Why do socialists in America refuse to admit they are socialists?

[Dauphin]

Geary–Khamis is supposedly PPP.

[C0ckney]

oredin is right here. the fact is that after the second world war, which didn't affect spain and portugal directly, western europe enjoyed growth because of technological change and things like marshall plan aid (spain of course didn't get marshall plan aid but portugal did, and of course spain received money from the US under the pact of madrid). everywhere enjoyed growth. the fact is that franco's pursued failed policies like autarky and only abandoned these after years and years of failure. spain only regained pre war levels of agricultural production in 1958 (nearly 20 years after the civil war ended). basically franco's economic policy was a disaster for a long time and only after repeated failures did he finally change course.

also curtis, your claim about strikes and unrest is wrong, because there were strikes and unrest during franco's rule. also when you classify striking as treason and throw trade unionists in gaol, it tends to discourage striking...

if you want to see how 'effective' salazar's government was, then do some research on literacy rates in portugal...

the major drivers behind spain's economic growth since franco have been tourism, EU money and the massive increase in foreign investment in the 80s and 90s.

[curtis290]

You already posted it, but repetition doesn't make it a better argument. First it's nonsense to claim that every political system uses systematic torture and killings to suppress political opposition.

But hey, let's play the game, so I'll repeat my point too: Assume I set up a government that provides economic growth, but will kill people like you who may disagree with my system, cool? I mean, Stalin did industrialize the Soviet Union -- if that doesn't prove him right....

The whole "Franco and Salazar are great examples of stability/whatever" argument reads absurd given their kind of rule didn't last that long, while a lot of the (in your view) less stable or inefficient political systems are still in place.

How many powerful (this is a key word here) political systems haven’t used systematic torture and killings throughout history? The concept of human rights is very new, and only followed by smaller, weaker countries who have no need to do so since they don’t have serious military objectives or enemies at home and abroad. And again, why is it a given we have to use your model of individual rights? A few people were sacrificed for the good of the nation.

As far as Stalin goes, I don’t agree with his decisions because of the ineffectiveness of his policies (ie declaring an end to NEP) as well as his attempt to completely manufacture a new culture and to stamp out traditional Russian values, all in the name of the extreme, unbridled pursuit of egalitarianism, something I seriously have problems with. But if you don’t think he was an effective ruler, than history isn’t on your side. He got them through World War II and modernized the country.

And again, I don’t believe necessarily in the pursuit of ‘economic growth’ just for economic growth’s sake (you must not have read many of my posts). The argument I’ve been making is that Franco did so and modernized the country in a much more stable manner than would have been possible under a liberal, capitalist system.

Meh, you're using the classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The reality is the period between 1936-1972 was one of tremendous technological and economic advancement for the whole world and it really doesn't matter who was in charge in Spain because as a western European country it was set to see big changes during that period. If the Republicans had won the Spanish Civil war then you'd be telling us what a great job they did between 1936-1972. The reality is that when Franco died and Spain entered the EU Spain was pretty much a **** hole. It was the poorest state in western Europe (even losing to Ireland and Portugal at the time, ouch) by PPP per capita income and it's infrastructure was so bad the EU has spent the last 40 years giving them subsidies to try to modernize the place. Let's be honest and say Franco wasn't much of a positive factor.

That’s a counterfactual argument. And second, I’m not necessarily saying liberal government would not have had the higher growth rates, I’m saying that I doubt a liberal government could have had such consistent growth rates as well as that kind of social stability. Industrialization and economic modernization, under liberal capitalist regimes, tend to be characterized by extreme market fluctuations (periods of high growth followed by deep recessions), and this comes at the social consequence of instability. If liberalism was so effective at developing Spain’s economy and providing the populace with order and stability, than why was Spain in the state it was in the 1930’s?

And again, Spain was much better off after Franco than before it. This is why Spaniards don’t look as negatively at that period of history. Barnabas is the most knowledgeable poster on the subject.

Did you just call Hauldren a liberal?

What is with you people? Look up classical liberalism on google or something. Yes, I bet HC is a liberal.

Who told you that muslim countries aren't socialist?

Which ones? Just because a country redistributes wealth to a certain degree based on its own culture and values does NOT mean it’s socialist. Socialism comes from Marx’s utopian dreams, and they don’t include religion.

MrFun, he's a Nazi. So yes, little brother is a liberal compared to him.

When will you get it? Do you know Nazis that aren’t anti-semitic? That support Israel? That don’t believe in the Aryan racial hierarchy? That believe in Christianity?

**** off and die.

In any case, your point in incredibly silly, as the military governments were even more corrupt and inefficient, to the point of declaring war on ****ing Great Britain, and actually expecting the US to be on our side.

Can’t tolerate anyone that doesn’t accept your views? So much for liberals and their values of tolerance.

As for the liberal governments in Argentina, many of them were completely ineffective, which is why the military stepped in (with support from the general populace, many of whom still feel the same way).

Anyways, Argentina could have won that war. Had their air force been on the same radio transition as the rest of the military and had the bombs they dropped on the British transport ships exploded, it would have ended the war even before the British troops got there. A disaster like that would’ve turned public opinion against the war. And as for the Argentine military dictatorship, they were doing well until the end and were losing public support (this was the norm in Argentina, they flipped back and forth between liberal and military governments). The war was an effort to get the public back on their side, and it was incredibly heroic. They took on a country much more rich and powerful than their own. This kind of [I[thumos[/I] should be exalted, not condemned.

I said PPP not nominal. Spain was handicapped prior to joining the EU because they didn't have free trade while places like Ireland and Portugal did thus the nominal cost of stuff was higher and the PPP adjustment was fairly large.

No. Spain’s lack of free trade enabled them to modernize and grow an industrial sector, as well as protected them from extreme market fluctuations. Once they had developed their own industries they were able to integrated their economy with Europe’s. If it weren’t for Franco, things could have been much worse.

oredin is right here. the fact is that after the second world war, which didn't affect spain and portugal directly, western europe enjoyed growth because of technological change and things like marshall plan aid (spain of course didn't get marshall plan aid but portugal did, and of course spain received money from the US under the pact of madrid). everywhere enjoyed growth. the fact is that franco's pursued failed policies like autarky and only abandoned these after years and years of failure. spain only regained pre war levels of agricultural production in 1958 (nearly 20 years after the civil war ended). basically franco's economic policy was a disaster for a long time and only after repeated failures did he finally change course.

also curtis, your claim about strikes and unrest is wrong, because there were strikes and unrest during franco's rule. also when you classify striking as treason and throw trade unionists in gaol, it tends to discourage striking...

if you want to see how 'effective' salazar's government was, then do some research on literacy rates in portugal...

the major drivers behind spain's economic growth since franco have been tourism, EU money and the massive increase in foreign investment in the 80s and 90s.

OK, first, it took a while to achieve pre-civil war levels of production. The Civil War completely destroyed Spain, and without foreign help or foreign markets (World War II) recovery would be slow. And again, I’ve said many times, the speed of growth isn’t all that important to me. We don’t know how things would have been in this period under a liberal government, but I don’t think they would’ve been better. Anyway, the slow growth ensured stability and paved the way for growth to come. Spain had to rebuild itself before it could start industrializing. And if you want to talk about the period from 1958 to the end of Franco’s rule, well, Spain had the second highest growth rate in the world (only behind Japan) in this era…so Franco was pretty effective after all, wasn’t he?

As far as unrest goes, I’m sure it would have been much worse under a liberal government. Industrialization and economic modernization almost led to revolution in other Western European countries (such as Germany in the mid 19th century) and has led to a lack of stability throughout Latin America. I think Spain’s period of modernization was pretty tame. And as you stated, throwing trade unionists in jail discourages striking.

As for Salazar, there’s other ways to measure a country than its literacy rate. And what was the literacy rate before Salazar?

As for your last paragraph, you proved my point. The growth since Franco hasn’t been based on factors endogenous to Spain’s economy, it has simply been the credit glut/asset boom in the rest of the world that has led to resources pouring into Spain and wealthy people traveling there. That doesn’t mean that these things are sustainable (look at Spain’s economy now), nor that the modern regime is effective at managing the economy. Franco’s era didn’t have this global credit glut, so when you compare Spain under Franco to Spain in 2010, I think it puts his achievements into perspective.

[BeBMan]

How many powerful (this is a key word here) political systems haven’t used systematic torture and killings throughout history? The concept of human rights is very new, and only followed by smaller, weaker countries who have no need to do so since they don’t have serious military objectives or enemies at home and abroad. And again, why is it a given we have to use your model of individual rights? A few people were sacrificed for the good of the nation.

First I have to notice that you missed another opportunity to answer the question if you'd support a system killing people like you for the greater good/whatever

The rest is a bit confused. Political systems a hardly per se "powerful" or not - countries are. Sure you can find examples of torture in various countries under various systems, but thing is that modern democracies don't *rely* on these methods, while totalitarian systems do, regardless of country size or 'power'.

As far as Stalin goes, I don’t agree with his decisions because of the ineffectiveness of his policies (ie declaring an end to NEP) as well as his attempt to completely manufacture a new culture and to stamp out traditional Russian values, all in the name of the extreme, unbridled pursuit of egalitarianism, something I seriously have problems with. But if you don’t think he was an effective ruler, than history isn’t on your side. He got them through World War II and modernized the country.

WTF, you come with something like "ineffectiveness of his policies" and then want to tell me he was an effective ruler?

You either don't know much about history or you are distorting it. First winning WWII and industrialization/modernization - which of course happened - proves nothing about the way in which it was achieved. The Soviet system was in economical terms never really effective, under Stalin or later, that is one of the reasons why it broke down.

As for the war, it's laughable to claim that Soviet warfare in WWII was effective - it was exactly the opposite. What allowed them to win was that they had enough manpower and ressources to burn, and they did so until the end of the war. And Stalin was personally responsible for a lot of failures and problems esp. in the early period of the war, for example by decimating his own officer corps in the late 30ies or by failing to give out any orders that make sense in the early days of the invasion.

And again, I don’t believe necessarily in the pursuit of ‘economic growth’ just for economic growth’s sake (you must not have read many of my posts). The argument I’ve been making is that Franco did so and modernized the country in a much more stable manner than would have been possible under a liberal, capitalist system.

The argument is still stupid. A system that needs to oppress opposition *to keep itself alive* is hardly a stable one.

[curtis290]

I pressed backspace at one point and it took me back a page so I lost the whole damn thing. I hate computers. This post won't be as good, I don't have the energy to do it all over again.

First I have to notice that you missed another opportunity to answer the question if you'd support a system killing people like you for the greater good/whatever

As is obvious from my posts, I don't believe in worshipping individual rights. I believe that society and the nation are more important than the individual, and that the devotion to individual freedoms have come at a great cost to societies and nations.

The rest is a bit confused. Political systems a hardly per se "powerful" or not - countries are. Sure you can find examples of torture in various countries under various systems, but thing is that modern democracies don't *rely* on these methods, while totalitarian systems do, regardless of country size or 'power'.

In regards to powerful nations vs. weaker ones, powerful nations are more likely to have to use torture. They have larger foreign policy objectives as well as threats to their security at home and abroad. Norway is less likely to use torture than the US because it doesn't have to manage an empire, doesn't have to worry about threats to its security from terrorists, and doesn't have to worry about threats to its stability from its own people.

I also disagree with your dichotomy between democratic and totalitarian regimes. Is every non-democratic regime a 'totalitarian' one? What exactly defines a democratic government, and what is a totalitarian one? And since totalitarianism was a term made popular after World War II, what about governments before World War II? Many of them wouldn't qualify as democracies by your standards, does that mean they're totalitarian? What about any government before the 18th century, were all of them totalitarian? It seems overly simplistic to link together Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, absolutist France, feudal Japan, some random tribe in Africa, the Apache Indians, the Aztecs...basically every society/government in history before the Enlightenment and many after...under one term, 'totalitarianism.'

And I strongly disagree with your claim that modern democracies don't need to 'rely' on torture. How about the US before 1865? I bet slavery would be included under your definition of torture, and the US had to rely on that for stability until the civil war. And many times democracies fall because of their inability to take extreme measures to save themselves. So all you're saying is that when push comes to shove, democracies are less able to maintain order or survive as a regime. That doesn't speak to the effectiveness to democracy as a political system.

WTF, you come with something like "ineffectiveness of his policies" and then want to tell me he was an effective ruler?

You either don't know much about history or you are distorting it. First winning WWII and industrialization/modernization - which of course happened - proves nothing about the way in which it was achieved. The Soviet system was in economical terms never really effective, under Stalin or later, that is one of the reasons why it broke down.

As for the war, it's laughable to claim that Soviet warfare in WWII was effective - it was exactly the opposite. What allowed them to win was that they had enough manpower and ressources to burn, and they did so until the end of the war. And Stalin was personally responsible for a lot of failures and problems esp. in the early period of the war, for example by decimating his own officer corps in the late 30ies or by failing to give out any orders that make sense in the early days of the invasion.

OK, your first claim that the Soviet Union's economic policy was never effective is rather silly. Going into World War I Russia was pretty much the most backwards nation in Europe (in terms of economic development). The war greatly impacted its economy, and after the revolution, it was destroyed by civil war in the 20s. NEP worked very well and the SU industrialized very quickly. Then Stalin declared an end to that, which was not so good for the economy. World War II completely destroyed much of its industry again. In 1945, the USSR was a weakling and much less advanced than the US, for example. All it had was a large army.

By the end of the 1940s they had tested their first nuclear weapon. By 1957 it had beaten the US into space, and by 1961 it was winning that race. By the early to mid 1960s it had finished industrializing, and was to the point where there wasn't really any room for economic growth. The next stage for its economy would have been producing more consumer goods, which it obviously could not have done as well as market-based economies. This lack of economic growth ultimately led to its demise, especially after it had been promised in the Kitchen Debates. I think socialism is one of mankind's most dangerous enemies, yet it's simply bad history to say that the USSR wasn't successful economically during NEP or during the period of 1945-1965ish.

As for Stalin, I'm ambivalent about him. Obviously he was a socialist of sorts, which I despise, and he killed far too many of his own people as well as made some amazing blunders. But he certainly was a strong leader who got his people through some trying times.

The argument is still stupid. A system that needs to oppress opposition *to keep itself alive* is hardly a stable one.

I really don't follow here. Many, many regimes were 'oppressive' by your standards were very stable (just about every government in history during a period of stability). We've been discussing the USSR...by your standards it was an oppressive regime from 1945 to the 1980s and it certainly was totalitarian, yet it was incredibly stable during that time period (Chernobyl was the beginning of the end). There were many liberal governments throughout history that were not oppressive and highly unstable because they were unwilling to take extreme measures to survive, and many unstable liberal government that did take such measures that fell anyway. I think your definition of 'oppression' is completely independent of whether or not a regime is stable. We'll find plenty of stable regimes that were 'oppressive,' and obviously unstable regimes that were 'oppressive.' Recently, regimes have come about that aren't 'oppressive,' and some of them have enjoyed stability and some of them haven't.

[Cort Haus]

Tip, Curtis - if you're typing in more than you want to re-type then CTRL-A CTRL-C keeps a backup in the buffer to allow a CTRL-V to paste it back in again.

[curtis290]

Tip, Curtis - if you're typing in more than you want to re-type then CTRL-A CTRL-C keeps a backup in the buffer to allow a CTRL-V to paste it back in again.

I always do that after writing a post. Most of the time, it logs out by the time I've clicked post, meaning I've lost what I wrote. I've learned my lesson and before clicking on post I always do control a control c. The problem with this one was I was almost done, and I pressed backspace at one point to delete what I'd written, and of course internet explorer took that to me I wanted to go back a page, meaning I lost everything I'd written. So I spend twice as much time writing one of my lengthy posts and no one responds. Oh well. I don't know what's the point sometimes. I doubt I'll last much longer here.

[BeBMan]

As is obvious from my posts, I don't believe in worshipping individual rights. I believe that society and the nation are more important than the individual, and that the devotion to individual freedoms have come at a great cost to societies and nations.

Third time's a charme...

In regards to powerful nations vs. weaker ones, powerful nations are more likely to have to use torture. They have larger foreign policy objectives as well as threats to their security at home and abroad. Norway is less likely to use torture than the US because it doesn't have to manage an empire, doesn't have to worry about threats to its security from terrorists, and doesn't have to worry about threats to its stability from its own people.

Denmark is pretty much in the focus of islamists since the caricature thing, yet I hear nothing about torture cases from there....I would agree that bigger powers are somewhat more likely to do what they want regardless of intl or domestic rules, laws etc, but so far this doesn't prove that a democratic and powerful USA needs to do measure X to survive.

I also disagree with your dichotomy between democratic and totalitarian regimes. Is every non-democratic regime a 'totalitarian' one? What exactly defines a democratic government, and what is a totalitarian one? And since totalitarianism was a term made popular after World War II, what about governments before World War II? Many of them wouldn't qualify as democracies by your standards, does that mean they're totalitarian? What about any government before the 18th century, were all of them totalitarian? It seems overly simplistic to link together Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, absolutist France, feudal Japan, some random tribe in Africa, the Apache Indians, the Aztecs...basically every society/government in history before the Enlightenment and many after...under one term, 'totalitarianism.'

Stalin's USSR certainly falls under that category. No, every other non-democratic regime is not automatically totalitarian, and I was absolutely not claiming this, so your disagreement looks like a strawman to me. But if you're aiming for fascist Franco etc the point about *relying* on oppressive methods to a large degree still stands, regardless if we file it under totalitarian or less.

And I strongly disagree with your claim that modern democracies don't need to 'rely' on torture. How about the US before 1865? I bet slavery would be included under your definition of torture, and the US had to rely on that for stability until the civil war.

Don't be silly, that's totally different field, even if it can be described as torture, but that’s another debate for me. Also - it was hardly necessary for the existance of a democratic USA as it was necessary for fascist or other regimes to keep their opposition down.

And many times democracies fall because of their inability to take extreme measures to save themselves. So all you're saying is that when push comes to shove, democracies are less able to maintain order or survive as a regime. That doesn't speak to the effectiveness to democracy as a political system.

Is this supposed to be some kind of coherent argument? What fallen democracies are you talking about? Don't make me laugh and post pre-Hitler Germany or pre-Mussolini Italy or pre-Franco Spain. And no I don't think democracies are less able to maintain order, I say they don't need a type of „order“ where political opposition is oppressed and still do quite well, esp. in comparison with other systems.

OK, your first claim that the Soviet Union's economic policy was never effective is rather silly. Going into World War I Russia was pretty much the most backwards nation in Europe (in terms of economic development). The war greatly impacted its economy, and after the revolution, it was destroyed by civil war in the 20s. NEP worked very well and the SU industrialized very quickly. Then Stalin declared an end to that, which was not so good for the economy. World War II completely destroyed much of its industry again. In 1945, the USSR was a weakling and much less advanced than the US, for example. All it had was a large army.

By the end of the 1940s they had tested their first nuclear weapon. By 1957 it had beaten the US into space, and by 1961 it was winning that race. By the early to mid 1960s it had finished industrializing, and was to the point where there wasn't really any room for economic growth. The next stage for its economy would have been producing more consumer goods, which it obviously could not have done as well as market-based economies. This lack of economic growth ultimately led to its demise, especially after it had been promised in the Kitchen Debates. I think socialism is one of mankind's most dangerous enemies, yet it's simply bad history to say that the USSR wasn't successful economically during NEP or during the period of 1945-1965ish.

Meh, if you mean „effective“ as simply having an effect, than it obviously had. But that is so general that it’s almost meaningless. It was certainly inefficient. And if you mean „effectiveness“ in the sense of setting and achieving goals that leaves a lot of room to debate. The Soviet system certainly did industrialize the country, won WWII and achieved other things, but it was a complete failure in various other fields, and Soviet communism as a political system ultimately failed to achieve its self-propagated goals.

I really don't follow here. Many, many regimes were 'oppressive' by your standards were very stable (just about every government in history during a period of stability). We've been discussing the USSR...by your standards it was an oppressive regime from 1945 to the 1980s and it certainly was totalitarian, yet it was incredibly stable during that time period (Chernobyl was the beginning of the end).

The „end“ came when the political elite was not able or not willing (or both) anymore to keep everything in check. „Stability“ existed as illusion, because it had to be enforced continuously by often (though not always) extreme measure. When this wasn’t the case anymore, when the ever-increasing costs (in various terms, political, economical) for enforcing this system became unbearable that very system was gone – that’s stability for you? Well, not for me.

There were many liberal governments throughout history that were not oppressive and highly unstable because they were unwilling to take extreme measures to survive, and many unstable liberal government that did take such measures that fell anyway.

What do you mean by „highly unstable“ liberal governments? Do you mean govs did fall? Well, as long as they were replaced by another gov within the same democratic system this does not mean the system as a whole is instable.

I think your definition of 'oppression' is completely independent of whether or not a regime is stable. We'll find plenty of stable regimes that were 'oppressive,' and obviously unstable regimes that were 'oppressive.' Recently, regimes have come about that aren't 'oppressive,' and some of them have enjoyed stability and some of them haven't.

I haven't stated any definition of oppression so far. I thought it was pretty clear that what we had under totalitarian regimes in this regard had a distinctive dimension, and even if there are differences in the rule of maybe-not-totalitarian Franco, Salazar on the one hand to certainly-totalitarian Hitler or Stalin on the other there are much more differences when we look at the reality of all those compared to modern democracies in a comparable time frame (20th century on).