[ExI] Socialism and Environmentalism are inevitable

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Tue May 27 19:08:01 UTC 2014



On May 27, 2014, at 09:12 AM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:


On May 26, 2014, at 5:42 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com  > wrote:

        > What was the name of this political entity? The ISSR, the Indian Soviet Socialist Republic? Sorry, you're just plain wrong about India being a communist or socialist country. Private property, banks, democracy, etc. these are hardly the hallmarks of a communist or extremely socialist country.


My grandmother, a socialist, never confused socialism and communism. Communism is socialism by force. To her, socialism was compatible with democracy--what we would today call the welfare state. She believed that the last capitalist vestiges would fade away, but mustn't be crushed, so that for a while, capitalist and socialist institutions, or government-run and individual-run businesses would exist side by side. It was in this sense that I described India as socialist economy.
 

You grandmother was wrong.  Socialism requires state control of many aspects of the economy.  State control entails initiation of force.  There is no lack of force in socialism.  That the people may have a vote really changes nothing in respect to force on in respect to government control of "the means of production" and much of the economy.    It is true that socialism doesn't preach inevitable conflict.   But there is no real difference re use of force by government. 


I think it's a hugely important difference, and we shouldn't concede to the Communists the monopoly of the word "socialism", nor let the extreme Right Wing insult socialists who believe in democracy by conflating the two either. 

 
Insult?  What do you think "extreme Right Wing" is if not an insult?   I believe that all systems that involve the initiation of force are ethically bankrupt.   History shows that [relatively] free markets have raised the living standards of the people to unprecedented heights over and over again.   History shows that centralized control and government run enterprises are not as good and not competitive with private enterprise.  Nor is this surprising. 

Am I "extreme Right Wing" because I do not believe my person or what I produce is the property of the State to be done with as it wishes?

- samantha

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