Teachers Flock to Northwestern University for 'Marxist Conference'

reply to post by zedVSzardoz


OK to make you see that socialism means worker ownership, here is the explanation of Libertarian Socialism, Anarchism.

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.

Why "Libertarian"?
It is recognized that there are authoritarian systems and behavior, distinct from libertarian, or non-authoritarian ones. Since capitalism's early beginnings in Europe, and it's authoritarian trend of wage-slavery for the majority of people (working class) by a smaller, elite group (a ruling, or, capitalist class) who own the "means of production": machines, land, factories, there was a liberatory movement in response to capitalism known as "Socialism". In almost every case, the socialist movement has been divided along authoritarian, and libertarian lines. The anarchists on the libertarian side, and the Jacobins, Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, and reformist state-socialists on the authoritarian side. (And liberals more or less split down the middle....

Why "Socialism"?
Socialism, in it's traditional and true definition, means "the workers democratic ownership and/or control of the means of production". Such a definition implies that rather than a government bureaucracy for managing such means, there is a focus on highly democratic organisation, education and awareness, and every individual is encouraged to become an active, rather than passive participant in that which effect their lives. Only the workers themselves bear the knowledge of what their own freedom and liberty means, and only they know what is best for themselves, ultimately. Advocates of the state, be they on the left, or the right, have repeatedly defined the meaning of "socialism" to mean arbitrary rule by a set of "leaders", or a political con-game in which socialism is no more than capitalism with a few token adjustments for bearability.

Libertarian Socialism

So now please explain to me logically why Anarchists would be Socialists if socialism was what you claim it is?

Anyone who knows what socialism actually is will tell you it is an economic system of workers ownership. No matter what political system goes with it.

reply to post by TheAngryFarm

Yes, because those who support socialism/marxism/communism are the enlightened bunch arent they?

Usually much more intelligent than right wing people, yes. Leftists tend to actually read, study history, and have a mind of their own.

Thats why they spend their entire lives on campuses of "higher education" because they know their retarded opinions simply do not work in the real world.

lol, yup, every single socialist works at a university. But hey, at least they aren't angry farmers. Capitalist giant Monsanto got you upset? Tricked you into buying their toxic seeds that would only exist in a capitalist market?

Originally posted by TheAngryFarm
Thats why they spend their entire lives on campuses of "higher education" because they know their retarded opinions simply do not work in the real world.

Well aren't you the informed one?

Why do people open their mouth when they have done absolutely no research into this?

How do you know socialism wouldn't work in the real world? If that is the case why are workers demanding to own their own companies? How would that not work?

But I have proof that it can work, and successfully...

The war lasted for three years and ended with Franco's victory, aided by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The revolution saw huge swathes of Spanish industry and agriculture socialised and run collectively by the workers and peasants.

For over two years the Anarchists turned Spain into a worker owned economy. They managed this while being bombed by the Nazis.

Industry and farms were collectivised voluntarily...

"railways, traincars and buses, taxicabs and shipping, electric light and power companies, gasworks and waterworks, engineering and automobile assembly plants, mines and cement works, textile mills and paper factories, electrical and chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and perfumeries, food processing plants and breweries were confiscated and controlled by workmens's committees, either term possessing for the owners almost equal significance". He goes on "motion picture theatres and legitimate theatres, newspapers and printing, shops, department stores and hotels, de-lux restaurants and bars were likewise sequestered". Burnett Bolloten, The Grand Camouflage.

If you didn't want to join the collective you were given some land but only as much as you could work yourself.

Production greatly increased. Technicians and agronomists helped the peasants to make better use of the land. Scientific methods were introduced and in some areas yields increased by as much as 50%.

Machinery and expertise were shifted to areas most in need. One indicator of the solidarity is the fact that 1,000 collectivists from the advanced Levant moved to Castille to help out.

The collectivists also had a deep commitment to education and many children received an education for the first time. The methods of Francisco Ferrer, the world famous anarchist educationalist, were employed. Children were given basic literacy and inquisitive skills were encouraged.

Within workplaces wages were equalised and conditions greatly improved. Take for example the tramways. Out of the 7,000 workers, 6,500 were members of the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, "National Confederation of Labour" the confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions affiliated with the International Workers Association). With the profit motive gone, safety became more important and the number of accidents was reduced. Fares were lowered and services improved. In 1936, 183,543,516 passengers were carried. In 1937 this had gone up by 50 million. The trams were running so efficiently that the workers were able to give money to other sections of urban transport. Also, free medical care was provided for the work force.

Read all about it...

1936-1939: The Spanish civil war and revolution

You really have to get a grasp of the history at that time to understand. Europe was in a battle between the establishment fascism of Italy, Germany, Spain, and the Stalinist communists for state power. In the middle was the working class labour socialist movement. The Stalinist were more interested in gaining state power than worker ownership, and in Spain they set up a counter revolution against the Anarchists. Never trust a political party that calls itself "communist", because communism is usually the last thing on their agenda, if at all.

reply to post by ANOK


I know socialism to only produce an elite workers class that claims representation for the workers by not actually working and supposedly dedicating themselves to "workers rights". I speak mainly of unions. I understand that you see unions as a product of capitalism, I disagree but that aside socialists have embraced that form of representation wholeheartedly as the model for the defence of the mythical "workers" rights movement.

I say it is mythical since workers are fed this conflicting ethos of "fairness and equality" but still live by a minimum wage that never rewards them in any way. I see unions in socialisms get fat and bloated off their workers who they only worry about keeping employed so they can pay their dues and the unions can then dedicate themselves to talks meetings and everything else that is not actually working.

The very thought of people receiving a salary for not doing any actual work is not "fair". The workers give some of their money to a class of representitives so they can worry about making sure they get that cut of the workers salary. They exist simply to keep themselves out of the loop of production while still receiving a cut of its returns.

The workers don't own a thing. They get paid a salary that does not change if their work becomes more profitable. If they owned their production it would vary according to the profits generated. It stays at the minimum no matter what. Win or lose. The extra money produced when it is profitable goes entirely to a class of workers more privileged than the rest. They get diets, transportation, housing expenses and other forms of payment for "representing" the worker that are better than those the average worker gets. Again not "fair". That is a free ride if I ever saw one. This is also producing the only incentive socialism has which is for the worker to get in with the union and be all about the union for access to this excess.

Workers are.not better defended by socialism. They are exploited so a new class of worker can be produced. An elbow rubbing worker that can mitigate the "issues " of the worker and the leadership of the state.

The incentive is then not to be justly compensated for your services but to get into that new elite worker class that lives the good life.

The rest of the equality only goes to sharing the burden of supporting that elite class and sharing in the misery of not belonging to it.

reply to post by ANOK


The examples of anarchist collectives in Spain were a bubble of reality. The land reform was not passed as promised by the republic and the land owners were still in the air as to what was to be done. The anarchist collectives only worked for a short time and would have failed.since they simply seized land and did not have a vision of how to employ it nationally. If you simply own the land together how do you establish borders for each collective to lay claim to land.who gets the best land, which collective gets the harsh less fertile land? Who decides? If ownership is by all then how do you organize a country where living on property without any obligation to work the land gives you ownership of it?

They seized land that was already established by the titles the land owners had. In the future as populations grew those.borders would change according to their expansion. If you can't buy it how does your collective gain new land? What if some one is living there and says it is their land because they work the land?
How do you compensate them for taking what is owned by themwhen your collective needs to acquire their land to stay viable and grow?

These issues were fundamental to Spain at the time since it was a an agricultural country.

They were never addressed and so the republic never made head way into changing the nature of the issues that spawned it.

It was a noble effort but it failed to fix these problems without establishing a ruling class of workers that decided how things were done. It would have replaced formal land owners with informal land owners and left the average worker in the same predicament as before.

In cities and urban areas things were even more complicated since you would essentially have crippling issues every time a population grew and it wanted to expand. This situation only showed promise of creating complex bureaucracy and endless expenditures in public offices.

reply to post by zedVSzardoz

I know socialism to only produce an elite workers class that claims representation for the workers by not actually working and supposedly dedicating themselves to "workers rights". I speak mainly of unions. I understand that you see unions as a product of capitalism, I disagree but that aside socialists have embraced that form of representation wholeheartedly as the model for the defence of the mythical "workers" rights movement.

There is no room to disagree, you are just flat out wrong. A union wouldn't exist in a socialist system because there would be no one to bargain with. Workers would need no representation as they would own the place they work at. It would be a democratic workplace......

You still cannot seem to grasp what socialism means even though ANOK has explained it to everyone like 20 times in this thread.

Originally posted by zedVSzardoz
reply to post by ANOK

 

I know socialism to only produce an elite workers class that claims representation for the workers by not actually working and supposedly dedicating themselves to "workers rights". I speak mainly of unions.

Socialism does not produce an elite workers class. Workers are you and me, the majority of people, and will include the capitalists under socialism. So basically we are all workers. Very few escape the system of hourly wage labour, whether you are a scientist or a brick layer.

There are two classes, the capitalist 'private owner' 'ruling class', and the working class.

The point is to break down the hierarchy we have now, not create another one. Socialism is not out with the old boss meet the new. Capitalism is the highly authoritarian system, and you are lucky you have not experienced it's brutality.

There can be no elites under socialism because there is no method to exploit. If we all owned our own workplace and everyone was employed, no one could become more financially powerful than anyone else.

That is what capitalism allows, a minority to become so wealth they can economically dominate the majority. Now be honest, look at the world around you and tell me that is not the case?

BTW Unions, the welfare state, are a product of capitalism, not socialism. Unions because the workers under capitalism have no voice, and the welfare state came from the Liberals. The original Liberals who started the welfare state were in fact from the capital classes, not the left-wing labour movement. It was supposed to reduce the threat of worker rebellion. It took until after WWII for it to have that effect.

reply to post by Trustfund


You still advocate and justify socialism by its pure form expression even though there is no pure form expression of any political, economic, or ideological concept no matter what it is we are talking about.

This is a common fallacy advocates of socialism fall into. You will never have a pure form expression of socialism though the emotional and moral charge socialism carries with it will hide this fact. Then when its implementation fails people will say it is because it was not implemented in its pure form. That is illogical since it could never exist in the real world. Imperfection and limited resources negate its very concept. If not utopianism would work as well in its pure form. Since it goes against human nature and real factors that must be weighed in, it would fail.

I understand what socialism is, but people need more and more representation as their numbers grow. If they do not have a representation between them and the state discord and chaos will arrows. Whatever form that representation takes under "pure form" socialism, it will perform the same actions a union does and be organized in the same way. That will make a class of these workers more privileged by their access to authority over others life. That is what we have government for. A committee, or panel, or whatever you want to call this union leadership would not be subject to the democratic voice of the people since they would have to decide like a "boss" does on how to keep everyone employed and working since as problems arise, they will need authority to take action to avoid a crisis.

Example:
(you run out of steel because the workers are on religious holiday in a main smelter because their population is ethnically X and so they will not work on certain days. You have to stop construction on your new rail ways since you will not have material to produce it. So the rail workers lose pay for not working and their productivity is reduced. You cannot pay them for not working since that leads to dry wells when it happens frequently)
How do you fix this solution with thousands of talking heads that each see their reason for doing things more valid and justify them so by THEIR needs?

Saying "worker ownership or bust" is simplistic and not really realistic. People are not static and finite. Situations change and you need organization to adapt them and coordinate their efforts to meet these changes or they lose survivability as everyone tries to express their instinct of survival. That calls for either government or unions of workers, collectives, committees, or panels or whatever semantics you wish to enter into for labeling a leadership class to workers.

In an imperfect world with limited resources and varying ambitions you need to work with human nature, not against it. Socialism goes against it by providing only the incentive to become a manager of the work effort, instead of doing your job for better compensation.

reply to post by zedVSzardoz


Why would the collectives have failed? That's just an opinion. People from all over the world were going to Spain to help. It would have spread, not failed. That's why the right-wing establishment needed it stopped. No one cared when Hitler and Mussolini were bombing the Anarchists to help their fellow fascist Franco take state power.

You don't seem to realise that capitalism fails constantly. Name me one capitalist economic period that did not eventually fail? Capitalism fails somebody all the time, capitalism fails nations constantly. Do you think an economic system that requires military conflict is ever going to create liberty?

Do you think our present economic system is a success? For who? A minority of property owners? We can't ever all be property owners, they will always be the minority, and workers the majority. Even if you become an owner.

reply to post by ANOK



I would say that all systems will fail after time when they must be renewed and imbued with their fundamental principles that led to their original success. Socialism only works on a short term basis. Capitalism works on a short term and long term basis. The problem is it has a tendency to become top heavy. Socialism becomes bottom heavy. Imbalance in any direction leads to destabilization and so failure. The thing is capitalism can be picked up and "reset" easily, socialism needs to reorganize society in such a way that it is always more conflictive in its commencement.

Capitalism simply gives the incentive it does to people the next day at a more reasonable level of compensation for their efforts. It doesn't need to reorganize society so drastically. A top heavy problem is fixed my simply increasing flow of wealth to people on the bottom by increased compensation for their efforts until balance is achieved. A bottom heavy problem is worse since NO ONE wants to lose their personal wealth and privilege and making a majority of them do so is impossible. Again human nature favors capitalism for its incentive based system of reward over socialisms "moral" based system. Morality would tell you not to take away from all workers to fix a situation all workers are in. Though you may have to do so at times to adapt even for a shot while to a change in the world. The majority will not want to and so resist. The ability to bounce back or not without major incident is what makes a model viable or not.


Look at how Europe is trying to fix a bottom heavy situation where the basic business is no longer viable by excess abuse by workers taking advantage of the system. They cannot start to pay them less without revolt and paralyzing strikes against those measures. In capitalism you simply increase the flow of profits until the situation of workers and owners is equalized and social stress is corrected. Europe will never be able to take away the privilege they have given workers and so they cannot adapt to this situation. Public debt is too high to afford the privilege they enjoyed before. How do you ask them to sacrifice until debt is paid without threat of violent revolt?

What if this debt was incurred by the scarcity of resources vital to the economy making prices go up. OR a natural disaster makes public debt sky rocket to the point that conditions must change for the workers. How do they decide to sacrifice their privilege without provoking chaos?

The only incentive in socialism is to be taken care of equally and fairly. Take that away in times of crisis, whether artificial or not, and you have pandemonium.

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by TheAngryFarm
Thats why they spend their entire lives on campuses of "higher education" because they know their retarded opinions simply do not work in the real world.

Well aren't you the informed one?

Why do people open their mouth when they have done absolutely no research into this?

How do you know socialism wouldn't work in the real world? If that is the case why are workers demanding to own their own companies? How would that not work?

But I have proof that it can work, and successfully...

The war lasted for three years and ended with Franco's victory, aided by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The revolution saw huge swathes of Spanish industry and agriculture socialised and run collectively by the workers and peasants.

For over two years the Anarchists turned Spain into a worker owned economy. They managed this while being bombed by the Nazis.

Industry and farms were collectivised voluntarily...

"railways, traincars and buses, taxicabs and shipping, electric light and power companies, gasworks and waterworks, engineering and automobile assembly plants, mines and cement works, textile mills and paper factories, electrical and chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and perfumeries, food processing plants and breweries were confiscated and controlled by workmens's committees, either term possessing for the owners almost equal significance". He goes on "motion picture theatres and legitimate theatres, newspapers and printing, shops, department stores and hotels, de-lux restaurants and bars were likewise sequestered". Burnett Bolloten, The Grand Camouflage.

If you didn't want to join the collective you were given some land but only as much as you could work yourself.

Production greatly increased. Technicians and agronomists helped the peasants to make better use of the land. Scientific methods were introduced and in some areas yields increased by as much as 50%.

Machinery and expertise were shifted to areas most in need. One indicator of the solidarity is the fact that 1,000 collectivists from the advanced Levant moved to Castille to help out.

The collectivists also had a deep commitment to education and many children received an education for the first time. The methods of Francisco Ferrer, the world famous anarchist educationalist, were employed. Children were given basic literacy and inquisitive skills were encouraged.

Within workplaces wages were equalised and conditions greatly improved. Take for example the tramways. Out of the 7,000 workers, 6,500 were members of the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, "National Confederation of Labour" the confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions affiliated with the International Workers Association). With the profit motive gone, safety became more important and the number of accidents was reduced. Fares were lowered and services improved. In 1936, 183,543,516 passengers were carried. In 1937 this had gone up by 50 million. The trams were running so efficiently that the workers were able to give money to other sections of urban transport. Also, free medical care was provided for the work force.

Read all about it...

1936-1939: The Spanish civil war and revolution

You really have to get a grasp of the history at that time to understand. Europe was in a battle between the establishment fascism of Italy, Germany, Spain, and the Stalinist communists for state power. In the middle was the working class labour socialist movement. The Stalinist were more interested in gaining state power than worker ownership, and in Spain they set up a counter revolution against the Anarchists. Never trust a political party that calls itself "communist", because communism is usually the last thing on their agenda, if at all.

edit on 11/15/2012 by ANOK because: (no reason given)

LOL. And you are saying he does not have a good grasp of history. Spain is doing very well right now, isn't it? (sarcasm).

Let's see how collectivation worked, shall we?

With the war devastation and trade isolation, Spain was much more economically backward in the 1940s than it had been a decade earlier. Inflation soared, economic reconstruction faltered, food was scarce, and, in some years, Spain registered negative growth rates. By the early 1950s, per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was barely 40% of the average for West European countries. Then, after a decade of economic stagnation, a tripling of prices, the growth of a black market, and widespread deprivation, gradual improvement began to take place. The regime took its first faltering steps toward abandoning its pretensions of self-sufficiency and towards a transformation of Spain's economic system. Pre-Civil War industrial production levels were regained in the early 1950s, though agricultural output remained below prewar levels until 1958.

Oh no! The worker's paradise needed a bailout from the evil capitalists!

the Pact of Madrid, between the United States and Spain. In return for permitting the establishment of United States military bases on Spanish soil, the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower administration provided substantial economic aid to the Franco regime. More than US$1 billion in economic assistance flowed into Spain during the remainder of the decade as a result of the agreement.

And finally, they only got better (for a while) by adopting (shudder) economic freedom.

As these developments steadily converted Spain's economic structure into one more closely resembling a free-market economy, the country entered the greatest cycle of industrialization and prosperity it had ever known

Really? You used Spain's economy as an example for socialist success? I'd hate to see the bad examples you've got.