Finally! Some sense at last: the ’social’
February 14, 2006 – 5:23 pmSome more warbling on my pet subject: the social. I have ‘ranted’ on this here and elsewhere. in fact sometimes people do think im a silly old so and so for going on about something that they all take for granted. But this is where i always say - what’s the point of theorizing or thinking about anything if we aren’t willing - or able- to go back right down to first principles. leaving out ‘fancy jargon’ for the moment - at the simplest level, if we are ever going to usefully make sense of Anything, we need to all start from the same clean slate - or at least - be able to look at the first principles involved in any discussion. Any talk of any aspect of society - globalization, nations, economics, capitalism, socialism, global markets - all of this is highly complicated by the fact that not only are most of us not even thinking of the same thing when we use what has effectively become ‘buzz-words’ in many ways, but also the simple fact that it all comes down to what we understand or mean when we think about the social. Or rather, that a hell of a lot of us aren’t at all thinking about it at all. As i’ve said elsewhere, there’s a great big hoo-ha all over the bloody place about ‘markets’ and global markets, and generally it has become accepted practice to forget about the fact that markets and economic activity are nothing but subsets of social activity. So if we are going to theorize about markets, or ‘globalization’ we’re not going to get anywhere without considering first and foremost about the social context.
Voila! - simple one might think, aha but as some of us can see - simplicity is a stepping stone to clarity and as Machiavelli might have said, who wants clarity when a whole bunch of confused people are much easier to manipulate.
Anway - focusing now more specifically on that much maligned term ’socialism’. First off let me say there’s this great big idea/myth floating around all over the countryside that somehow if you have any progressive aspirations or ideas on society and people and on trying to live collectively together ( and face it - what else are we going to do? Fuck off to Mars - maybe until then we’re stuck here so we’d better learn to get along one way or the other. Simple again? Ha.) and somehow you espouse some idea that leads some other person to say ah! you sound like a ‘lefty’ ( whatever that may mean- seems to be anyone who’s not a fascist of some sort - and if that’s the case, fine by me as i consider fascism a highlighly significant problem - and guess what - those of you with limited imagination - i ain’t referring just to mr. hitler or mr. stalin there are a WHOLE bunch of people in my book under the heading of fascists - more on that later) or a ’socialist’. Now of course if the latter, a lot of people imagine you must be ‘a Marxist’ or if they’re feeling not too ‘let’s box u in’ that day - simply socialist. which is fine by me - but then again, presumptuous assumptions come to the forefront and you find out that lots of people - including a large bunch of these ’socialists’ imagine there is only one thing that could possibly mean i.e. you must be a ’statist’of some kind. I use the term statist in a more sociological sense rather than the standard economic one. ( see the Wikipedia entry for a nice explanation) Loosely - let’s say the assumption is we must all be in favour of some big state-y centralist control type scenarios - or that - in order to have any progressive ideas, we must be in favour of a big fat government telling us all what we must or mustnt do and ‘regulate’ per se. Now this is where i say we need to all re-think what we understand and mean by ‘public’ - (as in a lot of people’s heads if you refer to the public interest the first thing that comes into people’s heads is ‘government’. [you know the silly dichotomy between govt. /private etc. ] ) - ‘regulation’ etc. My understanding is that it doesn’t matter shit about all this - what we need to understand instead - institutions, and organizations. Very simple? or not. Big central institutions - public or private - generally end up being structured and organized in such a way as to limit the individuals within them -and this is where my interest in them stems. We need to think about distributed, decentralized forms of organization. How our social organizations work is of fundamental importance to all of those main issues listed way up above, is basically my point. And to understand that we need to think about social dynamics and organization.
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So the reason for my excitement - simply an indication that someone else has thought ( or may have done!) about this business of the ’social’: check out this LSE Public Lecture - on Thursday 23rd February:
Taking the ‘Social’ in ‘Socialism’ Seriously
Speaker: Professor Erik Olin Wright, Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin
23 February at 6.30pm in the Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE
“While the word ’social’ appears in both socialism and social democracy, generally it is invoked in a loose and ill-defined way. In practice, socialism has generally been understood as a highly statist project of social transformation. This lecture proposes an alternative grounding for the idea of social-ism, one which places ’social empowerment’ at the centre of the institution-building agenda.”
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11 Responses to “Finally! Some sense at last: the ’social’”
yes its funny how people don’t understand that its taking the principle of democracy seriously. real democracy - direct democracy as opposed to oligarchy
By sonia on Feb 18, 2006
In Comrade Sonia’s democracy the donkeys will run as fast as the race horses, and morons with sit alongside the scientists.
Ah how egalitarian, everyone is equal…. But what about the individuals who don’t want to sell their soul to the perverted cult of equality.
Oh for them, the individualistic ones, “comrade Sonia” will open a few concentration camps, where these so called genious will be tortured and killed. And then we will have the mad dance of socialism, the utopia of equality, where only ones left alive will be the morons. Hasn’t this happened before in Comrade Sonia’s insipired land. You know which land I am talking of- (Soviet Union, or even Bangladesh, where the mad socialists have all but stifled all talent and turned the nation into a land of philistines where rampaging mobs rule the streets.
Sorry, but once in a while someone needs to get frank enough and fill in the gaps in your learning.
By Meghdutam on Feb 20, 2006
‘once in a while’?! ha! sounds like you’re always saying what you say on my blog..and very kind and generous of me to carry on letting you. i happen to know you keep deleting half of the comments i leave on yours!
By sonia on Feb 20, 2006
does anyone else who reads this blog think this person is a bit of a nutter? comrade sonia indeedy!
By sonia on Feb 20, 2006
Comrade,
I delete your comments only when they get too leftist.
“does anyone else who reads this blog think this person is a bit of a nutter? ”
No dearth of such misguided ones. It is an usual ploy of the leftists. What you cannot refute with logic and reason, try to obfuscate through cheap humor.
You are doing well, Comrade Sonia.
By Meghdutam on Feb 21, 2006
ah well. think what you like dear child..and say what you like..reap the advantage of hanging out on a liberal anarchist’s site.
‘genious’ - hmm..did you mean genius by any chance? you do need to fix your spelling..;-)
By sonia on Feb 21, 2006
Nice post Sonia, one of you best yet. Very insightful and thought provoking.
Plus you are a more liberal comment moderator than me
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Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t edit anyone out for there political views but this guy is continually lowering the tone of your blog to the level of personal insults.
Isn’t it ironic how the fanatical capitalists who claim to be liberals, are socially so conservative and authoritarian, favouring censorship of the political views of others. What if the material which is being censored is profitable? Should it still be censored? Indian Capitalist? Social conservatism and economic liberalism are so often in contradiction. How do so many people manage to live with this contradiction in their views? Simple economic liberalism as we no it, is not liberal at all, it involves encouraging the third world to open there markets while we keep our’s protected. Those from the third-world who claim to like it, are either complete fools or highly corrupt, profiting from the exploitation and increased suffering of their own people. I would suggest that Indian Capitalist is both
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Oh IC and his beloved BJP - the Nazi’s of India - who will hopefully never come back to power. Quick, Comrade Sonia, censor him, before he starts denying his Hindu nationalism! Don’t tell me IC, India is Shining with the promise of real capitalism…thats why they lost the election right, because levels of rural poverty rose, while India was busy Shining with shiny new free markets and increased incomes for the upper middle classes. Only in India like everywhere else these days there is no democracy, so while the poor (vast majority) used their protest vote to get Congress back, Congress just continued the ugly job. But then who needs democracy, when you have capitalism, and a very BIG ARMY to keep the people under control. Everybody equal…no…some of them have guns, and bombs - these are the ones that go round preaching economic liberalism, and funnily enough people listen. Who are the statist control freaks in *modern* society. communists? where? Thats the past, get over it you freak, your not living in the 1980s. The new statist stalinist, control freaks are the mouth pieces of the “neo-liberal”, “neo-conservative”, “neo-fascist”, “neo-authoritarian”, empire.
Not to be too bleak because they are losing in the big picture, as there one to many forms of communication begin to fail in the face of many-to-many organisation through the internet. Thats why the Bush Admin now want to “fight the net”, the invention intended to strengthen the armies which came back and bit them in the ass. Well good luck, but I think its too late fortunately. My guess is that they underestimate the percentage of their own population who are cyber-libertarian hackers. Even a portion of their misguided supporters like IC and his mates think that they can further the cause by using the internet, and probably wouldn’t be very happy if the US government zapped there blog because for instance they expressed ‘dangerous’ views on environmentalism (like its a bogey when even Bush has had to admit that its a ‘bit’ of a problem).
IC I look forward to your reply, and hope that Sonia moderates it, edits it and republishes it to make you look even dumber than you manage to make yourself look. Good luck Sonia, it’ll be a challenge
.
By tom on Feb 22, 2006
My fundamental point is, and always has been, that people - individuals - need to think for themselvs and ask questions. if that is all my posts ever do then i’ve accomplished something - in my opinion - crucial. So i’m glad the post is thought provoking. it would be nice if it makes people think: - this troll IC who as you say has nothing of any substance to say except bandy about ridiculous insults. As you say all IC ( or Meghadutam in his new guise) can ever come up with are ‘ridiculous’ to say the least - personal insults - boy - some of them are so funny there ought to be a ‘hall of fame/ignominy’ for them! anyone who’s ever been on the Guardian blogs will agree i’m sure, much fun has been had there at IC’s expense. I must admit that this possibly ‘lowers’ the tone of the blog to a ’slanging’ match. i do enjoy debate but of course with IC there is no debate just some blind comments.( the same ones every time as well! Certainly not a very original person - how do you think he’s going to write his next novel?? )
I have this feeling any day now some member of the SWP will be surfing the net and imagining i have some sympathy with them by looking at IC’s comments! Ha that would be funny. I guess at the end of the day IC will never understand the mindset of anarchy - since he’s clearly such a conformist.
By sonia on Feb 22, 2006
Indeed globalisation, the neo-liberals have monopolised the concept. Favouring corruption and easy money over human rights and international law.
These are the two sides to globalisation, centralised banking and human rights.
They are opposites! Yet they are virtualy integrated as the same concept by cunning criminals. What better than to hide a criminal concept behind one of humanism.
The US and UK governments now say that Chavez is a threat to democracy, of course, when they say this they are denigrating the very concept they pretend to be protecting. If Chavez is a threat to democracy, then so are over 50% of the Venezuela population. Does this mean they want to commit genocide upon the Venezuelan population? Because that is what it clearly implies.
So, are we to consider that the real meaning of democracy is international centralised banking financial interests? Pushing upon the world the Washington consensus, no matter how many must be murdered, famished… under these circumstances it is of little wonder that these forces could plan terrorist attacks to blame it on communities that are resisting the Washington consensus and create excuses for warfare.
This cannot be tolerated and it won’t be tolerated.
We know who the real terrorists are.
By the eternal God we shall prevail, human rights and international law shall prevail.
By phaedrus on Feb 22, 2006
Tom,
I guess your real name is Roy, Bose, Chatterjee or Banerjee. We have a running joke among the few decent capitalist friends that whenever two Bengalis get together they form a ‘trade union’.
Just holler for their so called scumbaggy rights, and care not a whit for the duties or responsibilities.
So it is natural that the two Bengalis on this blog (comrade Tom & Comrade Sonia) should form a trade union of their own.
Best of luck guys maybe if you holler a lot some capitalist may come around and drop a few nickles and dimes.
As far as BJP is concerned, it is a great nationalist party. I am its proud supporter, India did shine during their rule. But some scumbaggy communists spread their false propganda and that is why the BJP lost.
Though during the next elections there is going to be a different story and a a different government.
As they all say- tomorrow is another day.
So long comrades! Go ahead use your hammer and sickle to shave your beards.
By Meghdutam on Feb 25, 2006