his Critique of the Gotha Programme, he seems to have been quite adamantly opposed to this kind of policy as, in his view, it preserved social class structures and therefore prevented true equality, which could only come, he said, by means of a revolution. Now, at best he thought the revolution itself could be bloodless if society was socially advanced enough, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be every bit as rupturing with the previous social order as a bloodthirsty one, nor that it'd avoid the, in his view, absolute need for the establishment a dictatorship of the proletariat to keep things running during the transition period.
And that's not merely theoretical. He himself, his immediate followers, and all orthodox Marxists following his writings, were always inimical towards Social Democracy. They saw, and still see it, as a means for capitalists to keep proletarians from going for a revolution. So, saying Social Democracy follows Marxist ideas isn't quite correct. Yes, they originated in the same revolutionary milieu, and for a time shared some common elements, but soon departed precisely on this point, as social democrats were pro-representative democracy, pro-markets, and very anti-revolutionary.
I'm not well versed on the US political landscape. From here, what we heard of Sanders' proposals seem not to have been much different from usual European-style social democracy. So, when you say his proposals are crazy, do you mean he's proposed something that has been tried elsewhere but failed, and that's why he may be considered mentally unstable? If so, what were those failure-prone policy proposals of his?
I think one of the most frustrating problems today is NIMBYism. It's frustrating because Government just needs to get out of the way to greatly reduce the harmful effects and is it a direct result of Democracy. So Democracy seems to not always bring great results.
BTW crazy Bernie Sanders the number one self-proclaimed socialist in the USA has said he supports the NIMBYs is their causes. This Sunkara guy sounds like one more ignoring that aspect of democracy.
The modern western world is socialism. Companies are the result of government rules and exist only with the concent of government as long as they satisfy social purposes. They are sometimes broken up or rearranged. Poor people are generally given enough public money and medical treatment to survive. Education is avaialble for free funded by society as a whole. Government is subject to elections and society as a whole appoints people and groups of people to run things.
Marx and Engles said that in countries with enough democracy, revolution would be worse than using democratic processes to implement more equality, workers rights, etc. This is what happened from their time until post WW2 when most of what they argued for came to be in the western world.
Many western countries had governments that at times were proud to call themselves Marxist. Most western countries still have the political parties (Labour parties, and Social Demoratic parties) with explicit Marxist origins.
The main reason people do not believe the modern west is socialist is because the media, in efforts to grab attention to sell to advertisers, talked up a rivalry with the soviet union into a long lasting cold war. The soviet union had dictators who used Marx and similar as excuses for their existence. And consequently the resulting western media presentation was notionally anti-Marxist by maintaining the label of capitalism for the west as if nothing substantial changed between the 1880s and 1950s.
The word socialism has been redefined out of existence just as effectively as if a censorship committee was in charge of the media, this despite much of socialism continuing to exist. True double speak.
I think the issue is that socialists simply have much higher standards than centre-left groups. It’s not that socialists think more democracy and equality would be good, it’s that they think the current status quo is morally unacceptable. and our levels of democracy and equality are far from what is currently possible.
Note that by the late 1980s, the French financial sector under Mitterand had adopted more of the neoliberal banking rules that were spreading throughout Europe. It was the standard complaint of French socialists who felt betrayed and little jibes attacking were even inserted into performances of plays at the Comedie Francaise. Pre 1980 banks throughout Europe were hardly in an open competitive market.
Socialism is indeed a set of moral precepts, just not as usually understood by that label. The thing is that Socialism top lexical value is that Socialism should be promoted, with every other secondary moral value coming second hand to that one first principle.
To better understand this point I'd recommend philosopher Andrew Carpenter's article The Aristotelian Heart of Marx’s Condemnation of Capitalism. Part I is focused on justifying the article to other socialists who may think the author's goal invalid, so while an interesting discussion it can be glossed over by those not interested in abstract formal ethics. The juicy bits start with part II, at page 11.
Your arguments are, of course, unassailable; however, here's the part I don't get nor how to deal with its implications:
The 20th century was a huge experiment in socialism with catastrophic results (East vs. West Germany and North vs. South Korea being as close as we can get to natural experiments); yet, here we are, with no serious socialist theorists, vague hand-waving about Scandinavian Socialism, and socialist ideas have become extremely fashionable with the youth. How do we exit this infinite loop of bad ideas?
I will post a pro marxist argument but i dont support marxism because of the bias it faces from international media. They are fighting a losing battel against capitalism.If you look up the best governed state of india, youll find a state called kerala.My state is governed by democratically elected communist party,(electd 2017). They are probabaly going to lose the election next year, due to serious allegation against one of the ministers. After independence, india was ruled by Indian national congress for a long while, except for the state of kerala. Here we saw majority of marxist governments. Now its considered the best state in india(two subsequent floods, two subsequent pandemic, ie Nipha virus and covid, and still the state is far better economically. also the current state health ministery got recognized by UN for managing the pandemics). The only challenge to democracy came in 1960s when the Central government tried to ban the communist party (who won the election in the state level). The major opposition is the congress party. Corporate have a large influenze everywhere and it becomes easy for them to exploit the immense population of india for cheap labour if the government dosent have representation form Labour unions. Also here, the marxist government is a face against the religious politics.
Well, regarding the first three points, yes if they commit serious crimes. And, depending on how one looks at it, that might be seen as a Libertarian policy too, if we were to actually take the concept of personal responsibility seriously and removed corporate liability limitations. In this way, executives and shareholders would be considered personally responsible for everything the companies they manage and own caused, and therefore have a huge incentive to thread very carefully so as to never do anything in a rush that might have the slightest chance of killing anyone lest they were personally considered responsible in both civil and penal court. I'm a strong proponent of personal responsibility, so if this is what Sanders proposed in the US, such a position would indeed appeal to me.
About rent control, many countries do indeed have national laws governing that. Here in Brazil, for example, the agreed upon initial rent cannot increase in the following years beyond the inflation rate, and rent contracts have a minimum 3 year duration, automatically renewable. A landlord can regain their property if the tenant stops paying, or if they themselves want to use the property or sell it off, but if it remains available for rent, the current tenant has priority, with the rent increase limitation in place for as long as they keep renting. And in case the landlord wants to sell the property, the current tenant has priority in purchasing it as long as they accept paying the price the landlord is asking for the property, so that the landlord cannot pretend to sell it to expel the tenant then "change their mind" or whatever. This system works pretty well and there's no shortage of properties for rent, in fact, in many places there's an overabundance of properties for rent, and buying property for the purposes of rent continues being seen as one of the most profitable and safe long term investments. So, if Sanders defended something similar, I think it'd be pretty fine and unproblematic.
About nuclear power, that's a point I disagree with him, strongly. But is it something different from what other politicians in the USA do? As far as I know, at leat, no candidate from any US party defends truly expanding nuclear power, much less new technologies in the field. Has this changed?
I do not know much about European politicians. Do they call for putting Fossil Fuel Co executives in prison along with bank executives, do they compare pharma executives to murders, do they call for nationwide rent control even while supporting NIMBY's, do they call for closing existing nuclear plants and banning new even while calling AGW an existential threat (to what is unclear humanity? the USA?)?His ideas on many other things go well beyond how, say the Danish government governs.
I'm sure I've read statements by Engles along the lines of what I said, but anyway as you say western social democrats were anti revolutionary, and much socialist policy found its way into the western world to the point where the modern western world, normally referred to as capitalist and anti-socialist, is actually quite socialist. The renaming of things is a reason it's difficult for many to see what socialism is. The scope of capitalism expanded to include much of socialism to the point where there isn't much definition space left for socialism to fit in.
So have you come across a coherent argument for socialism, as this one seems to have failed.
"Marx and Engles said that in countries with enough democracy, revolution would be worse than using democratic processes to implement more equality, workers rights, etc."
Are you sure? If we read, for example, his Critique of the Gotha Programme, he seems to have been quite adamantly opposed to this kind of policy as, in his view, it preserved social class structures and therefore prevented true equality, which could only come, he said, by means of a revolution. Now, at best he thought the revolution itself could be bloodless if society was socially advanced enough, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be every bit as rupturing with the previous social order as a bloodthirsty one, nor that it'd avoid the, in his view, absolute need for the establishment a dictatorship of the proletariat to keep things running during the transition period.
And that's not merely theoretical. He himself, his immediate followers, and all orthodox Marxists following his writings, were always inimical towards Social Democracy. They saw, and still see it, as a means for capitalists to keep proletarians from going for a revolution. So, saying Social Democracy follows Marxist ideas isn't quite correct. Yes, they originated in the same revolutionary milieu, and for a time shared some common elements, but soon departed precisely on this point, as social democrats were pro-representative democracy, pro-markets, and very anti-revolutionary.
I'm not well versed on the US political landscape. From here, what we heard of Sanders' proposals seem not to have been much different from usual European-style social democracy. So, when you say his proposals are crazy, do you mean he's proposed something that has been tried elsewhere but failed, and that's why he may be considered mentally unstable? If so, what were those failure-prone policy proposals of his?
Maybe Charity-ism.A system where we target government charity at the least able citizens and let the rest rip in a very high level of freedom.
I think one of the most frustrating problems today is NIMBYism. It's frustrating because Government just needs to get out of the way to greatly reduce the harmful effects and is it a direct result of Democracy. So Democracy seems to not always bring great results.
BTW crazy Bernie Sanders the number one self-proclaimed socialist in the USA has said he supports the NIMBYs is their causes. This Sunkara guy sounds like one more ignoring that aspect of democracy.
The modern western world is socialism. Companies are the result of government rules and exist only with the concent of government as long as they satisfy social purposes. They are sometimes broken up or rearranged. Poor people are generally given enough public money and medical treatment to survive. Education is avaialble for free funded by society as a whole. Government is subject to elections and society as a whole appoints people and groups of people to run things.
Marx and Engles said that in countries with enough democracy, revolution would be worse than using democratic processes to implement more equality, workers rights, etc. This is what happened from their time until post WW2 when most of what they argued for came to be in the western world.
Many western countries had governments that at times were proud to call themselves Marxist. Most western countries still have the political parties (Labour parties, and Social Demoratic parties) with explicit Marxist origins.
The main reason people do not believe the modern west is socialist is because the media, in efforts to grab attention to sell to advertisers, talked up a rivalry with the soviet union into a long lasting cold war. The soviet union had dictators who used Marx and similar as excuses for their existence. And consequently the resulting western media presentation was notionally anti-Marxist by maintaining the label of capitalism for the west as if nothing substantial changed between the 1880s and 1950s.
The word socialism has been redefined out of existence just as effectively as if a censorship committee was in charge of the media, this despite much of socialism continuing to exist. True double speak.
I think the issue is that socialists simply have much higher standards than centre-left groups. It’s not that socialists think more democracy and equality would be good, it’s that they think the current status quo is morally unacceptable. and our levels of democracy and equality are far from what is currently possible.
Note that by the late 1980s, the French financial sector under Mitterand had adopted more of the neoliberal banking rules that were spreading throughout Europe. It was the standard complaint of French socialists who felt betrayed and little jibes attacking were even inserted into performances of plays at the Comedie Francaise. Pre 1980 banks throughout Europe were hardly in an open competitive market.
So you're saying that if the appropriate answers can't also be exciting, then we're doomed. Schumpeter, version 2.0
Socialism is indeed a set of moral precepts, just not as usually understood by that label. The thing is that Socialism top lexical value is that Socialism should be promoted, with every other secondary moral value coming second hand to that one first principle.
To better understand this point I'd recommend philosopher Andrew Carpenter's article The Aristotelian Heart of Marx’s Condemnation of Capitalism. Part I is focused on justifying the article to other socialists who may think the author's goal invalid, so while an interesting discussion it can be glossed over by those not interested in abstract formal ethics. The juicy bits start with part II, at page 11.
Offer something that's both better and more exciting.
Your arguments are, of course, unassailable; however, here's the part I don't get nor how to deal with its implications:
The 20th century was a huge experiment in socialism with catastrophic results (East vs. West Germany and North vs. South Korea being as close as we can get to natural experiments); yet, here we are, with no serious socialist theorists, vague hand-waving about Scandinavian Socialism, and socialist ideas have become extremely fashionable with the youth. How do we exit this infinite loop of bad ideas?