+- Twitist Forums (http://twitist.com)
+-- Forum: General Social Media & Marketing Forums (/forum-8.html)
+--- Forum: General Social Media questions (/forum-9.html)
+--- Thread: Are we going to see the growth of socialist, left wing parties in the western world now? (/thread-45505.html)
- shevek_v - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
As with all previous crises in a capitalist economic system what you will see is growth of "extreme" parties, both of the left and the right.
Whether it will be socialist parties that benefit depends how well the socialist message is put before the people. We are seeing a growth of interest in socialist ideas and Marx's critique of capitalism. But nothing is inevitable. Left activists need to realise we live in the C21st and find new ways of empowering ordinary people.
http://www.cnwp.org.uk/
- LadyMoon - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
Socialism is very strong in Europe. In the UK our current Government is way to the left of America.
We still have capitalism and people can still become very rich in the UK, but we also make sure we look after those who aren't as fortunate.
The best recipe is a good mixture - a democracy with capitalist opportunities for growth and advancement, and a socialist safety net to catch those who fall on hard times.
Socialism doesn't "reward" lazy people - living on benefits in the UK doesn't exactly make you rich - but it makes the difference between being able to feed and clothe yourself and keep a roof over your head when the chips are down. Capitalism always results in unemployment when the business owners want to maximise profits and we need to look after the people who become the victims of this need to maximise . . .
- andrew w - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
Yes.
It is wrong to confuse the Republican Party, or in the UK the Labour Party with socialism. Neither the Republicans or the Democrats, Labour or the Tories offer any alternative to capitalism. We need a party for ordinary working class people which would fight for a socialist programme.- not a party funded by big business, which does the bidding of the bosses and uses billions to prop up the capitalist system, but can't invest money in wages for public sector workers, or decent public services.
And Shevek is right too (has he read 'The Dispossessed' by the way??) there is a danger of the far right gaining ground as well - the only way to stop this is by organising ourselves to undercut their lies.
- widebean637 - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
Socialism is fine to me, in terms of economic policies. But the more sinister side of left wing politics in the UK (and this is coming from a natural Labour voter) is the the Labour party is infiltrated by "feminists" (such as the Leader of the House, Harriet Harman MP) who have a misandrist agenda. And their male hangers on make sure that women get council housing before men do, that women win 99% of child custody cases, that men are more likely to go to jail for the same crime as a woman, and likely to get much harsher sentences, that men have no equivalent of the widows' pension, have to work longer to retire, are more likely to suffer as a result of vindictive law suits based upon fabricated allegations - the list is endless.
The aforementioned Leader of the House even wants to allow women a legal defence to murder of a partner, purely on the grounds that he MAY be violent in the future! I kid you not, here it is!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2008/07/29/harriet_harman_declares_open_season_on_men
- robert c - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
I do not think so!A lot of ordinary people have got rich on capitalism!
- Rommel - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
the way most European leaders seem to be acting lately i think its more likely that we will see the growth of Fascism all across europe. it is looking more and more likely. when referendums start to be refused its normally the first Sign that Fascism is slowly creeping forward. i think the EU is going to turn into a terrible monster.
- justgoodfolk - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
Yes. It will be a hard struggle but the victory of socialism ultimately is inevitable.
Socialism is the only civilized alternative to the free market anarchy that brings war death and misery for the vast majority of humanity.
6. Capitalism, and the imperialist system that develops upon its economic foundations, is the main cause of human poverty, exploitation, violence and suffering in the modern world. As a system of socio-economic organization, capitalism long ago exhausted its historically progressive role. The blood-drenched history of the twentieth century – with its two world wars, innumerable “local†conflicts, the nightmare of Nazism and other forms of military-police dictatorship, eruptions of genocide and communal pogroms – is an unanswerable indictment of the capitalist system. The number of victims claimed by capitalist-inspired violence runs into the hundreds of millions. And this figure does not include the consignment of the peoples of entire continents to unrelenting poverty, with all its attendant miseries.
7. The gigantic scale of the existing productive forces and the extraordinary advances in technology are more than sufficient not only to abolish poverty but also to guarantee every human being on the planet a high standard of living. Culture should be flowering amidst unprecedented material wealth. But, instead, conditions of life are deteriorating for the working class, and human culture, deprived of perspective and hope for the future, is in deep crisis. The source of the contradiction between what is and what should be is a global economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, and the irrational division of the world into rival nation-states.
8. All efforts to raise the living standards of the working class and address serious social problems run up against the barrier of private ownership of the means of production, the anarchy of the capitalist market, the economic imperatives of the profit system, and, last but not least, the insatiable greed and money-madness of the ruling class itself. The claim that the capitalist market is the infallible allocator of resources and the supremely wise arbiter of social needs stands utterly discredited amidst the endless series of speculative scandals and multi-billion dollar bankruptcies that have rocked the world economic system during the past decade. The boundary lines between “legitimate†financial transactions and criminal fraud have narrowed to the point of being almost invisible. The separation of the process of personal wealth accumulation from the production and creation of real value is an expression of the general putrefaction of the capitalist system.
9. The irreconcilable conflict between the profit system and the very survival of humanity finds, in a literal sense, its most noxious expression in the crisis of global warming and the natural environment. The cause of this crisis lies not, as is falsely claimed by the bourgeois media, with population growth. Nor is it the result of science and technology – whose development is critical to the advance of human civilization – but, rather, with their misuse by an irrational and obsolete economic order. The impossibility of finding a genuine solution to the increasingly critical problem of climate change and other environmental problems within the framework of the profit system is an “inconvenient truth†that bourgeois politicians – even those who profess concern for the environment – deny. All scientific evidence points to the fact that nothing short of the socialist reorganization of the world economy – in which the planetary environment would no longer be held hostage to either the profit motive or destructive nationalist interests – will achieve the reductions in greenhouse gases necessary to prevent disaster.
10. The solution to the spreading economic crisis and the deteriorating social position of the working class lies not in the reform of capitalism, for it is beyond reform. The crisis is of a systemic and historical character. As feudalism gave way to capitalism, capitalism must give way to socialism. The key industrial, financial, technological and natural resources must be taken out of the sphere of the capitalist market and private ownership, transferred to society and placed under the democratic supervision and control of the working class. The organization of economic life on the basis of the capitalist law of value must be replaced with its socialist reorganization on the basis of democratic economic planning, whose purpose is the fulfillment of social needs.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/prin-s25.shtml
- geek1988 - 11-27-2012 06:39 AM
I'd like to think so, but I doubt we will.
When you listen to debates about the current financial crisis it's all about "save the system" not "change the system"
They're talking about conditions being imposed on banks that get part nationalised, that they have to behave properly, that's great, but there's not any real change of ethos or structure being planned I don't think, no long term plans for a stronger regulatory system, none of the people who've caused the mess are being sacked or asked to put any of their fortunes back into the kitty. It's just a temporary adjustment to preserve the long term status quo.
However, I did receive an e-mail from a friend a week or so back that said that sales or Karl Marx' "Das Capital" have quadrupled in the last month in Germany. I think whilst the system may not change much in the short term because of this, people have been awakened as to the flaws of capitalism run riot.