No, simply when people start forgetting too much of the negative aspects of the totalitarian system. So much that their view isn't in line with the historical facts. It happens rarely, but does happen sometimes.

But you better be careful how you talk about Marxism-Leninism these days or else you'll be heading for that reeducation camp in Xinjiang before you even know it. — Apollodorus

I really doubt that. Especially as this forum isn't so popular, actually. Only few people read this.

I think it is futile for me to continue giving this explanation because obviously the problem is my prejudice against the Germans/Prussians and there is nothing to say about them but to praise them. — Athena

The thing is that few explain the present by referring to the 19th Century, where you really had Prussia. I think you correctly understand that late 19th Century America sought example from Prussia / Germany, but in the post WW2 era this idea is very rare. Basically the present start post WW2, where the US finds itself in the dominant position (with nearly every other possible competitor in ruins). This causes the focus to be in the purely domestic scene and other countries being influenced by the US.

Norms are inculcated , but every one of us interprets those norms in slightly different ways in relation to our own outlook. We never simply , blindly internalize ideas from the culture. We are not vacuum cleaners , we are interpreters. We make use of the informational resources of our culture , and that limits us , but we can only select from those resources what is consonant with our own system of understanding, even when it seems at a distance like an entire community is in lockstep with each other. — Joshs

How much is it about culture, how much about past events? Things what we look as "our culture" are quite positive things. So why political differences can lead to violence in some places where in others the issues are handled cordially. History plays a crucial part.

Let's think about this from the viewpoint of attempts in political secession in the case of UK and Spain.



In the UK the secessionist movement in Scotland has been peaceful, where the secessionist movement in Northern Ireland had a long and very violent past, even if the UK government has very smartly depicted basically an insurgency as "the Time of Troubles". In Spain the secessionist Catalan movement was put down with violence and the secessionist politicians ended up in jail whereas in the UK the former IRA terrorists with much blood on their hands live still as free men when the justice system didn't find enough evidence to prosecute them.

Why the bloody history in Northern Ireland, whereas Scotland everything has been civilized? In my view the real difference here is that the wars between Scotland and England are ancient history and the idea of both being British was quite successful, while the Irish never did get used to being British and still the Irish war of independence was something quite current and very relatable. In Scotland the opposite sides "stay" or "independence", never were depicted as the side of the English and the side of the Scots. And that is crucial. In Northern Ireland, the situation is different even with religious differences. And so are the way to obtain independence. The Provisional IRA, even if with quite different political ideologies from the "old" Irish Republican Army, still has roots in the IRA of the Irish war of Independence, the organization that then basically morphed into the current Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Irish Defence Forces, even if the "Provos" had little to do with the Irish Defence Forces.

When Catalonia tried to gain independence from Spain, the attempt lead to violence. Here I think again the memories of the Spanish Civil War and it's aftermath, the dictatorship of Franco, had a part to play.

The sight of Spanish national police beating voters, and politicians being jailed, revived disturbing memories, for some, of the Franco dictatorship.

And if we compare this to worst current European tragedy, the break up of Yugoslavia with over 100 000 killed in the bloody civil war, the trauma from the past is even more evident. In Tito's Yugoslavia what happened during WW2 wasn't dealt with and the past came to haunt the present in the worst way possible.

This is not a helpful observation; it provides almost no insight. — Tom Storm

Something that people should be reminded when their views of Marxism-Leninism become too rosy, I should add.

In the end there's a golden rule: understand the limitations of your methodology.

There's really nothing wrong with using psychology in looking at politics if we have a broader understanding about what effects politics and how politics works. Hence the better researchers are quite subtle and tactful on just what implications can you drive from let's say evolutionary political psychology, the field concerned with the application of evolutionary psychology to the study of politics. Psychology can say something, but it doesn't explain everything. People can easily accept that, but especially when they are ignorant of the subject at hand, this fact can be forgotten easily. At worst, the dubious researcher will make broad claims, which then catch the public eye.

You can get an insight using social psychology on how some segment of the voting population behaves. Yet their voting behavior will be influenced far more by the economy: if either the economy is roaring and people are better off than before or if the economy is collapsing and everyone feels it can explain more the behavior in the voting booth than personal traits of the voters. The real misuse happens when one forgets or sidelines other factors (like the economy) or basically forgets history itself, everything that has happened before. This typically happens when the broader context isn't so familiar to the researchers themselves and when complex developments are explained by simple causes.

A well known example of this the "Great stirrup controversy", where a historian called Townsend White argued in his book from 1962 "Medieval Technology and Social Change" that feudalism took hold because of the spread of the stirrup in the cavalry. The argument went that the stirrup enabled heavy cavalry and shock combat, the cavalrymen could fight better from the saddle with stirrups, which in turn prompted the Carolingian dynasty of the 8th and 9th centuries to organize its territory into a vassalage system, rewarding mounted warriors with land grants for their service.

It's a quite eccentric claim, starting from the fact that there had been armoured heavy cavalry in Antiquity (Romans called them aptly oven men) and "shock combat" wasn't anything new. I think the reason why the argument came so popular was because few historians ride horses and even fewer understand that stirrups aren't so essential as Townsend White argues. Likely the Princeton professor wasn't an avid horseman himself, but appears to have made a bunch of surprising claims. Yet here you can see that minor details can capture the eye and the imagination of the public.

However, if that someone has the statistics to back up his conclusion then his investigation can hardly be dismissed as "nonsense". — Apollodorus

Seems that we have to use statistics to get the attention of Apollodorus.

Better yet, let's use regression analysis. It's even more scientific!

So what is your opinion? If a person prizes a free market above the availability of healthcare, is there a personality trait in that? — frank

I will surely bet that those that are either for or against universal healthcare differ in their personal traits. The views that they hold on universal healthcare most likely depends on their own experiences of the system and the government/private sector.

If system works, people usually are OK with that. If the system doesn't work, they likely are unhappy with it. Hence them being for or against a system doesn't depend on their individual personal traits, but on the performance of the system.

As I said, owning as a pet a cat or a dog might say something about you, but it doesn't say much about your stance on health policies. But someone might make a nonsense investigation and come to the conclusion that if you have a rabbit as a pet, you likely vote X.

I too live in a Nordic country, and if I compare to life in the 19th century, there is simply no way to get around the fact a large part of the demands of "socialist agitation" of the 19th century is realized in these countries. — boethius

And fortunately (or unfortunately) to those that waited for the revolution to happen, it never came as the problems and the largest injustices were dealt with. Yet those demands from "socialist agitation" were taken to heart by other political factions too.

Yet from the 19th Century the government and the public sector has grown in every Nordic country.

Capitalist or even just state agents sent to stop your "socialism but not" agitation would not at all care about whatever distinctions you are trying to make. — boethius

I'm not so sure about that, when you look at the actual history in these countries or in Europe in general. Who created the first state social insurance program? Bismarck. Not a socialist, on the contrary.

Power is not simply administrative process, power is the ability to effectuate desired change in the real world. — boethius

Yet the individual confronts that administrative process in his or her life. It's only optional (luckily!) to take part in the democratic process, the laws and the norms of the state aren't optional.

The effective power and who has it in Finland is simply in no way similar to the absolute monarchies of the 18th and 19th century — boethius

I agree. And how effective was that power of absolute monarchies in the 18th and 19th Century or earlier?

The issue was that they had to rely on the threat of violence as the central power was actually so weak. They didn't have an efficient modern organization as now the state enjoys. The Sun King Louis the XIV tried to get accurate statistics of how much trade was going through an important port (was it Rouen or Le Havre, I don't remember) and didn't get it in his lifetime. The court in Versailles was a way to control the aristocracy, which had been a problem for his father.

The real nightmare can be perhaps Xi's China, when you have an authoritarian power elite with the resources and the capability to use modern technology to create the police state of the new millennium. Luckily no political parties in our countries are such authoritarians as the Chinese communists. All I'm saying that the state isn't withering away in the Nordic countries.

We can easily interpret the "withering away of the state" as the social democratic process of Europe. — boethius

?

Individual citizens in Switzerland and Nordic countries for instance, can genuinely be argued to be free from state oppression and managing their own affairs through fair, or then fair enough, political process. As local awareness increases and local political entities take more active rolls of government management, the "state" becomes less and less relevant to political life; — boethius

Living in one Nordic country and knowing all my life the local Social Democracy, I'd say this is not true.

The central government might transfer authority to local communities, but that hardly takes away the role of public authorities, likely it simply increases it on another level. Great, you don't have to ask permission from a central ministry, but your local communal authorities.

If we carry this social experiment of Switzerland, the Nordic's, New Zealand, forward, it is possible to imagine "the State" becoming less and less important, until it is, maybe nominally there as an administrative body of regional issues, but does not and essentially cannot exercise any real oppressive political power. — boethius

Yet this doesn't decrease the power of the public authorities, be they on the communal level or not. You see, to decrease the role of the state /public sector would simply mean to give freedom for people to act when before they had to ask permission from an authority. To do away with previous supervision and control. This isn't what modern Social Democracy has as it's objective.

Is it possible that there are some personality traits that are statistically more commonly shared by liberals than conservatives and others more common to conservatives? If so, is there any value in identifying them? — Fooloso4

Depends on the question you have in mind.

You can see perhaps differences in the personality traits among people who have as pets cats opposite to dogs or then have rabbits, but likely people will just draw stupid stereotypes from the information. A lot of people in PF had cats as pets. Hmmm...

In politics more important might be the actual politics, the implemented policies and so on.

. I think you're right that "thought crimes" shouldn't be prosecuted or met with any type of legal penalty, but I'm more talking about soft power measures like doxxing or something along those lines. — BitconnectCarlos

The most effective way for any society is simply to disregard or think that the person is crazy, or has obviously some personal problems. Of course crazy people can be harmful to themselves and to others, but we treat them and the whole situation differently.

I think here at first it's important to think about this in a broader sense:

When is the situation so alarming that we ought to take drastic action in what otherwise would be in the category of "freedom of thought"? And there the answer is again when someone takes or some people take these issues to physical actions. Just some crank having crazy thoughts won't do. It's the situation when we understand that the views are widespread and not just people with personal problems cherish them. Still, there has to be a true breakdown in social cohesion in the society and likely political and economic turmoil. Then people can get "crazy". Then "hate speech" etc. can really be dangerous. As the saying goes, when people don't have anything to lose, they can lose it.

I think the real problem is that we are too adaptive. If someone is killed in our neighborhood we are shocked. If another person is killed the next day we aren't so shocked anymore as we have already adapted to the fact that people do get killed in our neighborhood. We see then the past having this idyllic peace that has been shattered and that a new reality has taken over. In fact, to state that some horrendous crime has been "an unfortunate yet a rare singular event", especially when the perpetrator is caught and put behind bars, draws harsh criticism for the security minded people who advocate that this is the new normal.

And we have a model for the worst possible outcome, a genocide, in Zombie-movies. Because in order for a true genocide to happen, people simply have to think of those being killed as zombies, not being humans. Or simply there being a war and the others being the enemy.

Talking so much about Prussian militarism and Prussian bureaucracy, it should be noted that one of the most important pillars of the modern science and humanities oriented university, which integrates arts, humanities and sciences and uses a holistic combination of research and studies comes from Prussia. The idea of the Humboldtean university and the Humboldtean model of higher education with the Humboldt University in Berlin is one of the real things Prussia gave to this world. This university was the preeminent university for natural sciences in the 19th and early 20th Century and had alumni and teachers Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Georg Wilhelm Hegel.

If Prussians revolutionized the military, so did the but in totally different way the Prussian educators with Wilhelm Humboldt leading the charge and the Prussian Reform Movement (that abolished in Prussia serfdom and was based on Enlightenment ideas).

And in the heart of Prussia.

Wartimes give one way to see things, but I guess now days the focus is on the competitive advantage and that education is viewed as literally as an investment to increase economic growth. It's not a militaristic view, it's more of a capitalistic view. Higher education is viewed as a hub that creates innovative new tech companies, creates new industries. I think that's the dominant view.

Judging from those quotes, the stance is also old, and tired. Nothing new there. — Ciceronianus the White

Why create something new, when the old still works?

Just wait for a new generation to come around, and then repeat the old dogmas. They are new ideas again, because nothing ever happened before me!

Personally, I tend to believe that society must urgently depoliticize itself and start taking a more holistic view of itself and of its problems. The interests of the whole, not of political factions or special interest groups must be made the primary concern. — Apollodorus

I disagree.

You cannot depoliticize the society. People simply disagree. That is human nature. Yet even if we disagree, we can make things together.

In a republic, politics has to function, democracy has to work. A representative system is the only way when the society is comprised of million of people. If you had the near perfect society, lot of people would disagree with the idea that it is perfect and have different opinions how to make it better. At the community level or in a mini-state, direct democracy can work.

When we simply accept that a) totally sane and intelligent people can have totally opposite views to what we consider sane and intelligent and that in the end b) voters are informed and intelligent enough for elections to guide the representative system, democracy will prevail. If we think that people can "vote wrong" or worse, that a large part of our fellow citizens represent a danger to the society, then we are in perilous waters.

Both leftist and right-wing populism tries to create a juxtaposition between "us" and "them" and seek basically to dehumanize the other side as the culprit of all problems in the society. Things don't deteriorate because nobody does anything and people let problems to grow bigger: the idea is that some people are on purpose creating the problems. With classic Marxism it's obvious with talking about the class-enemy, but the far right is totally on board with similar rhetoric, just with different culprits and scapegoats. It is the political extremes who see politics literally as a battlefield where the other side is the enemy.

It's evident from where the author comes and what his personal stance is. Without having read the book (and it doesn't seem interesting), but by just looking at the quotes from the book, the vitriolic stance is quite evident. Nearly all quotes (that can be found for example here) talk about "The Left" as one all encompassing actor. And what Bolton thinks about the left is obvious from quotes like this:

The Left, laid bare of its ideological façade wrapped about by theories on economics and sociology, is simply a means of dragging humanity down to the lowest denominator in the name of ‘equality’.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery’.

I basically hate this approach: it doesn't take into account just how different let's say Western social democrats are from Western marxists and how those are different from Chinese marxists or the supporters of the leftist populist Maduro (and earlier Chavez) in Venezuela. The left isn't just Marxism-Leninism or Maoism.

Perhaps here the obvious error is that a similar psycho-history could be made about "the right", and very likely you would get similar results. It's basically scientism is used as a veil for a rant against the political movement you hate.

A thing which actual has been done already, actually.

A fitting example would be Theodor Adorno's "The Authoritarian Personality". There the member of the Frankfurt School (yes, that Frankfurt School) makes a "F scale", for pre-fascist personality, and goes on to measure traits like conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.

And of course, Adorno downplayed his Marxist roots and if we believe Apollodorus, Bolton doesn't either openly write about his influences either (which would be logical).

In the end I simply do not find this useful. Psychohistory doesn't work when your just looking for what are considered character flaws or negative traits.

In a rare occasion I would agree with here. Done with a different attitude, using psychology can perhaps be useful.

But hell, I'm paid an awful lot of money for my moronic guesswork so at least I've got something to cushion the blow... it's a wonder there's not more astrology consultants in the courts, corporations and civil service, they too could benefit from whatever mass deception I've inadvertently manged to weave. — Isaac

There are highly paid economists too, so... :wink:

Hollywood and the studio system is long gone, as is that worldview. There are other systems and worldviews in operation. — Tom Storm

If you refer to the Studio system lead by Eastern European Jewish immigrants, that has changed. But still the industry that is based in the US exists, even if the films and series are made physically in other places.

In the mid 20th century, most films were artful propaganda pieces — Tom Storm

Did that actually stop?

I think Hollywood still exists. I think this era will pass as did the other times too. From the mass of mediocrity (and hypocrisy) there still will come those pearls people will enjoy even later. Even if they are abhorred by the professional critics in Rotten tomatoes etc. today.

It was YOU who brought up Nazism not me. — Apollodorus

Wasn't it , immediately at the first reply on this thread?

Sorry, but if a book would be let's say about evolution, perhaps it would be good to know the author is a staunch creationist and a biblical literalist? Just saying...


Oh yes. Wonder how would Nietzsche do here.

Well, I didn't know that and you can't really blame it on me, can you? — Apollodorus

Quick google searches are easy to do and then you can know where people come from.

Or are you just upset that I started a discussion that's inconvenient to some people on the far left? — Apollodorus

I hope such questions could be discussed. But I think the Site guidelines ought to be noted:

Posters:

Types of posters who are welcome here:

Those with a genuine interest in/curiosity about philosophy and the ability to express this in an intelligent way, and those who are willing to give their interlocutors a fair reading and not make unwarranted assumptions about their intentions (i.e. intelligent, interested and charitable posters).

Types of posters who are not welcome here:

Evangelists: Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having.

Racists, homophobes, sexists, Nazi sympathisers, etc.: We don't consider your views worthy of debate, and you'll be banned for espousing them.

So no espousing... :up:

Just to refer to Kevin B. Macdonald, who was himself endorsing the mentioned author:

Kevin MacDonald (1994, 1998a, b) argues that Judaism is a “group evolutionary strategy.” According to his theory, Jews are genetically and culturally adapted to promote their own group interests at the expense of gentiles. Jewish genetic adaptations include high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism.

MacDonald’s (1998a) most influential book, The Culture of Critique (CofC), claims that several major twentieth-century intellectual and political movements—including Boasian anthropology, Freudianism, Frankfurt School critical theory, and multiculturalism—were designed to destabilize gentile civilization for the benefit of Jews. The movements, led by “strongly identified Jews,” attacked group identity among white gentiles while promoting separatism and ethnocentrism for Jews. They “pathologized” anti-Semitism in order to squelch resistance to Jewish control.

Yep, Frank, what quacks like a duck...

But let's have an open mind with Apollodorus. He or she wasn't promoting the book, or?

The book has nothing of that sort in it at all. Plus, it's been endorsed by psychology professors like Kevin MacDonald — Apollodorus

Oh boy, Apollodorus...

Kevin B. MacDonald (born January 24, 1944) is an American anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and a retired professor of evolutionary psychology at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).[1][2][3] In 2008, the CSULB academic senate voted to disassociate itself from MacDonald's work.[4]

Of course Wikipedia might be part of the character assassination, but hmm...

I think those films were exercises in stylization and were never meant to be taken at face value. The height of that stylization were then the Spaghetti Westerns. — baker

Westerns are an excellent example how a genre simply creates it's own separate reality from the actual history. TV and film in Westerns have always just put historical costumes on contemporary people. You can easily notice the differences in Westerns done in the various decades.

Westerns are an integral part of American culture, or at least were once.

The distinction I draw between your question and the question of the OP is that your question asks how to deal with those who have stolen land whereas the OP asks how to deal with racists. Yours includes an actual act, whereas the the OP includes only a mindset. — Hanover

How to deal with a cartoon figure-like racist is one thing, but racism or xenophobia go viral only if there is some actual act behind the reason (or can be fabricated as the reason) why these ugly ideas have become popular. Typically people don't hate others. There can be the individual with personal problems, but if you have widespread fear or hatred in a community between ethnicities or racial groups, there usually is a smoking gun buried somewhere in history.

And this act, which you later refer as trespassing to land is a crime, where do you draw the line? Sure, if it's you yourself that has illegally taken hold of the land belonging to someone other, there the reasoning is obvious. But how about when that land has changed hands in the most typical way in history, after a war? And there's no peace agreement and basically the claim to that land is nearly the only thing that the people who lost the war have as a strong connecting identity. And this can continue for centuries.

Doesn't matter then if "the theft" was "perpetrated" by the generation of your grand parents or great grandparents or a generation of your ancestors that you have no idea of. If the some people uphold the remembrance of the theft and think of you as the perpetrator, then there's the cause. That you have not known any other home than that town doesn't matter.

Finland is just the place for tad greyish...most of the year, early spring, fall, most of the winter months etc.

I'm all into the shift from post WW2 embedded liberalism to 80s neoliberalism. 70s stagflation was a critical ingredient. — frank

Lol. :lol:

Yes, inflation is coming. And the correct term would be stagflation.

What's the worst that could happen?

That we all will be millionaires. The few billionaires now quadrillionaires then.

And then the monsters come out to play.

Springtime in Finland? — frank

Springtime in Finland.

Stagflation? ? ?

How ought a community deal with such a neighbor? — BitconnectCarlos

Ideas and views aren't a crime, actions and instigating others to act might be.

But anyway. So you have your neighborhood Nazi. Not just the odd crazy or the recycling-Nazi complaining that you recycle your trash improperly, nope, but a genuine Nazi that believes that your existence in the World is harmful. These kinds of racists are rare.

What would be more typical would be a neighbor that would say that you don't have the right to live specifically there where you are now living. Go live somewhere else. And here's the interesting question: leave out the obvious racism that you have depicted of the neighbor, when do people start to think that here you and your living in that town is really the problem?

What if you are a Jewish settler in the West Bank and the neighbor a Palestinian? Or you are a Moroccan in Western Sahara and your neighbor a Sahrawi?

People still have these ideas of some people being the "rightful owners" of some area, whereas others are occupiers, invaders. Even if the "invasion" has happened ten, hundred or thousands of years ago. Is it wrong to think like that?

Why is “the Left” called “loony”? — Apollodorus

I think that both political sides have their own share of what could be referred as "loony".

You can find their actions well documented by the media supporting the opposite side.

Ah! Misspelling. I meant "there". :yikes:

I started reading this thread from the beginning. Some posts have not aged well. — James Riley

Well count my first responses in that category! Benkei, like in and others put me into line that this was something serious and I was downplaying the risks. Yet that was on page 4, so it wasn't yet the age of the official pandemic and lockdowns.

I've always appreciated the intelligence and awareness of my fellow PF members. :up:

Yes, part of the myth.

Is that a good thing? — Banno

Yes.

It's a great thing when people are thought to be as good competent soldiers and the people to be determined to fight thanks to the past actions of their grandparents and great grandparents.

The actual reality might be different. But the myth is good for deterrence, to keep the peace.

So, being utilitarian for a change, what benefit accrued to Australia form our involvement there? — Banno

That the Americans don't start thinking you are showing them the finger and starting hating you as the do the French. (Remember "Freedom fries")

You still have their troops, btw. Just like us and the Swedes, who aren't even allies of the US. Actually there's now far more troops from other countries than from the US in Afghanistan.



And the Taleban is more stronger than ever, what else?

Kyllä (Yes).

On the other hand, the pandemic has been for us rather easy (compared to our western neighbour): the health system hasn't been under serious stress at any time during the pandemic. Now we are starting to easing off the restrictions.

(Knocking wood...)

Does it have to?

It seems that restraint in the use of deadly violence (yet otherwise maintaining a large crackdown), persistence and not backing down DOES make it. At least the Western media will get bored with it and not report it, so out of sight, out of mind.

How is the situation now in Hong Kong? I think that the Chinese authorities are now in control.

How is the situation now in Belarus? - Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was last month calling for 2nd wave of protests from excile. I haven't noticed huge demonstrations anymore though.

The situation is far more bleak than you portray it: the totalitarian regimes don't have to unleash a wave of all out violence like some desperate Ghaddafi clinging on power and bring the country into total anarchy, their security machines are working well.

As Possibility pointed out, in the context of a global culture, it distinguishes the European philosophical tradition, commencing with Greek Philosophy, from Chinese, Indian, and other cultures who have corresponding activities that can be reasonably designated 'philosophy', even if that is not a word that is native to their cultures. — Wayfarer

I think this goes to the heart of the matter. It's the historical narrative that we use to define our tradition that makes us view things like this. And usually that accepted narrative, "The Greeks - the Renaissance thinkers - the Enlightenment philosophers - etc" simply doesn't recall the role of any other traditions. Anything outside that is seen as unimportant.

What you were saying is that you don't personally care to spend on the topic currently, but maybe another time.

Perhaps then.

This is historically backwards. — Maw

If you think that Europe had the Roman Empire before in Antiquity, it isn't. at all.

Having huge cities like Rome or Constantinople means that you have to have efficient trade roots and an advanced economic system. First collapse of globalization would be how Antiquity ended. With case of last bastions of feudalism, let's say Imperial Ethiopia, the story is different.

I'm simply saying that, contra Bitter Crank, we shouldn't separate Democracy under politics and Socialism under economics. — Maw

So modern social democracy is the problem? For part of the left social democracy isn't socialism, yet I think it's been the most successful part of the broader leftist movement. And they are OK with capitalism.

Seems like the EU botched it up with the centralized vaccination program. As typical, where the EU, there a problem.

(By this stats, even Chile is beating the EU at this time)


So finally the US has gotten it's act up!

But I would disagree with Bitter Crank in regards to the a priori contrast between democracy as a political system and socialism as an economic system. We know such a contrast was untrue for Feudalism, a social system whereby political elites obtained economic surplus by appropriating from the peasantry. This is an integration of the economic and political. — Maw

In Europe feudalism can be viewed as the result of when the state is incapable of gaining and upholding a centralized power. Simply put it, when those in power have basically no ability to create a central power, then the last option is to simply divide the land to your allies to the size that is governable. Yet for the pre-capitalist era the economic system referable to would be mercantilism as feudalism and mercantilism go quite well hand in hand. It is the remnants of mercantilism as the economic system that capitalism had to fight against and overcame in the 19th Century. Hence I think Bitter Crank does have a point because otherwise we won't notice the subtle differences between a political system and an economic one.