simple question , is socialism dying??if so how do we revive it and get people into it as an idealogy?
No, but I think it is cyclic & believe that hopefully sooner than later a resurgence wll occur.In 1979 when I started my apprenticeship a large % of my colleagues were left wing but today the younger generation who I have contact with have no interest in politics.Some in the labour party still call themseves socialists but I believe their main achievement has been to stifle & frustrate the aspirations of the working class.The various communist parties & left wing organisations seem pre-occupied with attacking each other or argueing over who has the correct interpretation of Marx,most are intellectuals & have rarely come into contact with their proletariat who they profess to represent.Many have said to me over the years great in theory but it will never work in practice,I reply that we are living in a capitalist society that doesnt work in theory or practice & if they opened their eyes the evidence is all around them.
Socialism must be kept on life support at all costs. As to its survival: Having read some of the posts on this blog my hopes are not high. There's a lot of kicking the poor and calling them lazy going on here-- (political forums can be scary sometimes but it is reassuring to find that the nastier bloggers cannot usually spell). LOVELY BNP too - how nice. Going on about England (uber alles) yet with abominable command of the sacred English tongue HA HA HA. (Let us therefore be content with the fact that those who would do the most harm are usually far too dumb to do it). Hmmm- SOCIALISM- au revoir - common sense goodbye - compassion adieu.
Socialism is an outdated ideology best viewed in a 19th century context where it made more sense. Now before you get me wrong I think there is a ton of stuff of stuff we can learn from socialism. The fact many dismiss it out of hand is part of many of the world's problems. marx, for example, has so much still to teach us. But socialism (like any belief system) must evolve or die and be willing to change and move with the times and not rooted in dogma
no but it is slowly falling, we need a new left wing party
is socialism dying?? Yes. It sucks.
The more relevant question should be, is capitalism dying. The evidence is all around us, dwindling resources,economic collapse enviromental armageddon. The ruling elites who control the vast majority of the earths wealth and resources continually bombard us with disinformation and half truths through their best weapon ie. the worlds media who they mostly control. If the peoples of the world dont wake up there will be nothing left to save. Capatilism is the disease and the vast majority of talking on this site is about the various symptons of this disease. The only concern of the ruling classes is to remain in control at whatever cost .Our so called democratic system is just a blatant sham to con us that we have some say or control on what is done in are name. We are as enslaved as the people of North Korea, but we feel so superior because we have a few more coloured beads and trinkets because are economy exploites us more efficiently than theirs.
A new left wing party that will soon be hijacked and corrupted to negate and stifle our aspirations. The onlly way forward is for people to control their own lives in their communities and workplaces. We dont need power structures controlled from above to tell us what we need and to take all the wealth created by us for themselves.
Is socialism dying? No. The short answer is that ideas can't die. The long answer is; Capitalism continues to thrive - not in spite of the current crisis, but because of it. The observations made by Marx 160 years ago about the fundamental characteristics of capital (it desire to self-accumulate and to dominate) are as fundamentally correct today as they were at the time - and they'll continue to be correct because that aspect of the capitalist system is an unchangeable part of it's true nature. Our attempts at improving on this model with things like the "mixed" economy from the 1950s to the late 1970s worked by isolating and muzzling this characteristic to varying degrees. The continued accumulation of capital demands that the public's veto in Greece is revoked and that economic policy is set by unaccountable, unquestionable figures - low and behold, it happens. {snip}
{continued...} The continued accumulation of capital demands that markets retain confidence in nation-states to put the interests of capital before the interests of their own people - this happens too. Capital has continued to perpeutate itself during the bad times by denegrating the ability of ordinary people to resist it's will, usually by circumventing, corrupting or neutering democratic institutions within each and every human jurisdiction. We still tend to frame the question of capitalism vs socialism in terms of a clash of human desires - or of good humans vs bad humans. This is wrong. The entire economic history of the known world only begins to make coherant sense if we dispose of the baseless presumption of human dominion over capital and begin to question the nature of events from the money's point of view - thereby recognising it's ability to dominate us. {snip again}
