So socialism

[Farm Boy]

Not talking with your children sucks.

Imagining this would be different for the Amish, who frequently have very strict community, not just family rules, is sort of in the quadrant that assumes the others love thier kids different. Like welfare moms birth paycheques.

 

[Lexicus]

assumes the others love thier kids different.

I don't need to assume that people who shun their children "love them different."

 

[Farm Boy]

Sounds like they're human, then. And they do a thing that's done. Without the cages and, God willing, the institutionalized sexual violence for profit.

Rwar, tuff on blacrime.

 

[Yeekim]

Not entirely sure what to make of this, because, welcome to Western politics? It's legitimate because the people in power say so. This is how power works. It's not unique to corrupt (or even, theoretically, honest) autocracies.

Like I'm not being snarky here, I just don't know what to make of your response.

I'm... not really sure what to make of yours either?
You sound as if you're rejecting representative democracy as such.
However, this is the mechanism by which society "decides" their laws and policies, and for all its flaws, I don't know of a better one.

If you're saying that those democratically elected representatives don't really represent society, that society does not "get to decide", unless some different "socialist or otherwise collectivist", mechanism is used... then you're essentially denouncing the state you live in (UK?) as tyrannical and illegitimate, no? In which case you would have bigger problems than immigration policy. Incidentally, any policy adopted by such a state would be equally illegitimate, regardless of its contents.

Presumably, you would prefer to overthrow such a state and replace it with something different? Small local communes?

EDIT: As for such communes, last summer I had a chance to take a tour around https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania. Apparently, the procedure for accepting new residents is... unanimous consensus of all other residents.
See:

Weiterleitungshinweis

Christiania itself is divided into 14 neighborhoods, and each neighborhood is responsible for vetting its residents. Like Christiania as a whole, the housing process is governed by a consensus democracy. Neighborhood meetings are held to determine who the room or home is given to, and a unanimous decision must be reached.

“It’s a very serious business,” Fox says, noting that meetings can take up “more than 300 or 400 man hours” to approve a single resident. Part of the weight of the decision can be attributed to the lack of rent: residents are liable for monthly membership dues and utilities but otherwise live in their homes for free.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm... not really sure what to make of yours either?
You sound as if you're rejecting representative democracy as such.
However, this is the mechanism by which society "decides" their laws and policies, and for all its flaws, I don't know of a better one.

If you're saying that those democratically elected representatives don't really represent society, that society does not "get to decide", unless some different "socialist or otherwise collectivist", mechanism is used... then you're essentially denouncing the state you live in (UK?) as tyrannical and illegitimate, no? In which case you would have bigger problems than immigration policy. Incidentally, any policy adopted by such a state would be equally illegitimate, regardless of its contents.

Presumably, you would prefer to overthrow such a state and replace it with something different? Small local communes?

Rejecting? Not really. We live in a society, and so on. Analysing their flaws? Sure.

Representative democracy works when it works. It doesn't when it doesn't. This is simple on purpose, but it's the same for anything. The same goes for socialism, or communism, or whatever, right? I can understand judging on merits of past examples if we do that across the board. I can't understand it as much if people selectively judge, say, socialist (or communist) theory based on historical examples, but also refuse to engage as critically with modern capitalist democracies.

Because representative they may technically be, but I have to ask you: do you believe it works out that way in practise? Do you honestly think I either have to be in full favour of the democracy I live in, or otherwise be denouncing it as illegitimate? Are those the only options? Because you seem to be phrasing my position as limited one of the two, with nothing inbetween.

 

[Yeekim]

Do you honestly think I either have to be in full favour of the democracy I live in, or otherwise be denouncing it as illegitimate?

In short, yes I do. You either accept your government as legitimate or you don't. There is no in-between.
Has nothing to do with being "in favour" of it.

 

[Gorbles]

In short, yes I do. You either accept your government as legitimate or you don't. There is no in-between.
Has nothing to do with being "in favour" of it.

This is a very limiting view, in my opinion. A government can be technically legitimate by the laws it maintains and votes on, and still effectively not answer to the people it's ostensibly meant to serve. Autocracies don't pop up overnight. It takes time, and an erosion of what is meant to work, into something else entirely.

 

[Yeekim]

A government can be technically legitimate by the laws it maintains and votes on, and still effectively not answer to the people it's ostensibly meant to serve. Autocracies don't pop up overnight. It takes time, and an erosion of what is meant to work, into something else entirely.

Well, sure. At which point the people should revolt.

But your original claim was not that "democracy may erode over time" - it was that "only under collectivist system is society entitled to decide [who and under which conditions can join them]."

No room left for representative democracies working as they are meant to.

 

[Arwon]

In short, yes I do. You either accept your government as legitimate or you don't. There is no in-between.
Has nothing to do with being "in favour" of it.

Lol of course "Australia" is illegitimate, it was made up by invaders out of nothing, who didn't even pretend to have a legal basis and we still haven't put anything on a treaty basis. But that's entirely different to whether I think say the electoral system is decent hey.

 

[Ajidica]

So I'm sure you want nothing to do with an illegitimate government of invaders without a legal or treaty basis, right?

 

[Gorbles]

Well, sure. At which point the people should revolt.

But your original claim was not that "democracy may erode over time" - it was that "only under collectivist system is society entitled to decide [who and under which conditions can join them]."

No room left for representative democracies working as they are meant to.

There is a lot of room between "working as is it meant to" (where they represent the will of the people as a society) and "an autocracy". That doesn't mean that either state is necessarily true. You're suggesting something is a binary state, when it's actually more complicated than that.

 

[Yeekim]

There is a lot of room between "working as is it meant to" (where they represent the will of the people as a society) and "an autocracy". That doesn't mean that either state is necessarily true. You're suggesting something is a binary state, when it's actually more complicated than that.

... may I again remind that you were the one who said that "only under collectivist system is society entitled to decide"?
Sounds pretty binary to me.

Of course it is "more complicated". There is a gradient. That is why we have Democracy Index and other similar attempts to measure and quantify it.
But the choice of a citizen to accept his. one. particular. government (whereever it may be on that gradient) as legitimate or not is binary.
You can not say it is both legitimate and not at the same time, depending on its policies and whether you like them or not.

 

[Gorbles]

... may I again remind that you were the one who said that "only under collectivist system is society entitled to decide"?
Sounds pretty binary to me.

Of course it is "more complicated". There is a gradient. That is why we have Democracy Index and other similar attempts to measure and quantify it.
But the choice of a citizen to accept his. one. particular. government (whereever it may be on that gradient) as legitimate or not is binary.
You can not say it is both legitimate and not at the same time, depending on its policies and whether you like them or not.

No, I said the statement is only accurate under a collectivist system. "entitlement" doesn't really come into it. Otherwise we accept that, to a varying extent, society doesn't actually agree. Elected representatives do, and we validate the strength of the consensus through things like the Democracy Index and so on.

I certainly don't get a vote on border policy. I get a vote for a candidate that sits in a seat, and even if that were working as best as it possibly could be, that's not me getting a vote. That's not society getting a vote. Even if democracy is working as intended, society does not get to vote as a society.

I'm not saying whether or not this is a good thing, or even if a different system is feasible at scale, but it's something to think about, particularly in a thread about socialism and collectivist thinking in general (vs. what we have in most modern capitalist democracies).

With regards to "legitimacy", the UK ranks highly on the Democracy Index, but at the moment is on it's third (?) unelected Prime Minister out of four (though I guess Johnson won a single election, after coming in unelected). And this is how our system works. It's legal. It is possibly not the best system, and it can lead to less-than-optimal outcomes (as the UK is currently experiencing), and there will be people who believe it is legitimate or illegitimate depending on how critically they view the state of democracy working as-intended in the UK. A person might not believe both, but society as a whole will comprise groups of people that believe one or the other.

"legal" is not "moral". And this makes "legitimate" harder to define than you seemingly want to make it, especially if we're talking about what a society gets to decide on.

 

[Snowygerry]

No, I said the statement is only accurate under a collectivist system. "entitlement" doesn't really come into it. Otherwise we accept that, to a varying extent, society doesn't actually agree. Elected representatives do, and we validate the strength of the consensus through things like the Democracy Index and so on.

I certainly don't get a vote on border policy. I get a vote for a candidate that sits in a seat, and even if that were working as best as it possibly could be, that's not me getting a vote. That's not society getting a vote. Even if democracy is working as intended, society does not get to vote as a society.

(...)

There's the single issue referendum, arguably the most "socialist" form of democracy.

The Swiss model ?

 

[Angst]

EDIT: As for such communes, last summer I had a chance to take a tour around https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania. Apparently, the procedure for accepting new residents is... unanimous consensus of all other residents.
See:

Weiterleitungshinweis

??? christiania is a weird situation yes but this kind of baffles me; it's not what a replaced stateless system looks like. not because a bunch of its procedures are indeed marxistly moneyless and such, but because it's an area wholly dependent on and subsidiary of the danish state. it's a fristad/freetown as in "it's complicated" not as in "anarchist haven exists here!" christiania is romantic and does a lot of procedures of syndicalists; it's also wholly dependent on resources, education, police, etc of the danish government. and it does not have the right to do its own policing, because it's not an actual realization of the vision. it has no real power.

understanding the context of the free town and the sheer tinyness and powerlessness of it - not powerless because of its actual size, but because of its size relative to the comparably JUGGERNAUT that is the danish state - should bring light to why this is by no means comparable to wallbuilding of large liberal societies. it's literally like a tiny stack of homes smack in the middle of denmark's urban centre. an urban centre with extremely high population pressure. and in this freetown you live for free. it is not comparable to letting in some mexicans when your pop is 330 mil. it is the actual case of "we can't accomodate this", compared to the abject whining of most western powers.

it's seriously bad form to point at something and go "look this is what you want" (it isn't what he wants, because of its subjugation and dependency making it structurally statist) "and it sucks at what you want!" (which is meaningless because he doesn't want it)

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Christiania is a viable source that socialism and anarchy actually work (Geez I wanna go there sometime)

 

[Angst]

Christiania is a viable source that socialism and anarchy actually work (Geez I wanna go there sometime)

the place is lovely. i visit there a lot.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

the place is lovely. i visit there a lot.

Business?

 

[Angst]

Business?

leisure. i live in copenhagen

 

[Caesar of Bread]

leisure. i live in copenhagen

How nice! I've always wanted to go to the Nordics (My half-brother lives in Sweden)