For information about how to use this forum please check out forum help and policies.
Quote
kleermaker
We're talking about philosophy and history here, Sway, thanks to Mick Jagger, so don't worry.
Quote
SwayStonesQuote
kleermaker
We're talking about philosophy and history here, Sway, thanks to Mick Jagger, so don't worry.
Do you mean you don't take me seriously,kleermaker ?
Quote
proudmary
We're talking about philosophy and history here, Sway, thanks to Mick Jagger, so don't worry.
Can I get some credit too, please?
capitalism and anarchism and mafia state (Russia)
Anarchism is all about free will and there is nothing so opposite to the idea than Putin's Russia. Mafia that's it, you're right
Quote
dcba
"Trotskism, I doubt if anyone knows what it really means"
Easy: trotskists think their mentor was a clean man while Stalin was the horrible butcher of the Russian people. Trotski fled URSS in 1929 so he had no involvement in the bloodbath that happened under Stalin's reignn (the trails the Gulag).
That's true but trotskists forget Leon had thousands of people killed between 1918 and 1920...
Quote
kleermaker
It wasn't the class of aristocracy but that of the bourgeoisie and the reason of its growing political power had an economical background that had its roots in a developing new economic system instead of feudalism: capitalism.
Quote
lsbzQuote
kleermaker
It wasn't the class of aristocracy but that of the bourgeoisie and the reason of its growing political power had an economical background that had its roots in a developing new economic system instead of feudalism: capitalism.
The French aristocracy regarded itself as pro-revolutionairy for a great deal, and even Louis XVI had sympathy for the revolution. They underestimated the force of it, but I was told that some of the aristocrats were important industrialists as well. The conception of the French revolution as a classical Marxist class struggle has long been dismissed by scholars. It was a meritocratic, capitalist revolution foremost and feudalism did not exist in France much at that time anymore. Turgot wanted to abolish some remains of it in 1776 but his edicts were met with much resistance, including of a large part of the common people.
"In 1954, Alfred Cobban used his inaugural lecture as Professor of French History at the University of London to attack what he called the "social interpretation" of the French Revolution. The lecture was later published as "The Myth of the French Revolution", but his seminal work arguing this point was The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution (1963). The main point he made was that feudalism had long since disappeared in France; that the Revolution did not transform French society, and that it was principally a political revolution, not a social one as Lefebvre and others insisted."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Quote
kleermaker
But I consider the FR just like the other bourgeois liberal revolutions all over Europe as the political result of a shift from mainly feudal power relationships and a dominant feudal economic system to bourgeois liberal power relationships and a dominant capitalist economic system...
Quote
kleermaker
(as a result of which socialism came into being, because a working class had come into being as a result of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution).
Quote
lsbzQuote
kleermaker
But I consider the FR just like the other bourgeois liberal revolutions all over Europe as the political result of a shift from mainly feudal power relationships and a dominant feudal economic system to bourgeois liberal power relationships and a dominant capitalist economic system...
I don't really think so. Before the revolution there was capitalism and after it was capitalism; only the the power over the system changed, because more economic flexibility was needed. I think that it is very telling that the common people were opposed to Turgot ('guerre des Farines'). They did not want to lose their protectionistic priviledges; they've always been small capitalists themselves.
Well, that's exactly what I was saying(!): "But I consider the FR just like the other bourgeois liberal revolutions all over Europe as the political result of a shift from mainly feudal power relationships and a dominant feudal economic system to bourgeois liberal power relationships and a dominant capitalist economic system..."Quote
kleermaker
(as a result of which socialism came into being, because a working class had come into being as a result of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution).
Socialism was a real step forward, but the revolution in many respects wasn't. The most enlightened idea's often have come from the aristocrats, and that's only logical.
Quote
kleermaker
The very reason why the Russian 'socialist' revolution failed was the fact that feudal/capitalist (especially feudal) economical structures were still dominant in Russia and that not any shift from the feudal/capitalist economical system to any socialist economic system had taken place at all. So the socialist political revolution in Russia was doomed to fail from the very beginning on, different from the liberal/bourgeois political revolutions in Europe. The latter could be based on a dominant liberal/bourgeois economical system (capitalism), while the socialist political revolution in Russia had no (socialist) economical basis at all. So it couldn't but fail in the end. And so it did, as we all know.
Quote
lsbzQuote
kleermaker
The very reason why the Russian 'socialist' revolution failed was the fact that feudal/capitalist (especially feudal) economical structures were still dominant in Russia and that not any shift from the feudal/capitalist economical system to any socialist economic system had taken place at all. So the socialist political revolution in Russia was doomed to fail from the very beginning on, different from the liberal/bourgeois political revolutions in Europe. The latter could be based on a dominant liberal/bourgeois economical system (capitalism), while the socialist political revolution in Russia had no (socialist) economical basis at all. So it couldn't but fail in the end. And so it did, as we all know.
Again, at the time of the French revolution feudalism did not even exist in France anymore. There were, wat are sometimes called, "feudal taxes", but the feudal system was of the Middle Ages and before. As a direct result of the revolution, France caused twenty years (1795-1815) of Napoleonic wars in Europe. For many commomon men, that would have meant joining the army, and an existence that in many respects would not have been better than before the revolution.
Also, Russian communism was much different from the European socialist political influences that we have in Europe today.
Quote
kleermakerThat's exactly what I said in my former posts.Quote
lsbz
<Again, at the time of the French revolution feudalism did not even exist in France anymore.>
Quote
kleermaker
It wasn't the class of aristocracy but that of the bourgeoisie and the reason of its growing political power had an economical background that had its roots in a developing new economic system instead of feudalism: capitalism.
Quote
kleermaker
As for Russian communism I argued that it never existed at all because the economic system was still feudal/capitalist when the political Russian Revolution took place. It succeeded in military terms, but it failed in political and certainly in economical terms.
Quote
kleermaker
The socialist influences we have today in Europe are actually not socialist but social democratic.
Quote
lsbzQuote
kleermaker
The socialist influences we have today in Europe are actually not socialist but social democratic.
A semantical matter.
Capitalism supposes that everyone has equal economical chances to earn money, and that has never been true.
Quote
kleermaker
I said enough about social democracy: it's based and it accepts and supports capitalism.
Quote
lsbzQuote
kleermaker
I said enough about social democracy: it's based and it accepts and supports capitalism.
I regard socialism and capitalism as two very different ideologies that don't really have anything to do with eachother. In real life, there is a mix between the two, but presently the capitalist influences in my opinion are much to strong. Real socialistically motivated politicians don't accept that. The balance should be in favor of socialism mostly, and I think that many Western societies have been moving slowly in that direction for the past century.
Democracy is a different topic alltogether. To my knowledge, most or all socialist political parties are democratic by definition. Assuming socialists to have communist sympathies is a cheap exaggerating discussion technique.
Quote
kleermaker
The problem is that 'communism' generally is associated with the former Soviet Union and China, but neither the SU nor China can be considered as communist or socialist.
Quote
kleermaker
The very reason why the Russian 'socialist' revolution failed was the fact that feudal/capitalist (especially feudal) economical structures were still dominant in Russia and that not any shift from the feudal/capitalist economical system to any socialist economic system had taken place at all. So the socialist political revolution in Russia was doomed to fail from the very beginning on, different from the liberal/bourgeois political revolutions in Europe. The latter could be based on a dominant liberal/bourgeois economical system (capitalism), while the socialist political revolution in Russia had no (socialist) economical basis at all. So it couldn't but fail in the end. And so it did, as we all know.