How to let go of Socialism as an Idealogy?

[Mormegil]

I don't want to stick to any belief or ideology, I know this is absolutely necessary for this work here and for spiritual growth.

Yet I find it harder and harder NOT to hold on to Socialism as an ideology. From my perspective I would say I have definitely understood and maybe even integrated some of the better aspects of capitalism, such as productivity, innovation, material wealth and material satisfaction. However it is one of my fundamental beliefs that most things wrong today are because of the capitalistic system and how it forces us to view every single aspect of our lives only in terms of profit. It even brainwashes us into evaluating other people after shallow things like looks and status.

Personally I like to envision of an socialistic utopia, where everyone is able and free to pursue their dreams and self-actualize themselves because their basic needs will be taken care of. Since I was a little kid I was always lacking something in our society and in the system we live in, like a more profound level of existence and appreciation for life or simply put spirituality.

I’m well aware, that this utopia I described is just an idealistic dream and mankind will probably never be able to achieve that (at least not at our current state of consciousness). But that’s the problem I’m facing, I see myself stuck to this ideology, where I know it’ll be impossible to implement right now, but at the same time I’m convinced it would be the best for humanity and this world.

Does any of you share similar feelings? If so, how do you deal with this kind of problem? I don’t want to limit myself because of some political ideology, however here the way I picture it, I can only see benefits.

[Schizophonia]

Lol, socialism is not utopian, it's very pragmatic.
We need workers, housekeepers, caregivers and many other difficult jobs for society to function.

[Leo Gura]

The more you understand human nature, the dumber socialism looks.

By reminding yourself that no matter how bad the problems under capitalism are, they would be a lot worse under socialism.

We tried socialism at least 20 times all around the world. It always failed. It wasn't for lack of effort.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Reignforest]

Capitalism is an orange level mentality.  Most people need to adapt to their environment. Therefore if you exist in a capitalistic society you have to integrate that. Socialism is both a lower blue state and higher green state. Meaning that to be socialist you would need to move to a location implementing those techniques.  Nobody knows what a yellow or Turquoise economy would look like, which is actually more ideal. However they all face the same problem and require a community to cooperate. 

[Mormegil]

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The more you understand human nature, the dumber socialism looks.

I see both in human nature, the urge to compete with others and also the desire to be social and to help others.

 

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

By reminding yourself that no matter how bad the problems under capitalism are, they would be a lot worse under socialism.

Maybe on the level of economy and technology / innovation, but in areas like environment I don't see how socialism should do worse than capitalism. IBut I will keep this in mind, maybe I'm missing something.

 

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

We tried socialism at least 20 times all around the world. It always failed. It wasn't for lack of effort.

True, I also don't think it would be possible now. It would just lead to chaos and suffering for people. But who knows, maybe in a few centuries? There is absolutely a different stage of consciousness / mind needed in humanity for it, and it could still be possible then.

A stage green socialism would look totally different that those things tried in the past. The socialism I was talking about was more one coming from stage green, compared to our capitalistic system, which I see more on stage orange, so it would be "higher level" in terms of Spiral Dynamics. Although I'm not sure, if that is enough to call it better.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Mormegil

[Mormegil]

17 hours ago, Reignforest said:

Nobody knows what a yellow or Turquoise economy would look like, which is actually more ideal.

That's a fascinating point to think about. How might a collective society on those stages look like? It's still hard for me to fully understand those stages even on an intellectual level and in individuals

[An young being]

18 hours ago, Mormegil said:

I don't want to stick to any belief or ideology, I know this is absolutely necessary for this work here and for spiritual growth.

Personally I like to envision of an socialistic utopia, where everyone is able and free to pursue their dreams and self-actualize themselves because their basic needs will be taken care of. Since I was a little kid I was always lacking something in our society and in the system we live in, like a more profound level of existence and appreciation for life or simply put spirituality..

In my opinion, for a country as a whole, it should learn towards capitalism to make itself stronger against survival threats. Once, it becomes stronger as a government, it should start learning towards socialism to reach the goals you have imagined.

[Philipp]

What do you count even as socialism?

In my books, a road is socialism already. Where do you draw the line? 

[UnbornTao]

On 15/10/2023 at 6:10 PM, Leo Gura said:

The more you understand human nature, the dumber socialism looks.

By reminding yourself that no matter how bad the problems under capitalism are, they would be a lot worse under socialism.

We tried socialism at least 20 times all around the world. It always failed. It wasn't for lack of effort.

Isn't Spain a decent democratic-socialist country?

I mean, we won Norway.  

Edited October 17, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Mormegil said:

I see both in human nature, the urge to compete with others and also the desire to be social and to help others.

Capitalism includes the urge to help others. Healthy capitalism helps others.

What's really the problem is excessive, toxic capitalism.

Quote

Maybe on the level of economy and technology / innovation, but in areas like environment I don't see how socialism should do worse than capitalism. IBut I will keep this in mind, maybe I'm missing something.

In practice socialism could make the environment worse off if the socialist system is so dysfunctional, corrupt, and unsuccessful that it cannot create innovative new technology and people are too desperate for survival to even have resources to devote to environmental issues.

Caring about the environment requires a realtively high degree of wealth. Poor people can't afford to care. And it also requires high technology.

Caring about the environment as an ideology isn't good enough. You have to have the material wealth necessary to do something about it.

Look at Cuba. What are they gonna do to solve environment problems? They can barely feed themselves.

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Isn't Spain a decent democratic-socialist country?

I mean, we won Norway yesterday.

Nothing in Europe is actual socialism.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Philipp]

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nothing in Europe is actual socialism.

That's not true. Public Housing (50% of buildings in Vienna are publicly owned). Public Healthcare. Railway. Public transport. Public baths. 

[Girzo]

@Philipp Yeah, and it’s built by private enterprises, of course it’s paid by the governement, but these corporations exist thanks to capital investment and lots of credit coming from the capitalist system.

I think it’s even stupid to frame any country as capitalist or socialist, that’s just not the reality, it doesn’t operate on a national level, it’s a bigger system.

Neither do I like Leo’s framing, I feel like he is provocative for educational reasons in this particular thread.

[Leo Gura]

Socialism means: no private ownership of businesses.

Welfare programs are not socialism.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Leo Gura

[mmKay]

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Isn't Spain a decent democratic-socialist country? 

[Philipp]

@Leo Gura hmm but there is an important discussion to be held what should be owned and operated by the state and what shouldn't. Liberalism wants almost everything privatized (even firefighters right?) and socialism (or social democracy) is interested in owning and operating a lot of goods and services. 

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, Philipp said:

Liberalism wants almost everything privatized (even firefighters right?) and socialism (or social democracy) is interested in owning and operating a lot of goods and services. 

That's not correct. Liberalism does not want everything privatized, that would be libertarianism.

Liberalism includes a sizable welfare state. Social democracy is a form of liberalism.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

48 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Socialism means: no private ownership of businesses.

Welfare programs are not socialism.

Btw, for all of China's socialism/communism, Xi Jinping had recently spoke out against the idea of welfarism. He's now coming off as conservative Republican. It's one reason why China's economy is in trouble.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/opinion/china-xi-jinping-policy-thrift.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/opinion/china-economy-spending-capitalism.html

Edited October 16, 2023 by Hardkill

[Hardkill]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's not correct. Liberalism does not want everything privatized, that would be libertarianism.

Liberalism includes a sizable welfare state.

Although most libertarians are ok with having a government that is owned by the state as long as it is used to protect people's individual rights and liberties.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Hardkill

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, mmKay said:

It's true, we beat Norway.

 

[Girzo]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Socialism means: no private ownership of businesses.

Ok, I see what you mean, it has been a feature of Soviet-block countries. And it didn't work at all. One can argue that these countries have had enormous growth during that time, so the system was working and their worse situation compared to West Germany for example could be attributed to worse war damage and no Marshall's plan money (Stalin rejected the money).

Yet, the fall of the block is an indisputable proof that there have been deeper problems. The system had problems with effectively using it's wealth, I mean Russia is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world when it comes to natural resources, but its economy doesn't match this wealth.

The capitalist system has had agents that were wasting resources and successfully using economy's potential. The soviet countries has been uniformly wasting resources. Although, I believe it's not a problem which is necessarily connected with socialism as you defined it now, because I can imagine independent public institutions with a lot of power that successfully distribute funding towards various enterprises.

I am not proposing implementing such system any time soon, it would be a stage Yellow system and it would require a lot of careful sketching of ideas, development of bureaucracy methods and education, because for it to work, the workers would need to be educated and voice their needs, no more no less, I mean their needs as representatives of the enterprises they work at.

The world is too obsessed with points, pointless metrics and money chasing for it to work. Maybe the point at which academia grows up out of this stupid attitude and develops more enlightened ways of operating, maybe then we can start thinking about implementing something like this politically. Because if PhDs can't make a socialist work environment for themselves then no-one can.