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neat62
Guest
Can any European here, please describe to a T, what European socialism is?
Please, at least, ten points.
Thanks
Please, at least, ten points.
Thanks
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grampben
Guest
It’s no different than any other socialism.
Socialism is a very old term, first used probably around the time of the French Revolution against the tyrannical aristocracy.
There were many different groups under the ‘socialist’ banner at this time, but they were one united group.
From then on, up until Marx got famous, the socialists (at this time ‘social democrat’ and ‘socialist’ were synonyms, even the Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party) were in two main groups:
- Revolutionary Socialists
- Revisionist Socialists
Now for the revisionists:
The revisionists wanted a socialistic form of government but not by violent means and by democracy, in slow steps. At the start of the 20th century, the terms used for revisionism were ‘democratic socialist’ and ‘social democrat’. For a time, these two were synonyms. But some in these groups had the idea that capitalism wasn’t inherently bad, but that it must be kept under control and regulated, with the working and middle classes in mind. These guys became known as social democrats. Of course these days it is still evolving and moving closer to the centre.
The ‘socialism’ of Europe talked about on CAF is probably the modern day social democracy seen in the government of some European countries.
So all you guys can see now why just because communists call themselves socialists or social dmeocrats, it doesn’t mean they espouse what those ideologies teach. Socialism is a house with many rooms. Barack Obama is not in this house, and Europe has been moving out for the last 20 years.
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Kaninchen
Guest
A socialist society implies the state ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. In the Marxist-Leninist perspective, the State would eventually wither away leaving control in the hands of the councils (‘soviet’ in Russian) of the individual factories and collective farms (‘communism’).
With the apparent awfulness of the Soviet system, the socialist parties of Europe split - for example the SPD in Germany split into the SPD and KPD (communists) in the 1920’s. Following the Second World war, the moderates and right wings of European parties distanced themselves further and further from the ‘socialist’ part of their programs and espoused the ‘social’ aspect.
What tends to confuse Americans is the ‘social insurance State’ that is such a feature of Western and Northern Europe - the thing is that the origins of the approach are, actually, highly conservative - from Disraeli Tories to the German Imperial Chancellor, Bismarck - dating back to the old feud between the traditional landowning classes and the ‘Liberal’ factory owners with the emergent working classes seen as a potential revolutionary threat on the one hand but a potential ally on the other.
It should not be forgotten that Conservative governments have been predominant in Western European countries since the Second World War and anybody who would, today, describe the modern British Labour Party, or the German SPD, for example, as socialist really has no concept of what the word means. Control of the means of production, distribution and exchange in the party programs? Not a chance.
The thing is that as Europeans or Americans, we are where we are. The idea that we’re in some kind of ‘year zero’ where Europeans could magically give up the ‘social insurance State’ or Americans magically adopt it, is, to borrow from Margaret Thatcher, not just nonsense but ‘nonsense on stilts’. The voters of both, with their differing experiences, ways of seeing and understanding would not ‘buy’ it.
European conservatives and social democrats will just continue their endless struggle over who can manage the ‘social insurance State’ better, with more or less private sector involvement in the whole thing, more or less government interference and various ways of providing consumer choice.
Americans? Who knows? And why should we Europeans care one way or another? After all, Americans may not want a European model of health care provision but there’s nobody on the planet saying ‘what we need is the American system’.
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Kaninchen
Guest
A socialist society implies the state ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. In the Marxist-Leninist perspective, the State would eventually wither away leaving control in the hands of the councils (‘soviet’ in Russian) of the individual factories and collective farms (‘communism’).
Russia, when the Boshevik’s seized control was a proto-capitalist society. According to Marx, a communist revolution could only take place in an advanced capitalist society, so they were faced with a problem – communists in control of a country of primitive agriculture and very little industry. What was necessary, in a very hostile world, was to create a society advanced enough to start the process of becoming a socialist and then a communist society – thus the era of forced collectivisation of agriculture and the ‘Five Year Plans’ for industrial development to the level of advanced capitalist countries. They were ‘communists’, certainly, but they were in charge of a ‘pre-communist’ country which they were forcing ‘forward’ with great barbarity and social destruction – the Soviet Union never became a ‘socialist’ society never mind a ‘communist’ society in a sense Marx would have recognized – it was authoritarian ‘State Capitalism’ run by a geriatric bureaucracy that thought of itself as made up of ‘communists’.
With the apparent awfulness of the Soviet system, the socialist parties of Europe split - for example the SPD in Germany split into the SPD and KPD (communists) in the 1920’s. Following the Second World war, the moderates and right wings of European parties distanced themselves further and further from the ‘socialist’ part of their programs and espoused the ‘social’ aspect.
What tends to confuse Americans is the ‘social insurance State’ that is such a feature of Western and Northern Europe - the thing is that the origins of the approach are, actually, highly conservative - from Disraeli Tories to the German Imperial Chancellor, Bismarck - dating back to the old feud between the traditional landowning classes and the ‘Liberal’ factory owners with the emergent working classes seen as a potential revolutionary threat on the one hand but a potential ally on the other.
It should not be forgotten that Conservative governments have been predominant in Western European countries since the Second World War and anybody who would, today, describe the modern British Labour Party, or the German SPD, for example, as socialist really has no concept of what the word means. Control of the means of production, distribution and exchange in the party programs? Not a chance.
The thing is that as Europeans or Americans, we are where we are. The idea that we’re in some kind of ‘year zero’ where Europeans could magically give up the ‘social insurance State’ or Americans magically adopt it, is, to borrow from Margaret Thatcher, not just nonsense but ‘nonsense on stilts’. The voters of both, with their differing experiences, ways of seeing and understanding would not ‘buy’ it.
European conservatives and social democrats will just continue their endless struggle over who can manage the ‘social insurance State’ better, with more or less private sector involvement in the whole thing, more or less government interference and various ways of providing consumer choice.
Americans? Who knows? And why should we Europeans care one way or another? After all, Americans may not want a European model of health care provision but there’s nobody on the planet saying ‘what we need is the American system’.
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grampben
Guest
Couldn’t have put it better myselfAmericans? Who knows? And why should we Europeans care one way or another? After all, Americans may not want a European model of health care provision but there’s nobody on the planet saying ‘what we need is the American system’.
And in the UK and Ireland at least, there is no mass movement pro liberalising the gun laws either.
Each to his own, eh?
Europe, culturally speaking, is very different to the USA.
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CWBetts
Guest
I can agree. Not better, not worse, just different.Couldn’t have put it better myself
And in the UK and Ireland at least, there is no mass movement pro liberalising the gun laws either.
Each to his own, eh?
Europe, culturally speaking, is very different to the USA.
K
Kaninchen
Guest
And just who imposed the ban on handguns in the UK?Couldn’t have put it better myself
And in the UK and Ireland at least, there is no mass movement pro liberalising the gun laws either.
Each to his own, eh?
Was it naughty, naughty, naughty socialists?
Ooops, no, it was a Conservative government.
A couple of hundred years of separate development might explain it! Completely different sets of experiences.
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grampben
Guest
The socialists are pretending to be conservatives in the communist plot!
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Kaninchen
Guest
Exposure to American Conservatives has taught me that, as a European conservative, I’m a Marxist, Anarchist-Authoritarian, Socialist.The socialists are pretending to be conservatives in the communist plot!
To think I even used to prefer California to Italy - but I was young and foolish.
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CWBetts
Guest
Why are you using this board for no other purpose than to smear Americans. Wha ever happened to gratitude?Exposure to American Conservatives has taught me that, as a European conservative, I’m a Marxist, Anarchist-Authoritarian, Socialist.
To think I even used to prefer California to Italy - but I was young and foolish.
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Kaninchen
Guest
Err? I’ve never ‘smeared’ Americans, I’ve never criticized the US or its internal workings or foreign policies, I’ve never voiced a view on any American political party, I’ve never voiced a view on American presidential candidates, I’ve never voiced a view on the results of the election.
What I’ve consistently done is to criticize, where necessary, American views of and on Europe and Europeans.
I love Italy which has one of the most ‘bonkers’ political worlds on the planet.
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neat62
Guest
Thanks for the replies, but can I get an answer to my question of:
Thanks again.
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grampben
Guest
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grampben
Guest
That’s the question I ask every time I am smeared on this forum because I am not a conservative, I am then told I am irrelevant as I am from ‘socialism europe’.
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neat62
Guest
Kaninchen;
Thats a lie, knock off the nonsense!
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neat62
Guest
grampben;
How is Obama not a socialist?
Then explain post #196
How is Obama not a socialist?
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Kaninchen
Guest
Actually, it was a sarcastic joke for grampben.Kaninchen;
Thats a lie, knock off the nonsense!
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neat62
Guest
Kaninchen;
Yeah, at the expense of a comment that I had made which was taken out of context! SO KNOCK IT OFF!
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Kaninchen
Guest
I think it’s time for ignore lists.Kaninchen;
Yeah, at the expense of a comment that I had made which was taken out of context! SO KNOCK IT OFF!
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CWBetts
Guest
You actually should apologize…
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