Vorkosigan

Just to pick one of numerous misleading statements in your post, would you care to back up your assertion that "those governments" have been expansionist? Which of the following have been expansionist? (Note: define "expansionist")

As in "seeking to expand its physical territory and/or export its revolution"

China

C'mon, are you serious? Hello Tibet. Taiwan, and in the future, Mongolia. I live under their guns and missiles, moon.

USSR

Eastern Europe? Chechnya....Afghanistan?

Cuba

Cuba is an island.....

Vietnam

Give me a minute to stop laughing. Then go and ask Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand how the Vietnamese are feared there. I will confess, though, that any Vietnamese government is interested in expansionism.


Grenada under Bishop

OK, ya got me there.

Nicaragua under the Sandinistas

Who knows? Only in power a short time.

North Korea

I admit, North Korean expansionism is limited to the other side of the peninsula.

Yugoslavia

Hello. Do you think the various parts of Yugoslavia all wanted to be part of it? What do you think all those independence declarations were after it collapsed?

Revolutionary Afghanistan

Was Soviet puppet.....victim rather than perpetrator.

Chile under Allende

I will refrain from addressing your other lies,

Since you have no case, that is not surprising.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

No doubt the problems of Guatemala have nothing to do with the 36 years of warfare that ended in 1996

moon, the Cuba figures are worthless. For one thing, the Cubans define infant mortality differently than we do, for another, that info comes from....the Cuban government, a bastion of trustworthy figures. Meanwhile living standards continue to stagnate, after plummeting when the Soviet Union collapsed and the flow of subsidies failed, and food and medical shortages and widespread un- and under-employment appeared (even the inept Batista government never suffered food shortages, AFAIK). Even the best-of-all-possible-worlds Cuban government refers to the current situation as the "special period" in the which the economy, basically, sucks. Cuba is a serious mess. The loss of the Soviet subsidy, not the US embargo, has hurt the Cubans severely. Further, since the legalization of dollars in 1993, the economy has divided into two-tiers, those with dollars, and those without....however, I'd love to see trade with Cuba. It would destroy Castro a lot faster than anything else we could do.

I'll remain agnostic on Cuban achievements until I see the post-Castro revisions from the real records kept by the Cuban government. If there is anything that history has taught, it is that no record of success coming out of an authoritarian state can be considered reliable until savagely scrutinized.

Consider this tidbit:

"ccording to the Ministry of Public Health, Cuba reduced its infant mortality rate from 9.4 per 1,000 live births in 1995 to 7.9 in 1996, putting it among the 20 top-ranking countries in the world in terms of low rates of death among under one-year-olds."

Amazing, that, a roughly 15% reduction in a single year.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

It is unfortunately the case that all hitherto existing socialist states have turned to the lie of Stalinism, proclaiming that false doctrine of "socialism in one country." Stalin typified the idea that socialist countries could compromise with the imperialists, and live in peace. What he ended up doing was simply capitulating to the imperialists, and crushing socialist revolutions in China, Spain and Germany.

Thanks for magnificently confirming my complaint about the expansionism of Workers' Paradises.

Now, Vorkosigan, why can't you just be honest about it? Why do you have to tell all these lies about socialist countries being expansionist, or socialism failing because their economies didn't work, and so on? Just be clear about where your class interests lie, and we can have an honest and open discussion.

I thought we were having an honest and open discussion.

Vorkosigan

Amen-Moses

What? It ain't socialist and it aint capitalist, so wtf is it? I'd always thought of the ME as the capitalist paradise!

Amen-Moses

August Spies

quite to the contrary my friend. I blame the failure of socialism from the dual attack of capitalism and state capitalism ("communism").

HaysooChreesto!

I'm not trying to be facetious, but this is something that I just don't get. If socialism is such a great system-if it were simply better than capitalism, then shouldn't capitalism have collapsed in western Europe and North America? Shouldn't a superior system be able to carry the day?
There have been and still are "attacks" by socialism on capitalism. There was a time post WWII when socialsim competed side by side with capitalism in Western Europe, but frankly, it got stomped like a narc at a biker rally.

Amen-Moses

Most of Europe is a blend of socialist and capitalist ideals, we waiver between them without truly ever going one way or the other.

I think everyone agrees that a pure kind of either will never work but by blending them we at least seem to keep the majority happy most of the time.

Amen-Moses

August Spies

We lets get someting clear, what I call socialism is NOT what you are calling socialism. What you are calling socialism is state capititalism. Now State capitalism HAS competed somewhat fairly with capitalism and lost. We have always known state capitalism was the weaker brother of bourgeoisie capitalism.

Now I would say true socialism (or maybe true is too loaded a word, MY idea of socialism) has been to a degree attempted. In things like Spain 36, Paris Commune, Makhnovist russia etc..

Now these things did quite well internally, but lost due to HUGE external attacks on them. Often on two fronts.

Perhaps what you dont' get Lamma is that systems need some time to grow and and stabalize. Capitalism did not appear one day and suddenly became the most powerful system. There was a struggle between capitalism and fuedalism which capitalism eventually won, but it certainly suffered initial failures.

If I lived in that time period should I have said "well shouldn't capitalism have instantly dominated by now? guess it doesn't work" of course not.

Grad Student Humanist

I like to occupy the "middle ground" in this issue. I support neither full-bore, laissez faire capitalism, or full-bore, nationalize everything communism. Neither extreme is good. The US has done plenty of harm internationally and there are still plenty of people in this country whose hardships could be lessened through social programs. While on the other hand, the USSR did plenty of damage internationally as well and had to resort to authoritarian tactics domestically, throwing thousands of people into jail for dissenting, and abolishing their basic human rights.

Cuba is a good example of the excesses of communism as it has been implemented. Yes there has been an improvement in the standard of living for many and the Revolution did unseat a corrupt dictatorship. But it replaced it with ANOTHER corrupt dictatorship and an economic system which, combined with the US embargo, is sinking the country. Not to mention that the improvements in the standard of living don't justify the tyrannical policies of Fidel Castro, his trampling on human rights, his involvement in foreign wars, persecution of religious people and homosexuals, forced "hospitalization" and confinement of people with AIDS, and his reluctance to try some other political/economic system which would better suit his country. And I know firsthand what the people in Cuba go through. Both of my parents are Cuban exiles (my mother having spent six months in a Cuban prison for absolutely no reason after having her small shop confiscated by the government) and I have visited the country several times. Of course there are those who support the regime, but there are many others who don't and either spend years in prison or keep it to themselves for fear of reprisals. Just recently one of my cousins, who is a doctor, defected while on a trip to Spain and is now living in that country. She doesn't have much good to say about how the country is run, and she was born in 1972, well after the Revolution had taken hold.

The best model is the European one, in which capitalism is not abolished, but at the same time, there are generous social programs which improve the lives of its citizens. And human rights are generally respected.

You can't save everyone. Some people are always going to be left behind and neither capitalism or communism will save them. That's life. If there were a God, he'd be responsible for it, but there's not so were out of luck. It's unfair, but so is Castro's solution in Cuba which was to make everyone equal-- equally poor and politcally powerless (except for him, of course. He lives like a king with tyrranical powers). Governments should strive to raise living standards for everyone, while promoting economic growth and respecting the human rights of all of its citizens.

August Spies

Lamma, if it helps you you can think of my destinction in terms of libertarian socialism (really a repetative phrase but...) and Authoritarian socialism. Where both are understood in a broad sense.