semirurallife
^flatpackhamster I wasn't going to make this a personalized thing but I shall try to explain...
inequality is not a natural fact; it is a social and political one.^
Inequality is a natural fact. Take primates. Chimps compete with other members of their social group for access to food and mating rights. Some get more than others.
and there is not only one variant of socialism.
No, indeed. In some variants only a handful of the population are tortured or starved, in others it's large percentages.
In Cuba, there is no adult illiteracy, as there is here. Life expectancy there is not determined by your income, as disparities in the life expectancy between residents of Kensington and Chelsea and more deprived areas show it is often here.
Cuba is often cited as a fine example of a socialist state. However, Cuba spent decades being directly subsidised by the Soviets - then by Venezuela after the collapse of the SU.
It's certainly possible to achieve a socialist paradise when you don't have to worry about where the money to achieve it is coming from.
and you can look at tribal societies in southern Africa and in the Amazon who live in what you might call socialist states, who live with a great deal more harmony and accord than we do.
But they aren't states and you shouldn't try to compare them. The main reason is that they are operating at the natural social group size for humans (about 75-150 people). Beyond that, it's hard for everyone to know everyone else and their business. In a tribal society everyone is related, albeit distantly, and when you help someone out you're doing it because they're part of your group. The same doesn't apply when you're being taxed at 50% in order to pay for people you don't know, have never met, never will meet and have nothing in common with.
By and large the rule of thumb is people are happy to help out when they're related (or closely connected), less so when they're distantly related and not at all when they've got nothing to do with the other person.
You can't simply scale up and expect it to work. Of course they live in more harmony and accord.
I don't think I said we should take an outmoded form of doctrinal politics and reproduce it in 21st century Britain; I was merely observing that the polarization of views, and the mocking of Brand for mentioning the s word, rather shows that we are very narrow in what we consider balanced political debate.
Well, why not include Nazism in the political debate then? Both socialism and Nazism employ the same principles - subordination of the individual to the state and demonisation of anyone who does not fit the state's approved definitions of behaviour or thought.
Why can't we talk about renationalising rail and gas supplies, when in fact the government is subsidizing private companies to make vast profits out of both?
You can talk about it all you like. Unlike in a socialist state, nobody's here to tell you what you're allowed to talk about.
I don't want to get off the subject (which is why Russell Brand is ghastly) but a quick point about nationalised railways - the Beeching Axe could never have happened under a privatised system.
whether or not the man is a crank or a comedian is neither here nor there.
Actually, it is. Does he really have a place on the BBC's flagship politics programme? Really? Is there nobody with a greater understanding of the world they could have found?
anyone who puts forward such ideas seems labelled thus
Mmm. Indeed.