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Does socialism inevitably lead to Communism? — 44 Comments

  1. Saint-Simon taught (among others) these two people, August Comte and Karl Marx, who, though springing from that same source diverged apart and trickled off in two distinguishable directions or threads, one leading into sociology and the other toward a radical historicism. These two fibers have come down to us to tease apart, rather than to make ourselves a felted blob.

  2. I have never understood Communism is logistically possible, in contrast to a totalitarian socialist state. No matter how you implement it, it needs to be a totalitarian state run by a powerful elite, which is pretty much the extreme end of socialism.

    To me Communism is this platonic ideal that could only be implemented if human nature were already perfected to start with, which of course, is impossible.

    Otherwise, the only way everything can be “shared” equally and private property be completely eliminated is for people to be absolutely controlled, with no possibility of free will.

    Angels or robots. These are the only beings that could be Communists in practice, because angels don’t need to be told what to do and what not to do, and robots can only do what they are told. Humans are neither.

    I’m sure my views on this subject are naive, but I’ve never heard a good explanation of how pure Communism could actually be implemented, and from what I understand, neither did Marx. He basically figured if we destroy everything and set up a totalitarian socialist state, then Communism would just magically evolve out of that.

  3. Orwell did not think that socialism led inevitably to communism. He was an anti-communist socialist himself.

  4. @ConceptJunkie – agree, and to simplify…

    In order for Communism to work, someone has to be “on top” to decide who does what and who gets what. It creates an internal conflict of interest in the power structure. That difference in power will attract those who will abuse it for themselves. Therein lies the seeds of Communism’s failure to ever “work”.

    Orwell explored that topic well in his book “Animal Farm”.

  5. I’ll amend my aphorism to a less stringent definition; All socialistic systems are inherently unsustainable, thus to survive they gradually evolve toward a tyranny of the collective. All tyrannies are inherently unstable, thus to survive ever greater control is needed, which is why ultimately all thought, speech and behavior must be declared to be either forbidden or mandatory.

    PS. Yesterday, I left out Austrian/British economist F. A. Hayek, who in his “The Road to Serfdom” made what is widely considered to be the most reasoned argument for why socialism inescapably leads to tyranny.

    BTW, I have not been unduly influenced by Hayek’s views. As I have never read his book. I reached my conclusions through my own reflections upon socialism and then learned of his having reached the same conclusion afterwards.

  6. Well, Mises cites Stalin which indicates that we have never actually seen communism, regardless of the branding of Communism by Stalin to differentiate it from the European socialists.

    What Stalin calls socialism corresponds by and large to Marx’s concept of the “early phase” of communism. Stalin reserves the term communism exclusively for what Marx called the “higher phase” of communism. Socialism, in the sense in which Stalin has lately used the term, is moving towards communism, but is in itself not yet communism. Socialism will turn into communism as soon as the increase in wealth to be expected from the operation of the socialist methods of production has raised the lower standard of living of the Russian masses to the higher standard which the distinguished holders of important offices enjoy in present-day Russia.

    von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos

    As student of history knows, the socialist methods of production have never raised the standard of living of the masses anywhere near that of the office-holders.

    Of the many flavors of Marxism, Mises identified three main types. The full bureaucratic management has been revealed as a failure so most will resist it, barring despotic violence. But the Zwangswirtschaft (compulsory economy) is still the endgame of the increasing interventionism and is now the mainbody of socialist advancement.

    There is the Soviet pattern of all-round socialization of all enterprises and their outright bureaucratic management; there is the German pattern of Zwangswirtschaft, towards the complete adoption of which the Anglo-Saxon countries are manifestly tending; there is guild socialism, under the name of corporativism still very popular in some Catholic countries. There are many other varieties.

    von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos

  7. ConceptJunkie,

    I found more rational discussions of socialism/communism in pre-1920 sources. The professors and other socialists developed the idea that the socialism being promoted was different than the Communism in the vein of the saying of the devil, e.g., the greatest trick the socialists ever played was to make people believe socialism not just less violent Communism and both are different from the real definition of communism.

    [blockquote]That Communism is essentially negative, confined to the prohibition that one shall not have more than another. Socialism is positive and aggressive, declaring that each man shall have enough.

    It purposes to introduce new forces into society and industry; to put a stop to the idleness, the waste of resources, the misdirection of force, inseparable, in some large proportion of instances, from individual initiative; and to drive the whole mass forward in the direction determined by the intelligence of its better half.
    Walker, F.A., ‘Socialism’, Scribner’s Magazine 1887[/blockquote]

    It wasn’t the communism that made the Communists murderous and evil, it was the socialism. Remember it was the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. The communism in Communist countries was tossed aside within weeks of Communist takeover as evidenced by the standards of living of the masses compared to the office-holders.

  8. There seems to be a problem of definition. A welfare state is not the equivalent of socialism in practice. Even the great proponent of individual liberty and a market economy, FA Hayek, believed in social insurance as a necessary component of a modern economy. In many senses the Scandinavian economies are freer than ours. They may have higher taxes, but could not survive without a robust private sector.

  9. Agree with JK Brown. We presumably have never had a true proletariat of the masses. And I am thankful of that. I think the ideological underpinnings of communism and socialism, to borrow the liberals/progresives word, is evil. At the end of the day to each according to his need and from each according to his ability happens only at the point of a gun.

  10. This seems apropos of the topic.
    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/11/venezuela-to-city-dwellers-grow-your-own.php

    “Not to be picky, but the reference to “government mismanagement” is off target. Socialism is per se mismanagement; there is no way to do socialism right.”

    JK Brown Says:
    November 1st, 2016 at 8:28 pm
    “As student of history knows, the socialist methods of production have never raised the standard of living of the masses anywhere near that of the office-holders.

  11. All socialistic systems are inherently unsustainable, thus to survive they gradually evolve toward a tyranny of the collective.

    Impossible to prove or disprove, as we enter “No True Scotsman” territory.

    Sweden didn’t go this way, because it wasn’t really Socialist.

    Venezuela did, therefore it was really Socialist.

    BTW: China is a major, major issue for your assertion. Are you going to try to say Mao’s China wasn’t Socialist, or that modern China is more tyrannical that Mao’s China? Because most people would say that it is successfully transitioning out of Socialism, albeit slowly and erratically.

    See also Vietnam.

  12. Actually, come to that the USSR became less repressive over time. Not that it was nice, but 1980’s Russia was far less repressive than 1950’s Russia.

    And full on Socialism was replaced by the current system without any outside interventions and with minimal bloodshed.

    I think your theory needs a lot of work Geoffrey!

  13. Socialism has many variations. The welfare state is probably the mildest form. From there it progresses to control of corporate regulations, to setting of minimum wages, to directing which businesses get tax relief, to planning the economy’s output, to prohibiting certain businesses, to state ownership of utilities and transportation, to state ownership of all major industries. (Strong socialism.) Then from state ownership of all businesses, both large and small to no private property ownership by anyone (except the senior leadership), and the state control of where people live and where they will work. Voila, you have Communism.

    The steps from a small amount of socialism become more difficult the further you progress toward complete state control. That is why most Communist nations got there through violent revolutions that swept away all objections at the point of a gun.

    Where we are headed, IMO, is Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.” That system is essentially statist where there is a close tie between the state and corporations – called crony capitalism. The businesses follow orders from the state. The proles are laborers on the crony capitalist plantation. There is some measure of freedom but not much as compared to what we have today. Not as bad as Communism, but a statist form of existence nonetheless.

    IMO, all statist forms – tyranny, monarchy, oligarchy, socialism, Nazism, Fascism, and Communism (to name a few that pop into my mind) hark back to our tribal origins. In a tribe the tribe (state) was more important than the individual. In a tribe a “chief” or “strong man” of some sort, along with a few trusted advisors, called the shots and everyone else went along………until a new chief/strongman arose. A look back at recorded history shows humans slowly evolving from tribalism to forms of government that eventually recognize the idea of individuality and freedom, which is where we are in the USA. But our system is not seen as egalitarian enough. So, humans instinctually seem to long for the old tribal forms, which seem, without deep understanding, more egalitarian. The problem is that even though socialism/Communism look inviting, the truth is they have never worked on a long term basis and lead primarily to equality of misery.

    A look at history shows that most forms of government don’t last long. No matter how well planned and instituted (like the USA is) humans will eventually demand change and that change is usually back to some form of statism.

  14. I worry more about becoming Mexico — a corrupt, one-party crony system.

    That’s what I think the Democratic leadershp is really scheming for.

  15. President Hillary Clinton will be a big problem and the US won’t ever be what it once was again. However, it seems to me the American Dream was lost in 2012 or earlier.

    The US is changing in ways I don’t like but they won’t be setting up gulags in Alaska any time soon.

    Then again, history is not a straight line — that was Marx’s dream. There will be surprises. Some of them will be good.

  16. Communism proceeds from socialism economically… that is light socialism doesn’t achieve it’s objective so, its supporters turn to medium socialism, which doesn’t work so its supporters turn to heavy socialism, which doesn’t work.

    This doesn’t stop socialism’s supporters from realizing it doesn’t work and going in the opposite direction. It depends on the overall mentality of the people.

  17. Even in Soviet Russia totalitarian state did not emerged overnight. There was period when Bolshevicks believed that it is possible to introduce all-powerful state without any vestiges of private property and private trade, but practice proved it impossible, so they went to strategic retreat and declared so-called New Economic Policy when private enterprises were legalized. It lasts about 10 years, until Stalin concentrated all state power in his hands and nationalised all agriculture (“collectivization”). Millions lives of peasants were destroyed in this process. The most fateful problem with complex systems is not if they can function for some time, but is their existence stable in long run. When state concentrate enough power it further expansion became unstoppable, it crushes all resistance, until the state itself degradates to the point when civil society can overthrow it.

  18. In one aspect Hegel was right: every system bears in itself the seeds of its own destruction, and this is true both for liberal democracy and for totalitarism. Democracy degenerates into wefare state with irresponsible, parasitic underclass and owerblown state apparatus also parasitic supporting this class and supported by it. Totalitarian state degenerates into banana republic riddled by corruption which makes it inefficient and impotent.

  19. Israel is another interesting data point – on the Macro level, you have an expressly Eurosocialist government that has largely transitioned to a Welfare State/Free Market economy. Then on the Micro level, you have the Kibbutzim, which were among the most successful Communist experiments ever for a few decades, but have now largely disappeared, in favor of Moshavim, which are far more capitalist endeavors. The kibbutzim that still exist largely survive as tourist attractions or resorts.

  20. There are two evils of Communism: 1) the econ silliness and un-sustainability of central planning “social ownership” of the means of production, and 2) thought police where one is not free to think the thoughts one wishes to think.

    Venezuela is clearly going thru super-silly economic decline, while China has been hugely growing; with markets & prices & lots of small private ownership along with Big (Politburo) company ownership. Crony-capitalism sort of equals Fascism (in Germany, “National Socialism”). The poor getting a bit richer while the politicians get a LOT richer.

    The Crooked Clinton group wants the US to converge with Chinese cronyism.

    I would NOT call China today “Communist” in the way Stalin & Mao defined it in practice for the 20th Century, altho the Chinese do keep that name. (And who gets to define what “Communism” really means, anyway? If not 1.4 billion commie Chinese, than who? And why?)

    Users of labels often change the meaning of a label — look at how “liberal” now means anti-free speech PC thought police. And it seems those who want thought police do want to call themselves “liberal”, so that’s what that label will be meaning.

    And Sweden’s recent increases in rape, along with their refusal to accept that immigrants are a key cause of that treatment, mean that the commie PC thought-police have significant power there.

    Insofar as “Democratic Socialism” means more free stuff (from the gov’t) for the voters, there will remain a lot of folk voting for it. Even many elites will support portions of it.

  21. Yes
    Read Marx who posited two main paths and the path that started as a capitalist state would be socialism then communism…

    I can quote him…
    Puppy becomes dog
    Acorn becomes oak tree
    Child becomes adult
    Caterpillar becomes butterfly

    The main reason the answer is yes is that they believe communism is the final stage/state….

    For example, when does a socialist state include a limit??? If the few that pretended limit, they ignore it… So when did the match stop

    When society gets bad enough and they pull back
    When they can’t pull back, they collapse eventually
    The current exception that proves the rule is communism turning to fascism for economic reasons… Like China… Like Russia
    And currently the united States which like Germany has nationalized home loans, medical in process, education, and lots more… As they check the means of production through protectionist method, licenses, inspections, permits, etc… Lots more, but who cares about listening to the leaders???? We ignore the leaders of these movements asssuming they are something other than the leaders openly say and supporters on top!!!
    So when feminists say they are destroying the family, a dunt believe it and ignore that doing so is lost of the prices of making a communist state where family relations that make us unequal can’t grow to become opposition…

    Butvi will leave you ask to guess, repeat the arguments for consumption that will result in communism if the argument is fake

    You went to back to the sources, the makers, the money family dynasties…

    From Twitter as hackers are trying to break the prison before it can’t be and despotism becomes the rule again in the human condition

    Anonymous has hacked the Bradley Foundation and releases 30GB of documents https://mega.nz/#!exxkyI5T!Ac_olG0cipGt8Bh_UU_DiHNmZDnKManv8fJfI1N5WwQ … #HillaryClinton #Rothschilds pic.twitter.com/30LZrc7xsg

    @Margsbelle1958 @AnonymousGlobo if you note the addressee is: Rothschild Asset Manager. HRC is directly linked 2 them

  22. @GB – surprising you talk of Mises and Hayek! Something about cake and eating it too, with all you’ve said in the comments section on this blog, comes to mind.

    I’m a big fan of their writing, but wouldn’t ever think the path towards their ideal is to pick one awful to win over another awful.

    By my interpretation, they would seem to have a view that a chart like the following (Nolan Chart) expresses our choices in more realistic terms:
    Nolan Chart – Political Spectrum

    You want to make a (false) distinction between “recovery” (speculative at best) from fascism vs the “inevitable” communism – but, doing so, seems to ultimately be a misunderstanding what they are trying to express to us.

    BOTH land us in much the same place.

  23. Peter Berkowitz, RCP: Why the Right Splintered But the Left United

    […] “The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies” might seem an unlikely source of insight into the deep forces driving American electoral politics. Nevertheless, Ryszard Legutko’s erudite polemic analyzing the resemblances that liberal democracy in the West bears to the Soviet communism it vanquished clarifies the roots of progressive unity in America and the causes of conservative discord.

    Legutko’s brilliant book suggests that progressives and left-liberals unite more effectively because they are in harmony with contemporary liberal democracy’s liberationist and egalitarian drift–in other words, its tendency to dismantle inherited authorities and pursue equality of result. By contrast, conservatives find much of what they cherish under assault by government’s relentless expansion into areas–such as family, faith, and speech–that were once commonly held to be largely beyond state supervision. Scrambling to resist the ambitious efforts of partisan politicians, government bureaucrats, and courts to entrench progressive norms as default positions, conservatives increasingly lock horns over where to draw lines and what is most urgently in need of preserving.

    Legutko relies on expertise he acquired in disparate worlds to illuminate the complex interplay of ideas and institutions in contemporary liberal democracy. An anti-communist dissident in Poland before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he is now a professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow specializing in ancient philosophy and political theory. He is also a member of the European Parliament and has served as Poland’s minister of education and secretary of state.

    Go, read on. There’s a great deal more.

  24. “In many senses the Scandinavian economies are freer than ours.” Stu

    Please specify in what ways “Scandinavian economies are freer than ours”

    Chester Draws,

    “All socialistic systems are inherently unsustainable, thus to survive they gradually evolve toward a tyranny of the collective.” GB

    “Impossible to prove or disprove”

    Not at all. The history of socialistic societies and, demographic trends; an aging pop. & thus the need for immigrants, who place unsustainable demands upon the welfare state… demonstrate their unsustainability. This despite them having no meaningful defensive expenditures. That unsustainability results in socialism’s advocates having to either accept reality and abandon their ideology or to double down on it. We all know what they inevitably decide to do when confronted with socialism’s unsustainability.

    “Sweden didn’t go this way, because it wasn’t really Socialist.”

    You speak as if reality has an end point. Sweden partially pulled back from socialism because of its economic unsustainability. Multiculturalism, socialism’s ‘sister philosophy’, ensures that socialism will advance again.

    China is a major issue for my assertion, IF you accept that “it is successfully transitioning out of Socialism, albeit slowly and erratically”. I don’t accept that commonly held rationalization. I perceive it to be a rationalization based upon the Chinese leadership’s consistent actions and the political realities in China.

    There is only ONE political party in China. In that regard, China’s leadership is as communistic as was Mao’s. There are NO loyal opposition movements in China actively resisting the ChiCom leadership, since Mao exterminated them and made even contemplating the formation of one to be effectively, a suicidal proposition.

    So they basically possess a compliant populace and keep it that way with indoctrination in the classroom, internet censorship that controls access to outside information and prevents dissemination of contradictory information. Along with quite arrests in the night. China’s prison population challenges ours and theirs has a large percentage of political prisoners.

    That reality leads me to conclude that China’s move to capitalism is a long term strategic move to gain the economic and military resources needed to confront the West. China’s build up of its military, especially its Navy and its research into space capabilities, support this analysis.

    Vietnam’s communist leadership reigns supreme and politically unchallenged, Vietnam is following China’s example because only an economically strong Vietnam can resist Chinese domination. They want to be independent of China, not a client state and are smart enough to realize that only strength will prevent eventual assimilation by China.

    The USSR became less repressive over time because of Gorbachev, who persuaded the majority of politburo members that Perestroika was the only path to sustainable competition with America. Persuaded, they elevated him to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party because he was the primary visionary of that path.

    It of course failed, as no highly socialistic economy can compete with even a mildly capitalist one like ours. That failure led to the USSR’s utter collapse, which is WHY it’s ‘transition’ to the “current system without any outside interventions and with minimal bloodshed” occurred.

    All of this leads me to conclude that it is you who needs to restudy history, rather than that my theory needs further work.

    The nature of socialism is obvious, Churchill identified it clearly; “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, a creed of ignorance, and a gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

    That “equal sharing of misery” by the industrious and lazy is inherently intolerable and thus socially unsustainable. To maintain what is intolerable and unsustainable takes ever greater control. Ultimately, control rests upon coercion.

    Control the mind and it’s ability to communicate publicly and you control the behavior of all but those ‘irredeemable’ and for such as they, China’s prisons await.

    “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Mao Zedong

  25. “This doesn’t stop socialism’s supporters from realizing it doesn’t work and going in the opposite direction. It depends on the overall mentality of the people.” Tim T

    And so long as we have future elections, we have the opportunity to change that “mentality of the people”.

    Yet, there are several here and elsewhere describing the next four years as a “Flight 93” case.

    It is not.

  26. Big Maq,

    Evidently you either missed, have forgotten or are ignoring all the times I’ve expressed the opinion that Trump is a Caesar type and that his authoritarianism may well in time set America on the path to a fascist state.

    But yes, history does indeed show that a Franco or Pinochet is far more likely to be recoverable from than from a Castro or Pham Van Dong (Hồ Ché­ Minh’s successor).

    Neither of those assertions reject Hayek or advocate for fascism. But if either fascism or continuance toward the collective are inevitable, then I choose the lesser danger. Despite your justifiable fears, Trump may not lead to a fascist state whereas IMO, there is no doubt where Hillary leads.

    Why is this so hard to understand? Why do you continue to mischaracterize my position?

  27. “And so long as we have future elections, we have the opportunity to change that “mentality of the people”.”

    Increasing entitlements. Ever earlier indoctrination in the classroom. A media transformed into a committed propaganda organ. Unlimited borrowing from the future to sustain the entitlement state. Immorality/amorality the cultural norm among the young. Increasing censorship on ‘social media’. Turning over control of the internet to the UN. Hate speech laws. Freedom FROM religion rulings. A leftist dominated SCOTUS. 25 million+ new “undocumented” democrats. Open borders. Redistribution of income and assets to counteract white privilege…

    A brave new world looms, while you’re whistling past the graveyard…

  28. “Donald Trump is not the cause but a symptom of division and disarray among conservatives, who have been rattled and thrown on the defensive by a culture and governing institutions that have taken the other side in a partisan battle over the future of freedom.” – Berkowitz explaining Legutko – from the same article sdferr references above.

    trump is BOTH cause and symptom.

    Symptom – because we actually do have a significant number of people who claimed (and still do) to stand for the principles espoused by the party, yet today are supporting and excusing ideas and themes that once had no place (how many of them yelled “RINO!!!” in the past for little deviation from orthodoxy?).

    Cause – because trump is the furthest in generations from the principles the party was supposed to stand for, and that several still hold to, and won’t sacrifice that for the sake of a “Win!!”. He was nominated by unique circumstances that allowed a small plurality to dominate. IOW, he does NOT represent the true wishes of the majority of those in the party.
    .

    Berkowitz finds it unsatisfactory that the media is to blame. (Notice the little trick he uses – he makes it a “common among dems argument”). Well, agree, it is not the whole picture, but he ought to give it a little more credit/blame for where we are at. If we can blame the MSM for feeding a leftist bias to the public, we surely have to look at “conservative” media’s influence on the right.
    .

    There is also something of a red team vs blue team “tribe” dynamic, where it doesn’t really matter the underlying issues or policy stances in a given election, as there is a segment who will always vote for “their team”. For them, what matters is dominance. If we were unaware before now, it ought to be clear now.

    Berkowitz’ / Legutko’s explanation, implies an element of this, but he doesn’t address it directly, as he links it all to a “common cause” argument, that doesn’t really answer why people pick someone so awful, twisting and compromising themselves to such a degree as to make their prior stated “cause” an irrelevancy.

    Maybe this falls under…
    “His bold criticisms could be qualified in a thousand ways. “

  29. “Cause — because trump is the furthest in generations from the principles the party was supposed to stand for, and that several still hold to, and won’t sacrifice that for the sake of a “Win!!”. He was nominated by unique circumstances that allowed a small plurality to dominate. IOW, he does NOT represent the true wishes of the majority of those in the party.”

    This looks rather like a description of a symptom in the posited context (i.e., an expression of a great splintered disagreement over the Party’s mutual aims resulting in a willy-nilly unsatisfactory candiate, as opposed to a unification over the Party’s presumed mutual and agreeable aims), than an explanation of a “cause” taken in the sense of a movement’s motivations. So, count me as skeptical on that score.

  30. “Why do you continue to mischaracterize my position?” – GB

    Say that enough times and people might believe you.

    Yet, they might look at this and wonder, since there was no response…
    http://neoneocon.com/2016/10/24/the-trump-candidacy-has-been-a-learning-experience-hasnt-it/#comment-1820812

    “Of course Trump is a bully, as is Putin, Xi and Iran’s Ayetollah . What counts is the forces at their back and, if a situation calls for it, their willingness to use those forces. … He’s a social liberal but a nationalist with a populist appeal. And that, even given his authoritarianism, makes him far less of a threat.

    IF he’s sincere, Trump cannot fulfill his promises without “cutting down all the laws, to get after the devil”. That path leads to Rome’s fate. True, arguably better than the path of ‘the Soviet’.

    Yep, Hayek would approve.

    I am saying, that if you argue this wrt trump, then in other instances reference Hayek and Mises as a sort of “proof” to your point about the “inevitability” of a “Flight 93” scenario (and, therefore, implying your decision of trump is supported, even given your statements about what trump represents), is a complete misreading of what these men were trying to teach us.

    Mischaracterization? I think not.

  31. @sdferr – then we agree to disagree.

    What I see is that a minority has had an outbound influence.

    There were some differences and unhappiness with the party’s efficacy there already (symptom), that has helped a man like trump to get the nomination without strong broad support.

    Now, if we assume that the alt-r are an inherent part of the “conservative” movement, then, yes, we can leave it as symptoms.

    But, with a man like trump as the candidate, it has caused several to be repelled, as he is so far from representing what many thought the party stood for – making what may have been an existing difference and unhappiness into a full political rift (cause).

    Legutko sees a left vs right plane, whereas it is more complex, along the lines of
    Nolan Chart

    With that view, one might be able to take Legutko’s model and say that there are segments of each side (dem vs gop) that are far from their ideological base, and explain the challenges dems have had in the past, where conservatives won the day with their single mindedness of purpose.

    Haven’t studied Legutko at all to see if it would be sufficient to explain the shifts in the parties in years past.

  32. Trump appears on the scene in the guise of a political opportunist (in the speech of some people), a hi-jacker of a political party. We have heard this, if not said as much ourselves. One can see some indication of this view in the manifest inability of Trump to articulate cogently the simplest statement of the agreements within the Republican party, that is, so long as he is not merely reading a speech representing the thoughts of someone else from a teleprompter. Even then, when reading from a teleprompter, Trump is prone to expose his own failure to grasp those intra-Party agreements as to the aims of politics when he sails off on one of his frequent, nearly constant tangents or eruptions, one might say, expressions of himself. He can’t help that, and in one sense, no-one need blame him for it.

    But if one accepts this view of an opportunist at work, then what to make of the needs, the conditions, in which opportunism is enabled? I do not put this down to the so-called “alt-right”, although such a thing or group or how-one-puts-it is present on the scene. Indeed, I think I see many acquaintances, even commenters here, who are Trump supporters but who have no association or, in many instances, any awareness of the alt-right, so-called, or better, properly delimited. There are then, plentifully sufficient numbers to have supported Trump’s [posited, granted] opportunism, as well as very many more to have joined to it once Trump had secured the nomination of the Party. For the Party, for the sake of the Party, in many cases we can see. Who knows but that matters may show that even these Party-first sorts are in a way in the same boat as Trump himself: they too cannot articulate what joins the thing together.

  33. @sdferr – agree with much of what you say wrt trump. And, agree that there are several categories of folks under the umbrella of the party.

    There are overlapping rationale and causes for much of the anger which may well been the driver for many to lose even their reason to align with the party in the first place, let alone articulate it, effectively.

    A perfect storm confluence of GOP electoral failure these past eight plus years (perceived and real), personal economic disappointment / failure, cultural insecurity, “alt-r” opportunism and organization (hadn’t heard of this before, but seems prominent now, loosely defined), other opportunism (GOP joining trump train, bandwagon), “conservative” media hype and their own opportunism, a crowded GOP candidacy, MSM bias and ratings interest (free $2B exposure for trump during primaries), open primary rules allowing outside influence, etc., etc.. – all these things need to be part of the picture of what transpired this election cycle.

    In the end, I find the Legutko model (as depicted in that article) falls a bit short in that it generalizes the people that fall under the left or right labels, as their motivations and behaviors don’t all work in lock step, like his model implies (again, based on this short reading), to be the only or the biggest explanation of what has happened this election cycle, and perhaps not even of the bigger trend.

  34. @sdferr – forgot to say thanks for the link. Some interesting ideas there to consider, nonetheless.

  35. Berkowitz finds it unsatisfactory that the media is to blame. (Notice the little trick he uses — he makes it a “common among dems argument”). Well, agree, it is not the whole picture, but he ought to give it a little more credit/blame for where we are at. If we can blame the MSM for feeding a leftist bias to the public, we surely have to look at “conservative” media’s influence on the right.

    From the point of view of a conservative (and I see no particular reason to deny Berkowitz this label now), the argument that the people are something too like unto sheep — too happily and thoughtlessly inclined to be led, as if by their noses, by their preferred media entertainers — would not be especially hospitable to the political views one such conservative desires to make.

    After all, isn’t his view that the people ought to rule themselves; that in fact, political legitimacy only arises when the people rule themselves; that the beauty and virtue, even perhaps the greatness of the American framing is just this: that the people govern themselves?

    So perhaps to allow too great a part to a silly media would be to give up the ghost of the argument before it even begins?

  36. Does the silly media not have any influence?

    If so, does that mean it is insurmountable, so as to give up the ghost on trying to influence those same people?

    How much influence may be debatable, but we don’t need to assume a “meat puppet” vs “master persuader” scenario to allow the media a recognition of influence, and the role it has played.

  37. Did the Christian socialist/commune contract the Mayflower had lead to communism?

    It could have, if the mayor and other community Leaders weren’t righteous humans.

    Thus whether human systems become corrupt or not is almost entirely a function of the righteousness or unrighteousness of their leaders. Consider Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, PolPot, and Mao as categories.

  38. So perhaps to allow too great a part to a silly media would be to give up the ghost of the argument before it even begins?

    Before humans can win a war, first they must face reality head on, which is that many of their so called fellow countrymen are sheep, and not the good kind.

  39. Yeah well, Ymarsakar, still it seems that’s precisely the argument of the progressives, which answers Abe Lincoln’s question about the grand experiment: No, Abe, self-government is an illusion; hence, there is no good in acceding sovereignty to the people. Better to leave the rulers to own it all.

  40. “Before humans can win a war, first they must face reality head on, which is that many of their so called fellow countrymen are sheep, and not the good kind.”

    Humanity Stratified:

    1. Master Persuaders / Rulers
    2. Those who can tell the difference between #1 and #3, but are magically beyond the reach of the Master Persuaders’ spell / everyone who reads comments like these (in their own mind thinking they are here) and agree (thinking everyone else are “Sheep”).
    3. Meat Puppets / LIV / Sheep

  41. Xen., Cyropaedia.

    The English translation here there is suspect — as for instance on account of substituting the English word “republic” for the Greek “democracy”, or, “those individuals who have aspired to absolute power” for the Greek “hosoi tyrannein epicheresantes“, and that right quick right there in the first paragraph, so beware. However, the Greek is immediately accessible by clicking “show” in the adjacent *Greek* bar to the right.

    Still, Xenophon’s reflections on the manifestly obstreperous or cantankerous political behavior of people in those first two paragraphs or so (considered for a moment as apart from his ultimate aim of examining a statesman) is worth at least a sideways glance.

    What is it about them? One might say on balance that they want to choose.

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