Hi Barry,

I've just found this thread. I was fascinated by your quote:

"Censorship should be resisted in all its insidious forms. We should be vigilant of the gradual erosion of our freedom to know, to be informed, and make reasoned decisions in our society and in our democracy".

So, in those dozens of 'socialist' states, over a combined hundreds of years of experience, how did that go ?

One aspect of the Gramscian 'march through the institutions' seems to always be to demand of existing societies what has never been tolerated in any 'socialist' state.

Please explain :)

Joe

At
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16764#294776

you said:

"Basically you have not taken the discussion any further than Marx, who simply assumed without any real explanation, that the profit motive would disappear under socialism, and that the working class would benefit more economically from socialism than from capitalism."

At
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16764#294799

I mentioned that my papers devoted considerable space to how socialism would dispense with the profit motive. Given that this was a major theme of the two articles and they were adequately sub-headed I do not think there was any need for me to be more specific. I also found your comment odd given that you had read at least one of my papers.

Not good enough, sorry.

I am not to be sent on an errand to construct your argument for you. You need to make it in this forum here, otherwise it's just an appeal to absent authority (your own), and I can refute it according to your own standards by merely saying that everything you are arguing is disproved here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16764#294799
which is what you're doing.

How do you like it? Do you consider that an adequate form of argument? If yes, then you lose, by your own standard. If no, then you lose, by your own standard.

You see David, it's no use pretending you understand Marx's theory and its refutations, and how to re-arrange the economy of the world, if you can't cope with the requirements of logic at the simply syllogism level. If you can't even establish that your argument meets the minimal level of being merely logical - which you can't as we've just seen over and over and over again - then what hope do you have?

Joe,

Happy to explain but need two parts, word limitation.

If you are who I think you are, then you were once a communist or at least on the revolutionary left. If I am right, then I will ask you: were you on the left because you supported censorship? Was that a core value? Or, did you actively oppose censorship (as the rest of us did)?

I just want to establish that many people were and are attracted to the Left because of those values. Having said that, I am very aware of the censoriousness today of many old comrades who seem to have changed while still none the less claiming to be of the Left. I regard them as pseudo's.

I like the way you put 'socialist' in inverted commas because, again, if you are who I think you are, you would understand that we NEVER supported the social-fascist regimes in Europe or, for that matter, Cuba. Our understanding of Marxist dialectics meant we could comprehend that things turn into their opposites and that struggle is essential against that happening.

Yes, I regarded the Soviet (pre-1950s) and the Chinese experiments favourably. But I also came to understand that they were more or less doomed to fail, in the long run, because they were such backward systems. They lacked the economic development of capitalism and democratic culture. You too would know what Marx said about the preconditions for socialism being necessary.

Of course, I would not argue that there was a free press in the Soviet Union prior to it adopting state capitalism after WW2. Russia was invaded by armies of 14 countries after the revolution, then had a civil war, then the pro-fascist fifth columnists and then the worst war in human history unleashed upon the Soviet by the Nazis (with Britain and US initially standing by and hoping).

What was the capitalist countries' excuse for strict censorship during the war, and in the intervening periods?

Are you not aware that even Britain, the mother of parliamentary democracy, only became democratic in the parliamentary sense in 1929?

Part two, Joe:

As for China, my understanding is different to yours in that I believe that the cultural revolution when it was led by the left in China did result in a flowering of competing newspapers and more importantly big-character posters. At the time, western conservatives bemoaned this chaos. I was inspired by it, and I suspect that you might have been too.

You will say that I was wrong to see it that way but this does not alter the fact that the values to which I adhered, and still adhere, were committed to free speech - letting the hundred flowers bloom.

We are in the C21st now. If you look at how democracy and capitalism have developed and changed over the centuries, you will notice that things have taken time since the English revolution of the mid-C17th. Yet there is still a hereditary element to the British parliament. And you expect socialism to be faulted by a measure against an idealised C21st democratic capitalism?

Do you really want the multi-billionaire owners of Google to have the power to decide to cooperate with China's anti-communist, undemocratic, regime in censorship the Internet? Or do you want to see the 'Net owned by everybody and liberated from concentrated ownership?

Hi Barry,

Yes, you got me, I was a born-and-bred pro-Soviet Communist until I was about 19, then flicked to the Chinese until my late thirties, after which I've been a sort. of agnostic.

I don't think it's a matter of either/or - it's not a choice between Britain 1929 and Google OR free speech and restricted censorship - was free speech ever really encouraged under any socialist state ? In that sense, was socialism ever any freer than the most restrictive capitalism, e.g. China ? Yes, certainly, things turn into their opposites all right.

In its defence, I can appreciate that, in a hostile world, no socialist state can tolerate the complete freedom of expression. But this is hardly one of its strengths, particularly when this is used as a pretext for the extermination and incarceration of vast populations. Clearly though, double standards are being employed when we demand something under capitalism that we know very well would not be tolerated under socialism, or some other Perfect Society under whatever name.

If we are to stand up for free expression, we must also be aware that , in order to preserve it, we must forever tolerate an imperfect society, one with wrinkles and warts, which tolerates other groups that we wouldn't have a bar of. Nor they with us. That might be as good as it gets: a permanent un-revolution.

Joe