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"Give me a f*cking..."
-Jubilee McGann

Whoa...that makes so much sense...where'd you get that?!

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"Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." - Jeffrey Richman, UB student

I stole it from my "European History: Napoleon to Modern Era" class.

"A social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods."

I like this because it leaves out the concept of government entirely, and thereby includes the Libertarian Socialist (also called Anarchist) tradition.

Socialism at its most basic level is about people being in control of their labor and their lives. Now, pro-capitalists in the US have cleverly taken this concept and re-labeled it as "capitalism."

Socialism isn't about government taking anything away from anyone. This is most clearly expressed by Libertarian Socialism, in my opinion. If you took away government support for coercive relationships, capitalism could not be maintained because wage labor could not be maintained.

In other words, business owners are always the *first" people to go running to "guvmint" for help. The liberal welfare state exists to maintain capitalism, after all! History shows what happens when you have capitalism with no welfare state: you get large numbers of working people who are stuck in employment relationships, and businesses become more and more arrogant. People start joining radical unions and labor movements. Businesses find themselves in a situation where they can't hire enough private security thugs to defend themselves from their own workers, and so they start crying for government help.

I won't try to define "Communism" at this point, becasue the term has so much intellectual baggage.

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"Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters."

Say the following two phrases in one breath, without cracking up:

"keep those flat-footed goombahs in Washington outta my hair"

and

"hurry up with my federal bail-out check."

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Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson

Breaking me rule of not posting, I will enlighten you all, as I am a self avowed Trotskyist and I have dedicated my life to two endeavours, one being the furtherance of the revolutionary nature of the proletariat.

Allow me to post an article about the nature of socialism v communism, or portions from this article (www.wsws.org)

"Socialism is, by its very nature, international. Its establishment will require the overthrow of the capitalist state in at least the major imperialist
centres by the working class and the establishment of genuine workers' states. A socialist society will be one that, as Marx explained, stands higher in its economic development than anything so far achieved under capitalism. Production and distribution will be carried out according to a rational plan, not the anarchic drive for profit."

Note, this requires the maturation of capitalism! Now, the next step

"Communism will be achieved only when all the material conditions for inequality have been overcome through the development of science and technique, and when the state itself begins to "wither away". As Trotsky explains in his brilliant work The Revolution Betrayed: "Capitalism prepared the conditions and forces for a social revolution: technique, science and the proletariat. The communist structure cannot, however,
immediately replace the bourgeois society. The material and cultural inheritance from the past is wholly inadequate for that...Marx names the first stage of the new society 'the lowest stage of communism' in distinction from the highest, where together with the last phantoms of want, material inequality will disappear. In this sense socialism and communism are frequently contrasted as the lower and higher stages of
the new society."

That should explain it for you. And who knows Marxism more than Trotsky?! (not that idiot Mao)

Anyway, to throw at you a few interesting notes, which I believe more people should know so as to refute the false beliefs given to them by the corrupt US and USSR regimes...

"From this brief outline, it should be clear that no socialist, much less communist, society has yet existed"

There ya go. For more info on that, read Trotsky's The Third International After Lenin.

As to Liam's comment, the Labour Party, although now a conservative protection for the bourgeois, was never socialist. It was social democrat. Generally, we look at the Internationals this way

First International - Marx/Engels, collapsed in the 19th century. Experimental, theoretical.
Second International - Social Democratic. Collapsed when the Social Democrats in Germany voted credits for the Kaiser's imperialist war, much like the French and British would do, thus violating the very basis of socialism, internationalism, in favor of petty nationalism.
Third International - Communist. Created by Lenin, usurped and eventually a Stalnist/Maoist amalgam of satanic evil.
Fourth International - Socialist. Created by Trotsky in 1938, the last remaining revolutionary international.

Labour was a founding member of the Second International and maintained it down to this day. Thus, it was social democratic, not socialist.

As to the liberal/conservative thing, a brief comment. Conservatives believe that government can legislate morality (see the corruptness of the vile fornication taking place between the Republican party and the Christian Right) whereas Liberals don't. That is the exact opposite of the definition for liberal/conservative you generally hear. A good rule of thumb is that you're to the left if you favour control over economics and nothing else and you're to the right if you want economic freedom but government control elsewhere.

That should help you all out a bit. I aim to please. Maybe I'll have another post in a few months :-)

I understand that "Das Kapital" (or was it "The Communist Manifesto"?) was rather difficult to comprehend. Marx had a poor grasp of economics, but he did have valid insights regarding the effects that the "benign neglect" of business and industry by government would have.

--Baloo

P.S.: The link you referred to: www.wsws.org

I'll go have a look.

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"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
-- Jacob Marley's Ghost (A Christmas Carol -- Charles Dickens)
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm

Having said that, DT's presence has me too gobsmacked to say anything more.

It said something along the lines of 'I'll have to break my vow of silence and fix this up! Being a true communist, a brother to the worker....' (Well, you can imagine the rest!).

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"Diplomacy is the art of Internationalising an issue to your advantage"

Field Marshal Military Project
http://fieldmarshal.virtualave.net