[p2p-research] 21st Century Socialism: Eleven Talking Points

Thu May 7 04:42:55 CEST 2009

This starts out in a different context than the one being discussed
here but the conclusion is applicable to the context of this debate...

~~Reposted from Ox-En~~

I happen to believe that there are two parts to our psyche: the
rational part and the ancient animal or irrational part (greed,
irrational pleasures, temptation, and most importantly 'fear', all
reside there, i.e. our weaknesses)

Obviously, the purpose of civilization is to tame or minimize or even
eliminate irrational behavior but the irrational part in us is not as
conditionable as the rational part, which is why war, crime and
injustice continue to this day.

According to latest game theory research, rational behavior in nature
demands both egalitarian type cooperation as well as competition, not
just competition or cooperation in the context of competition.

However, when it comes to the irrational part, where fear reigns
supreme (and is the root cause of our weakness), we don't really
follow evolutionary game theory as much as we should. We do follow it
when we are feeling courage and when we are resourced (psychologically
and physically) but when weakness creeps up (due to irrational fear of
something including some of the deepest existential issues) we enter
into a state of temporary irrationality, out of weakness, and with
some people it becomes a homeostasis, i.e. stuck in fear.

That is why the capitalist system works (whereas socialist systems
have failed thus far) even when it promotes war, crime and injustice.
It feeds on our weakness. We must resist it, but we cannot defeat it
unless we rise above our weakness. At this time seeing how people are
today the hope I have in my own work is to understand fear and the
process of gaining strength and enable a system that allows people to
gain courage and abandon fear, but that is akin to asking someone to
change their homeostasis to a new one. It's an incredibly difficult
process and there are entire libraries of books written about the
subject (e.g. spiritual books, religions, psychology books, self help
books, etc)

There has to be a better way, but it can be overlooking the fact that
we are, as a civilization, still predominantly driven by fear.

Marc

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I may have posted this before?
>
> but anyway, it's relevant between possible linkages between socialist
> movements and p2p:
>
> Magnus Marsdal on Socialist Individualism
>
> Socialist Individualism. Essay by Magnus Marsdal.
>
> URL = http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/marxind2.html
>
> "socialism is defined as the democratic management of society’s vital
> resources (“the economy‿). Under Stalinism, undeniably the economy was
> subject to explicitly political governance, but no-one would ever label that
> political economy “democratic‿. It belongs at the far end of our axis, with
> meagre individual liberties. Now, notice how the nearest challenger of the
> Evil Empire in this respect is unrestrained capitalism! Market liberalism
> weakens the position of the working individual on the labour market as far
> as it can, and does pretty much the same with the political bodies of
> democracy. Under the welfare state there are substantial “socialist inroads‿
> in the capitalist system. This partial protection from “the tyranny of the
> rich‿ strengthens the position of the individual.
>
> When the historical advancement of democracy is seen like this, the current
> position of “the new movements‿—arguing that “another world is possible‿ and
> at the same time fiercely defending the existing welfare state
> arrangements—becomes less paradoxical. Neoliberalism is perceived as
> reactionary. The foes of the welfare state are truly “winding the clock
> backwards‿. Therefore we fight to defend what already exists. But there is
> something to fight for beyond the instable truce of the so-called mixed
> economy of Keynesian times. Therefore, we also fight for what does not yet
> exist."
>
> Bruno Theret, on the tradition of 'civil socialism'
>
> The peer to peer movement differs from the traditional socialist movement in
> that it does not rely on the state, but on autonomous developments within
> civil society. Such a movement was prefigured by what Bruno Theret calls the
> tradition of civil socialism. Very interesting French-language essay.
>
> The essay by Bruno Theret is at
> http://fr.pekea-fr.org/?p=11&c=2-3-Theret.html
>
> Theret also refers to three historical traditions necessary to develop these
> ideas further: 1) the pre-marxist socialism of Pierre Leroux, very strong in
> the revolutions of 1848; 2) the federal or guild socialism of Karl Polanly,
> author of the landmark book The Great Transformation; 3) the contemporary
> neo-communautarian theory of Michael Walzer.
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM, Kevin Carson
> <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 5/3/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi Sam,
>> >
>> > I face similar difficulties,
>> >
>> > socialism can mean many many different things, but it is essentially a
>> > 19 cy social ideology that has been deeply discredited by 20th century
>> > failings ...
>> >
>> > this is one of the reasons that I use the peer to peer narrative and
>> > steer away from any language in that tradition
>> >
>>
>> I think the recovered understanding of "socialism" as it existed in
>> the early 19th century, subsequently buried by a late 19th century
>> shift in meaning that became dominant in the 20th, is quite relevant
>> to the p2p movement.
>>
>> It seems to me that both the state capitalists and the state
>> socialists have an interest in suppressing this recovered meaning,
>> because it's in their shared interest to pretend that our only
>> alternatives are a world run by Gosplan and a world owned by
>> Halliburton.  It amounts to a cartel in which they can divide up their
>> market shares between people who see
>> Gosplan or Halliburton, respectively, as more threatening than the
>> alternative.
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Carson
>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
>> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
>> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
>> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> p2presearch mailing list
>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>
>
> --
> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>
> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>
> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
> http://www.shiftn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>

-- 

Marc Fawzi
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Fawzi/605919256
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfawzi