Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
The first, Leninism (and its derivatives, such as Trotskyism)
The two emerged essentially in parallel, each influencing the other tremendously. Far more than either party would like to admit.
The first, Leninism (and its derivatives, such as Trotskyism)
I disagree. Kinda almost implying a society based on direct democracy, where the multitude (workers) have a say on what it should be.
Fair point, fair point. I'm probably playing a little too casually into the Trotskyist tendency to claim apolistic succession from Lenin, there.The two emerged essentially in parallel, each influencing the other tremendously. Far more than either party would like to admit.
Very trite.just like how North Korea is "Democratic".
just like how North Korea is "Democratic".
It seems to me that what you're taking issue with here isn't actually direct democracy, or at least not as such, but of unbridled majoritarianism. The obvious solution to such issues is, just as in liberal democratic forms, the introduction of various constitutional restraints on majority power. These are not all incompatible with even extremely devolved councilist forms, and the assumption that only neat and ordered state powers are capable of avoiding "mob rule" is essentially an upper-class prejudice against the "swinish multitude" which the average punter like you and I, being of that same multitude, would be best to reject as elitist and anti-democratic. In practice, powerful and well-organised minorities pose the greater threat to democracy, as illustrated today by corporate influence in government, and in historical revolutionary situations by the ascendency of party bureaucrats. The "tyrannical majority" is, in the list of reasonable concerns, very much a distant second.
And in good old constitutional Britain, homosexuality was illegal well into the 1960s. These things are a bit more complex than political structure alone.I see what your getting at, but, I don't know, when I think direct democracy, I think of places like Switzerland where they banned minarets from being constructed, which you would think would be something of a protected right, but no I guess.
He's a force for good, overall, but what he's building is really just a somewhat radical social democracy, rather than socialism proper (let alone "lower stage communism", in the Marxian sense). The long-term significance of the Venezuelan situation, rather, is the increasing mobilisation and empowerment of the working class, particular the impoverished people of the barrios, which is beginning to go beyond the recurring left-wing populist movements of that region. The real test of the Venezuelan movement will be whether or not the working class are able to break with Chavez's essentially petty-bourgeois socialism, and begin to assert political power outside of the state apparatus.Opinion of a red on Hugo Chavez and Venezuela
Like I said, you're starting to sound like Murray Rothbard.Also, without a state in place it becomes much more difficult for the majority to impose its rulings on everyone. These constitutional limits for minority rights are necessary precisely because the state has ridiculous amounts of power over the populace.
Personally, I plan to hang one hundred kulaks in honour of this portentous event! It is what he will have would have wanted, if that actually constitutes a functioning English sentence.
Because virtually every political movement in the 20th century described itself as socialist at one point or another. It was what the kewl kids were doing.Why is it that some of the worst human rights offenders of the 20th century have been self described "Socialist" nations? Stalin, Pol Pot, even Nazi Germany called itself "National Socialist". Granted, there have been many self described non-socialist countries involved in various attrocities but so called socialist ones don't seem to be any great exception.