Beckwin

[Kuya]

Are you really a socialist? Or rather, are you still a socialist? I don't know much about socialism, so i thought i might ask you to explain to me what socialism is formally about, at the same time you can explain to me how you understand socialism. I particularly want to know what are the formal structures of socialism, if there are any, what consequences are supposed to be produced from them, and through what means do these formal structures produce these consequences. For example, a formal structure is the voting system, and the consequence is soveregnty belonging to those who vote.

[Demosthenes]

Proceed

[Kuya]

Post the pic

[Demosthenes]

http://www.lolkittys.com/sitebuilder...32-600x381.jpg

[Kuya]

Excellent

[Demosthenes]

http://www.evilscience.co.uk/wp-cont...llent-frog.JPG

[Beckwin]

I'm some sort of socialist.

And I know whatever I say here, you're going to try and spin it into a gotcha about Obama or something. To that end I'll preemptively respond by saying whatever small gains, even with unnecessary waits involved, we get from an Obama admin and regressions we didn't make under a theoretical McCain/Palin regime made the vote and support worth it. Still optimistic we'll see a few more good changes by the end of things; no, not expecting him to take us to magical socialist utopia.

you can try to pretend that's not your goal here, but I know what's up.

if you actually want some of my defenses/justifications of socialism, dig up old threads or something. or convince me that you're actually interested in some way.

[Kuya]

I am interested, and no this is not an attempt to nail you about Obama. That has becoming boring.

[Kuya]

I wanted to know your opinion on socialism so that i could contrast it to some of Marx's ideas.

[Beckwin]

why do you want to do that? I agree with most of the Marx I've read. I don't always agree with his advocacy of violent revolution, because I think different situations call for different courses of action and I overwhelmingly prefer non-violence. If you read Engels, you'll find he begins to advocate revolution from within a government through democratic takeovers.

[Kuya]

I want to see how socialism, your view of socialism, relates to Marx's ideas. Specially, to see in what way they are different.

[Kuya]

What are the goals of socialism? Through what structures does socialism accomplish its goals? How do these structures acheive their goals? Are the main questions i would like answered.

[Shiroikage]

Beckwin, you always sound so angry.

[Howard Roark]

preemptively

[Beckwin]

^
I've come to anticipate stupid shit, so I get preemptively angry

[Shiroikage]

People are not going to trust what you have to say if you are angry.

[Howard Roark]

anger leads to fear leads to anger

[Howard Roark]

I have no idea what happens next

[Howard Roark]

oh god what if it's anger?

[Shiroikage]

That's scary.