Funk N. Furter wrote:
All very interesting but was it meant for a thread on fascism?
I see what you did there, but not so fast! According to the title, it's a thread on fascism AND socialism.
Unless the socialism isn't really there, like they named that country The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics but it really wasn't socilaist?
Here's what I really think about politics, isms, etc.. People were/are tribal for the vast majority of their time as sentient political beings. Families consolidated as tribe for practical reasons. Tribes were consolidated for well known practical reasons, to form town/city/nation type amalgams for reasons both practical and kind of impractical.
Various tribes had various structures, some patriarchies, some matriarchies, but in their essence they were an extra-familial group of people who trusted one another and who they truly wanted to help out one another mutually. Often there is a ruling family, or several ruling families, but not always: often it was a series of interlocking clans who had leaders, either male or female. Some tribes were very very authoritarian, in a way few would submit to. The Zulu, for example, would need to prove themselves worthy and loyal to the king before they king would allow them to marry: this ensured reproduction of loyal subjects.
So people are tribal in their essence, and mostly they want to be part of a tribe. Tribes are relatively socialist, many things in the tribe were shared, but definitely not all things. There has always been private property. but you can also pull up stakes and create your own tribe if you just don't agree.
Nations go to great lengths to be a hyper-extended tribe for the people in the nation. If they really are that way then the people are happy, if they are only trying to seem to be that way then people are unhappy and will at some point "have enough" and revolt.
So what I don't like about capitalism is that it tends to ensure that oligarchies are created that eschew the notion of being part of the larger tribe and which strive to serve their own ends.
At the same time, a person who gets a little bit better off than his nearest kindred is often pulled down by them if they aren't careful.
All of us want not to be limited by external constraints. We want to do as much as we can of the things that make us truly happy. But we want the tribe to help us out when we're down, and we like to help the tribe when we're up and it's down, so there is some discipline involved in keeping the tribe going. But we also want to be channeled into those things that are good for us and for all, and where we can excel and enjoy.
As a result, no one system is in effect all the time, it is socialist at times, and it is fascist at times. That's the reality-- when it goes too far to one side or the other it goes bad, sometimes horribly bad.
The reason that a backwards country can't be socialist is because to be socialist on a national scale you have to have a country "pre-built", so there is all that great stuff to share. How is it built? Many of the countries that have tried it were all built by capitalist forces, often under a dictatorial regime.
Not sure how to change it other than to mix one up and mix the other one down from time to time.
