Originally Posted by herbal tee

**** DING **** We have a winner.

... but recognized with sadness, nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... but recognized with sadness, nonetheless.

Haven't yet participated in this thread, but have often wondered if there is a real difference between Socialism and Communism. Is Communism Socialism on Steroids much as Corporatism is Capitalism on Steroids?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... but recognized with sadness, nonetheless.

See! I told you that I am *always wrong*!

After our commercial break, our Philosophy-Kings will have a new challenger, named Murphy...

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Haven't yet participated in this thread, but have often wondered if there is a real difference between Socialism and Communism. Is Communism Socialism on Steroids much as Corporatism is Capitalism on Steroids?

The problem is the word 'socialism' being used in so many ways as to have no real meaning. Communism as practiced was authoritarian. It came with a police state, a lack of human rights, knocks on the door in the middle of the night, concentration camps, etc... Corporatism, as much as I detest it, hasn't got anywhere near that.

I have no more problem with your trying to redefine the word than anyone else. We've one poster that cannot distinguish between communists and democrats. If you can't distinguish between socialism and communism, there's a problem.

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

Gentlebeings:

The best we can hope for is post WW 2 Britain. We're headed for Banana Republic territory, now.

Again, in the Agricultural Age, if an Empire were to fail it would often fail utterly.

Since the Renaissance, if a dominant 'superpower' might be defeated, it's borders, language and culture generally remain intact. It is the imperial pretensions that are given up.

Let's look at some of the pretenders. Spain in the early colonial period seized a lot of gold from the Americas which gave her power well above and beyond her size and resources. She dominated Europe for a time based on special circumstances, then resumed her natural role.

France managed to unite a large amount of land and population faster than any potential rivals. From the fading of Spain through Napoleon and somewhat beyond, she had a major role to play. World War I clobbered her male population and dimmed her desire for another round of fighting with Germany. World War II did much the same for Germany.

Great Britain built a navy and an empire, not necessarily in that order. World War II gave her a ton of debit... forgiven if she would open her colonial ports and accept free trade. Given free trade, she could not sustain empire.

After World War II, the United States had essentially the only surviving industrial base, a large land mass, control of the seas, and a belief that her military force and her rival's vile autocratic political system demanded she play superpower. The rest of the First World let us get away with this so long as the Soviets were a pretense of a threat. At this point, though, Europe, Russia, China, India, and other blocks are comparable in economic strength. Most of them are not full equals, but they belong on the same playing field.

Various nations given special circumstances have been able to dominate militarily, economically and thus politically. Often, such temporary special circumstances have led the population and the politicians to believe such a temporary circumstantial dominance ought to be permanent, that a dominant status ought to be unduly dominant and permanent.

I am dubious. A lot of the above 'special' dominant countries ended their dominance with an over extended military and a crushing debit. I have no great confidence that our leaders or our population can recognize history, if not repeating itself, at least rhyming.

A decade or so back, in the late Clinton 43 early Bush 44 years, I thought maintaining some large portion of our military strength would be necessary to bridge the world over a harsh crisis era. I don't know that we have the willpower to do this, or the willingness to pay the bills. If a large part of the population is buying into 'government isn't the solution, government is the problem' and 'read my lips, no new taxes,' we can't be a superpower, we can't be the World Police. To the extent that we pretend to have an over sized role, but we aren't willing to pay the costs involved in actually playing that role, the economic collapse resulting from maintaining pretensions of superpowerness is as problematic as the military overextension.

Ah, well. In response to the quote above, Great Britain is not a Banana Republic. She is doing quite well, thank you. She just couldn't maintain as a small island nation the role of superpower given open ports. The United States will be in no worse shape. We've got a large land base and a well educated population. If we don't do anything totally stupid, we'll end up several steps up from Banana Republic.

Is this a bad thing? Do we want to bear the burdens, pay the prices, meet the hardships that come with playing superpower in an era of open ports? I don't think so. Reagan quashed the idea of tax and spend liberalism, the notion that the people should sacrifice to the nation for the greater good. I don't see a comeback. I don't know that I want a comeback.

Actually, the response to the Syria thing hints that the American public is ready to dump the world policeman role. Was the American public ever really sold on the super power thing? Or did it simply accept a need to counter a powerful menace (Axis powers...USSR...)?

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Haven't yet participated in this thread, but have often wondered if there is a real difference between Socialism and Communism. Is Communism Socialism on Steroids much as Corporatism is Capitalism on Steroids?

Communism is one kind of socialism. There are other kinds of socialism that are not communism.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Actually, the response to the Syria thing hints that the American public is ready to dump the world policeman role.

I would say it shows that the American public is right now not too keen on the intervention thing. I submit the public felt similarly after Vietnam too.

This could be signficant if the libertarian anti-intervention element of the Republican party is able to exploit this public unease with intervention in the primaries next year and in 2016.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Actually, the response to the Syria thing hints that the American public is ready to dump the world policeman role.

I would say it shows that the American public is right now not too keen on the intervention thing. I submit the public felt similarly after Vietnam too.

This could be signficant if the libertarian anti-intervention element of the Republican party is able to exploit this public unease with intervention in the primaries next year and in 2016.

It would be significant but cynical, if more than a thin slice of the GOP actually went that way. The crowd that dissed the Dems for not being militatnt enough won't be eligible to play that card, unless they don't mind hearing themselves taking the opposit position in every oppsing campaign ad. The few in the libertarian right who actually have had this position for a while will gain, albeit not much. I think we're past foreign intrigue and all about the money for this next cycle.

[QUOTE=Mikebert;482563

...Application of the 40 year rule has the next “Ike” or Republican Clinton to be elected in 2032. Therefore between now and 2032 Democrats have to dominate politics a sufficiently long time that that an Ike becomes possible. Seems to me that is a long time. During this time, should it occur, it will be possible to implement the necessary correctives by defeating politicians in Democratic-leaning regions (which will be a majority unlike today) who are insufficiently progressive, much as the New Right did with the GOP.[/QUOTE]

See, I don't see the Democratic Party or the Republican Party as lasting past 2020. Millennials will be the target demographic in every election from here on out in terms of pulling out a victory. While they trend more liberal than conservative by a 66% margin favoring liberal policies, I don't think they're interested in the Democratic party in particular, mostly because they are inept, but also because they continually attempt to cater to a culture war vested audience.

While I agree the liberal trend will continue a good long while, I think they will be replaced by a party that is oriented towards a much more economically radical disposition with a focus on the the opetations of government and the way government works, but largely ignores most social issues, with maybe the exception of gay marriage and legalizing marijuana.

I do think that the Republican is, at this point, decidedly nonviable and will fade away almost immediately. However, I think the Democrats will quickly find it's voting block eroding from under it as a new party emerges. Here I could see 3 possible scenarios:

If the emergent party is looking for direct democracy, then a constitutional convention will be called and a new system will be issued as soon as the emergent party has sufficient power to do so.

If the emergent party is looking for a multiparty system, it will be a similar process, but a parliamentary, rather than direct democracy system that is created.

If the emergent party is good with a two part system, then I expect the Democrats to be all but gone at the 40 year mark and New conservative party to emerge then.

Now, why would there be new government formats or a new party system for that matter? Millennials hate the post 9/11 government. Democrats generally favor it. Most Millennials I have met resent the excess scrutiny that was implemented in the early 2000's and generally have a "never again" rather than "never forget" mentality. Democrats tend to be procorporate, while Millennial are far more distrusting of hierarchy in general, but especially corporate power which is a hierarchy unchecked.

For instance you mention that corporations have no agency, and that is untrue, their agency is profit. Corporations must turn profit eventually otherwise it's not a corporation, it's and association, a non-profit organization, but not a corporation. Also, more worrisome, corporations have no external responsibilities unless forced by a court. There are certain things this is good for. I'd hate for music hating jerks to have a say in instrument construction or the elderly to have a say in skateboard construction.

However, Take the CEO of BP. He's responsible to only his wealthiest shareholders, and they're wealthy enough that they are responsible for nothing and there is no reason to assume responsibility for the general welfare when you live 3000 miles away. Employee ownership will not change a general wealth uptrend, and basing that uptrend on age by biasing it towards years served (also, try explaining this to the generation that was repeatedly told they needed experience to get a job so they could get experience) will continually create class conflict until, swiftly and inevitably younger workers realize they have several distinct advantages over older employees. While there are many things I trust private enterprise to, there are still plenty I do not. Without appropriate state control worker ownership is not sufficient to alleviate the economic crisis.

Originally Posted by Kepi

See, I don't see the Democratic Party or the Republican Party as lasting past 2020.

Of course you don’t. But both parties have been a lot more on the ropes in the past and they didn’t disappear then. Republicans were way worse off last 4T and they didn’t go away. Ditto for Democrats in the 4T before.

I don't think they're interested in the Democratic party in particular, mostly because they are inept, but also because they continually attempt to cater to a culture war vested audience.

Why would they be any more interested in a new party that does the same thing? Parties do what wins elections. If people don’t like what they offer, they lose elections and parties change their offerings. The Whigs and Federalists disappeared because they were not national parties, they lacked features which were popular in the South and West. In the 1850’s the Whigs went through a couple of mergers and emerged as the Republican party. The merger with the Free Soil Party gave them market strength in the West, on the cutting edge of national growth. With the Free Soilers came new welfare programs like the Homestead Act, that handed out free land to Westerners, making the new party more than competitive with the Dems in the West. The Whigs also infiltrated the American party (more commonly known as the Know-Nothings) and converted them from a rabidly anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic party to a patriotic, socially conservative party. They then merged with the Republicans, bringing in votes from the more settled western regions. These mergers made the Republicans dominant in two of the three major regions of the country and allowed them to win six presidential elections in a row after 1860.

For the 52 year period from 1860-1912, Democrats elected one man as president, a Bourbon Democrat (what we today would call a DINO), who was later labeled “a conservative Republican” by President Wilson. Were third parties created during this time of Democratic ineptitude? Yep, lots of them: Greenbackers, various Labor parties, the Socialists and the most successful of them all, the People’s party in 1894. Some of these parties were far more successful than anything we have seen since. The year I was born, my hometown of Milwaukee WI was the 11^th largest city in the country. It had a Socialist mayor and Socialists had run the city for 36 of the previous 44 years.

There were movements that spoke sense back then. Ordinary people who had analyzed their situation and identified solutions. Solutions that actually worked, because when the Democratic implemented these ideas decades later they did the job. Here’s a quote from my wife’s great grandmother (b 1872) “I can’t vote for Republicans; they don’t understand poor people”. I can’t vote for Democrats, they say stupid things. All that’s left is to vote Socialist”. She was no liberal, most of her children moved up out of poverty and were Republicans.

Today there is nothing like the Socialist or the People’s party in existence. Not only that, but there is nobody in the progressive side who is talking sense. Your approach seems to me to be a passive one; wait for a deus ex machina in the form of a Millennial party.

While I agree the liberal trend will continue a good long while, I think they will be replaced by a party that is oriented towards a much more economically radical disposition with a focus on the operations of government and the way government works, but largely ignores most social issues, with maybe the exception of gay marriage and legalizing marijuana.

New parties don’t appear out of nowhere. They emerge from pre-existing movements. If this were going to happen these movements would be active now. Where are they?

What exists as movements today have nothing to say that makes sense. On the left you had the Occupiers, who didn’t say anything as far as I can tell. On the other you have the Tea Party who says lots of things, none of which make any sense.

Millennials hate the post 9/11 government. Democrats generally favor it.

Have you seen the public’s approval rating for Congress? The bulk of the people quite obviously hate the post-911 government.

For instance you mention that corporations have no agency, and that is untrue, their agency is profit.

I don’t think you understand what agency means. Agency means being able to act on one’s own volition. Corporations are not alive. They don’t do anything. They are simply tools. It’s the people who use them who have agency. Instead of talking about “corporations” an abstract concept that lets people off the hook, talk about investors and managers who use corporations solely to make money, because this is what they believe they are supposed to do.

Corporations must turn profit eventually otherwise it's not a corporation

No, replace corporation with the word business and you are correct. Corporations can be non-profit and often are (e.g. the corporation for public broadcasting).

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Haven't yet participated in this thread, but have often wondered if there is a real difference between Socialism and Communism. Is Communism Socialism on Steroids much as Corporatism is Capitalism on Steroids?

Communism is two different things. In Marxist lexicon, Communism is a direction of social and economic development, the result of economic and technological development that allows a world without scarcity and without severe inequality best achieved through Socialism because capitalism invariably imposes scarcity from which capitalists control workers and extract indulgence.

As a contemporary ideology it is Marxism-Leninism, political practice that imposes government ownership and operation of productive business and the denial of any right to meaningful opposition. Such is a form of socialism, but not the only one.

Originally Posted by Kepi

See, I don't see the Democratic Party or the Republican Party as lasting past 2020. Millennials will be the target demographic in every election from here on out in terms of pulling out a victory. While they trend more liberal than conservative by a 66% margin favoring liberal policies, I don't think they're interested in the Democratic party in particular, mostly because they are inept, but also because they continually attempt to cater to a culture war vested audience.

All institutions seek to maintain existence because they have people with an interest in their survival. Parties can disappear because they are suppressed (as were most fascistic parties in the wake of World War II). They can become irrelevant as the people in them migrate or are exterminated (the Jewish socialist Bund in some countries that had large Jewish populations before the Holocaust and mass emigration to Israel) or the Party itself loses its vitality to competing, newer parties (think of the Liberal Party in Great Britain and the German Zentrum that barely exists despite billing itself as the 'oldest Party in Germany' and having an honorable role as a conservative democratic Party in Germany before 1933).

While I agree the liberal trend will continue a good long while, I think they will be replaced by a party that is oriented towards a much more economically radical disposition with a focus on the the operations of government and the way government works, but largely ignores most social issues, with maybe the exception of gay marriage and legalizing marijuana.

America still has a large number of people whose bodies are in the 21st Century and whose minds are in the 17th and even earlier -- and I am not discussing people whose esthetics are in the Renaissance or the Victorian era, as I would be discussing myself as a dinosaur. People can play the latest video games and be up to date on the content of television-based drama, but still believe that the universe is roughly 6000 years old and that homosexuality is a damnable affront to God.

I do think that the Republican is, at this point, decidedly nonviable and will fade away almost immediately. However, I think the Democrats will quickly find it's voting block eroding from under it as a new party emerges. Here I could see 3 possible scenarios:

If the emergent party is looking for direct democracy, then a constitutional convention will be called and a new system will be issued as soon as the emergent party has sufficient power to do so.

If the emergent party is looking for a multiparty system, it will be a similar process, but a parliamentary, rather than direct democracy system that is created.

If the emergent party is good with a two part system, then I expect the Democrats to be all but gone at the 40 year mark and New conservative party to emerge then.

The two main Parties in America have much flexibility over time. They are effectively coalitions, and as large parts of those coalitions disappear through irrelevance a Party that depends upon those coalitions will weaken. Factions within those Parties can move from one Party to another. The sorts of people who stood for George Wallace when he was a segregationist and their ideological successors have found themselves marginalized within the Democratic Party and have almost entirely started voting Republican. At roughly the same time the "Rockefeller Republicans" who were (and still are) liberal on race and are secular in their morals have gone to the Democratic Party. We find people like Jeanne Kilpatrick who says "I did not leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me!" and Charlie Crist who says "I did not leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me!"

The Religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican Party, is aging into irrelevance. Death rates ramp almost imperceptibly among people in their fifties, ramp significantly in their sixties, and skyrocket in their seventies and eighties. The Religious Right, largely Boom, won huge numbers that abandoned Jimmy Carter for Ronald Reagan around 1980 when it was still young. Unable to keep a hold on its children and grandchildren on politics and religion, it has become decidedly old more than 30 years later. The demise of 60-something Boomers in the Religious Right may have been enough to make the difference between a bare majority win of George W. Bush in 2004 and a bare majority win of Barack Obama in 2012.

Now, why would there be new government formats or a new party system for that matter? Millennials hate the post 9/11 government. Democrats generally favor it. Most Millennials I have met resent the excess scrutiny that was implemented in the early 2000's and generally have a "never again" rather than "never forget" mentality. Democrats tend to be procorporate, while Millennial are far more distrusting of hierarchy in general, but especially corporate power which is a hierarchy unchecked.

Entrenched wealth will usually find itself with the Establishment party and make the Establishment Party drift to the Right. So it was with the Republican Party in the latter half of the 19th century, taking the Party of Abolition (once the definitive liberal movement) into a pro-business, anti-worker position. Although southern conservatives stayed within the Democratic Party and defined it as the racist, reactionary Party in the South, industrial workers disaffected with the pro-business Republican Party that had low wages as an objective found their way into the Democratic Party by default. A coalition between largely-Catholic, semi-socialist blue-collar workers and Southern reactionaries existed in practice from the 1880s to the 1960s and fell apart when the largely-Catholic, semi-socialist blue-collar workers started identifying with Southern blacks as an oppressed people and split from the racist reactionaries.

Corporations must turn profit eventually otherwise it's not a corporation, it's and association, a non-profit organization, but not a corporation. Also, more worrisome, corporations have no external responsibilities unless forced by a court. There are certain things this is good for. I'd hate for music hating jerks to have a say in instrument construction or the elderly to have a say in skateboard construction.

For-profit corporations have responsibilities to shareholders, basically to make a profit. Most for-profit corporations are net debtors, and they have a responsibility to pay off bond-holders. If they fail at these they go bankrupt or become shells to be taken over by corporations that can turn a profit. Maybe we would be better off with cottage industries and worker-owned cooperatives, but that so far seems utopian.

So what is objectionable? Manipulation of the political process to ensure that owners and executives have repressive power over everyone else demonstrates a tendency toward corporate power over all else. The profit motive is not the highest of all human drives, and giving all power to the corporations practically ensure misery for anyone not a big owner or a high-level executive. The Republican Party has largely acceded to the idea that Man is either homo oeconomicus, a beast intent only upon short-sighted economic gain no matter what destructive tendencies are to himself, his loved ones, and the world in general -- or a fear-driven Fundamentalist Christian or a racist who believes that no human suffering is in excess if it has "Pie In the Sky When You Die" as a reward.

People are catching on outside the Republican Party.

As a dog, I operate on a much simpler system, based on food (money).

Income go up in real terms? No. Expenses go up? Yes. Vote out current politicians.

Next likely replacement politicians likely to make my income go up? No. Expenses still go up? Yes. Plus I get abused. Do not vote for likely replacement politicians.

Least likely replacement politicians not alpha dog enough to make things different? Do not vote for non-alpha parties.

Action: Forage until political packs cull themselves. Hang out with other gamma-dogs on internet forum.

Pbrower,

Well, that got a little self-indulgent at the end. Blue collar Catholics in the NE never identified with poor blacks in large numbers. Many if them defected to the Republican party during the 3T, either in place or by physically moving themselves and their families to the Sun Belt. It would be more accurate to state that a sizeable segment of that group moved up into the administrative and professional classes and ceased to see poor blacks and immigrants as economic competitors, even as the place of mainline Protestantism in the intellectual and cultural firmament of American life was replaced with modern progressivism, an ideology for whom diversity has become an end in itself.

Also, to be more accurate, the supporters of segregationists like George Wallace didn't defect, they died. Their physical and idealogical descendants did join the Republicans, but as segregation and other hallmarks if that polity are no longer formal positions among anybody even vaguely within the mainstream, you can't simply tar them with that brush.

Criticize their policies in their own right, dude. God knows there's plenty of ammunition.

Originally Posted by Kepi

See, I don't see the Democratic Party or the Republican Party as lasting past 2020.

Set things too close in the future, and your "future history" won't work out on schedule. See TV Tropes for more details.

More plausible:

Magnetic pole change: Last of the GOP moderates go Dem over the next long presidential cycle (2016-2024). Dem party splits. New liberal party emerges over next 20+ years. Deb may well be correct, as we are now seeing active critics of the Administration, and critics of pro-business/military invervention policies. The GOP becomes something akin to the reactionary European political parties (or Likud). This nation is simply too crazy for them to disappear altogether.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Pbrower,

Well, that got a little self-indulgent at the end. Blue collar Catholics in the NE never identified with poor blacks in large numbers. Many if them defected to the Republican party during the 3T, either in place or by physically moving themselves and their families to the Sun Belt. It would be more accurate to state that a sizeable segment of that group moved up into the administrative and professional classes and ceased to see poor blacks and immigrants as economic competitors, even as the place of mainline Protestantism in the intellectual and cultural firmament of American life was replaced with modern progressivism, an ideology for whom diversity has become an end in itself.

Sure. Those 'ethnics' wanted blacks to be at a safe distance, basically black men keeping their hands and especially some other appendage away from their daughters. But they had no problems with equal pay for equal work. Unions were staunchly opposed to segregationism.

A dirty little secret: the Civil Rights movement would have never succeeded had it not been for Yankees finding Florida as an escape from winter or discovering New Orleans as the definitive Party Town. US 1 from Washington DC and points to the north, US 11 from Harrisburg and points to the north, US 19 from Pittsburgh, US 21 from Cleveland, US 23 from Columbus, US 25 or 27 from Cincinnati, US 31 from Louisville, US 41 and US 45 from Chicago and Milwaukee, US 51 from Rockford, US 61 from St. Louis, and US 71 from Kansas City all wound their way South through the twisted heart of Jim Crow country. Figure that before the Interstates were fully built, Northerners went through small southern towns and found ugly reminders of how morally bankrupt a society could be. Separate toilets and drinking fountains, separate entrances, and of course signs that said "No Colored Served Here" were out of character Up North. Consequences of the pariah status of Southern blacks included blatant poverty and even malnutrition.

Even if the elderly people who went to Florida stirred no trouble, they went back Up North at the end of winter and told their children and grandchildren who found such tales contrary to what they learned in their civic texts. Some of those kids became Freedom Riders and challenged the institutional bigotry of the Deep South.

Beyond doubt, World War II shattered the assumption that white ethnics (including those descended from the waves of immigration from the South and East of Europe around 1900) were to remain second-class citizens, at least in economics. Colonel "Rossi" expected to hear the word "Sir" as an address, and one did not tell Polish jokes around Major Kowalski. Such was a huge change. Many military officers, whatever their origin, started competing in the upper echelons of the workplace in professional and administrative areas. Such was social progress, if not progressivism.

Progressives do not want diversity in the form of malnourished children with kwashiorkor -- or enduring homelessness due to the moral failure of plutocracy.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Also, to be more accurate, the supporters of segregationists like George Wallace didn't defect, they died. Their physical and idealogical descendants did join the Republicans, but as segregation and other hallmarks if that polity are no longer formal positions among anybody even vaguely within the mainstream, you can't simply tar them with that brush.

Criticize their policies in their own right, dude. God knows there's plenty of ammunition.

Toward the end of his life George Wallace himself renounced segregation. What happened was not so much the revival of racism in the South but instead the rise of anti-rational Christian Protestant fundamentalism that had its own reactionary agenda.