Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Capitalism, What are your thoughts?
- Thread starter Joij21
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Seon
Not An Evil Liar
When it comes down to it I do sympathize more with Marxist dialectics than anything else I suppose.
Zardnaar
Deity
Yep and the king was instrumental in getting Mussolini out.
Italys not exactly bthe best example. In politics Monarchy was the most stable, followed by democracy. Military dictatorship least stable.
Regardless if your political system generally speaking stability is good.
Seon
Not An Evil Liar
Wasn’t the King instrumental in getting Mussolini in
Zardnaar
Deity
Yes Mussolini lacked a lot of power Hitler had and/or he wasn't willing to go to the same extremes.
Italian politics seem to be very unstable though.
Counter examples of constitutional monarchies are the Commonwealth nation's and various Scandinavian and European nation's.
Basically the too ten least corrupt, highest standards of living and all the good stuff type nation's.
Bahrain, Bhutan, Cambodia, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Lesotho, Malaysia, Morocco, Eswatini, Thailand, Tonga, Tuvulu and the United Arab Emirates are counter counter examples.
The king may have got rid of Mussolini as well as having put him into power but he hardly stopped having stupid ideas.
Zardnaar
Deity
They're not really democracies though.
Note I don't really regard democracy as the ultimate be all and end all. Different cultures have different ways of doing things so a liberal social democracy in say NZ won't work in Tonga.
They are constitutional monarchies which is what you were praising.
Democracy is far more important than whether the head of state is a president or monarch.
Zardnaar
Deity
I probably should have clarified social democracy vthars a constitutional Monarchy seems to be on of the better government forms.
They offer the stability of monarchies but the advantages of democracy.
The problem with democracies of course is the voters.
aelf
Ashen One
After years on this forum and we get this simple declaration. Might as well declare that Christianity is a failure too. Goes to show that, once again, for all the faith put in it, discourse achieves very little.
In any case, there was another thread very similar to this not too long ago: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/capitalism-prosperity-and-social-equity.657418/
Not sure if there's anything left to say that's not been said there.
The problem with government is the rulers.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Monarchy is a moronic idea. How self-respecting people can support it, is beyond me. How can the people making The Crown thinks it portrays an unassailable court of aloof aristocrats as sympathetic and their status as a necessity is absurd.
How Commonwealth nations cling to the last rotting vestiges of a dead Empire is inconceivable. What would change if NZ were a Republic, other than having a Head of State who was actually from New Zealand? Why is it not so? Inertia and nothing else. A morose people content with their history of oppression or slaughter in the wars of others.
This is what I have to say about kings.
How Commonwealth nations cling to the last rotting vestiges of a dead Empire is inconceivable. What would change if NZ were a Republic, other than having a Head of State who was actually from New Zealand? Why is it not so? Inertia and nothing else. A morose people content with their history of oppression or slaughter in the wars of others.
This is what I have to say about kings.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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We have more data points for Marxist failure than we have for the failures of fascism, and body counts to match. There isn't a meaningful distinction between someone claiming to be a Marxist vs fascist in terms of the suffering advocated.
If "real fascism hasn't been tried, we just need a better leader this time" doesn't sound good to you, it's bonkers to use this argument for Marxism.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Just because the death toll of capitalism is spread along centuries doesn't make it any smaller.
Zardnaar
Deity
If it's not broke don't fix it.
Also there's the Treaty of Waitangi which was signed with the crown. Theoretically becoming a republic would negate the treaty or you would have to have the new government put the treaty into constitutional law which is a big headache/minefield.
Queen looks pretty good compared with Trump and the other idiots Republics vomit out.
Lack of a constitution also means things can get done fast when need be.
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Actually no.
In my experience Marxist-Leninists and Anarchists generally disagree vehemently. I am genuinely extremely curious to how you reconciled those two philosophies.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
One: I think it was the communist Italian partisans who strung up Mussolini on a gas station, not the King of Italy, who was mostly his enabler. But I could be wrong! Maybe all of them were secretly monarchists.
Two: For a supposedly failed and dead ideology, we sure talk a lot about it, you know. Nowadays, no one wants to bring back feudalism, and that is surely dead. So what bothers you, dear friends? What specters haunt you? In your hearts of hearts, you know that the capitalistic system is right now facing an unprecedented crisis on perhaps every level: economic, social, political, cultural, etc. There is no way out, unless you embrace fascism (i.e, extinction), or communism. That's the choice facing us.
Speaking of which. Equating fascists and communists, means that, no matter liberal you are, you're already doing the work for the fascists. The core component of fascism is the anti-communist, anti-worker's rights reaction. It is, in a word, the vanguard of the bourgeoisie.
Marxism, contra to that, is the sole way of educating the people on the machinations that drive capitalism, and how to overcome them. It is the collective knowledge of generations of philosophers from diverse classes and areas, and it has been the ideology of struggle for every oppressed peoples across the world. Wonder why's that, while fascism has grown in the 'developed' world (i.e, Germany, Italy, to a somewhat lesser extent - the U.K, France - and now, today, the U.S, as the premier to-be-fascist nation!)
PS: Why have we continued with capitalism, despite the fact that it has failed numerous times (economic crises! mass destruction on an unprecedented scale)? It is clearly, a failed system, for the last hundred years or so.
With all due respect, those two are in an irreconcilable contradiction. How can one be a Marxist-Leninist and have "anarchist tendencies"?
My friend, you are focusing on the superficial issue of the day. All the way back in 1848, the conflict between monarchism and republicanism had been, in a word, superseded. Those are, by now, secondary to the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The form of the state is somewhat irrelevant to the class behind it - therefore, the U.K is objectively, in the control of the bourgeoisie, in an alliance with the British monarchy, which is nowhere being feudal. However, the republic, as a form of rule, is the surliest vessel of bourgeois class rule, and the constitution that you hate so much is in fact the guarantor of private property relations for which the U.S and French Revolutions were somewhat fought over.
PSS: The British Queen is a bloodsucking parasite upon the British peoples, and it is not "pretty good" compared to Trump. She is a senile, uber-rich and connected old woman, who can't even be voted out, unlike Trump, who may, hypothetically, be defeated by Biden.
Best, for whom? Social democracy is founded upon imperialism. The gains of the Western nations could not have been secured without plundering the world. So, perhaps, you should have said that it is the best for the average citizen of the West, but I think that the peoples of the Global South would disagree with such an assessment. But still - the social democratic model existed temporarily. It was, in a word, a bribe. The institutions that were established, then, were never permanent, and they were the first to go, once the neoliberal regime was created in the 80s. Seeing that there was a severe crisis in profits, the ruling bourgeois class decided to cut off all the "fat" that there was, and immiserate the working classes, so that they're disciplined, and know their place. We can see now, however, not even this period of reaction lasts forever...
Two: For a supposedly failed and dead ideology, we sure talk a lot about it, you know. Nowadays, no one wants to bring back feudalism, and that is surely dead. So what bothers you, dear friends? What specters haunt you? In your hearts of hearts, you know that the capitalistic system is right now facing an unprecedented crisis on perhaps every level: economic, social, political, cultural, etc. There is no way out, unless you embrace fascism (i.e, extinction), or communism. That's the choice facing us.
Speaking of which. Equating fascists and communists, means that, no matter liberal you are, you're already doing the work for the fascists. The core component of fascism is the anti-communist, anti-worker's rights reaction. It is, in a word, the vanguard of the bourgeoisie.
Marxism, contra to that, is the sole way of educating the people on the machinations that drive capitalism, and how to overcome them. It is the collective knowledge of generations of philosophers from diverse classes and areas, and it has been the ideology of struggle for every oppressed peoples across the world. Wonder why's that, while fascism has grown in the 'developed' world (i.e, Germany, Italy, to a somewhat lesser extent - the U.K, France - and now, today, the U.S, as the premier to-be-fascist nation!)
PS: Why have we continued with capitalism, despite the fact that it has failed numerous times (economic crises! mass destruction on an unprecedented scale)? It is clearly, a failed system, for the last hundred years or so.
With all due respect, those two are in an irreconcilable contradiction. How can one be a Marxist-Leninist and have "anarchist tendencies"?
My friend, you are focusing on the superficial issue of the day. All the way back in 1848, the conflict between monarchism and republicanism had been, in a word, superseded. Those are, by now, secondary to the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The form of the state is somewhat irrelevant to the class behind it - therefore, the U.K is objectively, in the control of the bourgeoisie, in an alliance with the British monarchy, which is nowhere being feudal. However, the republic, as a form of rule, is the surliest vessel of bourgeois class rule, and the constitution that you hate so much is in fact the guarantor of private property relations for which the U.S and French Revolutions were somewhat fought over.
PSS: The British Queen is a bloodsucking parasite upon the British peoples, and it is not "pretty good" compared to Trump. She is a senile, uber-rich and connected old woman, who can't even be voted out, unlike Trump, who may, hypothetically, be defeated by Biden.
Best, for whom? Social democracy is founded upon imperialism. The gains of the Western nations could not have been secured without plundering the world. So, perhaps, you should have said that it is the best for the average citizen of the West, but I think that the peoples of the Global South would disagree with such an assessment. But still - the social democratic model existed temporarily. It was, in a word, a bribe. The institutions that were established, then, were never permanent, and they were the first to go, once the neoliberal regime was created in the 80s. Seeing that there was a severe crisis in profits, the ruling bourgeois class decided to cut off all the "fat" that there was, and immiserate the working classes, so that they're disciplined, and know their place. We can see now, however, not even this period of reaction lasts forever...
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
When my Maori friend recalls her nana being dispossessed from the land of her ancestors a mere 50 or so years ago I have to wonder how Waitangi matters beyond allowing white New Zealanders to point at it and say "see, we were nice!" A constitutional convention affirming the rights of the Maori would be a lot more meaningful. But that's just me.
But... that's the whole point of Marxism? Pointing out that capitalism is inevitably doomed to fail and this is what will replace it.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Furthermore, there is a stark difference between merely pointing out the ills of capitalism. This has been done very well by the utopian socialists of old. What they missed, however, is the way that capitalism works. How it propagates itself. How it historically arose. What flows drive it? I could go on. This is the difference between pointing at something being "bad", and actually knowing why it is bad. But what do I know, a one-liner about the failure of Marxism instantly disproves it.
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