I Need Help Deciding My Political Belief

domo339 · Jun 4, 2011

I believe that people should have freedom. However I believe that freedom is not a constant. People will lose their freedom if the commit a crime respectively losing more freedom as the crime becomes more serious.
States should also have the power to restrict content or censor information during times of crisis.

Free markets are needed although the state should have a large say in economics, own factories and industry and also take control of all industry in times of crisis.

I do not believe in total equality but instead a class system based on social contribution. You could elevate yourself into the upper class even if you were born in the lower by social contribution.

I Like the idea of a monarchy or figure head for a nation. Something the people can respect etc.

Quite indepth but I figured this was the best place to ask it!

David · Jun 4, 2011

Ether a social-dem or fascist (that's not an insult btw and I'd need to know more before being 100%) monarchist.

domo339 · Jun 4, 2011

Cheers mate, Really unsure about my political belief.

Ive always liked the sound of Feudalism but where you are able to advance yourself through the classes if you get me?

Iolo · Jun 4, 2011

Under your plan we shall end up eating grass, if we are allowed to get it, and tugging our forelocks right out. I am for a monarchy, though, when I look at foreign presidents. I think it should be a civil service post for harmless bores near retirement.

domo339 · Jun 4, 2011

I think social democracy is my thing...

Can someone dumb it down for me though? =P

David · Jun 5, 2011

Iolo said:
Under your plan we shall end up eating grass, if we are allowed to get it, and tugging our forelocks right out. I am for a monarchy, though, when I look at foreign presidents. I think it should be a civil service post for harmless bores near retirement.

Pretty much this.

Iolo · Jun 6, 2011

domo339 said:
I think social democracy is my thing...

Can someone dumb it down for me though? =P

Basically, the idea that the vast working-class majority should rule democratically, rather than the tiny minority of thieves who own everything, especially the Noise Machine which prevents us hearing sense.

David · Jun 6, 2011

Iolo said:
Basically, the idea that the vast working-class majority should rule democratically, rather than the tiny minority of thieves who own everything, especially the Noise Machine which prevents us hearing sense.

Yes but he's also for unilateral nationalizations and having businesses work for the benefit of the state, aka fascism. But I'll let him explain his position better 1st.

Iolo · Jun 7, 2011

David said:
Yes but he's also for unilateral nationalizations and having businesses work for the benefit of the state, aka fascism. But I'll let him explain his position better 1st.

No - the key point is democracy. Certainly that often means taking our property back from the thieves, but it can be administered in various ways, like the John Lewis partnership, for instance. The State is merely the administration run by the central committee of the boss class, and only under crisis-capitalism is it ever fascist. And, since you are about to ask, no, Stalinism was pure capitalism, with the State run as a big firm in the world market.

David · Jun 9, 2011

Iolo said:
No - the key point is democracy. Certainly that often means taking our property back from the thieves, but it can be administered in various ways, like the John Lewis partnership, for instance. The State is merely the administration run by the central committee of the boss class, and only under crisis-capitalism is it ever fascist. And, since you are about to ask, no, Stalinism was pure capitalism, with the State run as a big firm in the world market.

Every socialist state to ever try to force the revolution has eventually degraded into ether fascism (North Korea) or state-capitalism (USSR). The fact is that socialism is a populist, democratic idea and the moment you start forcing the issue is the moment the revolution starts to fail. The state can help things along, creating state-businesses, redistributing land and passing and upholding strong labor laws but the moment it starts seizing property 'for the good of the workers' it's only a matter of time before it becomes 'for the good of the state'.

Iolo · Jun 10, 2011

David said:
Every socialist state to ever try to force the revolution has eventually degraded into ether fascism (North Korea) or state-capitalism (USSR). The fact is that socialism is a populist, democratic idea and the moment you start forcing the issue is the moment the revolution starts to fail. The state can help things along, creating state-businesses, redistributing land and passing and upholding strong labor laws but the moment it starts seizing property 'for the good of the workers' it's only a matter of time before it becomes 'for the good of the state'.

There have scarcely been any socialist states, as you must know - Paris Commune potentially, perhaps the USSR until the working class disintegrated (after about a year of vicious intervention), Hungary and Bavaria briefly, possibly the Anarchist experiments in Spain, stretching a point. What happens is that the capitalists throw everything at such states at once, trying always to turn the whole debate into bloody warfare. In wartime you have to build up the centre, the state, and that destroys socialism. In other words, the capitalists will always destroy socialism until the revolutionary movement acts worldwide.

David · Jun 10, 2011

Iolo said:
There have scarcely been any socialist states, as you must know - Paris Commune potentially, perhaps the USSR until the working class disintegrated (after about a year of vicious intervention), Hungary and Bavaria briefly, possibly the Anarchist experiments in Spain, stretching a point. What happens is that the capitalists throw everything at such states at once, trying always to turn the whole debate into bloody warfare. In wartime you have to build up the centre, the state, and that destroys socialism. In other words, the capitalists will always destroy socialism until the revolutionary movement acts worldwide.

My point still stands.

myp · Jun 10, 2011

Iolo said:
There have scarcely been any socialist states, as you must know - Paris Commune potentially, perhaps the USSR until the working class disintegrated (after about a year of vicious intervention), Hungary and Bavaria briefly, possibly the Anarchist experiments in Spain, stretching a point. What happens is that the capitalists throw everything at such states at once, trying always to turn the whole debate into bloody warfare. In wartime you have to build up the centre, the state, and that destroys socialism. In other words, the capitalists will always destroy socialism until the revolutionary movement acts worldwide.

Or maybe the people don't actually want it? But perhaps more relevant in practice is that no system is, has, or will ever perfectly match theory. We have never had free market capitalism either- there are a couple times where we got close but they were brief and now long gone.

David · Jun 10, 2011

myp said:
Or maybe the people don't actually want it? But perhaps more relevant in practice is that no system is, has, or will ever perfectly match theory. We have never had free market capitalism either- there are a couple times where we got close but they were brief and now long gone.

Because their failures were just as complete as attempts at true communism. I suspect you know this, I only bring this point up because I find it humorous that so many capitalists will dismiss claims that the Soviet Union wasn't really communist as desperate and meaningless apologist arguments yet will use the same arguments when a socialist points out things like the Great Depression or the EU's slow but steady implosion as proof that capitalism doesn't work.

The worst part is the hypocrisy seems to be lost on such people even if it's pointed out.

myp · Jun 10, 2011

David said:
Because their failures were just as complete as attempts at true communism. I suspect you know this, I only bring this point up because I find it humorous that so many capitalists will dismiss claims that the Soviet Union wasn't really communist as desperate and meaningless apologist arguments yet will use the same arguments when a socialist points out things like the Great Depression or the EU's slow but steady implosion as proof that capitalism doesn't work.

Just because they vanished does not mean they were failures. It is a failure to accept that there is no perfect system and the lure of special interest money that drives people and politicians respectively to try to reform even systems that are relatively better to something worse. The period after the Meiji restoration in Japan and Britain 1850 into the 1900s were extremely prosperous and far from failures.

Note that I am not arguing that free market capitalism is a perfect system, but instead admitting that with its failures it is still in my opinion the optimal system in achieving prosperity top to bottom, especially in terms of utility.

Iolo · Jun 11, 2011

myp said:
Just because they vanished does not mean they were failures. It is a failure to accept that there is no perfect system and the lure of special interest money that drives people and politicians respectively to try to reform even systems that are relatively better to something worse. The period after the Meiji restoration in Japan and Britain 1850 into the 1900s were extremely prosperous and far from failures.

Note that I am not arguing that free market capitalism is a perfect system, but instead admitting that with its failures it is still in my opinion the optimal system in achieving prosperity top to bottom, especially in terms of utility.

It is certainly a system whose rulers will see to it that it is never replaced while they are in a position to kill everyone.

Abbott Presley · Dec 13, 2020

I Need Help Deciding My Political Belief

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