The prevailing system of government in the world at present is a mix of socialism, capitalism, welfarism and the philosophically unchampioned realpolitik practices that were picked up and spread over the years.
In any case, Europe has a philosophical heritage of socialism. It's different flavors at different times in different places. There is also conservatism, capitalist liberalism. All sorts. But socialism is not a bad word in Europe. It's not like flying a swastika. It's part of the political heritage of many parties & people of the political centre.
In any case, I think that socialism including Marx's own writings read in its 1840s political context contain valuable perspectives. That is, you can think of the world as a self organizing playground for heroic, creative individuals as Ayn Rand does. I dig that perspective. You can view the economy as a mechanical ecosystem as many "modern" economists do (including Milton Friedmanesque monetarism, Keynes, and to a lesser extent Austrian School). That's valuable perspective too too, though far less poetic and invigorating.
Back to socialism, it's an important part of our heritage. The history of political, moral and philosophical thought. At the heart of it is class. Class struggle. Class Consciousness. Just thinking about societal dynamics in terms of classes.
The majority of incarcerated Americans are members of certain classes where incarceration is common. Americans, with their allergic reactions to socialist language avoid this construct or paradigm. Instead they think of it as culture, or "socio-economics" a watered down Marxist paradigm without much of the richness.
Prisons, prison complexes and such have always been a class issue. Avoiding this perspective is avoiding the clearest historical perspective of the problem. The whole modern idea of prisons is not that old. People were not incarcerated for decades in the 1600s. Modern prisons, correctional institutions came into being with the industrial age to deal with the class instability of that period. The lowest classes (beneath the working class majority) were prone to crime, drunkenness and generally antisocial lifestyle.
Public sadism solutions (public executions and torture) gave way to forced labour Forced labour gave way to public prisons. These were enabled by Bigger Government (to use an americanism) and a vernal super-sizing of public institution. Along the way, exile (eg Australian & American prison colonies) was tried and some other solutions. But it was always and still is a way of dealing with the underclass problem. Those poor bastards who get the worst of any societal system from Feudalism to Capitalism to Nordic Social Democracy.
Whenever I see American underclass issues bubble to an overflowing boil, from my removed location I see class. I see people growing up in a sector of society with certain norms and expectations. Their part of the economy and the society is mostly defined by class. The encouragement of outliers breaking out of this fate is admirable, but it does not change the realities of class. As people, we continue societies that we are born into for the most part. We also break out and rebel and redefine paradigms. But, classes are sticky. People follow the paths laid out for them from birth.
TLDR: Americans, get over your socialism allergy. Read Marx & Trotsky. Read it in context. Pay attention to the parts about classes in society and their role in history. Discard the bad parts, but read it first before you determine which parts are good and which are bad.
Don't attribute the gentleness of European customs to Marxism. Explicitly Marxist countries had the highest incarceration rates in history, because incarceration was used for class warfare with no pretense of "punishing" people for "crimes". I grew up in one of those countries, and I want to weep every time I see a Westerner advising someone to read Marx and Trotsky.
Marxism had a broad impact beyond "explicitly Marxist countries", and all of the latter were actually explicitly Leninist, which, despite claiming continuity with Marx, rejected core elements of Marx's theory of the necessary conditions for socialism and substituted them with top-down paternalistic vanguardism. (This was a general theme, even before Lenin, in Russian "Marxism" -- and certainly includes Trotsky, though.)
Let's not overcomplicate things. Marx believed in class struggle and had a favored side in that struggle. That's quite enough. If a government believes in class struggle and has a favored side, it's obvious that atrocities will follow. Same as with a government that believes in a master race.
> Yeah, that sounds exactly like the hedging that I've heard, "no true Marxism".
There are lots of things that draw on some parts of Marxism, but, in fact, there's no pure Marxism that's been implemented (not that I think there should be such a thing, either, but there hasn't, in fact.) The main Marxist-influenced things that have been influenced are:
1) Systems deriving, through Leninism, from the both Marxism and what's often called "Russian Marxism" (which, while influenced by actual Marxism, didn't so much follow it as arise roughly contemporaneously and interact with Marxism), which reject Marx's preconditions in favor of vanguardism and are implemented in societies which don't meet Marx's preconditions -- that is, Soviet Communism and its Maoist, etc., descendants
2) Systems which build from Marx's preconditions in societies which meet them, and apply large portions of the program Marx and Engels lay out in the Communist Manifesto (but omit other key portions of it), which -- because they are implemented in democratic societies where there is no absolute conformity among the decision-making parties -- are full of compromises, lack a strong coherent ideological commitment either in terms of goals or mechanisms (even if part of the society is explicitly Marxist), and which retain the broad outline of the capitalism (though the resulting system is very different from the thing 19th Century socialists branded "capitalism" because of the elements of socialism, including elements specifically drawn from Marxism, implemented) -- that is, the mixed economies of the modern West.
Neither of these is purely Marxist. The former pays more lip service to Marxism. The latter likes to call the former "Marxism" and distinguish itself as the opposition to Marxism, but actually more closely follows Marx's model than the former.
> Marx believed in class struggle and had a favored side in that struggle. That's quite enough.
That's a rather cartoonish description which has no utility beyond "rah! rah!" cheerleading for the not-Marxist team in a dualistic worldview that, like the more extreme interpretations of Marxism (as seen in "Marxist criticism", and very much akin to extreme "feminist criticism") sees all the world divided between two warring camps but, instead of social class, views them as polar Marxist and not-Marxist ideologies.
Every government picks a side in the class struggle. Saudi America and the USA pick the rich to various degrees. Denmark chooses the lower middle class. Comparing the two it seems like choosing the rich causes far more atrocities their just less visible.
Unemployed to long, well sorry we no longer count you. Had your stuff stolen at a homeless shelter well sorry we don't count you. Got picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, well feel free to tell that to the jury. Spending a year in prison awaiting trial, sorry your right to a speedy trial ends well before your actual trial. Prison rape? Sorry just another deterrent. Great you got out after a mere 10 years, best of luck finding a job!
PS: Atrocity's are on an absolute scale. Just because country your not as evil as the Khmer Rouge does not make everything ok.
>Spending a year in prison awaiting trial, sorry your right to a speedy trial ends well before your actual trial.
...Can you point me in the direction of these abuses? I was under the impression that most defendants usually declined the speedy trial option. I'd be interested to learn more.
"In one murder case, for example, a federal appeals court upheld the finding that a 16-month delay between arrest and trial didn’t violate the speedy-trial right. (Amos v. Thornton, 646 F.3d 199 (5th Cir. 2011).) The court in that case observed that the delay between accusation and trial becomes “presumptively prejudicial” near the one-year mark. It found no compelling reasons for the delay and noted that the defendant promptly asserted his speedy-trial right while the proceedings were pending. But the defendant couldn’t show that the delay compromised his defense, and that inability doomed his claim." http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-right-speedy-tria...
Some states have a 6 month test for non Murder cases. Generally up to 1 year is considered reasonable in the US with a fairly large number of people waiting longer than that.
> Comparing the two it seems like choosing the rich causes far more atrocities their just less visible.
> US examples: Unemployed to long, well sorry we no longer count you. Had your stuff stolen at a homeless shelter well sorry we don't count you. Spending a year in prison awaiting trial, sorry your right to a speedy trial ends well before your actual trial.
These are your examples of atrocities which are supposed to be comparable to those in communist countries? Seriously?
Note, I specifically chose two liberal, wealthy, and modern governments and your counter argument relies on several countries that where both poor and for the most part no longer exist. If you want to compare the darker parts of history then let's look at the genocide of the American Indian, hundreds of years of brutal slavery, frequent overthrow of governments in south America and the middle east, use of biological, chemical and nuclear warfare, firebombing civilian populations, etc etc. However, as most of that took place in a vastly different economic and cultural environment it's irrelevant.
But more to the point. This was an attempt to follow just one person as they fall though the cracks not highlights of the worst things America has ever done. We systematically destroy people's lives in ways that will get ignored by history simply because there are no mass graves.
"Seriously?" was not my argument. My argument was that there have been far worse atrocities in communist countries than the problems described in the US. I didn't really think I needed to be specific, because it's common knowledge... but if you insist, here's your history lesson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_...
It does not necessarily follow that commnist/marxist ideology on its own was the cause of the atrocities. In fact, i'd say there's a good argument that they were ultimately caused by ignorant power-seekers misapplying the ideology for their own benefit.
That doesn't matter. I don't think Objectivism is true. But, I do think it's an interesting and enlightening perspective, a lens through which some things can be better understood. I think trying to actually apply it as the political basis of a country would be a terrible idea.
The bottom line is that class and class dynamics are real i societies. Avoiding that lens entirely is avoiding reality, to an extent.
High income engineers are members of a certain a class. Most of the prison population are members of a different class. This is obviously true.
All I am saying is that when you look at something like the role of prison, you should probably look at it from that perspective.
It's not just about class here in America, but also about racism. A poor black or Latino person is "way below" in treatment by society than a white person of similar economic means, though they might be in the same economic "class". They're unlikely to mingle and thus form reform movements either. Politicians like it this way and even the few that may not take advantage of these racial divisions to push policies that hurt the poor in general and the non-white in particular. While the US could certainly fare better with more socialist policies for public warfare, they are generally not enacted because politicians and their constituents absolutely hate to see help going to non-whites. Things haven't changed that much in the last half-century.
Also, expecting Americans to read or admit they're wrong or uninformed, while a noble idea, is an idealistic idea that ignores the basic facts that most Americans don't read, prefer ignorance, and hate to admit they're wrong even when provided with incontrovertible evidence.
The prevailing system of government in the world at present is a mix of socialism, capitalism, welfarism and the philosophically unchampioned realpolitik practices that were picked up and spread over the years.
In any case, Europe has a philosophical heritage of socialism. It's different flavors at different times in different places. There is also conservatism, capitalist liberalism. All sorts. But socialism is not a bad word in Europe. It's not like flying a swastika. It's part of the political heritage of many parties & people of the political centre.
In any case, I think that socialism including Marx's own writings read in its 1840s political context contain valuable perspectives. That is, you can think of the world as a self organizing playground for heroic, creative individuals as Ayn Rand does. I dig that perspective. You can view the economy as a mechanical ecosystem as many "modern" economists do (including Milton Friedmanesque monetarism, Keynes, and to a lesser extent Austrian School). That's valuable perspective too too, though far less poetic and invigorating.
Back to socialism, it's an important part of our heritage. The history of political, moral and philosophical thought. At the heart of it is class. Class struggle. Class Consciousness. Just thinking about societal dynamics in terms of classes.
The majority of incarcerated Americans are members of certain classes where incarceration is common. Americans, with their allergic reactions to socialist language avoid this construct or paradigm. Instead they think of it as culture, or "socio-economics" a watered down Marxist paradigm without much of the richness.
Prisons, prison complexes and such have always been a class issue. Avoiding this perspective is avoiding the clearest historical perspective of the problem. The whole modern idea of prisons is not that old. People were not incarcerated for decades in the 1600s. Modern prisons, correctional institutions came into being with the industrial age to deal with the class instability of that period. The lowest classes (beneath the working class majority) were prone to crime, drunkenness and generally antisocial lifestyle.
Public sadism solutions (public executions and torture) gave way to forced labour Forced labour gave way to public prisons. These were enabled by Bigger Government (to use an americanism) and a vernal super-sizing of public institution. Along the way, exile (eg Australian & American prison colonies) was tried and some other solutions. But it was always and still is a way of dealing with the underclass problem. Those poor bastards who get the worst of any societal system from Feudalism to Capitalism to Nordic Social Democracy.
Whenever I see American underclass issues bubble to an overflowing boil, from my removed location I see class. I see people growing up in a sector of society with certain norms and expectations. Their part of the economy and the society is mostly defined by class. The encouragement of outliers breaking out of this fate is admirable, but it does not change the realities of class. As people, we continue societies that we are born into for the most part. We also break out and rebel and redefine paradigms. But, classes are sticky. People follow the paths laid out for them from birth.
TLDR: Americans, get over your socialism allergy. Read Marx & Trotsky. Read it in context. Pay attention to the parts about classes in society and their role in history. Discard the bad parts, but read it first before you determine which parts are good and which are bad.