Lately socialism has been getting some very bad press. If you believe those on the right, the world of ideas can be broken down into a few simple dichotomies.
Under their assumptions; war is just great - but peace activism is evil.
Further, gender rights are not human rights but a ghettoised, separate set of rights that only apply to individual interest groups. Just like the right not to be hungry only applies to the starving and not to the rest of us.
According to the "Right*", capitalism isn't just the best way to run an economy, it's the only way to run an economy. Some of them actually equate Democracy with capitalism. This is manifestly untrue, capitalism is one of the ways an economy can be managed. It allows market forces (Greed) to set prices, It allows enormous corporations to accrue masses of power and influence beholden to none but their share holders.
Democracy on the other hand is a political system of most of the western world and much of the rest of the world where individuals have an equal right to determine the composition of their government, subject to rules that preclute the very young, the mentally infirm and the criminally insane from participation in the process.
The simple illustration that capitalism and Democracy are not equivalent is the obvious fact that many non-democratic nations are also capitalistic. Nations like the Argentina of pinochet, the Italy of Mussolini, the many and varied dictatorships of South America, Asia and Africa are almost all capitalistic, run purely on greed and avarice.
Democracy not at all incompatible with Socialism, in fact many of the happiest and most forward thinking nations in the world are socialist democracies in all but name. Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and others are far in advance of the petty sloganism of countries like the USA, England and Australia.
There's much more to write about this, we need to move further to the left, toward caring for all and finding ways to foster independencce from insane growth economics and greedy capitalism.
Next time ...
*who are far too often wrong.
Under their assumptions; war is just great - but peace activism is evil.
Further, gender rights are not human rights but a ghettoised, separate set of rights that only apply to individual interest groups. Just like the right not to be hungry only applies to the starving and not to the rest of us.
According to the "Right*", capitalism isn't just the best way to run an economy, it's the only way to run an economy. Some of them actually equate Democracy with capitalism. This is manifestly untrue, capitalism is one of the ways an economy can be managed. It allows market forces (Greed) to set prices, It allows enormous corporations to accrue masses of power and influence beholden to none but their share holders.
Democracy on the other hand is a political system of most of the western world and much of the rest of the world where individuals have an equal right to determine the composition of their government, subject to rules that preclute the very young, the mentally infirm and the criminally insane from participation in the process.
The simple illustration that capitalism and Democracy are not equivalent is the obvious fact that many non-democratic nations are also capitalistic. Nations like the Argentina of pinochet, the Italy of Mussolini, the many and varied dictatorships of South America, Asia and Africa are almost all capitalistic, run purely on greed and avarice.
Democracy not at all incompatible with Socialism, in fact many of the happiest and most forward thinking nations in the world are socialist democracies in all but name. Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and others are far in advance of the petty sloganism of countries like the USA, England and Australia.
There's much more to write about this, we need to move further to the left, toward caring for all and finding ways to foster independencce from insane growth economics and greedy capitalism.
Next time ...
*who are far too often wrong.
Nice start Percy. I'll look forward to your future musings (and may contribute some of my own...)
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