The Violence Of Socialist Security

This is part of a thread I am writing, but I thought it might be relevant to this thread, or at least its author...

The left has been traditionally split between those who support a state system, Marxists, Leninists, and those who apposed the state, Anarchists. The socialists and communists who apposed a state system appropriated the term Anarchy, not for its literal dictionary definition, but to differentiate themselves from supporters of the state.

This is where a lot of people get confused, because the dictionary term Anarchy is not the same as the political term Anarchism (much like social is not socialism), even though they have an obvious connection.

Anarchism is stateless socialism, Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876, anarcho-collectivist

reply to post by ANOK


It is impossible to have stateless socialism.

Mises clearly presented the economic calculation problem that demonstrates socialism to be impossible.

Ludwig von Mises argued in a famous 1920 article "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" that the pricing systems in socialist economies were necessarily deficient because if government owned or controlled the means of production, then no rational prices could be obtained for capital goods as they were merely internal transfers of goods in a socialist system and not "objects of exchange," unlike final goods. Therefore, they were unpriced and hence the system would be necessarily inefficient since the central planners would not know how to allocate the available resources efficiently.[1] This led him to declare "...that rational economic activity is impossible in a socialist commonwealth."[1] Mises developed his critique of socialism more completely in his 1922 book Socialism, an Economic and Sociological Analysis.

It is impossible.

IMPOSSIBLE

Socialism can not, nor has it ever, worked to produce prosperity for any given society.

You can read the entire treatise online here for free:
mises.org...

The very first paragraph of the treatise lays out why the State is necessitated under socialism

Under socialism all the means of production are the property of the community. It is the community alone which can dispose of them and which determines their use in production. It goes without saying that the community will only be in a position to employ its powers of disposal through the setting up of a special body for the purpose. The structure of this body and the question of how it will articulate and represent the communal will is for us of subsidiary importance. One may assume that this last will depend upon the choice of personnel, and in cases where the power is not vested in a dictatorship, upon the majority vote of the members of the corporation.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by ANOK

 

It is impossible to have stateless socialism.

In your opinion. But regardless this wasn't about whether you think it would work. It seems everyone I discus this with after being shown to be wrong start with the 'it wouldn't work' argument. It has been proved it can work, Spain in the 1930's...

flag.blackened.net...

Anarchism IS stateless socialism in all it forms for example...

Anarcho-Socialism, also called Libertarian Socialism.

Libertarian Socialism is a term essentially synonymous with the word "Anarchism". Anarchy, strictly meaning "without rulers", leads one to wonder what sort of system would exist in place of one without state or capitalist masters... the answer being a radically democratic society while preserving the maximal amount of individual liberty and freedom possible.

Libertarian Socialism recognizes that the concept of "property" (specifically, the means of production, factories, land used for profit, rented space) is theft and that in a truly libertarian society, the individual would be free of exploitation caused by the concentration of all means of wealth-making into the hands of an elite minority of capitalists.

flag.blackened.net...

Anarcho-Communism, obvious (well if you understand what communism is)...

Anarcho-Communism, or Libertarian Communism, is a political ideology related to Libertarian socialism. However, the terms Anarcho-Communism and Libertarian Communism should not be considered synonyms for libertarian socialism. Anarcho-Communism is a particular branch of libertarian socialism.

eng.anarchopedia.org...

Anarcho-Syndicalism, a way of organizing labour using trade unions...

Anarcho-syndicalism is the anarchist wing of the labor union movement. Its primary aim is the end of the wage system.

The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are:

1. workers’ solidarity,
2. direct action
3. self-management.

Workers’ solidarity means that anarcho-syndicalists believe all workers, no matter what their race, gender, or ethnic group are in a similar situation vis-à-vis their bosses (Class consciousness). Furthermore, it means that, within capitalism, any gains or losses made by some workers in their relation to bosses will eventually impact all workers. Therefore, it says that in order to gain liberation, all workers must support one another in their struggle against bosses.

eng.anarchopedia.org...

Anarcho-Collectivism, a form of market socialism...

Collectivist anarchism, also known as anarcho-collectivism, is a 19th century anarchist doctrine that advocated the abolition of the state and private ownership of the means of production, with the means of production instead being owned collectively and controlled and managed by the producers themselves.

Ludwig von Mises argued in a famous 1920 article "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" that the pricing systems in socialist economies were necessarily deficient because if government owned or controlled the means of production, then no rational prices could be obtained for capital goods as they were merely internal transfers of goods in a socialist system and not "objects of exchange," unlike final goods. Therefore, they were unpriced and hence the system would be necessarily inefficient since the central planners would not know how to allocate the available resources efficiently.[1] This led him to declare "...that rational economic activity is impossible in a socialist commonwealth."[1] Mises developed his critique of socialism more completely in his 1922 book Socialism, an Economic and Sociological Analysis.

Well I disagree with his definition of socialism from the start, that again is the STATEST definition and its not the ONLY or even true definition.

Socialism, as far as Anarchists are concerned is NOT government owned, or controlled. How can it be? Why would they be Anarchists if they supported government?

Under socialism all the means of production are the property of the community. It is the community alone which can dispose of them and which determines their use in production. It goes without saying that the community will only be in a position to employ its powers of disposal through the setting up of a special body for the purpose. The structure of this body and the question of how it will articulate and represent the communal will is for us of subsidiary importance. One may assume that this last will depend upon the choice of personnel, and in cases where the power is not vested in a dictatorship, upon the majority vote of the members of the corporation.

Your quotes are just common misrepresentations of what socialism is. I already explained there are two factions on the left, those that appose and those that support a state system.

The definition of socialism used by Anarchists is the 'Workers ownership of the means of production'. It does not mean all production is property of the community. Production would be the property of those WHO USE IT, the workers who produce goods. Do you know what a worker collective is?

Anarchism, socialism and communism are systems of the people, not the elite, their system is capitalism. The capitalists have misappropriated political terms for decades to confuse and maintain their control on the economy.

reply to post by ANOK


No, it is not "my opinion."

It is an economic fact, and it comes from Nobel prize winning economists.

Fact = Socialism can never produce prosperity, nor has it ever.

Fact = Socialism requires a State to administer the allocation of resources.

You can quote all the blogs you like, but if none of them have presented a solution to the economic calculation problem, then they are nothing more than garbage.

You keep going on about blogs, I'm not posting blogs, if you have a problem with the claims then present something that refutes them.

Your facts are wrong. I think I have made it quite clear. You have yet to present anything that challenges what I have said. I have presented factual quotes from respected websites, quotes from actual Anarchists, unless you think Bakunin is a blog? If you would read some actual books written by actual Anarchist thinkers you would know better. I am way ahead of you by many years, my political education came long before the net., I know what is what I promise you. I don't post anything I do not already know to be true, and is supported by other quotes and points I make, if you can't put it together and see the obvious that is not my fault.

Here is something else you should know about...

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon...(sorry this is a link, blog, whatever you want to call it but I can't really link to a book so what do ya want? I guess only your resources are valid?)

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (pronounced [ˈpruːd ɒn] in BrE, [pʁu dɔ̃] in French) (15 January, 1809 – 19 January, 1865) was a French economist and socialist philosopher who was the first individual to call himself an "anarchist" and is considered among the first anarchist thinkers. Proudhon is most famous for his assertion of "Property is theft!", in his missive What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right of Government with the original title: Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement, which was his first major work, published in 1840...

...In his earliest works, Proudhon analyzed the nature and problems of the capitalist economy. While deeply critical of capitalism, he also objected to contemporary socialists who idolized association. In series of commentaries, from What is Property? (1840) through the posthumously-published Théorie de la propriété (Theory of Property, 1863-64), he declared that "property is theft", "property is impossible", "property is despotism" and "property is freedom". The apparent contradiction is resolved when it is realized that, in "property is theft", he was using the word to mean the type of property which created exploitative conditions. Specifically, he was referring to the means of production which labourers did not own themselves, and the system of wage labour...

...On the other hand, in asserting that property is essential for liberty, he was referring not only to the product of an individual's labor, but to the peasant or artisans home and tools of his trade. For Proudhon, the only legitimate source of property is labor. What one produces is his property and anything beyond that is not. He can be considered a libertarian socialist, since he advocated worker self-management and argued against capitalist ownership of the means of production.

eng.anarchopedia.org...

That is what Anarchism was based on. I ask you again, if socialism is what you claim it is then why would Anarchists support it?

dble post..

OK, this is typed, by yours truly, directly from the book 'Anarchism and other essays' by Emma Goldman, an Anarcho-communist who played a big role in American Anarchism early in the last century...

...That being the ideal of Anarchism, it's economic arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive associations, gradually developing into free communism, as the best means of producing with the least waste of human energy. Anarchism however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers of individuals, to arrange at all times of other forms of work, in harmony with their tastes and desires.

Such free display of human energy being possible only under complete individual and social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces against the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the State, organized authority, or statutory law, - the dominion of human conduct... p56

...In fact there is hardly a modern thinker who does not agree that government, organized authority, or the State, is necessary only to maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient in that function only... p57-58

...Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraints of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations. p62

Infoshop on Emma Goldman... wiki.infoshop.org...

Please tell me you know who she is?

reply to post by ANOK


You are citing a moron that thinks property is theft.

This is like claiming good is bad, war is peace, freedom is slavery, etc.. etc.. etc..

If you don't believe in property, then you necessarily must believe in violent conflict, since taking something that you do not own will result in violent conflict.

If I take a natural resource, then apply my labor to that resource in order to turn it into a valuable finished product, I naturally own that product. I will naturally defend that product from theft.

A lack of property rights leads to poverty and violence, this is the ONLY possible outcome.

I also noticed you completely ignored the economic calculation problem presented by Mises and Hayek.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
You are citing a moron that thinks property is theft.

You have a nerve calling people morons. You are just showing your complete historical ignorance. These 'morons' are classical Anarchist thinkers and authors. You are the moron for completely ignoring the historical perspectives I am trying to show you, and not knowing who these people are.

Again you are offering nothing to counter my points, you just call people names. How mature.

This is like claiming good is bad, war is peace, freedom is slavery, etc.. etc.. etc..

Huh no, it only seems like that because you have been conditioned in your beliefs by the very state you claim to hate.

Everything in America has been twisted in order to confuse you and maintain capitalist control. If you understood the history of politics in Europe you would know this. The reason I posted the Chomsky vid is because he talked about this, but you missed it in your arrogant dismissal of it because of 'stupid college kids'. Your debating tactics sound about as mature as a stupid high school kid.

If you don't believe in property, then you necessarily must believe in violent conflict, since taking something that you do not own will result in violent conflict.

See this is your misunderstanding again. Property in this context does not mean personal property, it means any private property that is used to exploit others.

It has nothing to do with taking anything from anybody. It is about taking what we NEED and making it available for all to produce what we NEED, instead of producing for someones greed.

Private ownership keeps resources artificially scarce, it has to because an abundance of resources doesn't make profit enough for greedy capitalists.

Technological capacity to produce enough to satisfy everyone's needs already exists globally and has done so for many decades. Yet needs continue to remain unmet on a massive scale. Why? Quite simply because scarcity is a functional requirement of capitalism itself.

Production today is not primarily geared to satisfy human needs but "effective demand"--when "consumers" are able to buy goods at a price which will enable enterprises producing them to realise a profit. If what people can afford falls short of what they need, increasing output to satisfy the latter would cause prices to fall--to the detriment of profit. So the need for profit conflicts with the satisfaction of human needs.

www.worldsocialism.org...

If I take a natural resource, then apply my labor to that resource in order to turn it into a valuable finished product, I naturally own that product. I will naturally defend that product from theft.

Again this is not what it means. If you take the resource and use it to exploit others then it is wrong, this is what Anarchists are against. The earths resources should belong to us all.

A lack of property rights leads to poverty and violence, this is the ONLY possible outcome.

Wrong, it's private property that lead to poverty and violence. Violence is used to protect private property, it is the very reason we have a state system.

B.3 Why are anarchists against private property?

Private property is one of the three things all anarchists oppose, along side hierarchical authority and the state. Today, the dominant system of private property is capitalist in nature and, as such, anarchists tend to concentrate on this system and its property rights regime. We will be reflecting this here but do not, because of this, assume that anarchists consider other forms of private property regime (such as, say, feudalism) as acceptable. This is not the case -- anarchists are against every form of property rights regime which results in the many working for the few.

Anarchist opposition to private property rests on two, related, arguments. These were summed up by Proudhon's maxims (from What is Property? that "property is theft" and "property is despotism." In his words, "Property . . . violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism. . . [and has] perfect identity with robbery." [Proudhon, What is Property, p. 251] Anarchists, therefore, oppose private property (i.e. capitalism) because it is a source of coercive, hierarchical authority as well as exploitation and, consequently, elite privilege and inequality. It is based on and produces inequality, in terms of both wealth and power.

anarchism.pageabode.com...

I also noticed you completely ignored the economic calculation problem presented by Mises and Hayek.

No I didn't, I already explained their definition of socialism is the statist definition, so it makes their claims mute.
How many more quotes from classic historical Anarchists do you need before it sinks in. You call these people morons, that just proves you have no idea who they are, which is hilarious coming from someone who claims to be an Anarchist. You will not grasp the reality of this unless you get some historical perspective. You are spreading misinformation my friend, and you may as well be the State.

reply to post by ANOK


private ownership prevents waste.

When loggers have to purchase land to log, they necessarily must maintain it if they want to harvest it again in the future.

When fishermen grow their own fish in private fisheries, they necessarily must maintain their stock of fish if they want to produce another crop.

Any resources that is scarce is protected under private property rights because it prevents over-use and abuse.

For example, if a logging company simply leased land to log from the government, do they have an incentive to replant or maintain the land?

Which kind of car will be in better condition at the end of five years, a rental car or a privately owned car?

The idea that eliminating private property makes resources more abundant is ridiculous on its face.

Not only does private property prevent waste, it also prevents violence, since violence directly results from the lack of ownership rights as I plainly demonstrated.

It is impossible to have "exploitation" under capitalism because all transactions are voluntary.

Exploitation occurs when violence is used to compel people to do the bidding of others.

CAPITALISM TRIUMPHANT, SOCIALISM SUBVERSIVE

In an important, well argued and easy to read book, Bookchin forcefully notes the obvious: we have seen the triumph of capital since the 1980s; this has resulted in increasing working hours, decreasing pay packets, increasing alienation, mass unemployment and poverty, increasing misery, and the brink of an ecological crisis...

...Yet in a time when capitalism is encroaching upon almost every aspect of life, Bookchin ironically claims that the left today has little understanding of capitalism. This can be seen in the current "anti-capitalist" movement, which often confuses the ideology of the free market with capitalism as a whole. To Bookchin, who has been involved in revolutionary leftist politics since the 1930s, the tradition of revolutionary socialism seems lost...

...Bookchin essentially argues we need to rediscover socialism, that is, libertarian socialism. Anarchists need to also rediscover the socialism in anarchism. Many of the basic concepts of the leftist anarchist tradition have been lost. For example, many anarchists now view anarchism as a form of liberalism rather than socialism and completely distrust any talk of class. This means, as Bookchin notes, anarchism is losing its traditional left-wing core, and thus is fast becoming an unthreatening version of liberalism with a bourgeois emphasis on the freedom of the individual, on personal autonomy (a notion that suits capitalists just fine). "Anti-statism" isn't enough. Many reactionaries and even corporate bandits are against state intervention too. In my view, unless socialism is an integral part of anarchism, then anarchism becomes self-indulgence. Anarchists who aren't socialists might as well just call themselves individualists." (p. 125). So Bookchin claims what is sorely needed is a serious, coherent, organised, revolutionary anarchist left which is well-versed in anarchist socialist theory...

www.thrall.orconhosting.net.nz...

This man speaks the truth. Back in the 70's/80's when I was active politically that was exactly like it was. We were socialists, but we jeered the red wedge lot in Hyde Park because they supported government (labour party, the pseudo "workers" party).

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by ANOK

 

private ownership prevents waste.

When loggers have to purchase land to log, they necessarily must maintain it if they want to harvest it again in the future.

Not categorically true at all,

They can just sell the land

"UMBASHAMBALA LA NOCKT!!!"

Practicing my magical thinking powers too with incantations

When fishermen grow their own fish in private fisheries, they necessarily must maintain their stock of fish if they want to produce another crop.

OK - if you poop in the toilet you must flush the toilet or you will necessarily have to clean up $#@$ off of the floor - this principle extends to ALL my ideas

Any resources that is scarce is protected under private property rights because it prevents over-use and abuse.

For example, if a logging company simply leased land to log from the government, do they have an incentive to replant or maintain the land?

No, when given the choice they move on, SEE AMAZON

The idea that eliminating private property makes resources more abundant is ridiculous on its face.

You a right, but then again many of the things you said are a farce too

Not only does private property prevent waste, it also prevents violence, since violence directly results from the lack of ownership rights as I plainly demonstrated.


It is impossible to have "exploitation" under capitalism because all transactions are voluntary.

"MAGIC I SUMMONS YOU - AHLLLAHALAHA SHAMBALINDO!!!"

Exploitation occurs when violence is used to compel people to do the bidding of others.

why yes and where is the rest of the list?

"GANMBULOO SHULTZEE SHAMZZT!!!" - "OH MAGICS I WANT YOU TO CREATE REALITY TO
COISIDE WITH MY NARROW POLITICAL VIEW, TO PROTECT MY EGO AND FACILITATE MY DELUSIONS!"

the dogma is truly magical and violent to the notion of awareness

edit on 16-2-2011 by Janky Red because: (no reason given)

edit on 16-2-2011 by Janky Red because: (no reason given)

This is a good explanation of the capitalist labour system from the Berekeley Anarchist Study Group...

In capitalism, owners establish jobs each of which embody only either empowering or disempowering tasks. One person does janitorial work. Someone else does secretarial tasks. Someone else administers employees. Another person determines financial policy. Each job occupies a place in a hierarchical scheme and about 20% of employees at the top monopolize the economy’s empowering tasks while 80% at the bottom do only rote and repetitive work. The former employees enjoy greater access, knowledge, and confidence, and, as a result, dominate the latter employees who are overwhelmingly only disenfranchised, exhausted, and socially diminished by their disempowering labors.

The participatory approach to organizing work, in contrast, is for the workers via their councils to incorporate a balanced selection of complementary tasks into each job, so that in sum total we each have comparably empowering conditions in our daily economic work lives. Each person gets a fair and comparable assignment — or balanced job complex. We don’t all do the same tasks, nor do any of us do tasks we aren’t suited for. Instead, we all do a range of tasks with essentially the same sum total of empowerment implications for each of us. The purpose and result is that everyone can participate appropriately in self managed decision-making rather than a few dominating the rest.

The overall difference between capitalist economics and participatory economics, in sum, is the difference between having private ownership, corporate hierarchy, remuneration for property and power, and markets – and having council self-management, balanced job complexes, remuneration for effort, sacrifice, and need, and participatory planning. While of course it would require additional exploration to prove the point, it is the difference between economic irrationality, injustice, and hierarchy, and economic rationality, justice, and liberty. It is the difference between class division and classlessness.

sfbay-anarchists.org...

Most people don't even realise there are real alternatives to the present capitalist labour structure, and the hierarchical system of dominance of the many by the few it, along with capitalism itself, creates.

More evidence that what I say is correct....

As Socialism in general, Anarchism was born among the people; and it will continue to be full of life and creative power only as long as it remains a thing of the people.

From the book 'Modern Science and Anarchism' p.5, Peter Kropotkin, 1908

Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which no bourgeois
economist has yet succeeded in disproving? What is property, what is capital in their present form?
For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the
State, to live without working. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when not
fertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone
else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are
forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both.

From 'The Capitalist System' p.1, Michael Bakunin 1814-1876, Anarcho-Collectivist.

Convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice and that Socialism without
freedom is slavery and brutality.
The League [for Peace and Freedom] loudly proclaims the necessity of a radical social and
economic reconstruction, having for its aim the emancipation of people's labor from the yoke of
capital and property owners, a reconstruction based upon strict justice - neither juridical nor
theological nor metaphysical justice, but simply human justice - upon positive science and upon the
widest freedom.

From 'Stateless Socialism: Anarchism', Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876, Anarcho-Collectivist.

The word ‘anarchy’ comes from the Greek anarkhia, meaning contrary to authority or without a ruler, and was used in a derogatory sense until 1840, when it was adopted by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to describe his political and social ideology. Proudhon argued that organization without government was both possible and desirable. In the evolution of political ideas, anarchism can be seen as an ultimate projection of both liberalism and socialism, and the differing strands of anarchist thought can be related to their emphasis on one or the other of these...

Colin Ward, 'Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction' ch.1, p.1, 1995

Liberalism in this context is not the American right wing version, but the original version of the term that was adopted and used by anti-capitalist Anarchists.

Here is Chomsky explaining this...



And from the UK The Libertarian Alliance..

The original political meanings of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have changed since their origin in the French estates general in 1789. There the people sitting on the left could be viewed as more or less anti-statists with those on the right being state-interventionists of one kind or another. In this interpretation of the pristine sense, libertarianism was clearly at the extreme left-wing.

www.la-articles.org.uk...

The mainstream of anarchist propaganda for more than a century has been anarchist-communism, which argues that property in land, natural resources, and the means of production should be held
in mutual control by local communities, federating for innumerable joint purposes with other communes. It differs from state socialism in opposing the concept of any central authority. Some anarchists prefer to distinguish between anarchist-communism and collectivist anarchism in order to stress the obviously desirable freedom of an individual or family to possess the resources needed for living, while not implying the right to own the resources needed by others.

Anarcho-syndicalism puts its emphasis on the organized industrial workers who could, through a ‘social general strike’, expropriate the possessors of capital and thus engineer a workers’ take-over of industry and administration.

Colin Ward, 'Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction'. ch.1 p.2, 1995

The 20th century experienced or witnessed every variety of state socialism, and learned that if its rulers are ruthless enough, they can impose, for a while, the most bizarre regimes and describe them as socialism. As socialism has been grossly misrepresented, so anarchism suffers from the widely held view that it is simply another variety of millenarianism, the belief in the eventual arrival, ‘after the revolution’, of a period of ultimate happiness when all the problems that beset humanity will have been solved, permanently.

Colin Ward, 'Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction'. ch.3 p.31, 1995

You have the nerve to call my political heroes morons, so I will pile on the embarrassment...

Let us not destroy those wonderful machines that produce efficiently and cheaply. Let us control them. Let us profit by their efficiency and cheapness. Let us run them for ourselves. That, gentlemen, is socialism...

...There were writers of the early twentieth century who spoke for socialism or criticized the capitalist system harshly-not obscure pamphleteers, but among the most famous of American literary figures, whose books were read by millions: Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris.
Lipton Sinclair's novel The Jungle, published in 1906, brought the conditions in the meatpacking plants of Chicago to the shocked attention of the whole country, and stimulated demand for laws regulating the meat industry. But also, through the story of an immigrant laborer, Jurgis Rudkus, it spoke of socialism, of how beautiful life might be if people cooperatively owned and worked and shared the riches of the earth. The Jungle was first published in the Socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason; it was then read by millions as a hook, and was translated into seventeen languages...

..One of the influences on Upton Sinclair's thinking was a book, People of the Abyss, by Jack London. London was a member of the Socialist party. He had come out of the slums of San Francisco, the child of an unwed mother. He had been a newsboy, a cannery worker, a sailor, a fisherman, had worked in a jute mill and a laundry, hoboed the railroads to the East Coast, been clubbed by a policeman on the streets of New York and arrested for vagrancy in Niagara Falls, watched men beaten and tortured in jail, pirated oysters in San Francisco Bay, read Flaubert, Tolstoy, Melville, and the Communist Manifesto, preached socialism in the Alaskan gold camps in the winter of 1896, sailed 2,000 miles back through the Bering Sea, and became a world-famous writer of adventure books. In 1906, he wrote his novel The Iron Heel, with its warning of a fascist America, its ideal of a socialist brotherhood of man. In the course of it, through his characters, he indicts the system...

...Around 1776, certain important people in the English colonies made a discovery that would prove enormously useful for the next two hundred years. They found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire. In the process, they could hold back a number of potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the rule of a new, privileged leadership...

...When the Declaration of Independence was read, with all its flaming radical language, from the town hall balcony in Boston, it was read by Thomas Crafts, a member of the Loyal Nine group, conservatives who had opposed militant action against the British. Four days after the reading, the Boston Committee of Correspondence ordered the townsmen to show up on the Common for a military draft. The rich, it turned out, could avoid the draft by paying for substitutes; the poor had to serve' This led to rioting, and shouting: "Tyranny is Tyranny let it come from whom it may."

A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present, section 13, By Howard Zinn, American historian and political science professor at Boston uni. He described himself as 'Something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist.'