Houghton preaches COMMUNIST football

[Rolf Harris 31]

[quote user="Rock The Boat"]

[quote user="Feathers"][quote user="Monty13"]Feathers, the baker is the capitalist, he bakes to make money out of his customers because they all want bread. Given the choice none of us would work at all.[/quote]

Would we not? Depends on how you define ''work''. Many people spend much of their spare time doing activities that if they were paid, would be called ''work'', but they do them because they enjoy them, or they get satisfaction and a sense of well being. I certainly wouldn''t sit around all day, I''d get bored. I''d want to do something, and being part of a new society would be a good place to start. If the economy was under workers control, WE would be able to choose what direction we''d want to go in. That''s the point. If you think everyone''s going to stay in all the time playing computer games shows a lack of faith and imagination on your part. It''s about division of labour. If the baker bakes because he enjoys supplying his community with bread, the therapeutic process of rolling the dough, and he has no boss checking his watch and no landlord to sweat about, or he works equally with other bakers in a system based on solidarity and mutual aid not competition, he''d be the best damn baker in town!

 

Well sure this was the aruement putfoward by Communists that we should allwork for thegood of the community. And every time that this a has been implemented in Communist societies, it has failed. China,Soviet Union, Cambodia, all these Communist countries saw millions perish in the name of the community. Capitalism works better than Communism because of the self-interest motive of the baker. He bakes bread in order to make a profit and in so doing he can feed himself and his family. Under the Communist experiments the farmers stoppped farming and the bakers stopped baking and it was often by the use of force and other methods of intimidation that things ever got done.  

[quote user="Monty13"]What on earth would we all do? Sit around while someone else heats, clothes, waters and feeds us? What will their motivation for doing that be?[/quote]

Many hands make light work- if the basics were shared, most people would be required to ''work'' about 1-2 days a week, lovely. Food production is mechanised (thank you capitalism), and it would be easy to push for other essentials to be so too. The technology is already there, it''s just owned by the ruling class. If the economy was based around the needs of the community, we''d be able to get the essentials sorted easily. The least desirable essential work would have the highest reward (opposite of what is the case now).

The only way that your ideas could work is by enforcement or diktat from above. Who decides how the workload is to be shared and who decides when one is supposed  to turn up for work on these couple of days per week? Who is going to be the one to ''push'' for other essentials to be mechanised?  Your use ofthe word ''pushed'' is an interesting one. In a Capital system there is no need to push anything because the market will always seek to supply wherever there is a demand. But you do seem to recognise the success of Capitalism in delivering more efficient products, as in mechanised food production.

 

I am a little unclear of what you determine to be essential work. Again, who decides? If it is left to the people themselves then human nature is that people do what they want to do, or what they are good at, what they can control or what they want to do. It may not be essential at all. But I have a problem withthis idea of what is essential or not. Is a doctor more essential than a car mechanic? If so, what happens when the doctor''s car breaks down? Coming back to China, Soviet Union and Cambodia as examples of countries that implemented communism you find that one of the great failings in these countries, hardly anyone put in a decent day''s work because even one was supposedly an equal comrade whereas everyone knew that in reality there was no true equality within the system.

In this country the NHS is a communist system. Money is poured in at the top and the communist beaurocracy decides how funds are allocted. At the bottom, the patient gets what he or she is given and is expected to be grateful for the handout. It''s hardly surprising that horror stories such as North-Staffordshire hospitals are followed by further relevations in other regions because over time a Communistsystemcomes to serve itself and not to serve the requirements of supply and demand.  If NHS funds were given directly to the patient to go and buy medical care within a Capitalist marketplace, where hospitals had to compete for custom, the much of the NHS problems would disappear. But the NHS is a great example of why Communist systems don''t work.

 

[quote user="Monty13"]The motivation of capitalism isn''t fear of destitution, it is the generation of wealth. I don''t go to work because I''m scared of the consequences of not working, I go to work to live in comfort, buy nice things, go on holiday (watch football?) and basically enjoy myself when I''m not working.[/quote]

Why can''t you live in comfort without renting your labour to someone else for most of your life? You could enjoy yourself a hell of a lot more you know. Even higher up the pyramid in the west, people are enslaved to some degree to the economy. Sure you can buy nice things, that''s great- but it doesn''t fill the spiritual hole in our society, and no amount of nice things will fill it up, at costs to our psychological well being and the planet we live (another huge argument against capitalism). Capitalism doesn''t let us as human beings reach our full potential, because we have to waste so much time paying ''the man'' to put it crudely. How many talented and creative people are working in coffee shops and cleaning offices because they can''t get work in their chosen field? Of course it is the fear of destitution or the humiliation of the Job Centre that makes this a reality. Also, work is sh1t for most people:

"We want nothing from a world where the guarantee of not dying of starvation comes with the guarantee of dying of boredom"

Again the same issue occurs for me here. Who decides who is talented and creative therefore worthy of something more than cleaning an office? I think we would all like to nominate ourselves as a National Treasure and live accordingly, but real life just isn''t like that, otherwise you end up with everybody in a rock band and no one in the ticket office. And is creativity one of your ''essential'' occupations that you mentioned earlier, because I can''t quite reconcile how you would hand out the essential jobs and the non-essential jobs (like an entertainer) in a fair manner. Won''t the baker, rising at 4am as my grandfather did, to begin baking the daily bread be somewhat envious of the guy who gets to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra?

 

It''s the beauty of the Capitalist system that it does not need to make emotional judgements and become involved in people''s personal spirituality. But it does allow the creative and talented to gain rewards. It allows internet startups to grow into those multi-national corporations that you fear so much. It allows a garage band develop into a global rock band. It allows private enterprise to become the biggest patron of the arts. It positively encourages experimentation, research, and development of ideas and products. Communist systems, on the other hand deliver very little except misery.   

[quote user="Monty13"]Economics is the structure in which we live, it doesn''t rule us. Since the time man started bartering, economics has existed. Until someone finds a better way of measuring are individual worth other than the wealth we hold, this will always exist.

Interesting line in that video "In any civilised society the government must intervene to prevent division of labour" an understanding that it is Governments role as our representatives to uphold our rights.

And as the people being represented if we are unhappy we have the fundamental responsibility to change the way things are. Unfortunately as I have said the vast majority of us are apathetic, comfortable paying for someone else to provide us power, water, electricity, shelter, food etc etc. in return for the money we earn.

We live in a society where the principles we are talking about, Capitalism, Democracy and Socialism are all intertwined and all effect are lives without one dominating it.

It''s a world in which I can buy a big ass TV from any of the competing manufacturers, while getting free healthcare and voting green party if I really fancy it.[/quote]

Capitalism as we know it is only 2-300 years old. You cannot say that it is some sort of benign fact of life that does not rule over us, it is not. Clearly in this ''competition'' the odds are stacked in favour to the owners of the means of production and property. They are on a different strata to the majority. It is inherently unfair and fundamentally flawed. It''s done great things but it will have it''s day in good time.

Enjoy your TV while you still have the disposable income to pay for it, as capitalism will always drive down wages, and the latest sticking plaster of borrowing and debt has recently failed (you might have noticed), enjoy the free healthcare while it lasts, and I hold won''t hold my breath for the Green Party to get any meaningful power and are able to make a difference if and when they do![/quote]

It''s interesting to look at the reasons why the Industrial Revolution took place here in the Uk and not say in some other major European country such as France, Germany or Russia.At the time there were no Communist countries but we can compare countries with similar resources, armies, and general level of development. It was in Britain that the first ideas of Capitalism were documented in a country that was already fairly well decentralised in it''s goverment. The other countries were controlled from above with far more regulation that over here. Coupled with that was the open flow of ideas. This country had numerous clubs and societies where scientists, businessmen and bankers would meet and discuss ideas, politics, business and scientific discovery. Without a big brother trying to redistribute wealth and manage the life of every single inhabitant, Great Britain very quickly became the world leader in manufacturing, trade and commerce. We became within a very few years the richest nation on earth.

And it was out of this scenario that new ideas about democracy, universal education and the end of slavery were allowed to be expressed. So many of the great leaps in social policy and enlightenment took place because of Captilaism. Certainly Capitalism created new problems, such as the rise of the poor city dwellers and social problems caused by millions of people living in close proximity but Governments have controlled the unwelcome by products of capitalism through legislation, taxation and social programs such as building new towns and planning regulations to name but a couple of examples.  

So here we are today in the post-Industrial Age. It''s now a global age. And anyone with a good idea (Google) or a funny dance (Gangnam-style) can be a global, instant success. Far from this being the age of oppression by some mysterious, shadowy group of ne''er-do-wells, sometimes known as the owners of production, we''re actually in the age of the Individual. It''s a time where you have freedom of expression and now have the tools to communicate with almost anyone on the planet. If you have a product or idea to sell, then create a web site. It''s the modern version of the 17th century coffee house. Hooked up on spirituality? There''s doubtless a facebook group to cater for whatever you need.

We are more free than at anytime in our history. The oddthing is that it is Capitalism that has delivered this to us. On theother hand, Communism has failed wherever it has been implemented. But Communismis just not about the failure to deliver goods and services, it has also put entire nations in the shackles of loss of self-expression, the loss of freedom, the inability to develop spiritually or to promote new ideas.

 

[/quote]Capitalism use to have morals now it doesn''t, like we humans use to have morals now we don''t. Protestant morals use to encourage working hard which equalled hard working people and a prospering society.

[ron obvious 1,501]

Excellent post Feathers. Your precis of the motivating forces behind the Industrial Revolution & its consequences was beautifully expressed.

It fascinates me how there a step change in civilization suddenly arise, seemingly out of nowhere. The Ancient Greeks are probably the greatest example; Bertrand Russell put it down to geography (or rather, topology) & climate (everyone should read A History Of Western Philosophy by the way, it''s generally an easy read & incredibly enlightening).

Nothing comes of nothing, however, & if you look hard enough you can trace the roots of all societal shifts; technological change is usually one of the prime movers.

Perhaps even bigger questions are: how did Ancient Greeks turn into modern ones, & Romans into Italians? Talk about decline & fall ...

[hogesar 9,618]

[quote user="Stig"]Thanks for saying so, but I''m pretty sure of my beliefs and political pursuasion. Are you jealous I have conviction about that? I''ve seen enough to know who or what I am.[/quote]Well, your display pictures is Johnny Howson and he loves to make sure the other team has the ball just as much as he does so i believe you.

[Stig 0]

[quote user="hogesar"][quote user="Stig"]Thanks for saying so, but I''m pretty sure of my beliefs and political pursuasion. Are you jealous I have conviction about that? I''ve seen enough to know who or what I am.[/quote]Well, your display pictures is Johnny Howson and he loves to make sure the other team has the ball just as much as he does so i believe you.[/quote]

[:D][Y]

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="ron obvious"]Excellent post Feathers. Your precis of the motivating forces behind the Industrial Revolution & its consequences was beautifully expressed. It fascinates me how there a step change in civilization suddenly arise, seemingly out of nowhere. The Ancient Greeks are probably the greatest example; Bertrand Russell put it down to geography (or rather, topology) & climate (everyone should read A History Of Western Philosophy by the way, it''s generally an easy read & incredibly enlightening). Nothing comes of nothing, however, & if you look hard enough you can trace the roots of all societal shifts; technological change is usually one of the prime movers

 

. Perhaps even bigger questions are: how did Ancient Greeks turn into modern ones, & Romans into Italians? Talk about decline & fall ...

 

[/quote]

 

ron, not a subject I ever studied, but isn''t part of the answer that Greece and Italy were essentially made up of city states, and power gravitated towards those countries such as Spain and France (and later Britain) that were more homogenous. Even small countries (in terms of population) such as The Netherlands and Sweden that were unified were militarily powerful around the 16th and 17th centuries. It was only in the 19th century that what is now Germany stopped being an assortment of  city states and palatinates and so became a major player. Until then it had been fought over.


Added to which there has, for whatever other reasons, been a slow westwards geographical shift of power. From Mesopotamia and that region to the Greeks and then the Romans and then into south-western Europe, then to Britain and later Germany. Presumably easy access to the Atlantic and so the New World was a significant factor, especially for the colonial powers. And then across the Atlantic to the USA, across the US to the west coast. And now across the Pacific to China.

[ron obvious 1,501]

PC, another great post. Sometimes this footie forum provides amazingly thoughtful posts (I wonder if astrophysics forums have their equivalents of Wiz? I bet they do!)

Your comments about the amalgamation of Germany & military power were interesting, although I was really speaking about the astonishing intellectual growth that occurred in Greece. But that''s the point, I suppose; might is right, & the materially stronger inevitably destroy the weaker.

Except they don''t. The Romans nicked the practical bits of Greek philosophy to further their military ends, & we owe most of our culture to Greco-Roman influences.

The westward drift of power had never occurred to me. Fascinating. I suppose that means it''ll be our turn again in a few thousand years!

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="ron obvious"]PC, another great post. Sometimes this footie forum provides amazingly thoughtful posts (I wonder if astrophysics forums have their equivalents of Wiz? I bet they do!) Your comments about the amalgamation of Germany & military power were interesting, although I was really speaking about the astonishing intellectual growth that occurred in Greece. But that''s the point, I suppose; might is right, & the materially stronger inevitably destroy the weaker. Except they don''t. The Romans nicked the practical bits of Greek philosophy to further their military ends, & we owe most of our culture to Greco-Roman influences. The westward drift of power had never occurred to me. Fascinating. I suppose that means it''ll be our turn again in a few thousand years![/quote]

 

ron, I think power will (un-)gravitate towards the further reaches of the solar system before it comes back to Britain! Of course China and Japan becoming economic and military powerhouses in a sense is long overdue. China in particular was the seat of great civilisation, but it was inward-looking.

[Feathers 0]

@Rock the Boat

You need to read page 4 of this thread and see what I''m talking about.

The idea that the only alternative to capitalism is some top-down stalinist nightmare is exactly what the powers that be want you to think! Judging by the amount of times I''ve had to explain this, it seems the propaganda is working very well. *Sigh*.

Just go to wikipedia and search ''libertarian socialism''.

Enjoy

p.s Thanks Ron

[Stig 0]

[quote user="Feathers"]@Rock the Boat

You need to read page 4 of this thread and see what I''m talking about.

The idea that the only alternative to capitalism is some top-down stalinist nightmare is exactly what the powers that be want you to think! Judging by the amount of times I''ve had to explain this, it seems the propaganda is working very well. *Sigh*.

Just go to wikipedia and search ''libertarian socialism''.

Enjoy

p.s Thanks Ron[/quote]

Precisely why I haven''t bothered [;)]

Also, 1000th post! Happy days.

[Feathers 0]

....forgot to say the freedoms we enjoy today were wrangled from the hands of power over many decades of struggle, not gifts flurried from above. So you can thank the trade union movement for example next time you take that paid holiday....

[Monty13 2,229]

Feathers, can I make one thing clear, most reasonable people would I would have thought accept that the ideals of Marxism are ones to wish for.

Looking back to page 4 this is the one bit the sums all up for me.

"Marx was great, ''Marxists'' however are a different kettle of fish and usually idiots."

The failures of Communism in the only forms that it has ever been found are historical fact, not propaganda. You can say that they were never really true Communism but all your are enforcing is the inability of people to bring Marx''s ideas to fruition.

As noble as the world he envisages is, it relies on people, and people are the element that always have and will probably always cause it to fail.

If there is ever a point in human evolution where we truly want for nothing, then I can see communism working. People living in a utopian society where the good of all and the individual strive to do better are key.

While Rock the boat has gone for the jugular! You can''t deny many of his arguments, and you haven''t tried. I have read Marx, and have come across the ideals of Libertarian socialism before. If anything I would say the latter produces far more problems and questions in its execution than the pure ideals of communism. However far you devolve the exercise of wielding power, I cannot personally see a situation where people work harmoniously without its need. It goes almost against the ideas of free will, not with them.

I don''t love capitalism, I just don''t see any viable alternative in the worlds current state, and I certainly don''t see it as some evil tyranny.

I personally agree with your statement and that it is my main view. Marx was great, Marxists are idiots.

[Feathers 0]

Well Monty, old Marx was best at his critique of capitalism. His vision for a future society was very unfortunately incredibly vague and open to interpretation.

I haven''t tried countering all of Rock the Boats arguments because well, we could be here all year back and forth, and he''s too far down the other way for me to waste the effort. I got stuff to do! He''s on the internet, it''s a good place to start for research.. anarchyfaq.org is good. I still hope he sees my replies above though.

Nobody said the alternative would be a utopia by the way. It will be ful of imperfections and problems. However, I believe the means of production being controlled democratically by those that work in it as a far better alternative than what is now. It will take something cataclysmic for this to happen of course, but in Greece a hospital and factory is now under worker''s control, and the co-operative movement in Argentina has been winning battles since the economic collapse there. It''s about ideas see.

You may say I''m a dreamer, but I''m not the only one....

[Monty13 2,229]

"Capitalism use to have morals now it doesn''t, like we humans use to have morals now we don''t. Protestant morals use to encourage working hard which equalled hard working people and a prospering society"

Is that the morals forced upon the common people by a powerful, authoritarian church with the threat of eternal punishment if not obeyed? ;)

[Feathers 0]

P.S envisioning what a future society might look like is a bit like saying what are you doing at 10pm in on February 24 2054. There is no blueprint, it''s supposed to constantly evolve to the conditions of the time, the same way scientists always change their review papers and theories.

[Feathers 0]

One more thing! (Damn!)

If human nature is the problem, then why do we allow so few to have so much power? If human nature is so flawed, it would be a good idea to dissolve power equally to every citizen and have a system where no man can rule over another. The human nature argument works against capitalism- and who says human nature is inert? Look at how society has evolved in just 100 years...

[Rock The Boat 1,326]

[quote user="feathers"]@Rock the Boat

You need to read page 4 of this thread and see what I''m talking about.

The idea that the only alternative to capitalism is some top-down stalinist nightmare is exactly what the powers that be want you to think! Judging by the amount of times I''ve had to explain this, it seems the propaganda is working very well. *Sigh*.

Just go to wikipedia and search ''libertarian socialism''.

Enjoy

p.s Thanks Ron[/quote]

Feathers thanks for the link, but I think you are shifting the arguement away from the original proposition which wasin the title of the thread and concerns communism. What I have offerred is the evidence that the great leaps in both economic wealth and in improvements in social policy have not come about through communism but through capitalism. The market is extremely efficient at delivering  jobs, products, ideas, creativity and progress, much better than communism or any other system.

 

Now I''m glad you see that the Soviet Union suffered enormously under Stalinist totalitarianism, but remember it was communism  that came first and prepared the way for Stalinism. Just as communism prepared the way for millions of Chinese deaths when the economic system collapsed under Mao''s brand of Marxism and Cambodia lost around a third of it''s population and lost almost everybody who had been educated beyond peasant level during Pol Pot''s version of communism.

 

Well I took the trouble to read the wikipedia link that you kindly provided and I can summarise libertarian socialism and nothing more than communism with a brand new coat. Yes, all the old communists are there, but with communism now condemned as a method by which we should be governed as being barbaric and simply unworkable, our old friends have had to come up with a new method of challenging capitalism.

 

I''ve no problem at all with capitalism being challenged, it is right and proper for any system to be tested. But this libertarian socialism is another attempt to drag communism back into the ring with the intention of trying to bring down the capitalist system. Looking at that wikipedia article, I was wondering just how many of those intellectual ''thinkers'' had ever done a real days work that most pinkun posters would recognise as real work. Fine for them to sit in their ivory towers and dream of some kind of  socialist utopia where everybody will be told what their job is going to be. Not so fine you are to be told that you are the baker and you must supply these thinking gentlemen and ladies with their daily bread.

 

And by the way, not a single country, as far as I can see has adopted any of these libertarian socialist models, not because their is an international capitalist conspiracy, but because they have already been tried out in countries such as Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and have spectacularly failed. In the same way that the communist NHS system is failing in this country.

[Monty13 2,229]

We have imperfections and problems now, some would say why swap them for new ones?

I love cooperatives, I don''t think they exist enough in society and they are great prospering advert for the ideals of which we have been speaking.

I actually think they are where this form of thinking should be implemented, imposing the ideals in areas, rather than over nations. Let the people decide. I buy fair trade products because I want to, not because they are cheapest because they are not. Its a tiny example, but I believe in evolution not revolution and if people don''t want to, well its up to them.

"Dream small dreams. If you make them too big, you get overwhelmed and you don''t do anything."

[Feathers 0]

Rock the Boat you''re being lazy with your research. You seem to think that I''m communist for a start, and also that examples of communism are bastardisations of the original idea. Libertarian socialism has been around since the forming of the first communist international in the 19th century (actually it''s origins are embedded in ancient Chinese philosophy). It''s not a convenient new ''coat''. Anarchists/Libertarians died fighting Stalinists. Trade unionists were sent to the gulags. Nothing is as simple as you think. It was Bakunin (the anarchist) that disagreed with Marx''s vision and caused the split way back. I suggest you read on.

Also I''m not in any ivory tower- part of the reason I believe what I do is because every workplace I''ve ever been in seems like it will work so much better without a boss.

[Feathers 0]

"And by the way, not a single country, as far as I can see has adopted any of these libertarian socialist models"

Look harder.

[Monty13 2,229]

"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it."

Great quote and that''s why the NHS does not fulfil its potential.

[Feathers 0]

shame when it comes to healthcare it''s a choice between a state bureaucracy and a private one. Which is the most accountable?

[Katie Borkins 1]

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]

Now Bor, your determination to mis-spell Hughton''s name is rude and rather juvenile. Do better than that.

 

And further old fella what else do a Reagan, a Bush, a Thatcher, a Blair have in common?

 

One love.

OTBC

[/quote]

They were all "up and at ''em", "set the people free", entrepreneurial types.  They cut back the system and let you and me cut loose a bit, showing what we could do.  I don''t reckon you were born out there in the West Indies now, were you?  Freedom of movement made that possible.  I don''t see our team having a lot of freedom of movement under the current regime, that''s old Bor''s point here.  Secretaries Calderwood and Trollope appear to be carrying out a purge on self-expression in the name of Tsar Christopher, that''s what I reckon.

 

This old thread here''s got way out of hand and I don''t reckon to know what half of you are talking about but that''s nice to see you agree we need more free market and less dogma.

 

[Monty13 2,229]

"If human nature is the problem, then why do we allow so few to have so much power? If human nature is so flawed, it would be a good idea to dissolve power equally to every citizen and have a system where no man can rule over another. The human nature argument works against capitalism- and who says human nature is inert? Look at how society has evolved in just 100 years..."

Yes that would be great, now how would that practically ever work? Who decides whose baking that bread today? Who has to the dirty jobs? because if no man rules us then what if we all decide we are not going to and therefore the collective suffers.

You give 10 random people enough food, water and materials for shelter to survive on a desert island for just a week and I guarantee they will argue over who is doing what job, some will try to take charge, some wont like what they end up doing, some will do more than others and resent the ones doing less etc. etc.

Reality TV thrives on this! You talk about power and rule in terms that others may call it leadership or direction.

And yes society is evolving and what is the catalyst, technology, and the current catalyst for that is capitalism. Rightly or wrongly it and it''s forerunners have generally always been the catalyst for change, the pursuit of wealth and power.

I''m just trying to be objective rather than impassioned.

[Feathers 0]

From the past, an example of an alternative-

"In Spain, during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties . . . this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was very quickly collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganised and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high-salaried managers, or the authority of the state.

"Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, ''From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.'' They co-ordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganisation of social life. They replaced the war between men, ''survival of the fittest,'' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity . . .

"This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other."

http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI8

It''s no coincidence FC Barcelona is a massive co-op! Catalunya is the spiritual home of libertarian socialism...

From the present, another example of it in practice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEzXln5kbuw

Now enough of this ''won''t work'' nonsense!

Bor you need to pay attention mate, that''s not what we''ve been agreeing at all! If anything your post has turned into a massive autopsy of capitalism!

And finally, to get this back onto football, what about Socrates, God rest his soul...

http://libcom.org/library/s-crates-midfielder-anti-dictatorship-resister

I hope at least some of y''all take a good look at at least some of this stuff. I can''t keep trying to convince you, you''ve got to make up your own minds innit.

I''m done.

Peace.

[Monty13 2,229]

Two sides to every story feathers:

Criticism of the Spanish Revolution has primarily centered around allegations of coercion by anarchist participants (primarily in the rural collectives of Aragon), which critics charge run contrary to libertarian organizational principles. Bolloten claims that CNT-FAI reports overplayed the voluntary nature of collectivization, and ignored the more widespread realities of coercion of outright force as the primary characteristic of anarchist organization

"Although CNT-FAI publications cited numerous cases of peasant proprietors and tenant farmers who had adhered voluntarily to the collective system, there can be no doubt that an incomparably larger number doggedly opposed it or accepted it only under extreme duress...The fact is...that many small owners and tenant farmers were forced to join the collective farms before they had an opportunity to make up their minds freely."

He also emphasizes the generally coercive nature of the war climate and anarchist military organization and presence in many portions of the countryside as being an element in the establishment of collectivization, even if outright force or blatant coercion was not used to bind participants against their will.

"Even if the peasant proprietor and tenant farmer were not compelled to adhere to the collective system, there were several factors that made life difficult for recalcitrants; for not only were they prevented from employing hired labor and disposing freely as their crops, as has already been seen, but they were often denied all benefits enjoyed by members...Moreover, the tenant farmer, who had believed himself freed from the payment of rent by the execution or flight of the landowner or of his steward, was often compelled to continue such payment to the village committee. All these factors combined to exert a pressure almost as powerful as the butt of the rifle, and eventually forced the small owners and tenant farmers in many villages to relinquish their land and other possessions to the collective farms."

This charge had previously been made by historian Ronald Fraser in his Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War, who commented that direct force was not necessary in the context of an otherwise coercive war climate.

"Villagers could find themselves under considerable pressure to collectivize - even if for different reasons. There was no need to dragoon them at pistol point: the coercive climate, in which ''fascists'' were being shot, was sufficient. ''Spontaneous'' and ''forced'' collectives existed, as did willing and unwilling collectivists within them. Forced collectivization ran contrary to libertarian ideals. Anything that was forced could not be libertarian. Obligatory collectivization was justified, in some libertarians'' eyes, by a reasoning closer to war communism than to libertarian communism: the need to feed the columns at the front."

Michael Seidman has suggested there were other contradictions with workers'' self-management during the Spanish Revolution. He points out that the CNT decided both that workers could be sacked for ''laziness or immorality'' and also that all workers should ''have a file where the details of their professional and social personalities will be registered.'' He also notes that the CNT Justice Minister, García Oliver, initiated the setting up of ''labour camps'' and that even the most principled anarchists, the Friends of Durutti, advocated ''forced labour''.

Such policies obviously contradict the basic principles of anarchism. Yet, anarchist authors have sometimes understated the problems of workers'' self-management in the Spanish Revolution. For example, while Gaston Leval does admit that the collectives imposed a ''work discipline'' that was ''more strict'' than that of the former capitalist owners, he then restricts this comment to a mere footnote.

[Feathers 0]

Straight to the ''criticism'' on wikipedia eh Monty! Just disregard everything else. Well, it''s an important point to note that during the Spanish Civil War atrocities were committed on ALL sides, and the revolution was not perfect. You have to remember there was a war on don''t you know. To counter your paste:

__________________________________________

I.8.7 Were the rural collectives created by force?

No, they were not. The myth that the rural collectives were created by "terror," organised and carried out by the anarchist militia, was started by the Stalinists of the Spanish Communist Party. More recently, certain right-wing "libertarians" have warmed up and repeated these Stalinist fabrications. Anarchists have been disproving these allegations since 1936 and it is worthwhile to do so again here. As Vernon Richards noted: "However discredited Stalinism may appear to be today the fact remains that the Stalinist lies and interpretation of the Spanish Civil War still prevail, presumably because it suits the political prejudices of those historians who are currently interpreting it." ["Introduction", Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, p. 11] Here we shall present evidence to refute claims that the rural collectives were created by force.

Firstly, we should point out that rural collectives were created in many different areas of Spain, such as the Levant (900 collectives), Castile (300) and Estremadera (30), where the anarchist militia did not exist. In Catalonia, for example, the CNT militia passed through many villages on its way to Aragón and only around 40 collectives were created unlike the 450 in Aragón. In other words, the rural collectivisation process occurred independently of the existence of anarchist troops, with the majority of the 1,700 rural collectives created in areas without a predominance of anarchist militias.

One historian, Ronald Fraser, seems to imply that collectives were imposed upon the Aragón population. As he put it, the "collectivisation, carried out under the general cover, if not necessarily the direct agency, of CNT militia columns, represented a revolutionary minority''s attempt to control not only production but consumption for egalitarian purposes and the needs of the war." Notice that he does not suggest that the anarchist militia actually imposed the collectives, a claim for which there is little or no evidence. Moreover, Fraser presents a somewhat contradictory narrative to the facts he presents. On the one hand, he suggests that "[o]bligatory collectivisation was justified, in some libertarians'' eyes, by a reasoning closer to war communism than to libertarian communism." On the other hand, he presents extensive evidence that the collectives did not have a 100% membership rate. How can collectivisation be obligatory if people remain outside the collectives? Similarly, he talks of how some CNT militia leaders justified "[f]orced collectivisation" in terms of the war effort while acknowledging the official CNT policy of opposing forced collectivisation, an opposition expressed in practice as only around 20 (i.e., 5%) of the collectives were total. [Blood of Spain, p. 370, p. 349 and p. 366] This is shown in his own book as collectivists interviewed continually note that people remained outside their collectives!

Thus Fraser''s attempts to paint the Aragón collectives as a form of "war communism" imposed upon the population by the CNT and obligatory for all fails to co-incide with the evidence he presents.

Fraser states that "[t]here was no need to dragoon them [the peasants] at pistol point [into collectives]: the coercive climate, in which ''fascists'' were being shot, was sufficient. ''Spontaneous'' and ''forced'' collectives existed, as did willing and unwilling collectivists within them." [Op. Cit., p. 349] Therefore, his implied suggestion that the Aragón collectives were imposed upon the rural population is based upon the insight that there was a "coercive climate" in Aragón at the time. Of course a civil war against fascism would produce a "coercive climate" particularly near the front line. However, the CNT can hardly be blamed for that. As historian Gabriel Jackson summarised, while such executions took place the CNT did not conduct a general wave of terror:

"the anarchists made a constant effort to separate active political enemies from those who were simply bourgeois by birth or ideology or economic function. Anarchist political committees wanted to know what the accused monarchists or conservatives had done, not simply what they thought or how they voted . . . There is no inherent contradiction involved in recognising both that the revolution included some violence and that its social and economic results . . . were approved of by the majority of peasants in an area." [quoted in Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, p. 146]

This was a life and death struggle against fascism, in which the fascists were systematically murdering vast numbers of anarchists, socialists and republicans in the areas under their control. It is hardly surprising that some anarchist troops took the law into their own hands and murdered some of those who supported and would help the fascists. Given what was going on in fascist Spain, and the experience of fascism in Germany and Italy, the CNT militia knew exactly what would happen to them and their friends and family if they lost.

The question does arise, however, of whether the climate was made so coercive by the war and the nearness of the anarchist militia that individual choice was impossible. The facts speak for themselves. At its peak, rural collectivisation in Aragón embraced around 70% of the population in the area saved from fascism. Around 30% of the population felt safe enough not to join a collective, a sizeable percentage. If the collectives had been created by anarchist terror or force, we would expect a figure of 100% membership. This was not the case, indicating the basically voluntary nature of the experiment (we should point out that other figures suggest a lower number of collectivists which makes the forced collectivisation argument even less likely). Historian Antony Beevor (while noting that there "had undoubtedly been pressure, and no doubt force was used on some occasions in the fervour after the rising") just stated the obvious when he wrote that "the very fact that every village was a mixture of collectivists and individualists shows that peasants had not been forced into communal farming at the point of a gun."

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secI8.html#seci87

[Monty13 2,229]

Haha, no I read it all Feathers, I like to be objective, it is you who painted the rosy picture without the criticism of it.

If your an objective Historian what account would you believe? That written by an active members of the CNT?

Gaston Leval is no historian, he is a promoter of his own revolution.

Peirats is again auto bio-graphing, he was the CNT newspaper editor for gods sake! not an historian.

Fraser is a pioneer of oral history, who''s book is described as a "a peerless account of the Spanish civil war, carefully constructed from interviews with participants on (drum roll please) both sides" by fellow (left wing) historian. He was also a lifelong socialist.

Did all Germans embrace fascism? no the majority were coerced by fear and the nationalistic fervour, especially on the outbreak of war.

After reading what you posted I merely added some objectivity to your terribly one sided and un-objective description of events.

But as you say, intelligent people will make up their own minds based on the weight of evidence. You talk of Capitalist propaganda earlier yet are quite happy to write a purely Socialist/Marxist one. I like to be objective, I don''t have any particular entrenched political ideal and I look at each issue on its merit. I wish more people did rather than embracing unthinking partisanship.

[ron obvious 1,501]

Time to re-read "Homage To Catalonia" I think ...

[Monty13 2,229]

Yes I have always found Orwell an objective read. ;)

But I don''t dismiss his work either, I love Animal farm, and he makes points all of us should ponder upon.

[Feathers 0]

Homage to catalonia is a good start! Old George wouldn''t lie. Anyway yes monty my post was rushed and pasted from an obviously pro anarchist website. I prefer the term libertarian socialist as it''s not so narrow in scope. We should indeed let people make up their own minds, but my original post about the Spanish revolution was to show it did work in practice for the most part, and to ignore the brutal civil war context and all that came with it would be foolish. Despite the obvious imperfections it would no doubt unfairly overlook what was achieved. And you should also see the doc i posted on the same post about Argentina too. No civil war or coercion there. Better go now before I''m in trouble with the missus!