Feminists don’t like it up ‘em (if you will excuse the phrase)
Dear feminists,
Despite the media-friendly messages spouted by your treasured organisations and public figures, the notion that you believe in pursuing genuine ‘equality’ has always been a gross misrepresentation. I have now discovered yet another manifestation of your lack of interest in equality to the point where you publicly display your hatred of men yet again.
Manchester University has created the first official MENS Society, or Masculinity Exploring Networking and Support, while Oxford University has seen the formation of ‘Man Collective – Oxford’ (MC-O) – both launched “as a response to the current state of masculinity” in the form of a male support group. Alex Linsley, founder of MC-O, said: “There is so much conflicting information for men. There is massive confusion as to what being a man means, and how to be a good man. Should you be the sensitive all-caring, perhaps the ‘feminised’ man? Or should you be the hard, take no crap from anybody kind of figure? Neither of those are particularly useful paradigms. But there’s perhaps things we could learn from both perspectives”. Alex believes that men, who could feel pressured to “man-up” in a mixed gender environment, might feel less vulnerable discussing such issues in a male-only setting. The Merton college student admits launching his organisation with the testosterone-fuelled invitation – “Have you got balls? Literally. If you have how does that make you feel?” – has drawn stinging criticism. Kat Wall, the Oxford University’s student union vice president for women, accused him of gender stereotyping, but Linsley - who started MC-O after being struck by the number of male students committing suicide in Oxford – has also received positive feedback.
In Manchester, the MENS Society, which despite its name has women among its 306 members, claims it highlights not just masculinity issues but also raises funds and awareness for men’s mental health, testicular and prostate cancer as well as male rape and domestic violence issues. Its campaign for official ratification from the student union’s societies committee has provoked furious debate. Founder Ben Wild, a politics and modern history student, said he was “relieved that the societies committee has acknowledged the importance and promising benefits of this new society, the first of it’s kind in a UK university”. “Why have one? Because so little was being done on raising awareness on issues specific to men, such as male depression, which occurs because they can’t live up to this very idealised traditional masculine role,” he said.
I would have thought that, given the prevalence of female support groups at university and beyond, you would have little objection to men starting up their own support networks – but wait, you’re feminists, so anything even remotely male-centric must therefore be distrusted and hated. Olivia Bailey, NUS national women’s officer (no NUS national men’s officer, presumably? – Ed.), said: “Discrimination against men on the basis of gender is so unusual as to be non-existent, so what exactly will a men’s society do? To suggest that men need a specific space to be ‘men’ is ludicrous, when everywhere you turn you will find male-dominated spaces.” What an enlightened and charming individual Olivia is. Caitriona Rylance, chair of Manchester Communist Students, said that while the society now claimed to be about “self-betterment”, it’s original aims were “Top Gear shows, gadget fairs, beer-drinking marathons and Iron Man competitions”. Ben Wild responded: “There has been so much false information peddled. I’m teetotal, and our first event was a sober pub crawl. And we’ve compromised on our beard-growing contests to make it more inclusive.” Whenever you have to wheel out a communist to support your cause, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, and seeing as these men’s networks are brand new I would like to think that common sense suggests giving it time to show its true colours rather than publishing more man-hating press releases.
Ironically, Martin Daubney, editor of the lads’ magazine Loaded, was almost as cynical as you were. “I don’t think men are remotely confused about what it takes to be a man. They just get on and do it. My generation would not sit round and build a website about being confused. It’s complete navel-gazing bullshit.” Again, I wonder how he can make such a judgement after these networks have existed for no more than a few weeks. In any case, the hostile response from your ranks just goes to show how little the welfare of men, of boys, of fathers and of families really means to you. Your vicious attacks on the prospect of men simply having discussions with each other demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt how divorced you are from a real ‘equality’ and equal rights agenda and how divorced you are from any sense of promoting happiness and well-being. How very sad.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Easy to laugh (as an alternative to crying) at the patronising rubbish espoused by soi-disants Olivia, Kat and Catriona (hmmm no Waynettas there)but expect to see them all as PPCs for New Labour in the not-too-distant future.
“…the hostile response from your ranks just goes to show how little the welfare of men, of boys, of fathers and of families really means to you. “
Got it in one.
Talwin, the NUS women’s officer is certainly on the right trajectory for Labour but the wrong one for the rest of society.
Julia, much obliged. It is disappointing nonetheless to see people try to further their own agenda explicitly at the expense of others.
“…the hostile response from your ranks just goes to show how little the welfare of men, of boys, of fathers and of families really means to you. “
It’s rare for any of these narrow minded groups to actually care for anything outside their cause. They are often devoid of human compassion because their rigid narrow world view does not allow it.
This is all full of wrongness. I agree with the Loaded guy – do men really need to immitate women’s groups and sit around navel gazing as ‘men together’? Why? What’s wrong with them?
And on the other hand, its worth noting that feminists are not about equality – otherwise they’d be called egalitarians. They are about promoting the cause, outcomes and status of women which, be definition, would be at the expense of men. Personally I believe in equality which means everyone should be treated the same – no special treatment. I don’t believe in the primacy of one gender, especially not one enforced by clumsy statute.
“Discrimination against men on the basis of gender is so unusual as to be non-existent…”
That is a bare-faced lie. When I was a single-father I received a great deal of discrimination against me purely on the basis of my gender, discrimination that was not tolerated against women. My daughter used to get as angry about it as I.
” just goes to show how little the welfare of men, of boys, of fathers and of families really means to you. Your vicious attacks on the prospect of men simply having discussions with each other demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt how divorced you are from a real ‘equality’ and equal rights agenda and how divorced you are from any sense of promoting happiness and well-being. How very sad.”
Perhaps they show just as much sincerity in promoting the interests of men, as men did about promoting the interests of women for centuries.
It isn’t the feminists who have a problem now, it’s you lot, who still seem to think you have a right to rule the world, and it should be all about you.
It’s not sad, LFAT – it’s hypocritical
As a man who has suffered vicious assaults from my now ex-wife and has limited access to his children because of the bias in thie country against fathers, I applaud men taking a leaf out of the feminist playbook.
I am sure we will not be as biased and one-eyed as they are.
Clap trap, June – the old system was not perfect,but no way were women being kept down purposefully by men. Indeed, the old adage “the hand that rocks the cradles rules the world” has a lot to commend it. Women had an awful lot of control over men, and always have.
What’s happening today on the part of many so-called feminists is pre-meditated and vicious. There are issues that need addressing for BOTH genders, as Claire Rayner stated as long ago as 1975, and until we look at both genders and take the ranting bitchery out of the equation, we’re simply exposing the fact that as a gender we’re just as flawed as men, and helping nobody.
This neatly proves my point. Its not about equality, its about being in charge. Buggins’s turn on top of a system which favours one over the other.
I’d rather have people *treated* equally and not discriminated against, positively or otherwise.
I’m afraid I always think of the film “The Good Father” when it comes to men’s groups. Its a great film, though not much in circulation these days.
A Julia said @2, that sentence encapsulates the whole feminism ethos. You’re on a roll, LFAT.
Provocative? Moi?
.
Whenever you have to wheel out a communist to support your cause, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence
First of all, I’d like to suggest that maybe A.Tory doesn’t have the faintest clue what a communist is – the vast majority of people are, after all, egalitarian in principle even if not consciously anti-capitalist, and it would be rediculous (although perhaps in character for a self-described conservative (ie, champion of the aristocracy)) to suggest that the vast majority of people have no place in debate as he seems to be doing.
Secondly, I have to say that whenever you have to use what you consider an epithet in an attempt to discredit your opponents, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Personally I applaaud the idea of me’s groups although I would think that most of the attendees already belong to the LGBT society! But why not if there are men who want to sit around and discuss life’s niggles then why not. It doesn’t really conform with evolutionary roles but as a species we have always pushed the boundaries so if there is a niche fill it.
As to ‘Kaze no Kae’ – really, are you serious? – I thought all that bourgeoisie nonsense died when the Communisits killed Russian culture. Basic equality is right but people are not equal – why should those that work hard to gain wealth not keep the fruit of their hard work?!
the hostile response from your ranks just goes to show how little the welfare of men, of boys, of fathers and of families really means to you. Your vicious attacks on the prospect of men simply having discussions with each other demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt how divorced you are from a real ‘equality’ and equal rights agenda and how divorced you are from any sense of promoting happiness and well-being.
The issue is that the “Men’s Society” doesn’t promote the welfare of any of the above at all, in fact in promoting and and reinforcing social pressure to conform to stereotypes which in reality actually apply to very few people, it contributes to their alienation.
expect to see them all as PPCs for New Labour in the not-too-distant future.
Having never met or heard of them before today, I make no judgement regarding Olivia or Kat but I can’t see Cat selling out like that. But I don’t know why I’m bothering to defend the reputation of a revolutionary to a bunch of self-described conservatives anyway, she wouldn’t care about your opinion.
Candid: If you actually took the time to listen to what me, Cat or any other genuine communist has to say, you’ll find we’re opposed to Stalinism (state-capitalism). But I know you’d still pretend otherwise.
why should those that work hard to gain wealth not keep the fruit of their hard work?!
That’s a very good question… perhaps you’d like to explain the corporate habit of not simply stealing the fruit of workers’ labour but forcing them to sign it over before they even have an opportunity to create it?
Didn’t think so.
And on the other hand, its worth noting that feminists are not about equality – otherwise they’d be called egalitarians
In my experience, most active feminists base their stance on a socialist (ie, general egalitarian) perspective. So in fact yes, we (I’m a man, for the record, and I stand by the maxim ‘men of quality respect women’s equality’) are also known as egalitarians, and yes we are about equality.
“Having never met or heard of them before today, I make no judgement regarding Olivia or Kat but I can’t see Cat selling out like that.”
Translation: “I’ve no idea who these people are, but on the basis that they are saying things I agree with, I think they must be trustworthy. Naive? Me? Gosh, no! Why do you ask?”
“That’s a very good question… perhaps you’d like to explain the corporate habit of not simply stealing the fruit of workers’ labour but forcing them to sign it over before they even have an opportunity to create it?”
Paying people a wage to work for you (that they can take or leave, should a better wage be available elsewhere) is ’stealing’…?
If that’s your ‘reasoning’, why should you be considered worth listening to by anyone, let alone the readers of this blog?
“In my experience, most active feminists base their stance on a socialist (ie, general egalitarian) perspective. “
Really? That’s very interesting.
Here I always thought it was the feminism that made them loons. Turns out it was the socialism after all!
What’s the definition of a hypocrite? A radical feminist.
Translation: “I’ve no idea who these people are, but on the basis that they are saying things I agree with, I think they must be trustworthy. Naive? Me? Gosh, no! Why do you ask?”
Read what I said – I make no judgement re: Olivia or Kat. I’ve collaborated with Cat & other members of CS a lot on campaigns over the past year or so and know her quite well.
Paying people a wage to work for you (that they can take or leave, should a better wage be available elsewhere) is ’stealing’…?
That they can take or leave, should a better wage be available elsewhere? Who says a fair wage is available anywhere? It certainly isn’t available to everyone anyway. Meet the new boss – same as the old boss.
[...] much of the western male attitude towards women, this stemming from many factors – porn and the destructiveness and hypocrisy of feminism being two of [...]
Set up your own private-sector firm then. Be the “right” sort of boss. Show us all how its done. If we’re all getting it so wrong, then you’ll leave us for dead – surely? Your firm, with its highly rewarded, highly motivated and utterly loyal staff will be able to provide a level of service that the rest of us could never hope to match.
See how long you can keep going like that. I’ll wager that within a year, you’ll either be handing out P45s (in which case you’ll *really* understand what it is to let staff down) or (on close inspection) you’ll look suspiciously like the rest of us.
This is hardly new.
There is a BBC Radio 4 radio series called “Clare in the Community”. It’s a comedy. She’s a Guardian reading social worker married/living with Brian (an English Teacher) and the program actually sends up the characters in a light way. Brian belongs to a men’s group and as expected this is about undermining patriarchy, not empowering men.
American Universities offer courses in men’s studies. Far from being the polar opposite of woman’s studies it instead reinforces the prevailing bien pensant attitudes.
“Set up your own private-sector firm then. Be the “right” sort of boss.”
We’ve seen the sort of ‘bosses’ socialists turn out to be though. Where’s she going to hide all the bodies?
@JuliaM – Bodies? Once the corpses have been ‘recycled’ in a sustainable, bio-degradable, Gaia empowering manner (e.g. fed to the pigs) it’ll all be groovy, right?
Good for you, LFAT!
Dumb Jon sent me over.
Fighting the culture wars is the only campaign that can give us, our country, our civilisation, and the very notion of justice any chance of long-term survival at all.
Anyone can urge a war for their home against terrorists and invading colonists, criminal gangs and out-and-out humanity-hating lunatics. It’s much more difficult for decent people to even imagine fighting against militants, multicultural migrants, community groups and those who care for the environment.
What a crying shame, therefore, that the official Conservatives aren’t following your lead and getting stuck in to the groups who are actively subverting any and every former source of serving and protecting authority in the land. Since Labour’s game of inviting any and every immigrant in the world to rub the Right’s noses in multiculturalism , the Tories should be defending the many people who have been harmed, and who will be harmed, by deracinating the country wholesale.
Unfortunately, Callmedave is only interested in the trappings of power; it seems, rather than exercising it for the national good. Pity. With people like you supporting him, he could be a national leader worth the name.
Set up your own private-sector firm then
You mean a cooperative… some people do. Sometimes they’re quite successful, like Babylon’s restaurant & 8th Day on Oxford Road or the bike coop in Rusholme. But it’s an economic impossibility for everyone to be successful in a capitalist society. Capitalism always has a looser.
There’s also the very large issue of getting access to the equipment and space needed to produce your product or provide your service.
Be the “right” sort of boss
The elected, recallable kind who only has as much power as absolutely has to be delegated to a specific individual (the rest being retained as collective decision-making or individual discretion, depending on what it is)? I know, it’s unimaginable for you.
We’ve seen the sort of ‘bosses’ socialists turn out to be though.
You have? Show* me.
*references to Cuba, China, North Korea, the USSR and its satellite states will be rejected, as the above are examples of state-capitalism (more commonly known as Stalinism).
@Kaze no Kae –
They never seem to be socialist after the revolution. Weird that. Kind of like the theory and practice don’t gel in some way.
I guess you’re some kind of Trotskist. He’s usually quoted a lot because he’s pretty untainted compared to Stalin. But then we must recall that he wired Zinoviev about striking Kronstadt sailors: “Shoot them like partridges.” No doubt, you’ll dismiss that and all the other killings he was involved with as Capitalist propaganda.
You’d think that a bright young thing would look back over the various attempts:
“Let’s see. We’ve had a few dozen revolutions to bring in the perfect society and every time it ends in elite rule and killing fields. And, we mustn’t forget, being on side doesn’t protect you unless you’re a yes man – revolutions always eat their own children. All in all given the a 100% failure rate so far, then the odds for the outcome of next one, (you know, the one you’re working towards), aren’t looking good.”
And by the way, back up this thread you were cross about LFAT commenting about Communists. Let’s recall that these are the people who never lost their loyalty to the USSR: they went through the famines, the Kruschev revelations, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Mao and never waivered. Even when your parents told them (via Tony Cliff) that Russia was “state capitalist” and not a “degenerated workers’ state” they never wavered. Yet now you’re defending one them.
Strange that!
and there’s me thinking that Trots had died out in the eighties. Bless! Kaz no Kae makes me feel young again.
Perhaps like otheryoung marxists like Alistair Darling or Peter Mandleson she will also wind up multiproperty owning members of the house of lords.
Imglad she is not the bad sort of communist thatkills people, I am not the bad sort of facist who wants to kill. Fascism is also not well understood.
Correction: Mandelson was never a “Marxist”. He was a member of a COMINTERN-affiliated organisation, didn’t even join it for political reasons and has since stated that the Stalinists ‘taught him something about party discipline’. To me, those sound like the words of a totalitarian with a fetish for bureaucratic centralism, not a “Marxist”.
“But it’s an economic impossibility for everyone to be successful in a capitalist society.”
It’s not the ‘capitalist society’ that makes that impossible, sweetie. It’s life. Don’t worry, you’ll understand when you are more mature and have seen a bit more of it.
“We’ve seen the sort of ‘bosses’ socialists turn out to be though.
You have? Show* me.
*references to Cuba, China, North Korea, the USSR and its satellite states will be rejected…”
Translation: ‘Give me an example, but not one that I can’t reject by claiming it’s not a ‘real’ socialist. What? That worked when I was five, why won’t it work now..?’
Heh! Young feminist Trots are soooo predictable…
Kaze no Kae – are you here all week? This is some of the funniest stuff for a long time.
Your defence of Mandelson, for example – “he’s not *that* kind of Communist hypocrite”. Classic.
There’s also the very large issue of getting access to the equipment and space needed to produce your product or provide your service.
Right … so there is a wonderful system out there, which would work perfectly, except that everyone else makes it impossible for you. Odd, that – it’s never the fault of the socialists when something they run fails, is it?
But it’s an economic impossibility for everyone to be successful in a capitalist society. Capitalism always has a looser.
No, Capitalism requires that anyone can fail, not that some must fail. Nor does it require that once someone has failed, they may not try again.
Better to be able to succeed or fail on your merits, than to be prevented from ever really succeeding in order that none may ever fail.
Capitalism can be quite tight, you know. Most other systems are looser, in fact!
The elected, recallable kind [of boss] who only has as much power as absolutely has to be delegated to a specific individual (the rest being retained as collective decision-making or individual discretion, depending on what it is)?
Right, so someone is going to invest their life savings, put their house (etc) on the line, to set up a new business in which they can be voted out the moment it turns a profit? Who would start such a business?
Simple answer; no-one. The result; no new entrants, and a market consisting of just the established players, in whose hands power would concentrate, and where exactly the sort of bosses that you fear could accumulate.
Equally, you seem to be characterising me as the sort of boss who holds on to every decision, consults no-one, and keeps everything back from the minions who I summon to do my bidding. You don’t know me; you are not qualified to make that assumption.
You are also conflating the style of management with the pattern of distribution of the proceeds of the business, which does rather suggest that running a business would be a novel experience for you. As I said earlier, try it first; then criticise us if you think we’re getting it wrong.
I know, it’s unimaginable for you.
You know this, how exactly?
PS:
You mean a cooperative…
No, you mean a “partnership”. Did you think that was a new thing? They’ve been around for ages … much longer than these new-fangled joint-stock company things. They are, in fact, the earliest from of Capitalism, and pre-date socialism by a century or two…
Cambodia, Venezuala, Vietnam?
Cambodia is a great example because your communist fellows destroyed a society (‘year zero’) in an attempt to found a socialist paradise from scratch without any of the bourgeois capitalist or feudal artifacts of ownership, business or property. And we know how well that turned out.
TDK
Good comment. I wonder why Kaze no Kae ignored it?
I guess you’re some kind of Trotskist. He’s usually quoted a lot because he’s pretty untainted compared to Stalin. But then we must recall that he wired Zinoviev about striking Kronstadt sailors: “Shoot them like partridges.” No doubt, you’ll dismiss that and all the other killings he was involved with as Capitalist propaganda.
Nope, I have no illusions about Trotsky, nor do I consider myself a Trotskyist, a Leninist, a Marxist or an anyone-else-ist, because I don’t consider myself as having inherited my ideology from a succession of long-dead writers but rather developed it in a process of experience, observation, contemplation, and debate. For the record, most of those who do describe themselves as Trotskyists don’t presume to defend his actions at Krondstadt or some of his other condemnable actions in the aftermath of the October Revolution, but merely place themselves in the tradition of the Bolshevik Left Opposition to Stalin and the Fourth International, commonly known as Trotskyism because it’s best-known theoretician was Trotsky (several years after Krondstadt and the Russian Civil War, in which time his ideas seemed to have changed considerably)
And by the way, back up this thread you were cross about LFAT commenting about Communists. Let’s recall that these are the people who never lost their loyalty to the USSR: they went through the famines, the Kruschev revelations, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Mao and never waivered. Even when your parents told them (via Tony Cliff) that Russia was “state capitalist” and not a “degenerated workers’ state” they never wavered. Yet now you’re defending one them.
I’m going to assume you’re referring to the CPGB (which Cat Rylance is not a member of by the way, despite being the chair of a branch of the student organisation associated with it – that pluralism being just one example of how much it’s changed since the breakup of the COMINTERN) – the modern CPGB is effectively a completely different organisation to the CPGB of the COMINTERN era, and now explicitly denounces the USSR (and the other states associated with it) as well as its own doctrine, activities and lack of internal democracy at the time.
It’s not the ‘capitalist society’ that makes that impossible, sweetie. It’s life. Don’t worry, you’ll understand when you are more mature and have seen a bit more of it.
Nope, it’s capitalism. Capitalism is based on people screwing one another over to get ahead (surely even you can’t dispute that?) – and because it has winners, in an economy of finite resources it must also have losers.
Translation: ‘Give me an example, but not one that I can’t reject by claiming it’s not a ‘real’ socialist. What? That worked when I was five, why won’t it work now..?’
If I told you my name meant immortality, would you think I was immortal?
Your defence of Mandelson, for example – “he’s not *that* kind of Communist hypocrite”. Classic.
Defence? I was disowning him.
Odd, that – it’s never the fault of the socialists when something they run fails, is it?
Sure it is, and we learn from our mistakes. Like attempting to change capitalism from within, for example – we learnt that it’s an insurmountable task, what with the means of production being controlled by the enemy.
No, Capitalism requires that anyone can fail, not that some must fail. Nor does it require that once someone has failed, they may not try again.
A system in which 10% of the population control 56% of the wealth will leave the other 90% with 44%. Basic mathematics. Capitalism always has a loser, and generally many, many more losers than it does winners
Capitalism can be quite tight, you know. Most other systems are looser, in fact!
Clever. Can’t beat his logic? Attack his spelling instead!
Right, so someone is going to invest their life savings, put their house (etc) on the line, to set up a new business in which they can be voted out the moment it turns a profit? Who would start such a business?
You’re thinking like a capitalist. In a socialist society, nobody need take any significant individual risk because everyone contributes.
Equally, you seem to be characterising me as the sort of boss who holds on to every decision, consults no-one, and keeps everything back from the minions who I summon to do my bidding
No, I’m ‘characterising’ you as someone who opposes the idea of workplace democracy, which you’ve admitted.
You are also conflating the style of management with the pattern of distribution of the proceeds of the business
Not conflating, merely pointing out the relation between the two.
Cambodia, Venezuala, Vietnam?
Sorry, I missed Cambodia. I don’t know enough about post-war Vietnam to comment. What problem do you have with the BR of Venezuela? (RCTV was directly involved in a military-corporate coup by the way, it reached the end of its previous contract before it went off the air, and the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum used for telecommunications are a finite public resource to be used as the public see fit)
Karen: Because I didn’t see it.
For a more successful example of the sort of coup RCTV participated in, see Pinochet’s Chile.
“It’s not the ‘capitalist society’ that makes that impossible, sweetie. It’s life. Don’t worry, you’ll understand when you are more mature and have seen a bit more of it.
Nope, it’s capitalism. Capitalism is based on people screwing one another over to get ahead..”
Actually, that too is life. Heard of Darwin?
“You’re thinking like a capitalist. In a socialist society, nobody need take any significant individual risk because everyone contributes.”
Really? How, then, do you get round that tricky problem of human nature?
A system in which 10% of the population control 56% of the wealth will leave the other 90% with 44%.
Not basic maths, but a basic zero sum fallacy – typical of the left.
Can’t beat his logic? Attack his spelling instead!
Oh chill out and stop being precious. You’re on an internet forum, not in the House of Commons. We will all make typos from time to time (me included) and when we do, we have to take the laughter on the chin.
In a socialist society, nobody need take any significant individual risk because everyone contributes.
Except that again and again, socialist societies demonstrate that everyone expects everyone else to contribute. So no-one does, and there are no returns for the community to share.
I’m ‘characterising’ you as someone who opposes the idea of workplace democracy, which you’ve admitted.
No I haven’t, and no I don’t. You don’t work for me (so far as I know), and you don’t know me. You are assuming that it is impossible for me to run my firm in a way that takes account of the views, needs and suggestions of my staff, simply because I own the firm. You wrongly accuse me of being unable to think in any way other than the one to which I am accustomed, but you demonstrate that precise lack of intellectual flexibility yourself, in your own comments.
Capitalism is based on people screwing one another over to get ahead (surely even you can’t dispute that?) – and because it has winners, in an economy of finite resources it must also have losers.
Well, there’s the obvious point that Capitalist societies have winners and losers, but socialist societies have rulers and losers.
You’re also back to the zero sum fallacy.
But more seriously, I’ve been “doing” Capitalism for nearly 20 years now, and have consistently found that co-operating with clients and suppliers to mutual benefit gives the best results for all of us. Yes, we compete with others who offer the same services as us, and sometimes we lose a client or a job. But one loss does not condemn us forever as “losers”; we try again. Nor does the fact of competition with some other firms necessitate that we screw everyone in sight; it simply means that we try to show why we are the best for a task.
You’re just hurling abuse at a system you don’t understand, and (I can tell you) it’s not making you look at all clever or insightful.
I suspect it’s much more of a power-law distribution. You see the same thing again and again, nowhere more clearly than on that communitarian behemoth of co-operation that is Wikipedia. While many tens of thousands may contribute, the top contributors will number in their hundreds and do 90% of the work. This is a good book on the phenomenon.
This has consequences for what you consider to be an ‘average’ and does describe how wealth is distributed in our societies fairly well.
Actually, that too is life. Heard of Darwin?
Yes, and I’m quite a fan of his actually, but civilisation is the transcendance of natural selection. Evolution happens all the time of course, but Human beings are at the top of the food chain precisely because we learnt to cooperate. Survival of the fittest is obselete, something which happens in the animal kingdom but which sentient beings need not be subject to. I know the doctrine of capitalism is that only the strong survive, but all that shows is that capitalism is uncivilised.
Really? How, then, do you get round that tricky problem of human nature?
See above – cooperation is human nature.
Except that again and again, socialist societies demonstrate that everyone expects everyone else to contribute. So no-one does, and there are no returns for the community to share.
That’s rediculous. Revolutionary northeast Spain prospered (for as long as it lasted…) precisely because everyone did their bit. And in the Paris Commune people were a bit pre-occupied with being under siege, so admittedly not a lot of goods got produced, but everyone contributed to the defence and the revolution. What socialist societies are you referring to?
No I haven’t, and no I don’t.
I quote: “Right, so someone is going to invest their life savings, put their house (etc) on the line, to set up a new business in which they can be voted out the moment it turns a profit?”
You are assuming that it is impossible for me to run my firm in a way that takes account of the views, needs and suggestions of my staff, simply because I own the firm
No, I’m assuming that it is impossible for you to be constitutionally bound in your actions as ‘the boss’ by the democratic will of your workers. Do you want to tell me otherwise?
Well, there’s the obvious point that Capitalist societies have winners and losers, but socialist societies have rulers and losers.
You obviously have no idea what socialism is. I suggest you do some reading. Or pay a visit to Chiapas and ask people what they think about rulers.
You’re just hurling abuse at a system you don’t understand, and (I can tell you) it’s not making you look at all clever or insightful
Ironic.
What socialist societies are you referring to?
Well, you list two that did not survive over the long term, although I’ll grant you that Paris faced other problems. If you want others, then I seem to recall that there were once a number of socialist states to the East of us? Or how about ourselves in the 1970s…?
As regards your 11:52 comments, let me enlighten you. My ownership of my business was financed by a bank loan that was secured on my house. If the business had failed, the bank would have taken my house away and left me and my family with nowhere to live. My staff, on the other hand, would have received a redundancy payment. That imbalance had two effects.
First, it meant that I made damn sure the business did not fail. There is a motivation that arises from the fear of failure, which propels people to make a successful business. Remove the link between the success & failure of the business and success or failure for the owner, and you remove that motivation. The result is then the stagnation that is amply exhibited in socialist societies.
Second, if one of my staff had suggested something which (in my opinion) would have destroyed the business, then yes – I would have overruled that suggestion. It is, after all, my business on which my livelihood depends in a way that theirs does not. However, that does not mean that I never listened; most of my staffs’ suggestions are good ones, and I am keen to let them run with them as it motivates them, improves the business for me, and may fund my next round of pay rises.
But when I say no to a suggestion, you seem to think that I am preventing that employee from ever doing that. I am not; I am simply saying that s/he may not do it with my money. They remain wholly free to raise their own funds, set up their own business, and try out their idea with their own money. Some have indeed done exactly that, and I say “good for them” and wish them good luck.
Nor do I reserve ownership of the business to myself. My firm is a partnership, and there are now more partners who have joined since me than joined before me. Those staff who have a similar approach to the business, and who are willing to raise the same finance as I raised, have been invited to join me.
It’s an infectious idea; it’s called freedom. I am free to use my time and my money as I see fit, and so is everyone else. In that respect, we are all genuinely equal.
You obviously have no idea what socialism is.
My comments come not from a lack of knowledge, but from an excess of observation.
@Kaze no Kae – “Survival of the fittest is obselete, something which happens in the animal kingdom but which sentient beings need not be subject to.”
I’m afraid you are dreaming. Only in some parallel universe where intelligent life evolved from social insects like bees or ants will socialism ever ‘work’.
Humans evolved from primates. Do the maths.
Humans succeed because we *can* form communities to work together where it suits out individual interests to do so, often defined by competition with other groups with whom we have less in common with or and/or whose interests compete with ours. Right now, it suits people to pay taxes for protection from crime and foreign threat so we do that rather than screw up our own lives and do stuff ourselves. People work in companies because that way of *organising* individual effort has proven to be remarkably resilient and effective even with it’s manifest defects. If forming a circus and wearing clown shoes to work offers the chance of making more money in the morning, firms will jump at it and staff too, provided they share in the reward for looking silly at work.
More that that, capitalism isn’t a system, as such. It’s the name we’ve given to our generation’s form of *trade* which is at least as old as we are. That’s a strength – it’s a system in that it is, rules notwithstanding, the consequence of our trade – it is emergent and thus highly vulnerable to disturbance both positive (bubble) and negative (bust!) but is also therefore highly adaptable and self-organises to survive. Socialism or communism can’t do that as it’s about political rules that people have to decide on. If they can’t imagine it, it can’t happen.
I’ve done business in bits of Europe that had a touch of that mindset and people just hate it – it holds them back, stops them creating jobs and is just so much slower than society today. In the time it took for a firm I know of in Germany to get permission to higher a school leaver, Google had gone from nothing to globally dominant in search. See the speed involved there? If Google had to get a permit to take on interns, we’d all still be using Yahoo and be damn grateful for it!
Well, you list two that did not survive over the long term, although I’ll grant you that Paris faced other problems.
As did Aragon/Catalonia.
If you want others, then I seem to recall that there were once a number of socialist states to the East of us?
State-capitalist. That’s basically where the state is effectively a corporation (or vice versa).
Or how about ourselves in the 1970s…?
Social-democratic at best. Okay there was nationalised transport (but still paid-for), telecommunications, utilities (but again, still paid-for), etc. But there was no government support for grassroots-led proletarian takeovers of industry, nor was there any workers’ control in the nationalised industries, there was no mass devolution of power, the House of Lords continued to exist, there was no attempt to create a free media (by which I mean public access to printing presses etc), the borders remained restricted and legal persecution of migrants continued, there was no attempt to transform the police force or military into democratic militia, etc etc etc – corporate hegemony remained intact, basically.
My ownership of my business was financed by a bank loan that was secured on my house. If the business had failed, the bank would have taken my house away and left me and my family with nowhere to live
And how did your family feel about you putting their welfare at risk like that?
Humans succeed because we *can* form communities to work together where it suits out individual interests to do so
You might get a shock when you discover it suits the individual interests of the vast majority of people not only to work together in the running of society but to work together to bring down the oligarchy you love so much in order to do so.
Socialism or communism can’t do that as it’s about political rules that people have to decide on. If they can’t imagine it, it can’t happen.
Who can imagine how to improve something better than the people who work with it? Certainly not ‘the invisible hand of the market’, that’s for sure.
No but the people within that market can and do. Whether it’s the designer or engineer who know’s how to do something better and founds a rival company or the self-employed cabbee with a novel route-planning technique. Either are free to try, free to succeed or free to fail. A controlled system would require legislation to specifically allow the activity. In Germany, and this was WEST (capitalist) Germany, a partner of mine wanted to employ a trainee in his video games store. This was 2000/2001 so video games were nothing new. He couldnt do it. Why? Well the system only permitted employment of trainees in ‘electronics shops’ which was defined as selling 50% or more of ‘brown goods’ (televisions, radios, VCRs, DVDs etc). To get that answer, via the efficient German bureaucracy took six months.
The entrepreneurial wealth-creators there were praying (in vain, natch!) for a Thatcherite deliverance from the state. The lack of freedom to innovate, to experiment, to succeed and take reward and to fail and lose was actually demonstrably making it harder for people to become their own boss, to experiment with corporate structures and decision making and ultimately to improve the lot of their people.
Well June this shows the foolishnes of so much that passes for Feminism today. Not least because the men in power were the ones who passes all the acts etc. that supported women’s rights. Among the many things not noted is that universal male voting only preceeeded female suffrage by a couple of decades. For most of the history you refer to a very few men and a few equally priviliged women lorded over the rest of the population male and female both. Such a historical nonsense you spout is hardly an arguement not to be concerned about real problems in the here and now. Should we ignore the plight of Ethiopians today because for much of their history they were an empire over many of their neighbours.
@ June” just goes to show how little the welfare of men, of boys, of fathers and of families really means to you. Your vicious attacks on the prospect of men simply having discussions with each other demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt how divorced you are from a real �equality� and equal rights agenda and how divorced you are from any sense of promoting happiness and well-being. How very sad.”
Perhaps they show just as much sincerity in promoting the interests of men, as men did about promoting the interests of women for centuries.
It isn’t the feminists who have a problem now, it’s you lot, who still seem to think you have a right to rule the world, and it should be all about you.
It’s not sad, LFAT – it’s hypocritical
Whether it’s the designer or engineer who know’s how to do something better and founds a rival company or the self-employed cabbee with a novel route-planning technique
If two engineers working against each other can design a bridge, it stands to reason that two engineers cooperating with each other – and with construction workers, miners & quarry workers, metal workers, truckers, etc etc, none of whom have a profit motive but simply want to get the bridge built – can design a better bridge. Simple, really.
For most of the history you refer to a very few men and a few equally priviliged women lorded over the rest of the population male and female both
Aristocratic women were certainly less oppressed relative to peasant women (theoretically anyway, although peasant communities and certainly in later centuries working class communities were often more liberated in their attitude to women’s rights than the establishment, so you could say they were often equally oppressed but in either social freedom or economics rather than both), but they were still generally considered the ‘property’ of the men in their lives (either their fathers or their husbands) and expected to act as such.
State-capitalist…..Social-democratic at best.
Right, so everywhere that socialism has been tried, it has failed, but that is because they didn’t go far enough? They didn’t do it well enough?
Funny how that eventually happens every single time…!
And how did your family feel about you putting their welfare at risk like that?
So now as well as having the barefaced cheek to write about how I treat my staff, despite never having met me, you feel able to suggest that I do not care for my family??
Classic….
As for your bridge example, the proper comparison is between telling two engineers “Work tegether, give me a bridge” and telling then each “If you want to, you can design me a bridge. I’ll choose the best one”. History teaches us again and again that the latter results in the best bridge.
If everyone was like the two of us (and most other contributors here), i.e. committed to social justice and fairness and determined to help improve the lot of the society in which we live, then socialism could work. The simple fact is that they are not. Many are selfish. Many are unpleasant. Rather than order them to be nice, Capitalism establishes a fair system that still works despite their nature, and manages to direct and use their effort where it can do benefit for the whole society.
You focus on the minority who do not do well in a Capitalist system; good for you, it is right that we help them. But the fact that any attempt to impose your remedy would inflict far more harm has been proven in practice again and again.
The simple fact is, socialism sems appealing but doesn’t work. Capitalism seems unappealing, but works.
Communists who claim not to support Stalin or Mao miss the point. Before Lenin even took power, plenty of people predicted that Communism would inevitably lead to atrocity. The reason they were able to make that prediction is that the seeds of atrocity are sown in the ideology itself. Atrocities didn’t occur despite Communism; they happened because of it. It would be easy to disprove this if it weren’t true: just point out the Communist state which isn’t a waking nightmare for its inhabitants. The point is that you don’t have to support Stalin when you’re supporting the introduction of a system that inevitably leads to Stalin. And, if you succeed in introducing that system, your eventual protestations to the victims that you had no idea what was coming will sound especially weak in the light of the repeated lessons you refused to learn from history and the repeated warnings you dismissed as slander.
Right, so everywhere that socialism has been tried, it has failed, but that is because they didn’t go far enough? They didn’t do it well enough?
The point was it hasn’t been tried.
you feel able to suggest that I do not care for my family?
Given that you already told me you put their home at risk in order to start your business, yes I do.
As for your bridge example, the proper comparison is between telling two engineers “Work tegether, give me a bridge” and telling then each “If you want to, you can design me a bridge. I’ll choose the best one”.
Not really, because socialism is about collective decision-making, the engineers aren’t being told to build a bridge.
It would be easy to disprove this if it weren’t true: just point out the Communist state which isn’t a waking nightmare for its inhabitants
That’s like telling me to prove planets aren’t exclusive to our galaxy by taking you to visit a planet in another galaxy.
@Kaze no Kae – “Humans succeed because we *can* form communities to work together where it suits out individual interests to do so
You might get a shock when you discover it suits the individual interests of the vast majority of people not only to work together in the running of society but to work together to bring down the oligarchy you love so much in order to do so.”
Hmm, remind me again. Just how long have the socialists been waiting for ‘the masses’ to see the light and rise up, throwing off their chains?
Rather a long time, I seem to recall. Does that tell you something?
Well, no. Because, in your response to patently (“And how did your family feel about you putting their welfare at risk like that?”), you show yourself clearly. You are an egotist. If other people don’t think like you do, well, they are just inferior species.
@Kaze no Kae – “Not really, because socialism is about collective decision-making, the engineers aren’t being told to build a bridge.”
In the type of society you envisage, sweetie, there’d be no bridges. There’d just be two groups of people, staring across at each other, wondering who put the river there…
Kaze no Kae has now fallen into a logical fallacy.
In her/his view, any left-wing country that has failed its citizens was, by definition, not socialist. Any Capitalist country is (by definition) failing some of its citizens, or will do so in time.
Ergo, socialism has always been successful and has never failed, because the countries that failed were not socialist and the countries that were not socialist have failed (or will fail). Sadly for the argument, the set of [socialist countries that have not failed], i.e. the remainder after removing all Capitalist countries and all failed left-wing countries, is the null set.
A triumph, therefore, of hope over experience.
—
Then, with Kaze no Kae’s reaction to the news that (horrors) I took a calculated commercial risk, we see the true nature of the socialist. I disagree with him/her as to politics, therefore I am morally reprehensible. It is but a short step from there to saying that my freedom should be curtailed in my own interests, to protect me and my family from my misguided choices.
And there, freedom dies and tyranny is born.
In her/his view, any left-wing country that has failed its citizens was, by definition, not socialist.
No, I’m stating that socialism objectively is one thing and state-capitalism objectively is another. It would seem the interviewees here agree on that point, by the way.
I don’t deny that socialism is fallible, and I would readily admit the failings of any genuine socialist society – the Spanish revolutionaries had far too much trust in the COMINTERN, for example, and they paid the price for it (although that said, at that time nobody outside the USSR knew its true nature, all they had to go on was the word of Fourth Internationalists vs the word of the COMINTERN).
I disagree with him/her as to politics, therefore I am morally reprehensible
No, you unilaterally risked the welfare of your family, therefore are morally reprehensible (feel free to correct me if it was a collective decision and your kids were all old enough to fully understand the risks before they consented)
Hmm, remind me again. Just how long have the socialists been waiting for ‘the masses’ to see the light and rise up, throwing off their chains?
Rather a long time, I seem to recall. Does that tell you something?
You do see intermittent sparks of resistance. It often doesn’t catch on because of this thing called cultural hegemony (social conditioning which causes people to become disillusioned about their own power to effect change, accept the status quo as a fact of life, reject alternatives without proper consideration, etc etc)
you [...] are morally reprehensible
Gosh. It must be so wonderful, to have such powers of insight as to be able to assess and ex post facto weigh up for another the merits of a decision for them, and to realise on their behalf what would be the better choice for them.
Life is so unfair, that this ability is granted only to socialists, and denied to those that believe in personal freedom and responsibility.
I realise now, I must acknowledge the true path, and reverse my morally reprehensible decision. I shall, tomorrow morning, return to the job that I held before, and sack the 30 people who I now employ. I am sure that they will understand.
On no – wait! I’ve just realised!
If the employer who used to employ me reaches the same conclusion, there will be no job for me to go back to! And so on, leaving no private-sector jobs at all!
I’ll just have to take a State job. Maybe I could be the one to announce each month that unemployment has ended and that everyone has a useful and fulfilling job?
Or could I be the chief CRB-checker? Responsible for CRB-checking my staff, who CRB-check the staff of the Criminal Records Bureau?
Then, we could know that the CRB staff were totally incorruptible, and could employ enough of them to CRB-check everyone. Then, having solved unemployment, we could solve crime as well!
That’s handy because that’s the fundamental failure of all professed-socialist/communist states on Earth to date: a fundamental inability to comprehend that a system created by and consciously operated by humans subject to (irational) drives, wants and desired leading to unforeseen consequences.
Marxism, at it’s root, fails to understand that people are basically just animals. We have wants and needs, desires and impulses and (this is also where ‘economics’ per se reveals itself as ‘the dismal science) don’t usually, if ever, act as perfectly rational consumers. Not only does Marxism ignore the role of greed in the nature of humanity but it also ignores the importance of the desire to improve one’s lot, to invent or even to get rich in driving forward innovation.
The dismal record of the USSR on Intellectual Property is directly, DIRECTLY, related to it’s inability to enjoy the techno-economic boom of the personal computer era which multiplied western wealth (and weapons efficacy – the so-called ‘force multiplier’) to the extent that we could just about afford to bankrupt the USSR in a nuclear arms race. The lack of reward for innovation and invention, the pig-headed belief that everything belonged to the state as an embodiment of the people, ensured that the Soviet Union could not compete in terms of output. Ironically, I’d also argue that today we in the West are repeating that mistake over interpreting copyright online but that’s a different whinge!
That’s handy because that’s the fundamental failure of all professed-socialist/communist states on Earth to date
Well I’m glad you had the good grace to say ‘professed’. And that’s just it. There have been plenty of states which professed to be socialist… but they weren’t. So it makes no sense to judge socialism by their failures and wrongdoings.
Marxism, at it’s root, fails to understand that people are basically just animals. We have wants and needs, desires and impulses and (this is also where ‘economics’ per se reveals itself as ‘the dismal science) don’t usually, if ever, act as perfectly rational consumers. Not only does Marxism ignore the role of greed in the nature of humanity but it also ignores the importance of the desire to improve one’s lot, to invent or even to get rich in driving forward innovation.
Actually, the Marxist dialectic is all about analysing those wants and needs, desires and impulses and their effect on the course of history.
Intellectual Property
Open-source software. There’s a lot of it out there, and in my experience if there’s lots of commercial options and lots of open-source options then the best one is likely to be open-source.
Open Source is a case in point. I am, I must confess, a LAMP developer, working with Linux, Apache, PHP and MYSQL – the open-source ’stack’ that makes up around 90% of the world’s web servers. And where did the amazing thing grow up? Oh bugger me it was the Capitalist West while the Soviet Union had collapsed into the weird kleptocracy we see today. It grew up because the West recognised intellectual property which gave the programmers the individual freedom to choose to give their work away for free. And in doing so, most of the core participants (the few hundred who did the bulk of the work) became relatively rich as they exploited their valuable knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the systems that now run everything from your washing machine to this website to your Sky + box via various weapons guidance systems and nuclear computers!
No system of committees will ever, ever, do something like that since it would require a conscious decision to give up power in a way that a coder choosing to give away their code isn’t (psychologically speaking) and if you think differently then you need to spend more time on committees until you realise what they make people become!
Marxism is at its best when it is at its most analytical. It is at its worst where it becomes prescriptive because it extrapolates out it’s flawed model into the future magnifying the effects of flaws. It is also clearly scientific in the strict Newtonian sense that was orthodox at the time – I do wonder what Marx would’ve written if he’d been born a hundred years later and the certainties of physics he sought to apply had been kicked askew by the arrival of quantum theory?
Where the open source movement started is irrelevant. The point is that it completely discredits the idea that financial reward is a prerequisite for innovation.
It’s ok – don’t feel under any pressure to actually read the comments you’re responding to.
In any case, you’re assuming that the existence of some innovators who are (you say) willing to innovate without financial reward implies that all innovators are, or (at least) that we do not need or want the innovations of differently-motivated innovators. Logic isn’t your forte, is it?
@June – no, it’s precisely the feminazis with the problems and the hangups and they take their own gender confusion out on men. Still, we have broad shoulders.