Ixtellor, I think there's been a misunderstanding.
I respect my professor. His email helped me understand why he believes what he does. He is obviously way more well-read than me; and he sent me a very detailed email; an email that deserves an educated response. I've been reading a lot about both sides of the argument, and I thought The Mises Community would be a great resource for finding information about theories that disagree with his conclusion. I've also been spending tons of time looking for information that supports his opinion.
Ixtellor: instead of thinking of your own answers based on your own logic and reason.
instead of thinking of your own answers based on your own logic and reason.
Before I can formulate a response, I need to gather information. That's why I posted it on this forum.
Ixtellor: Maybe you could try and learn something. Using your own brain and your own rationality, take what information you think is useful and adapt it to your own philosophy, and reject and rebuttal those aspects that you don't.
Maybe you could try and learn something. Using your own brain and your own rationality, take what information you think is useful and adapt it to your own philosophy, and reject and rebuttal those aspects that you don't.
That's exactly what I'm doing. I don't understand where my actions conflict with that.
And this isn't a "public skewering" of any person. I would never give any personal information (name, country, school) about who we're talking about. Anyway, besides his state-socialist views, he's actually a very cool person.
Can you please explain to me how this is a "horrible way to go about fostering your own education"?
Robin:Ixtellor, I think there's been a misunderstanding.
1) My responses were less about you than about extrapolating the strategy in a broader context.
2) If I had an objection or misunderstood your motives it would be in the presentation. Title "Help me Respond to Socialist Professor".
The word respond has a connotation. The fact you labeled him a socialist in your title, is clearly going to skew your audiences reaction, and their inheriant biases.
If I were you, I would have asked more targeted questions about specific 'ideals or philosophies' you were trying to understand, rather than reprint the entire email. Would you be shocked if this email got linked all over the internet with the title "Commie professors indoctrinating future commies" as the title? Can you foresee this very honest and open response to your concerns, becoming fodder for legions of anarchists? ( I myself have linked it no less than 56 times, to places like www.Ihatecommies.com and www.SeanHannity.com and www.anarchy4life.com )
Clearly this was not your intent.
I would also direct you my favorite Buddha quote.
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense".
You gloriously did the first part in that you questioned your professor and was engaged in a dialogue with him.
I guess I would critique you on the 2nd part, where you turned to a group of like minded individuals to develop your "response". One of my personal philsophies is that I never turn to people that think like me for answers. Its usually just a red meat situation where they are just confirming your own biases. Of course this my be a false a priori.(<--- Me actively learning from my 'enemies/dissenters')
Ixtellor
P.S. Nothing personal, you seem very smart and motivated. (Unlike the guy who called me a "dumbass" because he failed to understand analogies and big picture versus little details in my response)
P.P.S. Or perhaps I have a false a priori that I am NOT a dumbass and he was just pointing out the 'truth' to me.
Ixtellor:1) My responses were less about you than about extrapolating the strategy in a broader context.
if i say your silly, i dont mean that you are silly, only that there are some silly people in a broader context.
Ixtellor:The word respond has a connotation. The fact you labeled him a socialist in your title, is clearly going to skew your audiences reaction, and their inheriant biases.
suggest, a word that 'respond' could have been swapped out for and which suffered not from alleged 'connotation'
'socialist' in the title, may skew bias, one way or another depending on the audiences feelings towards socialism. but also if its an accurate label. then its an accurate label. you're not against accurate labels are you?
Ixtellor:If I were you, I would have asked more targeted questions about specific 'ideals or philosophies' you were trying to understand, rather than reprint the entire email.
what would you do if you were me? what if you were Marx? what of Mises? (this is a fun game, make up your own)
Ixtellor:"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense".
a self defeating quote.
Ixtellor:I guess I would critique you on the 2nd part, where you turned to a group of like minded individuals to develop your "response".
you are in the group. you offered your opinion. you are not like minded.
Ixtellor:of my personal philsophies is that I never turn to people that think like me for answers.
do you include all the professors and teachers that taught you what you know. or do you mean that you dont turn to them after the first time that you learnt from them?
Ixtellor:P.P.S. Or perhaps I have a false a priori that I am NOT a dumbass and he was just pointing out the 'truth' to me.
this cant be ascertained a prioiri, but the evidence mounts.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Ixtellor: I would also direct you my favorite Buddha quote.
Just because I posted it on this website doesn't mean that I'm automatically going to agree with the responses.
Ixtellor: One of my personal philsophies is that I never turn to people that think like me for answers.
One of my personal philsophies is that I never turn to people that think like me for answers.
As I explained before, this is only one of many places I'm getting information from.
Ixtellor: If I were you, I would have asked more targeted questions about specific 'ideals or philosophies' you were trying to understand, rather than reprint the entire email.
If I were you, I would have asked more targeted questions about specific 'ideals or philosophies' you were trying to understand, rather than reprint the entire email.
Alright, sorry. We're talking about an anonymous professor, so I didn't think anyone would care whether or not I post their unedited response. Apparently I was wrong, and I apologize. Can we get back on subject now? You kind of hijacked my forum topic if you didn't notice.
Hi,
I'm 100% sure that your prof. assumed that you were mentioning Anarcho-communism. The way he addressed your concerns by bring the whole history of the only-existing socialism (i. the USSR) and how he compared Chomsky (an anarchist, or anarcho-communist) to be exact and Parenti (more Leninist and quasi-supporter of the USSR) shows that he mistook you as a 'comrade' but of a slightly different variety. The whole discussion between Anarchists (the anarcho-communist) variety and State-socialists and Leninists is all the rage in Left circles.
Going back to the main topic and trying to answer the original post systematically:
[sorry for the length, it just brought up too many comments]
- Every actually-existing social system has undesirable features.
Granted, this is the reason why some people are a posteriori anarchists (i.e., people convinced that no actual -by opposition to conceivable- state is just). And this does not prevent you from contemplating alternative, not currently existing, social systems, which could be deprived of said undesirable features.
- These are problems that need to be resolved if the underlying premise is just or pronounced in an indictment of the existing order of things.
Indeed, they’d need to be dealt with “if the underlying premise is just”… but only “if” this is the case, which he doesn’t demonstrate anywhere in his mail. Aside of that, the simple fact that a given political theory ‘indicts’ a competing system (existing or not) should not grant it any logical or argumentative privilege in an academic discussion.
- Some of the criticisms of actually-existing state socialist societies, such as those typically leveled at the Soviet Union, are accurate and appropriate. I am the first to criticize a social order where it fails or is wrong. However, others criticisms are not on target. The problems of the Soviet Union have not only been exaggerated by capitalists, but by anarchists, as well.
Nice to read he didn’t consider the SU as a paradise on earth. I don’t see much criticism in any part of his mail though, more like blind apology. Beside, the problems of the SU didn’t need to be exaggerated by capitalists, anarchists or an-caps (a brand of anarchism I don’t think he possibly envisages) for them to underline them; a standard observation of the actual facts was more than sufficient to comprehend where the system was wanting on basically any scale.
- This one-sidedness is politically-debilitating, because the achievements of state socialism are ignored to the detriment of the struggle for social justice and the improvement of the human condition; the left robs itself of successful examples to adapt and emulate, because it throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Pretty please, can you name a single achievement of state socialism … before claiming that they have been ignored? That the demise of socialism would be to the detriment of social justice and the human condition would imply that he demonstrated first that socialism advances both; a task which is IMHO impossible. But it would at least requires him to define what he means by social justice and the human condition, which he again fails to do.
- It unwittingly buys into bourgeois talking points about state socialism. Left-wing anti-communism has a lot in common with right-wing anti-communism.
I’m not sure what he means by “bourgeois talking points” apart that it’s a Marxist buzz-word. And sure, both brands of anti-communism have loads in common; namely, their anti-comunism. But this seems quite straightforward and shouldn’t be raised as an issue, unless he thinks that you’re a socialist-anarchist and would be offended by holding views in common with any right-winger. This neglects the fact that an-caps exist. More importantly, it misses the point that ideas, arguments and criticisms might be valid independent of who holds them.
- However, the October revolution led to the creation of a society that provided people with heretofore unrealized levels of social support and a quality of life, and did so by substantially eliminating the exploitation of labor power. Shirley Cereseto found that the socialist countries did better than the capitalist countries in meeting the basic human needs of their members. The socialists accomplished this with the same resource base as comparable capitalist countries. In fact, socialist nations did as well as the rich capitalist nations in meeting basic human needs.
This is absolutely counter-factual. Communism collapsed under its own weight because it was economically non-maintainable. People lacked all types of basic resources and were in average much poorer than members of the lower economic classes in the Western world. Moreover, there are more elements in “a quality of life” than just richness; the possibility to live your own life your own way (also called liberty), for one. Communism didn’t eliminate the exploitation of labour but simply universalised it; everybody became a full-time slave (forced labourer) of the state.
- Moreover, while inequality was increasing both within and between capitalist nations, inequality was declining both within and between socialist nations. Whereas the relationship between the “third world” and the capitalist core is one in which the “third world” is underdeveloped – that is, capitalist extract wealth from the periphery of the world capitalist system – the relationship between satellite and core countries in the socialist world were beneficial to the satellites.
Counterfactual again, ask any resident of a former satellite country; they were preyed upon and did resent it heavily. Why was the iron curtain built, if not to prevent some of those people to escape to the West? Beside, equality in total destitution is not a good in itself, if it makes everybody worse off. The opposite would need to be demonstrated once again at a pretty theoretical level and not bluntly assumed.
- That is the opposite of the imperialist dynamic that is now consuming the world with the fall of the more just socialist economies.
Where does he prove that socialist economies are more just? In the first place, he’d need to develop what is justice. And, then, there is the eternal rub; the laws of economics are neither just nor unjust but neutral justice-wise.
- Many of those who argue from this state-socialism-is-wrong perspective also ignore the larger context in which state socialism existed, namely the realities of capitalist encirclement and invasion that kept state socialism from advancing to higher levels of socialist development. It therefore fails to understand or articulate the role capitalism played in deforming state socialism. This problem is worse than simply leading to misplaced criticism; it risks capitalist apologetics.
Similarly, capitalist countries were encircled and invaded by communist elements. That is the cold war reality. Comparatively, they still did way better. So, where is his point?
- Noam Chomsky, a man I admire very much, often strays into this sort of problematic ideological territory in criticizing state socialism. This is in part because of his lack training in political economy. His analysis tends to be a bit superficial in this area (which doesn't detract from the excellence of his media analysis and, obviously, his groundbreaking work in linguistics). In contrast, Michael Parenti demonstrates in his book Blackshirts and Reds that the Soviet Union was a form of siege socialism with admirable qualities that needed to be reformed not overthrown. He reviews in detail the myriad of false claims made about the Soviet Union. At the same time, he unflinchingly criticizes the Soviet Union. His analysis is a good example of a considered look at the history.
I didn’t read Parenti. Chomsky’s criticism of communism is all but naïve or superficial. And surely, a wider knowledge of political economy shouldn’t lead him to communism but to a more capitalistic vision of anarchism; hence, the point could be turned against your interlocutor.
- It must be remembered that the attempt to build a new world always comes with errors and excesses. But a social system is only to be outright condemned if the premise is wrong and unjust.
No, a system is to be condemned if it leads to massive human rights abuses. The end doesn’t justify the means. In particular, communist systems have lead to more civilian deaths by their own state authorities than any alternative, even including the Nazis. And what concerns the premises of said system, he still hasn’t demonstrated that they were right or just.
- Parenti is fond of saying that the only revolution left-wing anti-communists like are the ones that never succeed. There's a lot of truth to that observation. He is also fond of pointing out that the argument that socialism doesn't work ignores the reality that it does.
History seems to have proved him wrong here; ironical for a Marxist.
- I agree with Alexander Berkman that, in the final analysis, anarchists and communists have the same goal: the liberation of human beings from exploitative social relations.
Whatever Berkman thinks, anarchists and socialists have nothing in common. They are exact political opposites; in the sense that the first want freedom from any state coercion and the latter believe that freedom can only be reached by state coercion. There comes the problem of G.A. Cohen (to which ideas another post links) and his impossibility to reconcile Marxism with self-ownership.
- At the same time, revolutions happen in the concrete and, while I share Berkman and Goldman’s disappointment in Lenin’s behavior (written about extensively in The Blast upon their return from Russia), and while I recognize Stalin was a thug, I am in solidarity with the Soviet people in their effort to move history towards a better place for working people and I admire their accomplishments. They did not live and work in vain and I won't condemn their efforts. The premise of their society was just, even if their leaders sometimes failed them. Tragically, in the end, the people were betrayed by counterrevolutionaries, and the conditions of their existence sharply deteriorated as a result.
Same lack of serious theoretical grounding of said ‘just’ premises, which are just assumed over and over again, and some conspiracy theory on the role of counter-revolutionaries; that is, the little opposition that survived the gallows and the gulag. More fundamentally, you cannot ignore the necessary consequences of some theories (like the dictatorship of the proletariat) on some pragmatist claim that we live in the real world.
- There's a famous piece of graffiti spray painted on a wall in a former socialist country that says, "Bring back communism." Beneath it is another sentence saying, "We never had communism." Beneath this is yet another sentence: "Then bring back whatever the hell it was we had."
As the saying goes, if you rob John to give some money to Jim, you can always be sure of the support of the latter. The fact that some people regret socialism does not demonstrate either its validity or its general likeability.
- I cannot agree that anarchism is the only rational political philosophy to support. We have to keep an open mind.
Sure, we need to keep an open mind. But if you disagree with anarchism on rational grounds, it would be interesting to hear what are the rational arguments supporting your position. That’s a tough one, as i don’t believe that any political philosopher ever managed it convincingly.
Great post.
Pretty please, can you name a single achievement of state socialism … before claiming that they have been ignored?
Magnitogorsk, a little slice of heaven.
To darkness I condemn you...
M-la-maudite, Dondoolee, and RogueMerc thank you for the great posts! That really helps a lot
Jon Irenicus: Great post. Pretty please, can you name a single achievement of state socialism … before claiming that they have been ignored? Magnitogorsk, a little slice of heaven.
I mean, did you watch the Olympics?
http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/
M-la-maudite:- Noam Chomsky, a man I admire very much, often strays into this sort of problematic ideological territory in criticizing state socialism. This is in part because of his lack training in political economy. His analysis tends to be a bit superficial in this area (which doesn't detract from the excellence of his media analysis and, obviously, his groundbreaking work in linguistics). In contrast, Michael Parenti demonstrates in his book Blackshirts and Reds that the Soviet Union was a form of siege socialism with admirable qualities that needed to be reformed not overthrown. He reviews in detail the myriad of false claims made about the Soviet Union. At the same time, he unflinchingly criticizes the Soviet Union. His analysis is a good example of a considered look at the history. I didn’t read Parenti. Chomsky’s criticism of communism is all but naïve or superficial. And surely, a wider knowledge of political economy shouldn’t lead him to communism but to a more capitalistic vision of anarchism; hence, the point could be turned against your interlocutor.
Good post.
Quick point:
Chomsky would have to actually move to anarchism first.
http://www.theartofthepossible.net/2008/09/04/chomskys-augustinian-anarchism/
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.
Thanks for the link Thedesolateone. I didn't know Chomsky was that Statist.
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