I am not quite sure what Gordon Liddy - who imho is a pathological case of delusional paranoia - has to do with what I said about socialism and capitalism. The Independent piece that you quote is a good exemplification of a comment by Philip Zimbardo (a famous Stanford social psychologist, fyi) "if one person has delusions we call it a mental disorder, but if many people share those delusions we call it ideology and protect with constitutional amendments."
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When I read the subject line, I couldn't help but think of Liddy and the right-wing talk show radio hacks who do more than their part to keep the red states Republican. Poor Americans with their open minds and all that garbage being dumped into them. No wonder they can vote for Bush and while thinking Kerry is a godless communist.
WS said:
I think there is enough evidence that extreme conservatism and right wing aggression are cases of affective and cognitive disorders and should receive professional treatment. Unfortunately, these psychos can be and are effectively used as attack dogs in power politics. This is abuse of the mentally ill.
But again, that is another story. I am not sure if I understand how it relates to what I said about socialism. ****************
These are the same kinds of psychos who could nod and wink at the argument implied in the subject line of this discussion. They make lots of money for their capitalist employers as well. Ad time is expensive. *****
WS: As a point of clarification - my posting about socialism argued against the primacy of ideology over socio-historical specificity. Mental constructs, such as ideologies, theories or religions, are nothing more than metaphors or cognitive tools used to understand a particular set of empirical conditions. They are like paper bags - necessary to keep your sugar, salt or cereal together, but then ultimately discarded. Same for ideas, theories etc. - they can be very useful if used only to understand a particular set of empirical conditions and then promptly tossed into a garbage bin. Keeping them beyond that is like keeping old wrappers - it clutters
your space and hinders your ability to function efficiently. ************
Agreed. But social ownership of the means of production under democratic control and the critique of class society itself has not reached its "use-by" date quite yet. We are still mired in commodification. ****************
WS: Socialism is one of those ideas that made sense 100 years ago because it was an efficient label identifying a coherent political programme aiming at increasing power of labor vis a vis capital in the 19th century Europe and regulation of the economy for the purpose of improving living standards of the working class as a whole. However, after the implementation of welfare state and Keynesianism this programme became obsolete. It does not mean that welfare state and Keynesianism solved all social problems or that the conflict between haves and have nots is over. It means that specific programmes labeled in the late 19th/early 20th centuries as "socialism" are no longer relevant for the particular set of socio-historical conditions that exist in the early 21st century.
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But social ownership of the means of production/consumption is still relevant.
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Therefore, using the old label and cognitive framing that comes with it to characterize the new set of programmes (if there are any) is totally counterproductive. It obfuscates the material reality, prevents a clear analysis of the situation and diagnosis of the problems, and hinders the development of targeted programmes to deal with these problems.
In that sense, ideology is like religion. At some point in time, it made practical sense. For example the religious prohibition of killing cattle in India, made perfect sense when oxen were used as animals of burden in food production. Killing them for food during the lean years would seriously impair productive capacity of the agriculture - this is tantamount to selling capital assets to cover operating expenses. But the proscription outlived its practical usefulness and still lives as religious ritual and a butt of "sacred cow" jokes. Likewise "Socialism" is becoming such a "sacred cow" and a butt of jokes.
Wojtek
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Then call it a "co:opertive commonwealth".
Best, Mike B)
===== "Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established."
- Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
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