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'Socialism' just fine with Ontario NDP leader
June 23, 2011 - 4:29pm
Quote:
TORONTO - The word "socialism" doesn't scare Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath but don't expect to see it splashed on the side of her campaign vehicles.
"It's a word I've used to describe my value system in the past," Horwath said Thursday. "It's not a word I'm afraid of or that I have a problem with. But when you get really focused on the labels and the detailed words that are kind of internal to a party document, people's eyes glaze over."
...
The word "socialism" is not derogatory, she said.
"I don't think it's an insult at all," she said. "I think it speaks to a value system that says that the wealth that's created in a society should be shared. And people shouldn't be living in dire or desperate poverty."
...
"the wealth that's created in a society should be shared"
Not a very accurate or useful explanation of socialism. The capitalist system itself, for example, is predicated on the idea that the workers who create wealth should share it with the owners of capital who do not.
Nor does concern for the desperately poor make one a socialist.
Socialism is not just about sharing, but also about things like empowerment, equality, liberation, mutuality, democratic control, justice, respect, solidarity, compassion, and uncompromising struggle against everything that stands in the way of any of those things.
No one can truly understand what socialism is without also understanding the nature of its antithesis, capitalism.
Sweet Jaysus. You finally get an NP leader to say that they are fine with the word "socialist" and you bitch that her eight second soundbyte definition lacks vigour?
No pleasing some of you.
Personally, I'd rather they did it than say it.
I was impressed by Andrea explaining her socialism to Steve Paikin a couple of years ago by referencing "From each according to their ability." But it's true: if a party's socialism is understood more as a sentiment than an economic theory, the word is easily discarded. And perhaps in all honesty should be.
Andrea Horwath for Prime Minister!
Not even a mention of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm sad
Like you lot, Andrea doesn't know socialism from Shinola. It would be more honest if she disassociated herself from the term altogether.
.
Right. We've forgotten about how you know everything and are superior to all of us and are the arbiter of all things left-wing. We'll be sure to consult you next time.
I think M. Spector does have a point though - in that socialism means a lot more than "share some of the wealth, and make sure people don't live in desperate poverty"
That said, it is an eight second sound bite.
Yes. Horwath should receive credit for not running from the word, and not permitting the Right to proscribe our political vocabulary.
Also, I have to hope that the better she and the ONDP perform in October, the less craven the federal party may be about the S-word.
She believes in scary socialism!?!?
After I picked up a recent recent book on Marxist philosophy called Marxist-Spectorism: Actually Really Totally Sweetly Existing Socialism (You're Wrong!) I realized I knew nothing about socialism and dissociated from it entirely. It was a good thing. If I had stayed as a left-winger I would have had to put up with huffy people telling me that I didn't know anything about what I believed in! Now that I have disowned myself due to a lack of purity from the progressive movement me and my beer buddies have a grand old time voting conservative once every four years now! MAJORITY 4EVA!!!!
Most people in North America think that Socialism is Stalinism, where the Government controls everything, people work for free (or next to nothing), and people get basic necessities for free, and there is not a whole hell of a lot of anything else. Workers do not control of the means of production under this system. This perception of Socialism is so prevalent that Zeitgeist is using it. I even had an African Marxist taxi driver tell me that was what socialism was. So I don't know how useful it is, if Socialism is to be interpreted as Totalitarian Rule.
One poster here said that socialism was the antithesis of capitalism, however if you abolish the free market, where is the wealth to redistribute? I would think that in a leftist society you would have small businesses paying taxes and being more or less left alone. It is the banks and big businesses which are the ones which would be put under workers control, or perhaps the banks under government control and the big businesses under workers control.
If it isn't about worker's ownership and control, I don't care what you call it. It is still right wing crap.
This is the model that I would be studying and emulating if I were on the NDP's economic policy team:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Interesting model, but I doubt the NDP would ever dare even bring up the idea of cooperatives.. Regardless, it seems ineffective from the top down.
FINALLY! Someone mentions the Mondragon Co-Ops.
The interesting thing about the Mondragon is that they have international subsidiaries. Due to the various political climates in the countries where they've been established, not all of their subsidiaries have adopted the owner-worker model. However, and this is what sets Mondragon apart from just about everyone else, they are taking an extensive look into how to democratize their offshore operations.
In an era where big business rules all and has beaten the common worker down, this corporation needs more media coverage, as naive as that request sounds.
I don't understand why you think it is ineffective from the top down, youngsocialist. Can you be more specific?
Hey notaradical, I brought this model up in a progressive US political discussion forum years ago and it was ignored. I find their model intriguing and a definite illustration that industry can be run differently and successfully.
Already part of Party policy and always has been (cooperative groups were among the founders of the CCF). Cooperatives are only one model/vehicle of economic democracy, and Mondragon was long preceded by the Rochdale Pioneers, a group of weavers and other artisans in England, from which the Rochdale Principles (the foundational principles of Cooperativism globally) derive. The Rochdale Pioneers survived various mergers and name changes before they were absorbed by the United Cooperatives in 1991 (which was itself absorbed by the Cooperative Group in 2007).
The 21st century socialism of the Chavez Venezuelan government has been described as a triangle consisting of the following 3 points:
1. social ownership of the means of production;
2. social production by workers and communities; and
3. a solidarity society producing for communal needs and purposes.
This covers all the bases: public versus private ownership, producing not just widgits but people in new social circumstances, and identifying the end result of production and tying it back to common needs and purposes. It contrasts with a "barracks" socialism or the state capitalist characteristics of the former SU. Michael Lebowitz covers all of this well in English in The Socialist Alternative.
This is one way to characterize socialism and it has the great advantage that, while Venezuela is hardly a "socialist" country, it describes the whole thing as an ongoing process - which can be successful or not - and fills in some of the important "blanks". There are others, of course.
Would it not also include eliminating the unjust separate school system? Ironically enough, while the NDP remained audibly mute on and the Liberals actively defensive of the issue last election, the PCs and the Greens were the most voal about changing it.
I'd rather support a capitalist for social justice than a socialist who just brandishes words about.
I guess if it doesn't make normal people run screaming it's not good enough.
It ought to and also about social entrepreneurship more generally. That said, government can't just will these things into being. The NDP can win office and implement all the supportive policies it cares to but someone outside of government has to organize these things and make them run.
And they do: http://www.coopscanada.coop/en/about_co-operative/Co-op-Facts-and-Figures
Most of Canada's cooperatives and credit unions are quite small, although Vancity is larger than some banks.
Then there is the non-profit sector, which still probably employs more people than the retail sector. Of course there is a considerable difference between small local not-for-profit societies and a non-profit on a national scale.
Co-ops are alive and well and growing. As a member of two farm product co-ops I find New Democrats are often involved in many ways. You might be able to criticize the NDP for lots of things, but support for co-ops is not a realistic criticism.
I really hope you're right. Unfortunately, in my community their reputation has been tarnished by a couple of businesses that have operated under the pretense of being worker's co-ops in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and attract the patronage of the lefties and liberals, while - in actual practice - being even more exploitative than many businesses with more conventional employer-employee structures.