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No, I wasn't arguing FOR capitalism, we were arguing about how it works. My position in the current system is one of anarcho-capitalism because it allows me to do more stuff and get more cash/freedom for myself. As opposed to dressing like a hunt sab and whinging outside starbucks in the rain.
Not being in a position to change the whole thing, I just use it for my own advantage. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Would it be the system I would choose to live under?
Would it fuck. I am well aware of the many many downsides to it. Not least of which is that it's a socialist, centralised, collectivist system.
Hmmmm...it seems like you change your position depending on how the arguments gone.
Except that (again!) you confuse socialism with centralisation. This is what I mean when I say that to attempt to debate on the level that you do, it might be an idea to actually educate yourself a little about it first!
If I confused centralisation with socialism, why did I use both words? I know what you mean by socialism and I want no part of it (thanks).
I also change my mind a lot. :yes:
Errrrmmmm...what you wrote looked like you were describing one thing - a socialist, centralised, collectivist system.
Yes, which is my description of our current system. :rolleyes:
If you think about it for a moment, the "people at the tops" system actually works very much like a socialist system would do. The difference is of course, that their decisions effect everybody else. If you had groups like that for each area, but not neccessarily tied to each other, then that would be something like a socialst system.
Thanks for proving my point, that actually, you haven't a clue about politics.
>Sigh< Which bit didn't match up with "Blagsta's big book of political ideology" this time?
Its not "my book" - its the fact that your defintions of things are quite often at odds with the rest of the world's.
Ok then. you really cannot see the systemic similarities between how the bunch of MPs work together and how a group would make decisions under socialism?
Look - if you're gonna argue about something, its an idea to at least have a vague understanding of what it is you're arguing about.
Correct me if I am wrong, but socialism is the inbetween stage from capitalism to communism, is that right?
Where private property is abolished?
Which has happened in this country because the "state" owns everything and everyone since 1941. All property belongs to the state. It's the same in the US, OH! Canada and all western "democracies".
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&defl=en&q=define:Socialism
Also, not to be too picky, but most web sources claim that socialism does contain centralised ownership.
How has the state owned "everything and everyone" since 1941? Do companies not own plenty, for example the north sea oil fields (sold off by the British gov't)?
My personal perception is that states ended up owing so much through war etc that the banks took them by the balls and worked towards setting themselves up as the real global superpowers. Governments obviously aquiesced, and now big money/politics are indistinguishable. It's something i've been wanting to read more into recently...read a bit about during my right wing days, some of that i've been able incorporate into my leftist perspective.
Re socialism, socialism is a fairly broad term which i consider even some far-rightists to advocate (in a sense). Basically, any system which is based on the benefit of people is by definition socialist.
No. Here's why. In order for the courts to make a determination about something, they must be the one's owning it. Theres some latin legal phrase that means "no one can give what they do not have", maybe Kermit knows it I can't remember right now.
What we get is equitable rights over our "property". The queen really still owns it all (which is why the queen and the things she owns directly cannot get insurance, as an example) although in this case the queen is a corporation set up in law to handle these affairs, not brenda herself.
This means that you have to follow the law in exchange for doing business and using the legal tender system. It's a contractual relationship, like the birth certificate.
Yeah that's about the size of it. We have a national debt of which it's only the interest that's paid off every year. No one seems to question where it all goes though. Every nation on earth has a national debt. How weird is that, like?
Of course, all money these days is debt instrumentation, not money.
The gramsci article was interesting ...
Thinking about it ...can you point out where anarchism is any different to marxism? I think Russia's current situation shows how well that work(ed)s even if it was a slightly adapted version of it.
Interesting.
But, with banks having bought governments, surely what they "own" is merely property of the Queen only in a technical sense.
In practice, the Queen's existence as monarch relies on the moneymen's tolerance and her co-operation with them (extolling the virtues of the bankers political reps - New Labour - on xmas for example).
With direct ownership comes responsibility. Which these parasites really aren't in favour of at all. It's much better to be a landlord, insisting that the tenant's pay for everything and keep it all in good nick than taking control of it yourself. you get all the good stuff and none of the bad.
Yes, they own the queen. That is the "H.M.Governemt" corporation. Everything depends on the moneymen's co-operation. Even someone as well known (and therefore not atually in charge of anything) as George Soros could crash our economy at a whim. The real beasts could crash the economy and rebuild it again overnight. They could (and do) "finance" people to kill the queen, be it an Al Qaeda group or a sudden unexplained surge of repulicanism. Everyone needs money, and they have it all.
Crashing an economy is easy when you control the money supply. Just stop lending and theres a 30's style depression before the end of the week.
Have a kind of loopy take on the whole thing -
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:pg3L1BjFmqwJ:www.freedomfiles.org/mary-book.pdf+mary+clobbered+&hl=en
Including such gems as how to not pay your credit card back, how to make your own promissory notes and what to do if you get cancer. Some of it works over here too. Even David Icke gets quoted.
Certainly, there is much on there which in my view rings 100% true so I'm inclined not to dismiss it completely...
Except of course, this is utter bollocks.
Well it depends on what you mean by "Marxism". Marx's views on how to establish communism changed throughout his life iirc (although I'm not a Marxist scholar by any means). A lot of people use Marxism interchangeably with Marxist-Leninism although they are not necessarily the same thing.
The difference (roughly) between Marxist-Leninism and anarchism is on how we get to communism - do we need a vanguard revolutionary party led by an elite to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat before the eventual "withering away of the state" or do we organise from the bottom up, grassroots style and overthrow the entire concept and need for the state in one go? The former seems to lead to another bunch of bully boys in charge (and, it could be argued capitalism run by the state). The latter? Dunno, no one's really tried it - although the Spanish anarchists probably came closest during the civil war/revolution.
I think Russia's current situation shows the dangers of unfettered capitalism.
Which bit do you have more information for me about? Everything you quoted me on was factually accurate.
Says the man whose just taken me to task over not using common definitions for words. :rolleyes:
All these theories suffer from the same problem as ideas like "country" does. Because there is no real, physical thing to point at, the word means entirely different things to each person. It's how hegemony itself is largely created - people listen to TB waffle on about "the people of britain" and go "yep, that's me" without thinking about it too much (if at all).
So, when I give my explanation of what I think something means I can't be wrong, because it's subjective.
Because they assume that their interpretation of the symbol is the exact same as everyone elses. Or they argue over who's definition of whatever is the right one. Or they just don't think at all.
>puffs out cheeks< How do you know, for example, the difference between confusion and understanding?
Anyway, what new info on the state of the state?
Sorry for not engaging in the discussion but I genuinely busted out laughing when I read that :thumb: