a political adventure

[Eddi]

We’ve been on a political adventure!

We wanted to find a third-way between Capitalism and Socialism (as social and political systems, more than as economic ones)

We were inspired by Tony Blair, who said he wanted to find such a way but then sold out big time

We wanted to find such a way, for entertainment purposes only (that is the type of thing we do for fun) – we don’t want to conquer the world or anything like that!

We imagined a state of affairs in which there was no Capitalism and no Socialism

We called this Communitarianism

It worked, on its own terms

On closer examination, it turned out to be a form of neo-fascism

A soft form of fascism, minus the race hate and street violence but fascism nonetheless

For a couple of days we flirted with a form of neo-fascism, but only flirted, we went no further!

We soon realised how anti-human it was as it denies the individual and has a disdain for individuality

Plus we are both the type of person fascists would go after, given half a chance!

We therefore abandoned it. Fascism is not for us!

Also, we both love Orwell and he fought fascists in the Spanish Civil War

We then imagined a state of affairs in which there was both Capitalism and Socialism – both rather than neither.

We called this Social Democracy

And if felt right for us.

We found what we set out to find, but got distracted on the way by something quite unsavoury

We wanted to go on a political adventure and were not disappointed

We explored a form of neo-fascism and ended up becoming Social Democrats. It was quite a trip.​

 

[joe1776]

My thoughts:

If a plan is to succeed, there are two things that have to happen. It has to be a sound plan and it has to be efficiently managed. For example, we often hear people say that socialism has failed when it was tried. But, where has socialism been tried with a government that wasn't corrupt, ineffective or both?

Creating a third-way between Capitalism and Socialism is a waste of time at the moment because we humans have yet to invent a clean, effective government policy-making model to manage it.

A society is a cooperative endeavor. With a clean, efficient government managing it, the benefits of that society would be divided equally so that all cooperative citizens might expect a fair return for their contribution.

Until that clean, efficient governing model is invented, the so-called "mixed" economic systems are the best we can do.

 

[sun rise]

State ownership (communism/some forms of socialism) clearly does not work because politics wins. Crony capitalism such as we have in the US is really indirect state ownership because business manipulates government to put political considerations ahead of good governance.

"Social democracy" to me at least avoids the excesses of purely capitalist economy and the disasters of state ownership (classical Marxism-Leninism).

 

[Morningstar1312]

I feel like much of the problems with socialism as it’s been tried is that it ignores the original intent of marx and gives the means of production not to the people, but to the state. A third way isn’t necessary, we just need to realize that giving the means of production to the workers means directly to the workers, a full democratization of society and the economy.