Throwing labels + Im a Socialist! - A.E. #583

The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. Every week we field live calls from atheists and believers alike, and you never know what you're going to get! Sometimes it can get quite feisty indeed! You don't want to miss it.

Episode: #583
14 December, 2008
Topic: Live Calls. Tracie never makes it to her topic, but she and Matt take on live calls.

Atheistic Experience: http://www.atheist-experience.com/
Atheist Community of Austin: http://www.atheist-community.org/
AE Blog: http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/
Non-Prophets Radio: http://www.nonprophetsradio.com/

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• atheist
• community
• faith
• non
• prophets
• atheism
• religion
• Christianity
• Christian
• jen
• people
• Russell
• glasser
• god
• science
• creationism
• religious
• Dillahunty
• Loubet
• Dee
• nonprofit
• Atheistic
• Austin
• Texas
• catholic
• Jesus
• Christ
• hawkings
• evolution
• delusion
• dawkins
• open
• minded
• violence
• children
• indoctrination
• apocalypse
• protestant
• family
• scam
• don
• caller
• obama
• election
• candidate
• Christmas
• history
• church
• 583
• tracie
• phelps
• nativity
• scene
• santa
• claus
• festivus
• fsm
• socialist

[eboyd32]

it's sad so few people understand what socialism and communism are.

socialism = workers' control over the means of production

communism is a form of socialism in which people are granted access to resources according to their needs.

simple as that.

[Rabican030]

@1RadicalOne PS communism was never achieved, thus it couldnt fail :)

[eboyd32]

@VanessaTexasGal yeah, in fact, you can go back to Thomas Hodgskin who had similar ideas to Proudhon albeit a decade or so earlier, he just didn't write about it as prolifically (and it also helped Proudhon that he was the first person to proclaim himself an anarchist in writing). also, for an ideology that kind of blurs the line between socialism and capitalism (many people consider it a synthesis between the two) you can check out "distributism".

[VanessaTexasGal]

@eboyd32 thanks for the tip. I also considered spooner a capitalist in some ways, since he was against the initiation of force, but I changed my mind on that when I started seeing capitalism as being incompatible with anarchism (never bought the idea of "anarcho capitalism"). I think I'll look into Proudhon though. I'm not too familiar with his work, and I didn't know he was pre marx.

[eboyd32]

@VanessaTexasGal btw, there are quite a few anarchists, especially from here in the US, who are both staunch individualists and anti-capitalists (though many capitalists try to claim them as their own). you may be interested in the works of Lysander Spooner, for example.

[eboyd32]

...decline in popularity. there is actually a heated debate between what are considered collectivist anarchists (those who followed the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin), anarchist communists (followers of Pyotr Kropotkin), mutualists/individualist anarchists, all against Marxist style Communism. Marxism isn't even "evil" in theory (though it is highly flawed as the anarchists pointed out), but when people like Lenin got a hold of it the idea became distorted.

[eboyd32]

@VanessaTexasGal Marx is no more an authority on socialism than Ayn Rand is on capitalism. he wrote theories that gained popularity and became, unfortunately, the be-all end-all of socialist theory because of it. just to give you some background, Proudhon, the man i speak of, has writings that predate Marx/Engels' first works by 20+ years. in fact, many socialist factors existed before Marx. Marxists had most of them thrown out of the First International leading to their rapid..

[VanessaTexasGal]

@eboyd32 but the main concern for me when it comes to politics has always been to find out what moral system an ideology rests upon. Real capitalism rests upon individualism, which is all about protecting individual rights, while keeping taxes no higher than necessary for that purpose. Socialism (the kind proposed by marx at least), is based on the flawed idea that workers in a free market are exploited.

[VanessaTexasGal]

@eboyd32 if it's somehow done without any coercion, I don't really see a problem with it, but that sounds a bit more like a form of capitalism (people making a deal in the free market that they will start/run a business together). If it's done with the concent of the business owner I wouldn't ban it. The key for me is to make sure private property stays protected.

[eboyd32]

...the reason so few people know what socialism is has to do with the fact that so few people are willing to actually put the effort in to study and find out what it is. socialists of all stripes simply want more democracy in the workplace. that means more worker cooperatives and other forms of worker owned businesses (in my case i want this only if it is achieved without any coercion), workers having more say in the businesses they work for, etc. is this so evil?

[eboyd32]

@VanessaTexasGal on the contrary, mutualism, which is a form of socialism first theorized by Pierre Joseph Proudhon, is very individualistic. it is a market based system that centers around personal ownership but condemns private property, that is property used by its owners to exploit those that use it. the only commonality between all forms of socialism is the idea of "workers' control over the means of production"...

[VanessaTexasGal]

@eboyd32 it's not strange that so few people know what socialism is, because there are about 40 different definitions. at least according to Dictionary of Socialism by Rappaport. At its core, socialism is evil and anti-individual. It's not compatible with capitalism, which is the only system that actually protects individual property. I don't think that politics is what matters, we should instead look at the moral foundation that an ideology rests upon. with socialism, it's collectivism