Would socialism/communism really help racial minorites

[Jerrymander]

Agreed. My theory is that capitalism is pretty much impossible to get rid of, in practice. Like money, police, and political parties.

Not only is it going to be disastrously unworkable, as Lenin discovered, but even if you did try to make it work, people would still immediately create a black market on capitalist principles.

Isn't capitalism a recent development in history? Medieval Europe was feudalist.

 

[shuttlt]

Isn't capitalism a recent development in history? Medieval Europe was feudalist.

It strikes me that the easiest way to get rid of capitalism is to get rid of the assumption that property ownership will be respected or protected by the state. At that point you are back to something more like feudalism.

 

[theprestige]

Isn't capitalism a recent development in history? Medieval Europe was feudalist.

Medieval Europe was a lot of things. The Swiss had communes. And many people had personal property. There are also other societies where individuals could own land, for example, and contract with laborers to work it or with tenants to rent it.

 

[shuttlt]

Isn't the truest answer that any authoritarian regime can solve the problems of minorities if it chooses. The question is, would it choose to solve the problem, and would it choose to do it in a way we'd like. Communists seem to me to be more interested in groups rather than individuals. From an individualist standpoint, I suspect their solutions would not be ours.

 

[lomiller]

Well.

Capitalism is an economic system. It's based on two simple ideas: Private property, and the property owner's right to profit from the use of their property.

The Feudal System is based on those two principles. Capitalism needs more.

There seems to be a truism that abolishing captialism will lead to be end of racism. But if we had a system of worker co-ops or were property is communally owned, can't white people still oppress (inadvertently or not) black people by being the majority?

As many have suggested, I don’t see this as a truism, even if there are some people that incorrectly link the two.

IMO there is widespread conflation of racism with the symptoms and consequences of racism. Market economies are fundamentally decision making engines for where resources get allocated. As with any such engine the GIGO principle applies.

The mistake is in thinking the output is the racism, not the input that triggered that result. This isn’t just a one sided mistake though, there are MANY people who think they are not racist simply because they don’t use the word ******, even though they think it’s “reasonable” that the imbalance that can be produced by marker economies is due to one “race” being smarter or more capable than another.

 

[shuttlt]

The Feudal System is based on those two principles. Capitalism needs more.

I'm really not sure that property rights are a key part of feudalism. It's more about patronage and being tied to the land. Generally your classic medieval king could give and take away land and the serfs who went with it as freely as political expediency allowed. There was supposed to be some kind of parental duty of care for the lord over the villein which I don't think went out of the window properly until sheep became more profitable in the 18th century.

My understanding would be that a peasant owns property in the same way my 12 year old owns his phone. I don't think that that is the same kind of property rights that we are talking about as a foundation of capitalism. That more comes with towns where people aren't tied in the same way to the land and their feudal lord.

 

[lomiller]

Capitalism is an economic system. Libertarianism is a social system. Communism is both.

Libertarianism is just as tightly bound to economics as communism is, and the economic system is just as bad.

I'd say that regulations and taxes are socio-political measures that are orthogonal but complementary to capitalism as an economic system.

Regulations are part & parcel with economic system, so are the taxes required to implement those regulations. The same is true of economic infrastructure.

 

[lomiller]

I'm really not sure that property rights are a key part of feudalism. It's more about patronage and being tied to the land.

The landlord owned the land along with everything on it and operated it for their own profit.

Generally your classic medieval king could give and take away land and the serfs who went with it as freely as political expediency allowed.

Sometimes maybe, but in those cases it’s the King who owns everything and is operating it for his own profit. Typically, though, kings were not all-powerful.

My understanding would be that a peasant owns property in the same way my 12 year old owns his phone. I don't think that that is the same kind of property rights that we are talking about as a foundation of capitalism. That more comes with towns where people aren't tied in the same way to the land and their feudal lord.

The serfs position wasn’t due to a lack of property rights, it was due to a lack of property. They literally owned nothing. Even their own labor belonged to someone else. (You can get the same formulation from some extreme libertarians today who believe in the supremacy of contract law, and if someone wants to sign a contract that makes them a serf, the government should not stop them.)

One of those “other things” that capitalism requires in addition to property rights is wage labor. This is what makes Serfs/Slaves incompatible with capitalism, not the fact that they didn’t have property rights. If they had any property in many cases they would have had some legal rights to it, they just couldn’t ever own anything fir that to matter. Residents of company towns into the late 1800’s were not all that different from serfs, even in ostensibly capitalist systems.

 

[caveman1917]

I don't know that he's right (I started reading this thread thinking that he's wrong), and comparing the anti-semitism between Tsarist Russia and the USSR is probably not the right comparison either, particularly post WWII we'd expect anti-semitism to decline everywhere, so maybe it's the second derivative that we should be looking at?

The question is "would socialism/communism really help racial minorities" and for that the appropriate comparison is the same place before and after the installation of a socialist/communist state. In case of the former Warsaw Pact that is: Czarist Russia -> Soviet Union between 1917 and 1923, Second Polish Republic -> Polish People's Republic between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany to the German Democratic Republic between 1943 and 1945, and basically the rest of Eastern Europe in the same time frame (I'm not going to sum up every country involved here).

Also some of his arguments seem weak, for instance Jews being overrepresented in Academia: that was true all over Europe in spite of anti-semitism. I know American universities had quotas on the maximum number of jews they would allow into Phd programs, yet Jews were still overrepresented in academia. So overrepresentation in academia doesn't demonstrate a lack of anti-semitism, as we don't know the counterfactual of if they would be more over represented without the anti-semitism.

What it demonstrates is that Loss Leader's claim of Jews being systematically "denied jobs and promotions" is false. And especially that his comparison of the situation of the Jews in the USSR with black people in America is false.

Did it decline faster than it would have had the revolution not occurred? No one has asked, let alone attempted to answer that question, but it seems even more relevant. Perhaps that question can't really be answered, but we can look at whether the rate of decline in the USSR is similar to the rate elsewhere around the world and see if they kept up the the zeitgeist.

I have no answers to these questions. My prior view, based on what I've read, is that the decline was slower than elsewhere, but I don't have the data to back up that view, so I leave it to the rest of you to educate me.

Your prior view has no relation to reality. Nor is it particularly difficult to check where a country stands relatively to the zeitgeist, just compare it with its contemporaries during the same time periods.

1917

Immediately after the Russian revolution the previous government's Pale of Settlement and other antisemitic legislation was rescinded, its practice of pogroms was halted and was cracked down hard on. Legislation was introduced which made the incitement of propaganda against ethnic groups illegal. A massive information campaign was waged to eradicate antisemitism which lasted for decades, probably the most comprehensive such campaign ever undertaken by a country. And this was just in the space of few months, as for rate of change that can count.

During this time its contemporaries were having regular pogroms and massacres of Jews in Europe and of black people in the USA. Looks like the zeitgeist hadn't caught up yet to the Soviet example.

1917 - 1924

Between 1917 and 1924 3 (well, more than 3, but 3 main ones) contemporary governments ruled over various, ever-changing, parts of the territory of the USSR during the Russian Civil War. These were the Reds (the Soviet government), the Whites (the loyalist forces of the previous regime), and the Greens (nationalist forces). This also pitted the Soviet government against its international contemporaries, as the USA, Italy, the UK, France, Japan, Poland, Romania, Greece, Australia, and Canada invaded the Soviet Union in support of the White forces.

Needless to say, of course, that the legislation introduced by the Reds after the revolution was only enforced in the territories it actually controlled. During the civil war the White forces and their international allies engaged in numerous anti-Jewish pogroms and massacres, to one of which in Vilna in 1919 the US Army representative Colonel Wiliam F. Godson, present at the scene, commented that the Russian Jews are "extremely dangerous" making the "Jewish question" the most important one for the country. It took until 1924 for the Reds to repel the invaders and win against the Whites and finally end the practice of pogroms and massacres of Jews on Soviet territory, at least until 1941. Such practices, however, continued domestically in its contemporaries, both against Jews in Eastern Europe and against black people in the USA. Looks like the zeitgeist still hadn't caught up yet to the Soviet example, I'm sure it'll be right around the corner.

1924 - 1939

Yiddish became one of the four official languages of the Byelorussian SSR (a Soviet region with a high population of Jews) and the Minsk Yiddish language university became one of the most prestigious ones in the USSR. Jews became highly overrepresented in government positions and Yiddish was encouraged as a language. This policy of encouraging minority languages came to end in the 1930's when Russification started being encouraged (which wasn't an antisemitic policy change as such, it was equally true for Ukrainian or any other previously-encouraged minority language).

During this time its contemporaries in Central and Eastern Europe enacted lots of antisemitic legislation, the most well-known probably being Germany's Nuremberg laws and similar legislation throughout Eastern Europe (most notably Poland and Romania). Countries enacting such legislation (most notably Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic) were furthermore still supported by the West in their crusade against the "Jew-Communists." During the 1930's pogroms and massacres continued in various places throughout Europe as well the USA (from now let's make it implicit that for the USA it refers to black people). Looks like the zeitgeist still hadn't caught up yet to the Soviet example, I'm sure it'll come soon, let's try the next time period...

1939 - 1945

In 1939 the USSR took control over the Eastern part of what used to be the Second Polish Republic, rescinding its antisemitic legislation and for the first time stopping the practice of pogroms and massacres of Jews outside its own territory. In 1941, after the German invasion of the USSR, pogroms and massacres of Jews were occurring once more on Soviet territory, including the shipping off of entire groups of Jews to extermination camps. It wasn't until 1944 that the USSR was able to retake that territory ending the Holocaust there, and until 1945 when the rest of Eastern Europe was liberated. The new socialist-inspired governments in Central and Eastern Europe rescinded the antisemitic legislation of their predecessor governments and halted their practices of massacres and extermination camps.

Many of its contemporaries during that time period not only intensified their antisemitic legislation and practices, up to including the industrial extermination of Jews as a whole, and only stopped doing so through the application of sheer military might. So finally we have its Central and Eastern European contemporaries catching up to the zeitgeist, although only because they were forced to by military might, but I guess late is better than never. The USA, for its part, was still engaged in its traditional actions against black people.

PS: Strictly speaking the use of "Soviet Union" or "USSR" in the time period 1917 - 1922 is incorrect as the USSR was only instituted in 1922, but I've used the same term for simplicity.

 

[dudalb]

God, an apologist for the Soviet Union How quaint.

 

[Ziggurat]

Libertarianism is just as tightly bound to economics as communism is, and the economic system is just as bad.

There's a critical distinction between the two: the failure mechanics of Libertarianism are the polar opposite of communism. When communism fails to achieve its goals (as it inevitably does), it morphs into violent totalitarianism. Libertarianism fails by... people voting for non-libertarian economic policies. Communism fails disastrously, libertarianism fails elegantly. That makes a world of difference.

 

[portlandatheist]

That's what we get told about Antifa.

//To be 100% absolutely clear in this case it's completely correct and the Right's boogeymaning of a loosely organized anti-facist movement is 37 different kinds of insane and 48 kings of stupid, but the whole "It literally means anti-fascist!" argument is stupid and waaaaaay overplayed.//

I think we should be skeptical of any self-proclaimed antifascist just as we are about self-proclaimed democracies. A perfect example of this is Nashi [wiki article] Молодежное демократическое aнтифашистское движение «Наши», Molodezhnoye demokraticheskoye antifashistskoye dvizhenye "Nashi" Youth Democratic Anti-Fascist Movement "Ours!"
This "Putin Youth" movement uses the same tactics as NAZI brown shirts and Antifa uses. I also recommend the film Putin's Kiss [wiki link] That follows Masha Drokova who is deeply involed in the movement until she has a change of heart after journalist Oleg Kashin was brutally assaulted by antifascist activists.^WP

 

[portlandatheist]

 

[Earthborn]

There's a critical distinction between the two: the failure mechanics of Libertarianism are the polar opposite of communism.

Are they though? Both strive -- according to their own theories -- toward completely non-hierarchical, decentralised systems of voluntary exchange where government barely plays a role. The fact that communist systems quickly became the exact opposite does not mean Libertarianism would fair any better.

Libertarianism fails by... people voting for non-libertarian economic policies.

If there is a pre-existing democratic system in place. And there have been many democracies that have or have had communist parties that failed in exactly the same way.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

That was what I was wondering. Being that at least the original^(*) meaning of libertarianism was pretty much the opposite of 'statism', i.e., the state has no business telling you what to do, it's not very clear how you'd vote for anything else, or how it would be enforced.

In practice, all we have to go by were some failed local experiments that failed pretty much because nobody wanted to foot the bills for infrastructure and whatnot. With the occasional lulz like Operation Atlantis in between.


^(*)I say "the original meaning", because in the meantime the meaning seems to have drifted all over the place. As words tend to do, I guess. At least at one point a lot of people seemed to think it's just socialism plus you're free to smoke pot. E.g., Bill Maher still was a self-proclaimed libertarian last time I watched, but advocated gun control, and a whole bunch of socialist stuff.

 

[Ziggurat]

Are they though?

Yes.

Both strive -- according to their own theories -- toward completely non-hierarchical, decentralised systems of voluntary exchange where government barely plays a role. The fact that communist systems quickly became the exact opposite does not mean Libertarianism would fair any better.

But it does fare better. We've already seen it. We see it every day: we are living in the world where Libertarianism failed. It fails at the start because people don't want it. But unlike communism, the ideology doesn't allow for a minority of adherents to violently seize power. And so it never gains power in the first place, and it fails with a whimper instead of a bang.

And that is vastly to be preferred.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But unlike communism, the ideology doesn't allow for a minority of adherents to violently seize power.

Doesn't it? It seems to me like that's exactly what happened in quite a few places when 'statism' failed, i.e., the state actually wasn't able to impose what people shouldn't do. There's always some warlords willing to take matters in their own hands, and they usually won't let you just vote that they should step down and go away.

 

[Ziggurat]

Doesn't it?

No, it doesn't.

It seems to me like that's exactly what happened in quite a few places when 'statism' failed, i.e., the state actually wasn't able to impose what people shouldn't do.

If the state in question isn't libertarian (or even aspiring to be), then why would you attribute its failure to libertarianism? That doesn't make sense.

There's always some warlords willing to take matters in their own hands, and they usually won't let you just vote that they should step down and go away.

I've often seen Somalia touted as an example of the failures of libertarianism, but in point of fact the state, prior to collapsing, was socialist. And once the state has failed, well, that's not libertarianism either. Libertarians still need government to protect property rights, and Somalia under warlords lacked that. And this isn't a case of "no true Scotsman" either, because in contrast to the commies who apologists claim weren't really commies, nobody in Somalia was calling themselves libertarians.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Except you're doing the no true scotsman, when you put the limit that if it doesn't do this and that it doesn't really count. In reality it lacks a clear definition, beyond being against SOME kind or another of state power, and various proponents have an incredibly large spectrum of views, ranging from outright anarchy, to outright communism, to a few million chucklenuts who apparently thought the only thing the state shouldn't intervene in was their right to smoke pot. In fact, the most common denominator of pretty much the whole left wing of the 'libertarian' spectrum is ABOLISHING private ownership of at the very least the means of production.

In fact, the first coining of the term was by an anarchist, in an anarchist newspaper. And it was coined to differentiate themselves from the 'liberals' who, it turned out, much to the author's dismay, instead of going completely freedumb, were still supporting private property laws.

So claiming it's not it unless the state PROTECTS those rights is somewhat counter-factual. I can see how SOME libertarians might include those, but to outright say it's not libertarian unless it includes those, IS a case of ye olde No True Scotsman. Sorry.


As for the objection that unless someone called himself/it X, then it's not X... surely you can see how that doesn't work that way, if you think about it, right? I mean, the German Democratic Republic called itself a democracy, and insisted it's totally not a dictatorship. (Like pretty much all of the eastern bloc did, really.) Doesn't mean it wasn't the latter. Conversely, China today calls itself communist, but it has private ownership of means of production and its gini coefficient (i.e., income inequality) is higher than most capitalist countries. North Korea calls itself a republic, while having had a hereditary leader since WW2.

So, umm, yeah, I'm not losing any sleep over a country (or anything else) being a totally different thing than it called itself

 

[Ziggurat]

Except you're doing the no true scotsman, when you put the limit that if it doesn't do this and that it doesn't really count.

No, that isn't how a "no true Scotsman" fallacy works. You don't just get to call random people Scotsmen, which is what you're doing. You haven't come up with any justification for considering any of these still unspecified examples as being libertarian.

In reality it lacks a clear definition, beyond being against SOME kind or another of state power, and various proponents have an incredibly large spectrum of views, ranging from outright anarchy, to outright communism,

Neither anarchy nor communism are libertarian. And while there is variation within that label, it's less vague than you suggest. You can start with the idea that libertarianism is a philosophy founded on the concept that the initiation of the use of force wrong. The primacy of free markets basically sprouts from that, because absent force, voluntary exchanges are how people have to deal with each other.

As for the objection that unless someone called himself/it X, then it's not X... surely you can see how that doesn't work that way, if you think about it, right? I mean, the German Democratic Republic called itself a democracy, and insisted it's totally not a dictatorship.

I already covered the misnaming of states. I don't need to address it again. But I will point out that you still haven't specified an actual case of supposed libertarian failure to examine.