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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#111701: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:36:01 AM

If anything, the leaders we hold up to our highest esteem were the ones who expanded federal influence the most. Heck, from a purely capitalistic point of view, Lincoln is the worst president in history since he confiscated what, adjusted for inflation, had to be billions of dollars worth of property when he emancipated the slaves.

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#111702: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:41:19 AM

Maybe I'm just cynical. But I didn't know the founders hated corporations, that is interesting.

edited 11th Feb '16 11:56:57 AM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#111703: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:43:18 AM

More like...the foundations lived in a historical situation where corporation s werent really that big an issue?

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#111704: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:45:33 AM

Actually, if I'm remembering my history correctly, the greed of government-sponsored British corporations was part of what motivated the Revolution.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#111705: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:49:26 AM

Everyone who supports any kind of income redistribution (from rich to poor, not vice versa of course), regulatory control over the private sector, or nationalization of any industry is a socialist, by the purest definition.

Socialism is about control of the means of production, which Sanders does not support. Capitalist societies can still have redistributive taxation and regulation; indeed many socialists would argue that the 'free' market is in fact dependent on the support of the state.

Heck, from a purely capitalistic point of view, Lincoln is the worst president in history since he confiscated what, adjusted for inflation, had to be billions of dollars worth of property when he emancipated the slaves.

Well, that depends if you take capitalism to be purely about the accumulation of money, or if you think 'free market ideology' has some necessary component of individual freedom. Hell, even most libertarians don't like the Confederacy, although there are a fairly sizeable proportion of shitheads who do.

edited 11th Feb '16 8:50:47 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#111706: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:49:48 AM

The idea of corporations back then was the East India Company, which was a true MegaCorp both in size and in fulfilling the meaning of the trope. Hence Boston Tea Party, which destroyed EIC product.

edited 11th Feb '16 8:53:28 AM by FFShinra

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#111707: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:51:28 AM

[up][up] We have nationalized industries in the United States, so we have socialism. Unless you're suggesting that Sanders wants to return public utilities to the private market.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#111708: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:51:51 AM

@ Fighteer:

Actually, if I'm remembering my history correctly, the greed of government-sponsored British corporations was part of what motivated the Revolution.

Back then, there was no other way to found a Corporation (including Local Governments) — all had to be incorporated by an Act of Parliament.

[up] But nowhere near as many as Governments with explicitly Socialist credentials — indeed, wasn't Amtrak nationalised because the companies that formed it had gone out of business?note .

edited 11th Feb '16 8:57:21 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#111709: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:53:27 AM

Not related to the current topic of discussion but do you think the US would be better off if the Tenth Amendment just wasn't a thing?

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#111710: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:56:42 AM

Yes. If it didn't exist we'd probably have a lot more power to stop the states from pulling half the stupid stunts they try.

FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#111711: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:57:19 AM

[up][up]Then the US itself wouldn't be a thing.

And not all the areas of the US see the same issues the same way (even when they broadly agree with each other, so this isn't just a liberal/conservative thing). Overcentralizing government authority will ensure the US gets problems.

That said, there is something to be said for overdecentralization as well. But it has to be worked out on a case by case basis, not throwing out the tenth amendment.

edited 11th Feb '16 9:00:45 AM by FFShinra

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#111712: Feb 11th 2016 at 8:59:41 AM

@Achaemenid: That essay is another exceptional example of Libertarian thought as it should be, not as it is commonly expressed by its so-called adherents.

@others: To be sure, we are not nearly as socialist as other nations, but the inescapable fact is that the United States does seize private money to fuel public industries.

The Tenth Amendment is one of those weird ones that implies a lot but says very little, leaving wide powers of interpretation up to the legislature and the courts. It is at the heart of our federalist system, reserving a great deal of power to the individual states for the express purpose of preventing the Federal government from seizing all power.

I have often decried the idea of leaving the states so much power in our political system, given the abuses that it permits; but it also permits positive outcomes, such as the experiments in minimum wages and universal healthcare that are going on right now and have been going on. To allow for such things, we must accept that negative outcomes will occur as well, such as in Michigan and Kansas. If we believe in democracy at all, we must believe that the voters of those states can "throw out the bums" and elect people who will represent their interests properly.

Edit: There's also the fact that, as noted [down], without the Tenth, we'd have had an immediate secession of the slave-owning states rather than 100 years of grudging tolerance followed by a civil war.

edited 11th Feb '16 9:09:22 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#111713: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:02:16 AM

If it didn't exist then the first stupid stunt the states would have pulled would have been to bail from the Union. And they would have succeeded too since the power of the federal government at the time was too weak and the patriotism for the United States as a unit hadn't developed enough to fight off state loyalists.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#111714: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:09:55 AM

Simply having some nationalized industries is not 'socialist' on its own. Otherwise Pinochet or Hitler would count as 'socialist'. Just because these are things a socialist government would also do doesn't mean the United States 'has socialism' or some other such nonsense. The United States is not in any sense a society where there is dictatorship of the proletariat or where the means of production are socially owned. Unless Boeing just became a workers' collective and the USA's income distribution curve reversed without anyone noticing? I assume the revolution to establish workers' control must have passed us all by too?

Socialism is a socio-economic system and a movement to create that system. Just because some things are 'socialized' does not make them or the society they exist in inherently socialist. Just because American public discourse around socialism is so propagandized most Americans are incapable of thinking about socialism in these terms doesn't change what it actually stands for.

edited 11th Feb '16 9:17:19 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#111715: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:13:23 AM

Yup. Federal disintegration was a theme of early American (in the hemispheric sense) history. Mexico, Central America, Gran Colombia. The US managing to dodge that was of particular importance.

Victin Since: Dec, 2011
#111716: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:13:29 AM

I don't know over there, but I've seen people claim the Nazis were socialist over here. Communist, even. But let me not bring off-topic political discussion here.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#111717: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:15:45 AM

The name was in the party, of course, and to Latino conservatives all mass movements designed to overthrow the system must have looked like the red bogeyman, despite massive differences between them.

Here in the US, a lot of the rightwingers like to trot out the idea that Hitler's ideals were leftist in nature.

FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#111718: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:16:17 AM

National Socialist German Worker's Party. They were socialist, but as Fighteer mentioned a few posts back, socialism at its core is government involvement in the economy, which is a broad broad catagory that just about all reigning political systems use today.

The entire world is socialist.

EDIT- [nja]'d on the nazis.

edited 11th Feb '16 9:16:37 AM by FFShinra

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#111719: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:17:11 AM

Federal disintegration was a theme of early American (in the hemispheric sense) history.

Is there any other type of sense for it? tongue

Also not only did they not avoid it...hence the Civil War. They could not get their shit together well enough

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#111720: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:19:21 AM

socialism at its core is government involvement in the economy, which is a broad broad catagory that just about all reigning political systems use today.

No it isn't. It's control over the means of production, a classless society, and dictatorship of the proletariat. Usually established via a revolution. Government involvement in the economy is not un-capitalist; in fact socialists generally argue that the government sustains the private economy.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#111721: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:19:31 AM

We avoided it long enough to survive it.

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#111722: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:22:25 AM

@Parable: Not necessarily. I'd argue that it's more accurate that Lincoln returned the "property" back to the slaves who it was stolen from.

[up][up]IIRC, wouldn't that be communism, not socialism?

Leviticus 19:34
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#111723: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:22:57 AM

No it isn't. It's control over the means of production, a classless society, and dictatorship of the proletariat. Usually established via a revolution.
That's communism, not socialism. The two are not synonymous.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Victin Since: Dec, 2011
#111724: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:25:15 AM

@FF Shinra: The name of the party is meaningless tho. Names are just names, just pick the one that gets the more votes. Maybe not in a country with only two parties, but in others...

@Off-topic, however tangentially related: I'm seeing a discussion in which someone is trying to argue Brazil is socialist because it has welfare policies. I don't even...

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#111725: Feb 11th 2016 at 9:27:41 AM

[up][up]

Wrong. Communism is the state of affairs that follows the establishment of the socialist society, as the state is withered away and class consciousness disappears (or rather, everyone accepts the primacy of classless society). Socialism is the historical phase that will displace capitalism and precede communism. The aims of the two are synonymous.

[[quoteblock]We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called 'socialism'.[[/quoteblock]]

VI Lenin, To the Rural Poor.

edited 11th Feb '16 9:29:56 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

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