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No political system is perfect. Ever.
They require constant vigilance. They require battling. Human greed is capable of corrupting every system that a human mind can create.
Anyone that tells you they have a perfect political system that would never need fixing is a liar, an idiot, or both.
"Revolution only ever results in a change of masters"
"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
"Revolution only ever results in a change of masters"
Haiti would like to talk to you.
Slavery finished, replaced with forced labour and serfdom? That Haiti?
I'm not sure why you're arguing in favour of literal slavery, but ok. There are other examples:
- Bavaria in 1919
- Spain with the CNT/FAI in the 1930s
- The 1905 revolution in Russia, along with the 1917 revolution
I'm not arguing for slavery, you're misunderstanding the quote. I didn't say the change of masters was inherently no better than the previous masters.
Revolution is always, in every example, a doorway for powerhungry authoritarians to swoop in.
The fact that Haitians were eventually much better off than as slaves doesn't change that.
Revolution is always, in every example, a doorway for powerhungry authoritarians to swoop in.
I disagree. Like I said: CNT/FAI Catalonia, 1919 Bavaria and anarchist Ukraine are counterexamples.
If a revolution is thorough enough to eradicate the hierarchical structure of oppression, it doesn't have to be used by authoritarians.
Ok, why not create a human system that's not succeptible to greed by introducing usufruct property relations?
I read up on it, but I'm not sure how that's immune to greed. Are you able to explain?
There's a limit on how much stuff you can "own" and actually use. If you don't use it, you don't own it anymore.
usufruct
So... reading the Wikipedia article on it for more info, it doesn't seem to place any limits on what you can own. It simply lets you makes allowances for others to use something of yours. It doesn't seem to mention forfeiting unused property in the least.
It's basically just being a landlord, but with other stuff, no? I'm not following how this isn't corruptible unless there's something I'm missing.
This paragraph is vital:
A usufruct is either granted in severalty or held in common ownership, as long as the property is not damaged or destroyed.
This means that most things aren't owned by one person (legal or natural).
Being a landlord is based on the third property relation:
The third civilian property interest is abusus (literally abuse), the right to alienate the thing possessed, either by consuming or destroying it (e.g., for profit), or by transferring it to someone else (e.g., sale, exchange, gift).
Abusus isn't only about destroying, but also about keeping something from being used (A landlord can keep me from living in their house, unless I pay them).
If you don't have the abusus right, you simply can't keep others from using things. Which is why most property would be held in common. Think of it like a big library for everything. Not only books, but bikes, pots and pans, tools, furniture and accomodations.
Grabbed the podcast! More detail never hurts. Much appreciated.
Anyone who tells you that thinks they'd profit from that new system.
Maybe, but "profit" can mean "just lead a basic live with basic dignities instead of being in abject poverty"
And I think social democracy (which we need to fix) is the answer to that.
I think a lot of people like to LARP they're the rebel alliance that're going to defeat the evil empire and the ewoks will celebrate, not remembering the last few times the ewoks ended up first on the trains (purges, holodomor, GLP/CR, Khmer Rouge).
At the end of the day, in power structures, without a firm mechanism to counter, the most evil people generally rise to the top. Very familiar with this in my actual life experience which I'm going to guess most MLs don't have.
For instance, after the McD merger, marketing and finance execs slowly displaced engineers at the top and steered the companies away from doing their jobs and towards what you could call "ideological purity", ie short-term cash at any cost. Intel was similar, as was the USSR and PRC.
In the west, those companies are a smaller part of a whole, and if things go properly, they fail, an example is made, hopefully new management is brought in to replace them and recover the company.
In an authoritarian regime the whole country sinks or swims, hence NK is screwed. Russia actually had a great renaissance under Khrushchev, who helped recover most of the worst damage wrought by Stalin, until the idiot Brezhnev struck for ideological purity again and destroyed all that work. Gorbachev looked to be trying to fix that, but it was far too late.
Communists fail because they demand all eggs be under one basket, and as Rome showed us, you can have good Emperors, you can't have unlimited good emperors, sooner or later you'll get a political moron like Brezhnev or Xi and everything will fall to pieces.
It's why capitalists go on and on and on about "diversifying your portfolio" so no one bet ever kills you.
And I think social democracy (which we need to fix) is the answer to that.
Most of Europe has a social democracy. Let's just say: it's not going too well. Especially when considering the rise of far right talking points (Looks at France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, ...).
I'm brown and live in Europe and America, it's going fine, a hell of a lot better than anywhere else, particularly the shithole that is CCP's China.
Taiwan is doing pretty well though.
Austria is on the brink of going Hungary and the "progressive" coalition in Germany is gladly copying the far right's homework.
I also don't like China's governmet. Not sure why you bring it up.
The far right keeps trying to take over, and keeps collapsing into its own incompetence immediately after.
They know longer know how to rule and modern parliamentary systems make them much less able to govern.
Germany will be a disaster, their economy is finished for at least a decade, but that's ... not terribly serious, they'll re-form after a while, hopefully after we've fixed the EU.
Yeah that latter one is a bit fantastic, but considering how much room there is for change right now we actually could have some things get better.
Austria has been flirting with the far-right my whole life, the strain runs REALLY deep.
If America goes Trump then things could get very dark, but otherwise I'm pretty sure we'll manage to figure things out over the next decade, things are still vastly better in both Europe and America than anywhere else and while people don't like it, they'll be less happy with the alternatives.
I'm sorry, but you're deluding yourself if you don't think that the gurrent system won't collapse under climate change if we don't have fundamental changes.
Meh, I think we can adjust.
I think most other systems would be worse, and the system itself is entirely irrelevant.
The only thing that will save us is science, climate change probably doesn't work the way you think it does, it's complex and we have room to work if the assholes get off our backs.