I don't think that is true. As correct as Hedges might be and I agree with most, maybe everything he says, until there is a workable plan or strategy to take over, like the Republicans developed, nothing is going to happen. So asking Americans to listen to this and get depressed and miserable because there is nothing they can do is unrealistic. I don't mean to be negative, but if there is something concrete that can be understood and done I think most Americans would do it, but they are tired of wasting time, energy and money supporting people like this who don't get anyone closer to anything.
@@justgivemethetruthYet, he does provide solid things to do. I’m sorry you missed that, but his emphasis on scaled-up localism is key. And the thing about localism is that it has to be communally idiosyncratic.
@@CaravanseraiSouthValley In theory, I agree with much of what Hedges says. The problem is Hedges has no real experience of understanding of our government, how it works and why it is impossible to change. Sure, if there was an upswell of activism across the country a the local level things might change - but what things and how? Furthermore, the people are so fragmented that they don't even go out and vote. Another thing about Hedges that disgusts me, along with Chomsky and most of the far Left pundits who I used to follow assiduously, is they are constantly side with Palestinians 100% and 0% with Israel. I consider myself far Left, but Palestinians have no claim to a role in the Left ... and that is disgusting. Whenever you hear these pundits, and organizations like Democracy Now! never reporting both sides of this issue, you know they are fake. So in political theory the Left is great, and reporting news with respect to the Liberal, Progressive, Tolerent, democratic point of view, they are great, but they shift over to Middle Eastern horror terrorists 100% and never report on Israel, or what the Palestinians do to bring police actions against them. I have no interesting in Hedges, Chomsky or any of this clique. They are liars and cannot be objective. They only tell the truth to establish a base, and then they corrupt them with lies.
@@justgivemethetruth Ending with "They are liars and cannot be objective," is not exactly what I'd characterize as an objective statement. We can disagree and still love each other... unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. James Baldwin.
Thank you Chris Hedges, you've put into words what many are feeling but were unable to express. You've captured and articulated the heart of the problems we are experiencing and given practical solutions, all of which I agree upon whole-heartedly. Big thanks to the Real News for sticking to their word and giving the voiceless a voice and for illuminating the path forward.
The meaning of socialism has been raped in usage of common language to the point it had detracted entirely from what it meant. Ask the average person what socialism means and they'll either call it an over saturate capitalist run welfare state or a Leninist/Stalinist dictatorship. It an economic model based social ownership of the means of production by the working class. That is in modern terms a system a model where property be that land, machines of building used to for economic purposes owned by the people whose source of income is their work. In it's ideal, people are free to develop themselves and either run their own self-employed business or cooperate with others based on free-association.
That would be wonderful, but as you notice we are getting turned into a police state. So the elite want even more. There is enough for all in the world, but not enough for one greedy man. The greedy man is always the problem. He wants money and more power.
You have to wake up the Working Class ,kept quiescent by an unending diet of "Celebrity Gossip, "Reality" Television et al" Bread and Circuses my friends , the Romans knew this, nothing changes.
"And the Lord called His people Zion for they were of one heart and one mind and there was no poor among them". We must be of one heart and mind, period.
We have to build self-sustainable locally based organizations that are not dependent and threaten corporate forces. Nobody talks about who owns things. And there is no vision of a viable social democracy.
I'm a 68 year old white woman who spent my career in a corporation (major airline), but as a unionized worker. I am a proud Socialist. I have many friends and colleagues who are of the same thinking. Such generalizations simply do not hold up.
Chris Hedges a true social activist...Hedges principles are scary to the fascist right-wing America because Hedges speaks the truth. Long live liberty and peace!
I have a deep feeling that Chris advocates a spiritual change that will in turn provide the conditions to fruitful movement to positive societal changes where people are removed from identification from concepts political ideological economic and otherwise.concepts are tools not reality our reality is spiritual not conceptual!
We don't live, as Hedges points out, live in a free market or capitalist system. I mean, pure capitalism involves no state intervention. So, no subsidies, no minimum wage laws, no child labor laws, no public police.... We'd be a complete Third World nation if we had pure capitalism.
separates people, keeping them focused on they're screens and oblivious to each other , it also brings people together that would never meet otherwise, thus enabling a flow and exchange of ideas and information that otherwise would never take place. This is paradox, a term we usually incorrectly use as synonym of contradiction. People do contradiction, Life does paradox; Because in it contrary tendencies coexist. How else could it "surch" for balance? On a theme on the video: I've just
Agreed. We shouldn't be waiting for the state to address the issues at hand. It is difficult though as somethings require a critical mass of people to function. There are community efforts in my area to get a moneyless trading system going amongst other ideas. That's where it has to start, at grassroots.
Dear Chris Call yourself af socialdemocrat as all of we leftwings does in Denmark? We have a big socialdemocratic party that has been ruling the country for about eighty % of the last hundred years, so here it is perfectly ok to call yoursel a socialdemocrat. And it works. All the best Niels Tornquist, from Odense, H.C. Andersens hometown
Is that so? Well, how about that. You know, I have my own business too. Here's a tip: The key to small business is bending over backward for your customers, which means always being professional, well-mannered, well-spoken, and open-hearted. I can tell you've got what it takes to succeed in our awesome free market. No, really, good luck with that--I really hope it works out for you.
" What in America we call "socialism" --a word that means abhorrent-- to me is no "ism." It is what humans do. We have always known that we have TO TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. We would not have survived for a hundred and more thousand years if we hadn’t taken care of each other. [my CAPS]" -- robert wolff -- " Socialism: a term nearly totally evacuated of meaning. " -- Chomsky
It is capitalism that we all live by. Voluntary exchanges, voluntary collaborations, sharing of benefits. You can say no thanks you to a private business. You can not say no thank you to the state. State = force. And violence always creates the opposite effect.
Nearly every time there's a news story, the general response usually is "What should we have our gov officials do about this?" Now the actions they take may not be something you approve or like, and argue back and forth how they should have done X or Y. But merely making that assumption that gov must solve all major problems is socialist. It also means you consolidate the reigns of power in one area. If someone unwanted takes over you've just facilitated their own power structure.
You asked a most pertinent question today "who owns the stuff". This is a huge impediment regarding any kind of local self-sufficiency. The land is already owned. To merely deal with the situation as it is, as many (realists) would argue is actually an impossibility, I believe. The way of living that revolves primarily on self-sufficiency, cooperation and sharing would require an entirely new relationship with each other , the land and resources.
Unless the actual shape of governments and corporations change, and their geographic/economic/political interests are scaled back, unseating and replacing the elites doesn't matter. The people in those positions would still be forced to make the same kinds of all-or-nothing, cut-throat competitive, bureaucratic, imperial decisions, that put people last and stifle their calls for change.
Actually if governments did not introduce so many regulations that favor larger businesses, then many small businesses would not go bust and if governments did not keep hiking up minimum wage, continuously print more and more money for the economy, then inflation would not continue to rise at nearly the rate is does in America, and most European nations. Inflation kills small businesses because it enlarges the gap between them and larger business.
The reason the social democratic parties have turned away from the working class and general left principles, is because of the fall of the soviet union, soviet union reforms opened strong advocacy for change for welfare, neo-liberalism in Europe in the 80s push the destruction of working class, by destroying union and workers rights. But many labour unions have links with bourgeois left.
i think that the refusal to face the lack of democracy stunts all political discussion. an electorate with an effective and accessible power of citizen initiative can control the power of money. without it, nada. that's why madison said frankly that he feared democracy, and made sure that there was none in the constitution.
I went to a public charter school and it was the best education I got. non profit public charter schools are not the problem. private for profit schools are.
Great Interview. Question. What would Mr. Hedges suggest we do with our retirement investments which are so intertwined with global capitalism. I mean stocks, bonds and money markets, savings in bank as well as most pensions are all supporting the global capitalist infrastructure. I look at my financial picture and it seems almost impossible to disentangle. How is Mr. Hedges handling his finances? I need real possibilities.
I think that I and most other 21st century socialists (including Hedges) see the need to develop a system which includes important roles for both planning (on a grander scale), and market relations (for, among other things, setting prices).Thus, while a good deal of industries and enterprises would be state owned (and controlled in some instances), there would be a healthy sector of privately-owned businesses (such as banks) co-existing with socially and cooperatively owned businesses.
Let me phrase it differently. Either you believe in Democracy or you don't. If you do, then you need citizens , as a majority at least. Freedom has another side: responsibility.
I don't know of any power greater than OIL, that has "seized our leaders and their power". If Henry Ford had his way, all our vehicles would have run on alcohol. A fuel we can each grow. We don't lack for farming capacity to do this...even if we were to maintain the unsustainable concentration of farming power we have now to supply it. The real answer is small co-ops who grow their own fuel. During this interview several service men/women were killed over oil, BY their own HAND.
According to the ancient philosophical understanding of communism that I learned about during 1984-85, you're right and I've said it a number of times over the past decade+ that China and Russia don't have real communism. When Britain exercised the practice of The Commons, then this was something true communism would most definitely support/include, but Britain was never called communistic and it eventually ended this concept of The Commons. Why? My guess is to profit the rich.
In my home town and state, when ever we have a big power outage or snow storm. The rich neighborhoods get taken care of first. Then the working class whites. And then the black neighborhood last. When you call out city hall and the power company on this, they deny it. We are in a class war from Wall Street all the way down to the local level.
One big problem is that many people are too religious, and by that I mean they have very emotional ideals which they often channel into the words like “Capitalism” or “Socialism”. Therefore those who religiously believe in Capitalism will see the word “Socialism” as an antithesis to their perceived ideal and they will blindly fight anything that is labelled as such event to their own detriment. Are the terms really that important, more than food, healthcare, housing and freedom itself?
I'm not sure which countries in Europe you lived in but I think you'll agree that the smaller the country (if they are at that level of development Kropotikin speaks of) and the less hooked into the global economy, the more responsive governments are, the less vast the socio-economic divisions are and the more clear the divide between business and state is.
Socialism doesn't necessarily mean big gov't, anarcho-socialist oppose gov't hierarchy. But it does always mean empowering the people who actually work for a living to liberate the fruits of their labor so they own their lives entirely. Free markets for all doesn't mean shit when the oligarch elites own everything, that's just as much slavery as when big gov't owns everything.
True freedom requires never to be taught by the state and the political system. If I really were free, I would not need a system that said this to me, and felt it necessary to repeat it as if it were a propaganda message. The same is taught, moreover, in other totalitarian systems, nobody was happier, freer, and was entitled to have greater confidence than Soviet citizen...The state wants to be loved, but it is content to be feared.
Yeah, things seem to be going swimmingly here in the US with our high rate of violent crime, poverty, and the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.
Did you ever consider that by telling others what should be done, by being directive and at times confrontational, actually builds resistance to change?
I understand the need for self sufficiency for local areas in order to diminish corporate power. But I don't understand how this action will not result in tribal or localised areas being separate from other localities, how will it be possible to improve networking and reduce those areas that are able to produce more for their society from becoming another corporate bully?
I think the best option is a social democracy like Canada and a lot of European counties. Nothing is perfect but it seems to strike a reasonable balance of the good points of socialism and capitalism girded by the underlying framework of a functional democracy.
A "think tank"founded in the 19th century in London to combat both the horrors of industrial England and the power of capital by defining ways in which society might be organised for the benefit of all the people, not just the rich. Named after Fabius Maximus who saved the people of Rome from the Hannibal juggernaut by what we might call guerrilla war, engaging only where Hannibal was vulnerable, avoiding direct conflict with overwhelming power. Wearing them out. So also a political strategy?
When Obama was asked if he was a socialist and replied that according to the bible he was his brother's keeper, was he just capturing the label of socialism and by proxy the language of socialism and in doing so neutralizing the meaning of the language. When the magazine cover states that 'we are all socialists now' was that to debase the meaning of the word or was that being sarcastic or both? Corporate interests have been capturing and debasing the language of environmentalism or completely changing the meaning of specific terms through common misuse. Sustainable has become meaningless. The Business Council of Sustainable Development by inference suggests environmental sustainability whereas literally it is about sustaining business. Because language is how we express our ideas we need to be critical about how it is used particularly when language is used to define who we are and core values.
There are some good socialist groups active. I would suggest Socialist Alternative, they are part of the Committee for a Workers International. The CWI has been able to get people elected into parliaments. Joe Higgins is a member of the Irish parliament and Paul Murphy works as an member of the European parliament. Both of them are members of the Socialist Party. Kshama Sawant is a member of Socialist Alternative and running for the city council of Seattle.
We must take the corporations out of capitalist hands and put them under democratic control of workers and society. I don't oppose companies but I oppose the fact that they are private owned. The workers of the world must own the means of production. We must expropriate the rich who have no right to own millions of dollars ( and euro's ) while millions of workers live in poverty. But in order to do that we must brake free from the dogma's of capitalism!
I got a degree in Economics in '77. Understanding Econ has been both a blessing and a curse as I travel through life. For maximum total production and greatest standard of living, overall, you want Libertarianism. That said... It also (sadly) creates a "dog eat dog" economy and the losers are not mere statistics they are People! Therefore, Socialism, with all its faults, has a strong appeal to working class and the poor. So what then? Find the right mix of Socialism with Libertarianism...
oh. And butterflies are a clear indication of a healthy environment and rainbows are the whole spectrum of colours, creating an arch across the sky indicating the rain has passed and all colours have come out to support something beautiful and inspiring Compare with McDonalds "yellow arches"....
Socialism needs to join forces with environmental activists who are ecologically educated and who work outside of corporate forces. Hedges has been educating himself quickly and vigorously on re-localization movements. He has read some of Derrick Jensen's writings. He has spoken on the phone with Richard Heinberg. Let's see whether he goes a step further and suggests that people begin to cut loose from the electrical grid or trim back their use of electrical appliances.
People don't be silent and conform...we have major problems in both economic and environmental. The problem is growing in a rapid rate that in my job as a fisherman we are seeing less clams and crabs it is effecting our business very negative. We must change our lifes like consuming less and using less energy but we must replace capitalism.
Trump may be a good motivator for people to do the positive things presented here. The alarm clock has gone off for millions more people because of the recent political upheavals. The danger of Trump is his idiotic destruction of the good parts of what government has achieved like the EPA and others. We can end the oligarchy. The young people are the answer, lead by people like Hedges.
Love the point about state socialist, and state capitalist being the difference between an oligarchy and a plutocracy, great point. What do you see as a good system? You seem to point out that true capitalism has never existed, just like a pure marxist society has never existed. Personally I think the best option we've got is well regulated capitalism, if it's unregulated it nulls it's own merits and you end up with a plutocracy, if it's regulated to tight you end up with an oligarchy.
Not all imported foods are waxed. I live in Quebec, Canada. Many foods are imported, including from outside of the country. I've seen little for waxed foods, if any at all. But local and regional production is what consumers should go for. Contrary to what you say, however, it often doesn't cost less. Yet, it's what I always seek, first. Pineapples, f.e., need to be imported, but I'll only buy certified organic. Even then I wonder ..., but I buy only 1 or 2 pineapples per year. No big deal
I didn't see any means to submit questions To Chris Hedges on his last interview. Perhaps you are ready recorded it? But if not I'd like you to ask why not set up large (say 150 to 300 people), mostly self-sufficient rural communes; or at least give people the opportunity to do this if they so choose. It seems to me this would be socialism at its finest.
Sounds like Chris Hedges is talking about local economies, local business's, cooperatives that would still be privately owned. But owned by the workers rather than management or the stockholders.
I voluntarily enlisted in USN in 1975 to get a G.E.D., skills training, and some structure, but we had to fill out a medical form in our 2nd or 3rd week. Where it asked if we had ever consumed drugs I was going to say no, but this is military and I wasn't going to serve dishonestly, so I said yes; some "pot" and a few "hits" of "acid". I knew I'd be called to answer. Day 63 was grad day. Day 62, P.O. tells me I have to go to court next day. Ok, no problem. But, it was hypocrisy and I got out.
It's not capitalism that you're seeing wreck shit all over the world, it's plutocracies/oligarchies, governments made by rich/elites, for the rich/elites, who have shredded the rules that are supposed to keep capitalism in check, and which allow corporations to run amok.
self sustaining, politics and economics would occur at the local/regional level etc. Unlike the collapse of Rome however, people would still have a link to the rest of the world, and a wealth of all kinds of information through the web, so, no dark age. The transition to literally smaller government, local economies, would end a lot of the imperial government/corporate tension and dominance. A smaller government/corporate presence would flatten out hierarchies responsible for inequality.
What do you proclaim? If you are free to produce to yourself, you will not get more by stealing from me. Money is a product, a medium for exchange. Remove the coercion and violence from politics instead, and it becomes something else - namely, economics.
The capitalism is meritocratic. If people don`t succeed, they become bitter. They don`t want to admit that they don`t succeed because they lack intelligence. In the capitalist system the workers obey technologists and contractors. Under socialism they obey the Socialist officials. Socialists did not take into account the fact that there is a difference between saying what needs to be done and to do what someone else has said must be done. The socialist state is out of necessity a police state.
Maybe kind of vague and broad the way I describe it. If you're interested, you should check out David Schweickart's (mathematician and economist) books "Against Capitalism," and "After Capitalism (the former is more technical and exhaustive, while the latter is geared towards casual readers).
What did 1989-1991 bring for Russia, except for extreme collapse of the country and end of the Cold War initiated and maintained by Washington? Gore Vidal once asked President JFK about the CW, for Vidal was against this, and JFK said it was all a façade. Meanwhile, JFK and the leader of the former USSR were working to de-escalate the tensions. There's a video about this, if still available, at CZcams; Vidal's encounter with JFK as JFK was coming off of an air travel trip.
Though they touched on it, both Chris and Paul failed to focus in on what needs to be thoroughly discussed and put out there for people to act on: the details of developing, using and promoting alternative currencies, alternative energy systems, local food production and seriously, unreservedly pulling away from the consumerist mentality and "lifestyle".
Don't like high corporate pay? Restore the top marginal rate of 91% that prevailed 1946-63 in the USA, on salaries over 3M. What I am describing was also the French and British tax system of 1950. Also the New Zealand tax system until 1986. Socialism simply means that there are no stockholders, dividends are paid to the government, the government appoints most or all of the directors of firms, and life goes on as before. Socialism will not abolish labour struggling for a bigger share of the value added of their employers. It will not solve the conflict between those who want to be paid and those who want to save money for a rainy day or spend money on capital expenditures. Socialism will not stop abuse of the environment. It will not stop crony capitalism between the government and enterprises. Socialism disempowers MBAs, but empowers engineers and related technocrats. Most of all, socialism does not abolish class divisions, because those divisions are not based on private property but on education. Socialist societies always produce an educated elite, and that elite continues to hold much power. Socialism comes to be hated, because under socialism, nothing happens unless the state or an existing socialised enterprises wills it. No room for individual initiative. No room for opposing viewpoints about how the economy should work. Socialist economies become quite rigid, with status deriving from education and access to political power. All jobs are created by the government, and all pay is set by the govt. The govt. gets to veto any promotion. This power over individual destinies is inevitably abused, and used in an attempt to punish dissent. The socialist system creates large rents for certain persons, who make the socialist system impregnable, by authoritarian and abusive methods; look at Venezuela. What the North Atlantic needs is an end to crony capitalism and corporate welfare. If profits are private, so must losses be. The corrupt complication of the tax system, which is how a great deal of concealed govt. favouritism to business takes place, must end. The ability to shift multinational profits into low tax jurisdictions at will, must end. Finally, all people in the OECD are going to have to start owning stocks and debentures via index funds. One can no longer count on supporting a family on jobs alone.
You are not describing socialism, you are describing what Lenin called the Soviet economy, "State capitalim". This is also what George Orwell called the Soviet Union and similar states. Russia, China etc, were very backward states, they had barely any workers.. hijacked by Stalinism and "red capitalists". That in not the stateless worker owned democracy socialism envisions. Mondragon and the lefty states of Scandinavia are more like socialism.. This Trotskyist position is what most socialists and even many communists are about since the 30..
mars Cubed The truest socialism was the economy Yugoslavia devised in the 1950s and 60s. That system had no imitators, especially in the USSR, and is now completely gone. Yugoslavina firms were "private" but the career employees elected the board of directors. There were no stockholders, but there were creditors. The trouble with this system is that workers did not want to be on the hook when there were losses. Workers also did not care about what happened after they retired or died.
Logan Ausherman What you call "state capitalism" (a term that has no accepted definition), I call socialism. What you call socialism has never existed, and cannot conceive of it ever coming into being. The North Atlantic economies are crony, not state, capitalist.
how can you ensure free markets by your definition if people who succeed in the free market are likely to do whatever they can to stay there and ensure it for their future generations, often at the expense of anything else?
I think the old stigma of Socialist is gone , except for a few very rich even middle class now know there is no hope for them anymore thanks to our government leadership........
wikipedia/wiki/Democratic_elements_of_Roman_Republic "the Roman Senate represented an oligarchic institution, which acted as an advisory body" If Obama is a dictator, that doesn't make this a democracy, does it? My question still stands.
You have to destroy Exxon by nationalizing the energy system so that it is responsible to the people,not to the needs of a corporate board. We first have to describe what is happening to us, before we can articulate a vision of democratic socialism.
i'm pretty sure most people just want security and civil liberty. how many citizens want laws protecting monsanto? how many citizens want even the talk of cutting social security and medicare? the words "big government" don't really describe anything because it means different things to different people.
One solution to some of the issues arising from the rise of the corporate state is for ordinary folks to organize alternate systems, like an alternative unemployment support system. If people do this they will render the state essentially powerless on such issues.
recently seen a video on the internet where someone from Austria, and I feel very tempted to say: of all places, although only ironically, I actually know some Austrians, who quite free mindedly has pursued through his life time a corporation independent way of farming was teaching and helping people in Ecuador with his acquired experience. One might say: "das prinzip hoffnung". One might also read again the end of "the grapes of wrath".
Yeah, understanding economics can be a bummer. I remember listening to some news when the reporter said something to the effect: "the cost of corn has gone up and consumers are feeling the heat". I got so outraged: well yeah, if the demand for corn drops then it really doesn't matter if the cost of producing corn has gone up!
There are many types of socialists. Chris Hedges is obviously from the social democracy side (more like Sweden, Denmark, Findland, Great Britiain, Germany, which all have better standard of living for it's working class as compared to the US......free healthcare too). The onther side of socialism is libertarian socialism, which means all people run their own work (no bosses and managers to push you around), and communities make the decisions on how their affairs will be run..aka real democracy.
I find it hard to believe that there are any really good organisations of any great size. It seems to me that once an organisation reaches a certain size it ceases to represent it members and decisions coalesce around the prejudices and desires of the few who lead it. To be any different would take centuries of really top class non-ideological civic education and protracted efforts in inculcating democratic participation. That is a tall order for a society of 7bn to achieve.
Almost the whole of Europe has socialist governments and only the communist regimes that were aligned with the former Soviet Union ever had totalitarian governments such as the "Warsaw Pact" nations. If you have no kind of state intervention you are giving industry the right to pursue any kind of chicanery against the public if they aren't held to any account. Balance and some control over this greed mentality is was is called for. They no longer teach ethics in business schools.
If dogma's were the issue the problem would have been resolved a long time ago. A large part of the problem is the concentration of power that the corporate organisation brings. People need to (a) Organise the political process where only they have a voice and (b) When they have that power, decide whether they want the corporation as it is today to exist at all. It may be that people decide they do, then as a whole we have to live with the awful consequences of that decision
I disagree. Look at Occupy Wall Street. A socialist revolution in America seems unlikely. But if passionate gun owners, mostly consisting of those in the NRA, and the members of Occupy got behind an idea I think some kind of revolution is possible. The internet also makes organization easier. In the days of Wikileaks and Snowden, Americans are becoming more and more aware of the disconnect between their own perception of their government and their actual government. Their outrage may be enough.
Provide some source references for saying that Hedges is against Ru. and China. Explain in which ways that he's against them, in terms of what you interpret from what he's said. Perhaps he's against the fact that neither of these countries is truly socialist or communist. You need to provide references to sources that support your claims.
Socialism for the rich and large corporations that're also rich. Again, seek articles by Stephen Lendman about Obamacare. Lendman understands what it really is. There're also articles by him on this topic at GlobalResearch(.)ca. According to Wikipedia pages for "socialism" and "Socialization (economics)", neither Obama nor Obamacare are socialistic. So proper usage of the terminology doesn't work for describing him or his ideas or programs.
Economic wealth and maximum production make sense as primary goals for society in so far as individuals are so philistinistic that they're too busy celebrating contemporary culture anyway. You can't mobilize people on the pretense that they act in economic self-interest.
Yes but because of Snowden we know the internet is being watched and trying to organize a movement via the internet can be preemptively stopped by those watching.
actually the free-market is not the solution. Because the free-market creates cronyism because it allows a few wealthy individuals to have full control of the market...so capitalism is not the solution it is the problem.
unfortunately, socialism has become a term almost noone understands, so using it is almost definately a detriment to anyone. it's true the term is losing it's stigma, but the term has been redifined so many times that it's lost most of it's meaning. the reality is most americans are socialists, or have strong socialist tendencies. it's a pretty natural human position. the problem is that most people have no idea what socialism is and attribute it with the oligarchic tyranny's that called themselves the same. it's sort of like when george bush calls himself a conservative. he might have something in common with conservatism, but it's pretty remote, yet when someone calls themselves a conservative, people immediately assume you're ideology is akin to the republican party, when in fact an actual conservative probably votes democrat in our bizarre system.
Chris Hedges is cool. Too bad most Americans n ever heard of him.
I don't think that is true. As correct as Hedges might be and I agree with most, maybe everything he says, until there is a workable plan or strategy to take over, like the Republicans developed, nothing is going to happen. So asking Americans to listen to this and get depressed and miserable because there is nothing they can do is unrealistic.
I don't mean to be negative, but if there is something concrete that can be understood and done I think most Americans would do it, but they are tired of wasting time, energy and money supporting people like this who don't get anyone closer to anything.
Not really, no socialist should have a platform
@@justgivemethetruthYet, he does provide solid things to do. I’m sorry you missed that, but his emphasis on scaled-up localism is key. And the thing about localism is that it has to be communally idiosyncratic.
@@CaravanseraiSouthValley
In theory, I agree with much of what Hedges says. The problem is Hedges has no real experience of understanding of our government, how it works and why it is impossible to change. Sure, if there was an upswell of activism across the country a the local level things might change - but what things and how? Furthermore, the people are so fragmented that they don't even go out and vote.
Another thing about Hedges that disgusts me, along with Chomsky and most of the far Left pundits who I used to follow assiduously, is they are constantly side with Palestinians 100% and 0% with Israel. I consider myself far Left, but Palestinians have no claim to a role in the Left ... and that is disgusting. Whenever you hear these pundits, and organizations like Democracy Now! never reporting both sides of this issue, you know they are fake.
So in political theory the Left is great, and reporting news with respect to the Liberal, Progressive, Tolerent, democratic point of view, they are great, but they shift over to Middle Eastern horror terrorists 100% and never report on Israel, or what the Palestinians do to bring police actions against them. I have no interesting in Hedges, Chomsky or any of this clique.
They are liars and cannot be objective. They only tell the truth to establish a base, and then they corrupt them with lies.
@@justgivemethetruth Ending with "They are liars and cannot be objective," is not exactly what I'd characterize as an objective statement.
We can disagree and still love each other... unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. James Baldwin.
Thank you Chris Hedges, you've put into words what many are feeling but were unable to express. You've captured and articulated the heart of the problems we are experiencing and given practical solutions, all of which I agree upon whole-heartedly. Big thanks to the Real News for sticking to their word and giving the voiceless a voice and for illuminating the path forward.
The funny part is that Chris would be seen as rather normal and mainstream in Europe....
The meaning of socialism has been raped in usage of common language to the point it had detracted entirely from what it meant. Ask the average person what socialism means and they'll either call it an over saturate capitalist run welfare state or a Leninist/Stalinist dictatorship. It an economic model based social ownership of the means of production by the working class. That is in modern terms a system a model where property be that land, machines of building used to for economic purposes owned by the people whose source of income is their work. In it's ideal, people are free to develop themselves and either run their own self-employed business or cooperate with others based on free-association.
That would be wonderful, but as you notice we are getting turned into a police state. So the elite want even more. There is enough for all in the world, but not enough for one greedy man. The greedy man is always the problem. He wants money and more power.
You have to wake up the Working Class ,kept quiescent by an unending diet of "Celebrity Gossip, "Reality" Television et al" Bread and Circuses my friends , the Romans knew this, nothing changes.
The moneyed class owns government. From this central reality flows everything else.
“Reason is the servant of the passions” ~ David Hume
So we better get our passions right... which is left at the moment.
You are not alone. People will have to change before the system will change. Thanks Real TV.
The word, "socialism"=BOO (for Conservatives)
"And the Lord called His people Zion for they were of one heart and one mind and there was no poor among them".
We must be of one heart and mind, period.
if workers coops + economic democracy = socialism, then I am proud to b a socialist
We have to build self-sustainable locally based organizations that are not dependent and threaten corporate forces. Nobody talks about who owns things. And there is no vision of a viable social democracy.
Never knew hedges was a socialist...
Good job comrade!
I'm a 68 year old white woman who spent my career in a corporation (major airline), but as a unionized worker. I am a proud Socialist. I have many friends and colleagues who are of the same thinking.
Such generalizations simply do not hold up.
Chris Hedges a true social activist...Hedges principles are scary to the fascist right-wing America because Hedges speaks the truth. Long live liberty and peace!
I have a deep feeling that Chris advocates a spiritual change that will in turn provide the conditions to fruitful movement to positive societal changes where people are removed from identification from concepts political ideological economic and otherwise.concepts are tools not reality our reality is spiritual not conceptual!
We don't live, as Hedges points out, live in a free market or capitalist system. I mean, pure capitalism involves no state intervention. So, no subsidies, no minimum wage laws, no child labor laws, no public police....
We'd be a complete Third World nation if we had pure capitalism.
separates people, keeping them focused on they're screens and oblivious to each other , it also brings people together that would never meet otherwise, thus enabling a flow and exchange of ideas and information that otherwise would never take place. This is paradox, a term we usually incorrectly use as synonym of contradiction. People do contradiction, Life does paradox; Because in it contrary tendencies coexist. How else could it "surch" for balance? On a theme on the video: I've just
Agreed. We shouldn't be waiting for the state to address the issues at hand. It is difficult though as somethings require a critical mass of people to function.
There are community efforts in my area to get a moneyless trading system going amongst other ideas. That's where it has to start, at grassroots.
Dear Chris
Call yourself af socialdemocrat as all of we leftwings does in Denmark? We have a big socialdemocratic party that has been ruling the country for about eighty % of the last hundred years, so here it is perfectly ok to call yoursel a socialdemocrat.
And it works.
All the best
Niels Tornquist, from Odense, H.C. Andersens hometown
Less middle class per capita in Denmark you moron , socalism policy failed
Excellent series TRNN. I'm telling everyone to watch and to donate.
Is that so? Well, how about that.
You know, I have my own business too. Here's a tip: The key to small business is bending over backward for your customers, which means always being professional, well-mannered, well-spoken, and open-hearted. I can tell you've got what it takes to succeed in our awesome free market. No, really, good luck with that--I really hope it works out for you.
honest question, did the Occupy movement achieved anything, ie did they change anything?
" What in America we call "socialism" --a word that means abhorrent-- to me is no "ism." It is what humans do. We have always known that we have TO TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. We would not have survived for a hundred and more thousand years if we hadn’t taken care of each other. [my CAPS]" -- robert wolff
--
" Socialism: a term nearly totally evacuated of meaning. " -- Chomsky
It is capitalism that we all live by. Voluntary exchanges, voluntary collaborations, sharing of benefits. You can say no thanks you to a private business. You can not say no thank you to the state. State = force. And violence always creates the opposite effect.
Nearly every time there's a news story, the general response usually is "What should we have our gov officials do about this?"
Now the actions they take may not be something you approve or like, and argue back and forth how they should have done X or Y. But merely making that assumption that gov must solve all major problems is socialist.
It also means you consolidate the reigns of power in one area. If someone unwanted takes over you've just facilitated their own power structure.
You asked a most pertinent question today "who owns the stuff".
This is a huge impediment regarding any kind of local self-sufficiency. The
land is already owned. To merely deal with the situation as it is, as many (realists)
would argue is actually an impossibility, I believe. The way of living
that revolves primarily on self-sufficiency, cooperation and sharing would
require an entirely new relationship with each other , the land and resources.
Unless the actual shape of governments and corporations change, and their geographic/economic/political interests are scaled back, unseating and replacing the elites doesn't matter. The people in those positions would still be forced to make the same kinds of all-or-nothing, cut-throat competitive, bureaucratic, imperial decisions, that put people last and stifle their calls for change.
Actually if governments did not introduce so many regulations that favor larger businesses, then many small businesses would not go bust and if governments did not keep hiking up minimum wage, continuously print more and more money for the economy, then inflation would not continue to rise at nearly the rate is does in America, and most European nations. Inflation kills small businesses because it enlarges the gap between them and larger business.
The reason the social democratic parties have turned away from the working class and general left principles, is because of the fall of the soviet union, soviet union reforms opened strong advocacy for change for welfare, neo-liberalism in Europe in the 80s push the destruction of working class, by destroying union and workers rights. But many labour unions have links with bourgeois left.
i think that the refusal to face the lack of democracy stunts all political discussion. an electorate with an effective and accessible power of citizen initiative can control the power of money. without it, nada. that's why madison said frankly that he feared democracy, and made sure that there was none in the constitution.
I went to a public charter school and it was the best education I got. non profit public charter schools are not the problem. private for profit schools are.
Great Interview. Question. What would Mr. Hedges suggest we do with our retirement investments which are so intertwined with global capitalism. I mean stocks, bonds and money markets, savings in bank as well as most pensions are all supporting the global capitalist infrastructure. I look at my financial picture and it seems almost impossible to disentangle. How is Mr. Hedges handling his finances? I need real possibilities.
I think that I and most other 21st century socialists (including Hedges) see the need to develop a system which includes important roles for both planning (on a grander scale), and market relations (for, among other things, setting prices).Thus, while a good deal of industries and enterprises would be state owned (and controlled in some instances), there would be a healthy sector of privately-owned businesses (such as banks) co-existing with socially and cooperatively owned businesses.
Let me phrase it differently. Either you believe in Democracy or you don't. If you do, then you need citizens , as a majority at least. Freedom has another side: responsibility.
I don't know of any power greater than OIL, that has "seized our leaders and their power". If Henry Ford had his way, all our vehicles would have run on alcohol. A fuel we can each grow. We don't lack for farming capacity to do this...even if we were to maintain the unsustainable concentration of farming power we have now to supply it. The real answer is small co-ops who grow their own fuel. During this interview several service men/women were killed over oil, BY their own HAND.
According to the ancient philosophical understanding of communism that I learned about during 1984-85, you're right and I've said it a number of times over the past decade+ that China and Russia don't have real communism. When Britain exercised the practice of The Commons, then this was something true communism would most definitely support/include, but Britain was never called communistic and it eventually ended this concept of The Commons. Why? My guess is to profit the rich.
In my home town and state, when ever we have a big power outage or snow storm. The rich neighborhoods get taken care of first. Then the working class whites. And then the black neighborhood last. When you call out city hall and the power company on this, they deny it. We are in a class war from Wall Street all the way down to the local level.
One big problem is that many people are too religious, and by that I mean they have very emotional ideals which they often channel into the words like “Capitalism” or “Socialism”. Therefore those who religiously believe in Capitalism will see the word “Socialism” as an antithesis to their perceived ideal and they will blindly fight anything that is labelled as such event to their own detriment. Are the terms really that important, more than food, healthcare, housing and freedom itself?
I'm not sure which countries in Europe you lived in but I think you'll agree that the smaller the country (if they are at that level of development Kropotikin speaks of) and the less hooked into the global economy, the more responsive governments are, the less vast the socio-economic divisions are and the more clear the divide between business and state is.
Socialism doesn't necessarily mean big gov't, anarcho-socialist oppose gov't hierarchy. But it does always mean empowering the people who actually work for a living to liberate the fruits of their labor so they own their lives entirely. Free markets for all doesn't mean shit when the oligarch elites own everything, that's just as much slavery as when big gov't owns everything.
True freedom requires never to be taught by the state and the political system. If I really were free, I would not need a system that said this to me, and felt it necessary to repeat it as if it were a propaganda message. The same is taught, moreover, in other totalitarian systems, nobody was happier, freer, and was entitled to have greater confidence than Soviet citizen...The state wants to be loved, but it is content to be feared.
So localized groups/orgs making electronics and other goods? Sounds like a great idea until you get past the talking part.
thats correct. its the government working with corporations. both are above the law.
Yeah, things seem to be going swimmingly here in the US with our high rate of violent crime, poverty, and the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.
Did you ever consider that by telling others what should be done, by being directive and at times confrontational, actually builds resistance to change?
I understand the need for self sufficiency for local areas in order to diminish corporate power. But I don't understand how this action will not result in tribal or localised areas being separate from other localities, how will it be possible to improve networking and reduce those areas that are able to produce more for their society from becoming another corporate bully?
Where is part 5 ?
I think the best option is a social democracy like Canada and a lot of European counties. Nothing is perfect but it seems to strike a reasonable balance of the good points of socialism and capitalism girded by the underlying framework of a functional democracy.
Occupy is not dead. Every Saturday people gather in Elgin and Naperville, Illinois. We just need to be ready.
A "think tank"founded in the 19th century in London to combat both the horrors of industrial England and the power of capital by defining ways in which society might be organised for the benefit of all the people, not just the rich. Named after Fabius Maximus who saved the people of Rome from the Hannibal juggernaut by what we might call guerrilla war, engaging only where Hannibal was vulnerable, avoiding direct conflict with overwhelming power. Wearing them out. So also a political strategy?
When Obama was asked if he was a socialist and replied that according to the bible he was his brother's keeper, was he just capturing the label of socialism and by proxy the language of socialism and in doing so neutralizing the meaning of the language.
When the magazine cover states that 'we are all socialists now' was that to debase the meaning of the word or was that being sarcastic or both?
Corporate interests have been capturing and debasing the language of environmentalism or completely changing the meaning of specific terms through common misuse. Sustainable has become meaningless. The Business Council of Sustainable Development by inference suggests environmental sustainability whereas literally it is about sustaining business.
Because language is how we express our ideas we need to be critical about how it is used particularly when language is used to define who we are and core values.
There are some good socialist groups active. I would suggest Socialist Alternative, they are part of the Committee for a Workers International. The CWI has been able to get people elected into parliaments. Joe Higgins is a member of the Irish parliament and Paul Murphy works as an member of the European parliament. Both of them are members of the Socialist Party.
Kshama Sawant is a member of Socialist Alternative and running for the city council of Seattle.
We must take the corporations out of capitalist hands and put them under democratic control of workers and society. I don't oppose companies but I oppose the fact that they are private owned. The workers of the world must own the means of production. We must expropriate the rich who have no right to own millions of dollars ( and euro's ) while millions of workers live in poverty.
But in order to do that we must brake free from the dogma's of capitalism!
I got a degree in Economics in '77. Understanding Econ has been both a blessing and a curse as I travel through life. For maximum total production and greatest standard of living, overall, you want Libertarianism. That said... It also (sadly) creates a "dog eat dog" economy and the losers are not mere statistics they are People! Therefore, Socialism, with all its faults, has a strong appeal to working class and the poor. So what then? Find the right mix of Socialism with Libertarianism...
oh. And butterflies are a clear indication of a healthy environment and rainbows are the whole spectrum of colours, creating an arch across the sky indicating the rain has passed and all colours have come out to support something beautiful and inspiring
Compare with McDonalds "yellow arches"....
Socialism needs to join forces with environmental activists who are ecologically educated and who work outside of corporate forces. Hedges has been educating himself quickly and vigorously on re-localization movements. He has read some of Derrick Jensen's writings. He has spoken on the phone with Richard Heinberg. Let's see whether he goes a step further and suggests that people begin to cut loose from the electrical grid or trim back their use of electrical appliances.
People don't be silent and conform...we have major problems in both economic and environmental. The problem is growing in a rapid rate that in my job as a fisherman we are seeing less clams and crabs it is effecting our business very negative. We must change our lifes like consuming less and using less energy but we must replace capitalism.
Trump may be a good motivator for people to do the positive things presented here. The alarm clock has gone off for millions more people because of the recent political upheavals. The danger of Trump is his idiotic destruction of the good parts of what government has achieved like the EPA and others. We can end the oligarchy. The young people are the answer, lead by people like Hedges.
Love the point about state socialist, and state capitalist being the difference between an oligarchy and a plutocracy, great point. What do you see as a good system? You seem to point out that true capitalism has never existed, just like a pure marxist society has never existed. Personally I think the best option we've got is well regulated capitalism, if it's unregulated it nulls it's own merits and you end up with a plutocracy, if it's regulated to tight you end up with an oligarchy.
Not all imported foods are waxed. I live in Quebec, Canada. Many foods are imported, including from outside of the country. I've seen little for waxed foods, if any at all. But local and regional production is what consumers should go for. Contrary to what you say, however, it often doesn't cost less. Yet, it's what I always seek, first. Pineapples, f.e., need to be imported, but I'll only buy certified organic. Even then I wonder ..., but I buy only 1 or 2 pineapples per year. No big deal
I didn't see any means to submit questions To Chris Hedges on his last interview. Perhaps you are ready recorded it? But if not I'd like you to ask why not set up large (say 150 to 300 people), mostly self-sufficient rural communes; or at least give people the opportunity to do this if they so choose. It seems to me this would be socialism at its finest.
Sounds like Chris Hedges is talking about local economies, local business's, cooperatives that would still be privately owned. But owned by the workers rather than management or the stockholders.
I voluntarily enlisted in USN in 1975 to get a G.E.D., skills training, and some structure, but we had to fill out a medical form in our 2nd or 3rd week. Where it asked if we had ever consumed drugs I was going to say no, but this is military and I wasn't going to serve dishonestly, so I said yes; some "pot" and a few "hits" of "acid". I knew I'd be called to answer. Day 63 was grad day. Day 62, P.O. tells me I have to go to court next day. Ok, no problem. But, it was hypocrisy and I got out.
It's not capitalism that you're seeing wreck shit all over the world, it's plutocracies/oligarchies, governments made by rich/elites, for the rich/elites, who have shredded the rules that are supposed to keep capitalism in check, and which allow corporations to run amok.
self sustaining, politics and economics would occur at the local/regional level etc. Unlike the collapse of Rome however, people would still have a link to the rest of the world, and a wealth of all kinds of information through the web, so, no dark age.
The transition to literally smaller government, local economies, would end a lot of the imperial government/corporate tension and dominance. A smaller government/corporate presence would flatten out hierarchies responsible for inequality.
What do you proclaim? If you are free to produce to yourself, you will not get more by stealing from me. Money is a product, a medium for exchange. Remove the coercion and violence from politics instead, and it becomes something else - namely, economics.
The capitalism is meritocratic. If people don`t succeed, they become bitter. They don`t want to admit that they don`t succeed because they lack intelligence. In the capitalist system the workers obey technologists and contractors. Under socialism they obey the Socialist officials. Socialists did not take into account the fact that there is a difference between saying what needs to be done and to do what someone else has said must be done. The socialist state is out of necessity a police state.
Maybe kind of vague and broad the way I describe it. If you're interested, you should check out David Schweickart's (mathematician and economist) books "Against Capitalism," and "After Capitalism (the former is more technical and exhaustive, while the latter is geared towards casual readers).
Functionally, they never were really communist. Communism gives power to the workers, something China nor Russia ever did.
What did 1989-1991 bring for Russia, except for extreme collapse of the country and end of the Cold War initiated and maintained by Washington? Gore Vidal once asked President JFK about the CW, for Vidal was against this, and JFK said it was all a façade. Meanwhile, JFK and the leader of the former USSR were working to de-escalate the tensions. There's a video about this, if still available, at CZcams; Vidal's encounter with JFK as JFK was coming off of an air travel trip.
democratic socialism is based and awesome and good and I love Chris Hedges I can't believe these bastards fired him after all this time.
Though they touched on it, both Chris and Paul failed to focus in on what needs to be thoroughly discussed and put out there for people to act on: the details of developing, using and promoting alternative currencies, alternative energy systems, local food production and seriously, unreservedly pulling away from the consumerist mentality and "lifestyle".
Don't like high corporate pay? Restore the top marginal rate of 91% that prevailed 1946-63 in the USA, on salaries over 3M. What I am describing was also the French and British tax system of 1950. Also the New Zealand tax system until 1986.
Socialism simply means that there are no stockholders, dividends are paid to the government, the government appoints most or all of the directors of firms, and life goes on as before.
Socialism will not abolish labour struggling for a bigger share of the value added of their employers. It will not solve the conflict between those who want to be paid and those who want to save money for a rainy day or spend money on capital expenditures. Socialism will not stop abuse of the environment. It will not stop crony capitalism between the government and enterprises. Socialism disempowers MBAs, but empowers engineers and related technocrats.
Most of all, socialism does not abolish class divisions, because those divisions are not based on private property but on education. Socialist societies always produce an educated elite, and that elite continues to hold much power.
Socialism comes to be hated, because under socialism, nothing happens unless the state or an existing socialised enterprises wills it. No room for individual initiative. No room for opposing viewpoints about how the economy should work. Socialist economies become quite rigid, with status deriving from education and access to political power. All jobs are created by the government, and all pay is set by the govt. The govt. gets to veto any promotion. This power over individual destinies is inevitably abused, and used in an attempt to punish dissent. The socialist system creates large rents for certain persons, who make the socialist system impregnable, by authoritarian and abusive methods; look at Venezuela.
What the North Atlantic needs is an end to crony capitalism and corporate welfare. If profits are private, so must losses be. The corrupt complication of the tax system, which is how a great deal of concealed govt. favouritism to business takes place, must end. The ability to shift multinational profits into low tax jurisdictions at will, must end. Finally, all people in the OECD are going to have to start owning stocks and debentures via index funds. One can no longer count on supporting a family on jobs alone.
alnot01 Well said my friend!
You are not describing socialism, you are describing what Lenin called the Soviet economy, "State capitalim".
This is also what George Orwell called the Soviet Union and similar states.
Russia, China etc, were very backward states, they had barely any workers..
hijacked by Stalinism and "red capitalists".
That in not the stateless worker owned democracy socialism envisions.
Mondragon and the lefty states of Scandinavia are more like socialism..
This Trotskyist position is what most socialists and even many communists are about since the 30..
mars Cubed
The truest socialism was the economy Yugoslavia devised in the 1950s and 60s. That system had no imitators, especially in the USSR, and is now completely gone. Yugoslavina firms were "private" but the career employees elected the board of directors. There were no stockholders, but there were creditors. The trouble with this system is that workers did not want to be on the hook when there were losses. Workers also did not care about what happened after they retired or died.
What you have stated is not socialism by any way. It is state capitalism , the system already in place.
Logan Ausherman
What you call "state capitalism" (a term that has no accepted definition), I call socialism. What you call socialism has never existed, and cannot conceive of it ever coming into being. The North Atlantic economies are crony, not state, capitalist.
how can you ensure free markets by your definition if people who succeed in the free market are likely to do whatever they can to stay there and ensure it for their future generations, often at the expense of anything else?
I think the old stigma of Socialist is gone , except for a few very rich even middle class now know there is no hope for them anymore thanks to our government leadership........
wikipedia/wiki/Democratic_elements_of_Roman_Republic
"the Roman Senate represented an oligarchic institution, which acted as an advisory body"
If Obama is a dictator, that doesn't make this a democracy, does it? My question still stands.
You have to destroy Exxon by nationalizing the energy system so that it is responsible to the people,not to the needs of a corporate board. We first have to describe what is happening to us, before we can articulate a vision of democratic socialism.
Hope people wake up gradually as Chris wants us to organize locally, gradually in different matters of the economical, political, environmental..
i'm pretty sure most people just want security and civil liberty. how many citizens want laws protecting monsanto? how many citizens want even the talk of cutting social security and medicare? the words "big government" don't really describe anything because it means different things to different people.
One solution to some of the issues arising from the rise of the corporate state is for ordinary folks to organize alternate systems, like an alternative unemployment support system. If people do this they will render the state essentially powerless on such issues.
recently seen a video on the internet where someone from Austria, and I feel very tempted to say: of all places, although only ironically, I actually know some Austrians, who quite free mindedly has pursued through his life time a corporation independent way of farming was teaching and helping people in Ecuador with his acquired
experience. One might say: "das prinzip hoffnung". One might also read again the end of "the grapes of wrath".
the socialist president who offered to cut social security and medicare that even reagan said was off the table?
Proud to be Socialist...share, care and community!
Yeah, understanding economics can be a bummer. I remember listening to some news when the reporter said something to the effect: "the cost of corn has gone up and consumers are feeling the heat". I got so outraged: well yeah, if the demand for corn drops then it really doesn't matter if the cost of producing corn has gone up!
That's exactly what we mean. Read up, it's what makes the most sense.
There are many types of socialists. Chris Hedges is obviously from the social democracy side (more like Sweden, Denmark, Findland, Great Britiain, Germany, which all have better standard of living for it's working class as compared to the US......free healthcare too).
The onther side of socialism is libertarian socialism, which means all people run their own work (no bosses and managers to push you around), and communities make the decisions on how their affairs will be run..aka real democracy.
D-D Direct Democracy______LET THE PEOPLE VOTE_____
I find it hard to believe that there are any really good organisations of any great size. It seems to me that once an organisation reaches a certain size it ceases to represent it members and decisions coalesce around the prejudices and desires of the few who lead it.
To be any different would take centuries of really top class non-ideological civic education and protracted efforts in inculcating democratic participation. That is a tall order for a society of 7bn to achieve.
Almost the whole of Europe has socialist governments and only the communist regimes that were aligned with the former Soviet Union ever had totalitarian governments such as the "Warsaw Pact" nations. If you have no kind of state intervention you are giving industry the right to pursue any kind of chicanery against the public if they aren't held to any account. Balance and some control over this greed mentality is was is called for. They no longer teach ethics in business schools.
If dogma's were the issue the problem would have been resolved a long time ago. A large part of the problem is the concentration of power that the corporate organisation brings.
People need to (a) Organise the political process where only they have a voice and (b) When they have that power, decide whether they want the corporation as it is today to exist at all.
It may be that people decide they do, then as a whole we have to live with the awful consequences of that decision
I disagree. Look at Occupy Wall Street. A socialist revolution in America seems unlikely. But if passionate gun owners, mostly consisting of those in the NRA, and the members of Occupy got behind an idea I think some kind of revolution is possible.
The internet also makes organization easier. In the days of Wikileaks and Snowden, Americans are becoming more and more aware of the disconnect between their own perception of their government and their actual government. Their outrage may be enough.
Provide some source references for saying that Hedges is against Ru. and China. Explain in which ways that he's against them, in terms of what you interpret from what he's said. Perhaps he's against the fact that neither of these countries is truly socialist or communist. You need to provide references to sources that support your claims.
Socialism for the rich and large corporations that're also rich. Again, seek articles by Stephen Lendman about Obamacare. Lendman understands what it really is. There're also articles by him on this topic at GlobalResearch(.)ca.
According to Wikipedia pages for "socialism" and "Socialization (economics)", neither Obama nor Obamacare are socialistic. So proper usage of the terminology doesn't work for describing him or his ideas or programs.
Economic wealth and maximum production make sense as primary goals for society in so far as individuals are so philistinistic that they're too busy celebrating contemporary culture anyway. You can't mobilize people on the pretense that they act in economic self-interest.
wheres part 7?
Yes but because of Snowden we know the internet is being watched and trying to organize a movement via the internet can be preemptively stopped by those watching.
actually the free-market is not the solution. Because the free-market creates cronyism because it allows a few wealthy individuals to have full control of the market...so capitalism is not the solution it is the problem.
Paul Jay, like too many Americans, confuse Communism & Socialism. They are very different. Socialism had no connection to the Cold War.
unfortunately, socialism has become a term almost noone understands, so using it is almost definately a detriment to anyone. it's true the term is losing it's stigma, but the term has been redifined so many times that it's lost most of it's meaning. the reality is most americans are socialists, or have strong socialist tendencies. it's a pretty natural human position. the problem is that most people have no idea what socialism is and attribute it with the oligarchic tyranny's that called themselves the same. it's sort of like when george bush calls himself a conservative. he might have something in common with conservatism, but it's pretty remote, yet when someone calls themselves a conservative, people immediately assume you're ideology is akin to the republican party, when in fact an actual conservative probably votes democrat in our bizarre system.