I see Third Way conflated a lot with Neoliberalism especially on this sub and I haven’t yet figured out how to see it that way.
So even for those of you that do see it that way, how is it both similar and different to both Social Democracy and Neoliberalism?
Do you think revolutions have inherent characteristics, do they inevitably produce certain conditions, can they ever be necessary, and at what point do they become necessary? Are they ever legitimate? Do you have a specific revolutionary movement you have an affinity with, and why? Do you happen to view any revolutionary movement of the opposing ideology (as in Capitalist or Socialist) favourably?
Taking the definition of a revolution to be any movement whose purpose is to uproot the existing, established order in favour of another, or lack thereof.
Personally, I have an affinity with the Irish War of Independence and the IRA, and I happen to view the revolutions against the USSR favourably, as decentralised as they seem, from the Hungarian revolution to the August Coups. And I believe in the sentiment of "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Ergo I believe that revolution becomes necessary when change from within, or reform if you will, becomes impossible.
Thus, I believe a revolution, armed or otherwise, becomes legitimate when a group of people become inhibited from sharing/spreading their ideas structurally or implementing structural change, when their ideas become actively enforced against.
What about you?
And for those who don’t, if one is to exist what role should it play?
I believe the government’s role should be that of a soft-paternalist coordinator and the executor of the will of the people.
So, the government should be coordinating the regions and communities who desire certain outcomes and actions, thus acting to execute these desires on a national scale in an entirely consensual, bottom-up, egalitarian-democratic manner.
And this ONLY with the ideas that the furthest extent the government will directly interfere in the daily life of the individual in a softly paternalist manner, providing the necessary structures to support a fully educated, self-aware, self-reliant, and self-deterministic society, doing nothing more than nudging individuals on certain paths rather than structurally forcing them to make such decisions.
Expanding on this a bit, certain individual rights should be enshrined in a constitution, such as the american bill of rights, and to enforce the following of these rights the democracy should be transparent and contestatory.
How about you?
I, until basically today, ardently classified myself as a socialist. The only reason I have even slightly changed my mind, as I still find plenty of philosophical agreement with socialism, is that I value individual enterprise. I happen to be very pro-small-business and very encouraging of people starting their own business, and to further this I do believe that people can wholly voluntarily consent to wage labor and employment by a business-owning-individual, but only on a small scale, a scale similar to that of distributist belief I might say.
But to be concise, I believe the ability to pursue economic goals as an individual is incredibly important, we all know that so many things have been achieved by individuals who believed in themselves when no one else has, and this is important, it changes lives without arbitrarily influencing, in a manner of dominance, society.
Like, even I only have the opportunities I do in life because my grandfather was a successful sole trader. And I am so thankful, despite being a member of an opposing political party of his, that he had the opportunity he did to pursue his dream and earn a living, and provide his family with the means to remain in the city that our family has lived in for over 100 years.
I do not believe, however, that individual enterprise must come at the cost of the following principles;
- socialism
- worker democracy
- trade unionism
- syndicalism
I believe that an individual has the right, and thus should have the means, to pursue individualistic economic goals. And I really don’t know how to explain if properly right now, but I sincerely can not find a way to make this 100% incompatible with socialist ideology.
I do believe in stronger economic democracy on an industrial scale, but I believe more in individual liberty and consent on a local scale.
And to reinforce the idea of non-domination, following the principles of neo-republicanism, I believe workers can have just as much structural autonomy in small business through Service Unionism, as long as the system it occurs in is republican (no, im not talking about the US).
Service unionism being a form of trade unionism focused less on organising and more on providing a service to the members, such as legal protections. A few prominent unions in my country act as such, and are very successful, and make many of its members very happy and comfortable without also coercing businesses into certain situations.
My perspective might just be a synthesis of my love for unions and a desire for a society that accommodates individual rights to free enterprise, but either way as I see trade unionism as the most central idea to worker democracy, and that I also don’t believe in any form of socialism where unions aren’t intrinsic to it’s realisation, and as I also see individual enterprise as important, I believe these two concepts can be comfortably synthesised.
I might just be rambling, but I wanted to ask the question
I’ve seen that there are multiple different offshoot games of the original SPD game, like petrograd, popular front and ‘germany to save’. What others are there? and what other parties do we get to play as?
the ‘my ideology’ flag is of my own making, it takes the trade unionist eureka southern cross and applies it to a geo-libertarian flag
An Australian trade-union take on anarcho-communist symbolism. The Eureka cross (The southern cross) is a defining symbol of australia's trade union movement, originating from striking miners in the 1850s gold rush.
Credit; User Xophe84 on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anarchist-Communist_Eureka_Flag.svg
That's it. That's what I think. I don't think anyone is entitled to what you produce, what you put your hard work in to.
But, just because you are entitled to what you produce, doesn't mean you have the right to coerce people into doing something if you have something they need.
Yea if you produce medicine, you should own it, but you shouldn't be able to say "do this or i am going to withhold it" unless 'this' is 'provide currency', that's just plain old coercion and probably comparable to slavery "oh yea i have what you need to live but unless you do this im gonna withhold it, and if you dont do it you die". so its pretty much inevitable that you will need to trade off your labour at some point, especially when you know that one single person isnt going to make use of all the medicine in the world if they happened to be the only one producing it (which is literally impossible, so, competition etc etc), you just need to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement
But i also think that 'you should own what you produce' is only applicable in a world where money ACTUALLY correlates with hard work, effort and contribution. Someone who wins a lottery isnt contributing to society, someone who inherits a multi million dollars stock portfolio isnt contributing to society. yes these things should still exist, but only when money and wealth becomes a direct and proportional reflection of the amount you contribute to society should everyone be entitled to only what they produce.
It also goes well to say that, no one 'produced' the land or its resources, no one but the community at large should have influence over natural resources. we didnt work for it as individuals, so we shouldnt own it outright. yes if you go and extract the resources yourself you are entitled to the fruits of that labour, but you are not entitled to prevent anyone else from doing the exact same thing, you have no recourse to tell someone "fuck off this is my patch of uranium".
yes, you do have recourse to say "fuck off this is my patch of land". just because the community owns the land collectively doesnt also mean the community has the right to barge into your bedroom whenever they feel like it, but you owe society for the privilege of having private land, but when you happen to discover that there's resources under your land the community should have the right of access.
and yes, if you get hired by someone to go and mine resources, and in your contract it says "you mine these resources and give them to me, and i give you X and Y in return" then yes you still own your labour, but you have also made a legal commitment to sell that labour. if i go to a mining company and i say "provide me the tools and a wage and i will mine this uranium for you and sell it back to you in return for that wage". that's what contracts for labour are, you are committing to selling your labour.
it is the natural state of the world that you own what you produce and you, and only you, are entitled to the fruits of your labour. anyone who says "the boss is stealing my surplus value >:(" is forgetting that THEY ARE MAKING THE CHOICE TO SELL THAT SURPLUS VALUE TO THE EMPLOYER, conversely, employers who UNION BUST when employees attempt to regain some of that value are also forgetting that THE EMPLOYER IS ONLY ENTITLED TO THE LABOUR IF THE WORKER AGREES WITH IT.
that's also why real socialists are unionists, which is just a side point of mine here, so if you claim to be a socialist but you're not in a union, then you simply arent a socialist, yea maybe in your head where you 'believe in collective ownership of productive property' but unless you're actually trying to do it then it doesnt matter what's in your head. same with libertarians, if you dont respect unions and the right to freedom of association and freedom of speech then you arent a fucking libertarian you're a larping frog.
and let's remember, this natural state of being where you own what you produce CANNOT EXIST UNDER AUTHORITARIAN STATES, authoritarianism is unnatural, authoritarianism is both anti socialist and anti capitalist, it is it's own thing entirely, authoritarian states can only hold themselves up when they are coercing people into handing over their labour. the only correct states that consider this natural state of affairs are minarchist states (you might thing anarchist ones too, but i personally dont think anarchism is sustainable, hierarchies are inevitable, so you need a hierarchy that's specifically designed to prevent hierarchies and reinforce meritocracy)
