When is it ok to hate someone for their politics?

[Ramo]

I wouldn't call the welfare state socialism, but I subscribe to a relatively anachronistic ideological taxonomy. More people use the definitions that Imran used (in the US, look at how the soon-to-be Junior Senator from Vermont refers to himself as).

[Ramo]

I'd add that Socialist Parties generally morphed from an emphasis on worker ownership of the means of production to expanding the welfare state (i.e. social democracy).

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo
I'd add that Socialist Parties generally morphed from an emphasis on worker ownership of the means of production to expanding the welfare state (i.e. social democracy).

Right wing Social Democrats did. But then isnt that why theyre called Social Democrats, not Democratic Socialists? (yes, i know that in the 19th c Marxist parties also used the name Social Democrats - the distinction im drawing is late 20th c US)

Anyway, that morphing is fairly late. Well after the welfare state had been adopted as the common coin of progressive bourgois politics.

[Ramo]

I thought that Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists are used basically interchangable.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Arrian


Punishment of the wealthy? I'm talking about inheritance, specifically. I'm not talking about taxing the hell out of people who worked hard and made good. I'm talking about taxing inheritance such that the next generation doesn't just get to sit back and live off the interest from daddy's estate.

-Arrian

If this is not punishment of the wealthy, I would like to know what is.

A central problem with socialism is not its concern for the poor, but its concern for the wealthy. Christianity had long developed our concern for the poor. Socialism added nothing new here. But socialism inspires and is based on hatred of the rich.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Well, on (b), it depends. For instance, I think a national health care insurance system would lead to greater social mobility, as a bad illness wouldn't paralyze an entire family financially as it currently can.

Now not on a wholescale adoption, but a few "socialist" programs can help mobility (such as welfare allowing those who've lost their jobs to get back on their feet).

Imran, you of course know that concern for the poor is a Christian value. Traditional, not socialist, "liberal" have been trying to do something for the less fortunate for 2000 years.

Concern about people being wealthy is more at "socialism." Socialism is about progressive tax rates, the inheritance tax, state ownership of the means of production, controlling profits, undermining private property rights, hatred of religion and the family as pilars of conservatism, etc.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Arrian
Not in the Nedaverse.

-Arrian

Arrian, there you go again....

[Ned]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui




To claim that safety nets are in no way related to socialism is being willfully ignorant. Who do you think advocated the safety nets in the first place? People who complained that FDR's cabinet had socialists in it weren't far off the mark!

Imran, FDR raised the income tax rates to 90%, created the SEC, etc., etc., etc.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


At the time (New Deal), it most definately WAS decried as socialism. Universal health care, when proposed in the early 90s, WAS decried as socialism.

Hell, socialists in the US prior to the New Deal agitated for safety nets.

You have to face the facts, these programs were originally advanced by socialists, and it is no way a streach to claim them as socialist programs.

Do we, or do we not, live in a more socialist system than we did in 1900?

There is a reason that the moderate left parties in Europe that call for greater welfare state are called "Social Democrats".

Btw, the definition for "related" that refers to kinship is different than the one that speaks to being connected or associated with something.

Imran, did you know the NAZI's created the world's first universal health care system?

As I said before, traditional liberalism, which was born in Christianity, has long concerned itself with the poor. The difference that socialism brings is hatred of the rich. Class warfare.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Odin
Socialists are not for equality of condition. Socialism is based on the idea that if you extend of the Labor Theory of Value to it's ultimate logical conclusion that profit in capitalism is theft from workers by business owners. The goal of socialism is to create an industrial society based on communal ownership of industry in the form of co-ops, communes, and/or central planning, thus cutting out the parasitical investor class.

A welfare state is a type of Capitalist state that partially compensates workers for capitalist parasitism, it's a tool to prevent a real socialist system from appearing. FDR hinself supposedly called himself the savior of Capitalism.

See Imran. This is a much more articulate explanation. You are conflating traditional liberalism with socialism. They are not the same thing.

Concern for the poor long predated socialist thinking, which concerns itself almost solely with how to deal with the rich -- essentially to to away with them as a "class."

[Ned]

Originally posted by Kidicious


That's objectively false.

I assume then, that the converse, advocated by commies, that the absence of wealth brings wealth to all.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Vouchers are probably the worst possible idea to fix education. What we need to do is give schools the ability to choose their students. The students who aren't chosen have to stay home with mommy.

In Commieland, white is black. Truth is false. Good is evil.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned
As I said before, traditional liberalism, which was born in Christianity, has long concerned itself with the poor. The difference that socialism brings is hatred of the rich. Class warfare.

This is a new one Ned, but just as funny.

I very much doubt Jesus would be as appaled by a progressive tax system like you are.....

Oh, and he did not seem a big fan of free markets either....

So where exactly is the connection between these two?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Flip McWho


Thats not a class, its a caste/status. This probably underpins your misunderstanding of the left.

No it doesn't, Flip. Lack of mobilty is central to socialist thinking. This thinking was created at a time when there were legal restrictions on moving from one class to another.

For example, the economy of Europe for a very long time depended upon land. Land was held by the "nobility." Everyone else paid rent. One could not become an landowner if one was not the first son of a landowner. Land was not alienable. The law of primogeniture prevailed.

Now consider Marxism's call to the worker to cast off his "chains." What does that imply?

True, we describe relative states of income by class. But the use of the term in modern parlance is not the same as the use of the term by socialists. They use it in the archaic sense.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned


In Commieland, white is black. Truth is false. Good is evil.

In realityville, there is not such thing s "Truth", or "Good an Evil".

BUt we all know you certainly don;t live anywhere near Realityville. Its too far from the Nedaverse.