In the early days of this month, I had an email 'exchange' of sorts with one Mary Smith. She puts herself forward as a Socialism expert. As with most Socialists who claim expertise on their chosen path, she finds all things that do not fit into her worldview to be "fascist," including libertarianism.
Mary's email address is redacted and I added a link so you can see what she is responding to on one of my other blogs.
Update 7 JAN 2013: On the confusion between Capitalism and its qualified instances, here is Sheldon Richman with an informative talk about the topic:
In chronological order, our exchange, with apologies for the sloppy formatting:
Mary Smith <redacted> Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 11:01 PMJohn Tagliaferro <johntagliaferro@gmail.com> Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 3:15 PM
To: JohnTagliaferro@gmail.com
I saw your webpage on the Walmart actions and shop-ins. I agree that this tactic is not the best because it actually makes the workers jobs harder in that they must put away all the unsold merchandise.
As for the rest of your page, you are quite confused and apparently have not done much reading in your life or have ignored the facts. National socialism is the opposite of socialism. In Germany, the communist party was becoming quite popular and was winning elections. The economy was in a bad position because of reparations and demands put on Germany following WW1, which required the working class of Germany to suffer financial consequences imposed by other countries. Hitler was Chancellor and parliament was suspiciously burned down (most likely by the Nazi Party) and one party rule was declared by Hitler. He blamed the communists.
Fascism is a knee jerk reaction by the capitalists when capitalism is threatened. The only thing threatening the small minority that stand over society is socialism. Socialism means the people running society in the interests of the masses. That means taking huge industries under public ownership to create jobs (the rich won't do that when their system is in crisis) and democratically deciding what should be made and how people should be paid, unlike the dictatorship of Wall Street. When society is ran only for profit, it destroys the environment, contaminates our food, and allows people to die unnecessarily for lack of health care. It is quite authoritarian for one person, a CEO, to decide what a company produces and how people should be paid. The salaries of these folks, who are no smarter than most of us, are exorbitant so we are led to believe that they have "special" skills and knowledge to make decisions over our livelihood. We, the working class, run society. We make all the products and provide all the services. We fill the bread baskets of the world. The only thing preventing us from getting our fair share, is the capitalist.
The industrialists in this country and other countries supported Hitler coming to power and Winston Churchill attempted to befriend him but was scoffed at. Hitler, like Stalin, killed many communists and socialists and those of us who understand history, know the difference between fascists and socialists. There is a world of difference because they are opposites. I have devoted much of the last twelve years studying history, revolutions and democratic socialism. Socialism is becoming quite popular. In the November election in Seattle's 43rd District, a socialist won 29% of the vote while running against the strongest Democrat in Washington State. That is historic! Capitalism created me and historically and as Marx said, it will create its own gravediggers.
To: Mary Smith <redacted>
You seem to be the one who does not read much of the history, or you just get the meanings of words from whomever tossed them to you.
Parts of your note reads like a copy/paste job from Sergei Eisenstein. The rest reads like a Hitler speech extolling Socialism and saying that wealth from some needs to be spread around to the many.
Actually, every Socialist says that and Hitler was no exception.
Socialism is the opposite of individualism. Command directed economies are the opposite of Lazes-Faire. Both the International Socialists (you know who they are, right?) and the National Socialists (your wording does not seem to indicate that you know what they are) all used Command Directed economies and cannot possibly be the opposite of each other if they are doing the same thing.
National Socialism is nothing more than Socialism not approved of by Stalin. See Stalin's definition of "social democracy" which he called fascism. I have a post or two about that with links to sources. If you don’t believe me, browse about Marxists.Org if you like.
You confuse the Marxist term “Capitalism” for something the free-market is not. What you describe is “Crony Capitalism” which is not free-market at all, with Lenin and Stalin engaging in exactly the same thing. Where do you think all those Fordson tractors came from?
National Socialists were Keynesian before the ink was dry on many of John Maynard Keynes’ theories.
If anybody needs to read up on things, you might try it before responding to anybody else who criticizes all of the Socialisms.
Folks who prefer one form over another would love your comments.
Mary Smith <redacted> Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 10:51 PM
Mary Smith <redacted> Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 10:50 PM
To: John Tagliaferro <johntagliaferro@gmail.com>
You seem to be saying that there is good capitalism and crony capitalism. The system is operating just as it is designed to do. The international capitalists work together to protect their interests. Sometimes, that means befriending dictators and overthrowing democratically elected leaders. We have seen this time and time again.
You are confused or you have not studied Marx although you criticize Marxism. I can turn on any conservative talk show and get the same rhetoric that you espouse. Democratic socialism is about taking the top 500 corporations under public ownership and running them in the interests of humanity and environmental sustainability rather than for profit. It is quite authoritarian to have a CEO decide what to produce and how much to pay workers while he is raking in 400 times their salary without even getting his hands dirty. The working class runs society and creates all wealth. When we do not work, the rich do not make money. You quote Stalin but I am not a Stalinist. Communism does not have dictators, but only the dictatorship of the proletariat until the system becomes only administrative, deciding how much of what is needed where and what to produce.... democratically.
Don't insult me with your ignorance. Russia was not capitalist at the time of the Russian Revolution, but after the United States in a coalition of many countries invaded Russia in 1918, it paved the way for Stalin to come into power. That sir, was not socialism or communism as much as the Labour Party of Britain is no longer a labor party. You are the one who is confused. The corporate media is owned by a handful of large corporations who use their domination to prop up the capitalist system. Without all the smoke and mirrors, the minority ruling class would be like the emperor who had no clothing. It would be exposed as truly powerless.
Either concessions are made or capitalism will create its own gravediggers as Marx predicted. After all, capitalism created me.
To: John Tagliaferro <johntagliaferro@gmail.com>
Socialism can only develop after capitalism meets its highest stage of imperialism and decline and in its death agony.
John Tagliaferro <johntagliaferro@gmail.com> Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 4:12 PM
To: Mary Smith <redacted>
Ignorance? You are the one who said "Socialism is the opposite of National Socialism". Well, they are not opposites unless your entire world is bounded by socialism. Libertarianism is the opposite of Socialism if you are talking politics. Free Market is the opposite of Socialism if you are talking economics.
What existed before 1918 in Russia is irrelevant. I never said it was a free market eiter.
On Crony Capitalism vs Free Market capitalism we are talking about near opposites. The only reason Capitalism needs a qualifier is because the term was bastardized by Marx.
The further Left you go, the greater the body count, usually. Lenin managed to keep his lower than Hitler, but I doubt it was from a lack of trying.
If you want to talk corrupt politicians, start a new discussion with someone else. I am fed up with corrupt politicians.
In this last one, I am just posting the version with my response that includes her message to me in its entirety, with all of my typo and misspelling glory:
John Tagliaferro <johntagliaferro@gmail.com> Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 11:27 PM
To: Mary Smith <redacted> On 12/10/12, Mary Smith <redacted> wrote:
> What existed in Russia in 1918 is relevant because after the Russian
> Revolution, at least eighteen countries, including the United States,
> invaded Russia.And that has nothing to do with Free-Market vs. Socialism. Woodrow
Wilson was a Progressive and the leader of the first National
Socialist regime of the 20th century.
One key element of National Socialists and International Socialists,
they fight with each other a lot and they are nothing like opposites,
they are rivals for the same space.
>National Socialism is the opposite of socialism.
Not in any known universe other than that imagined by you and your fellow travelers.
>You allude
> to Lenin and say that the farther you go to the left, the higher the death
> count. Only forty people died in the Russian Revolution but then there was
> the invasion.
Perhapes you missed The Red Terror. Try looking it up. It is
documented pretty well in "The Black Book of Communism."
>If you are a libertarian, your views are much closer to
> Hitler than any political group I know of.
Then you really do not know much. Small government, severely limited government powers and laissez-faire economic policy make your gulags and concentration camps difficult public works projects to accomplish.
>There are a few things I agree
> with libertarians on, but they are marginal. It is a selfish philosophy
Self interest
> that jives well with the neoliberal model of take all you can get because
> you somehow think you deserve it. Manifest destiny!
Not sure where you are imagening that from. Win-win transactios resemble nothing that you are spewing.
> It was your system that dropped not one, but two nuclear bombs and that has
> taken us into every major war.
Libertarians took the US to war? I don't recall FDR being one of them, nor were any of the other Socialist regimes he was allied with or at war with.
Granted, I am a bit more national defense leaning than your average libertarian, but you are getting us confused whith a completely different group of people. Maybe you are mixing up libertarian with
Teddy Roosevelt's Progressives? BTW, Mussolini owes TR a royalty, as his Fascist Manifesto is a complete ripoff of the Progressive Party Platform.
As a matter of fact, I argue in my new book that Lincoln should have let the secessionist States leave rather than going to war over Union preservation. However, I do praise him for eventually getting into the abolition of slavery issue, even if he was a little late warming up to it.
>War is profitable for capitalists and it
> needs to be opening new markets or it faces decay.
Your Eisenstein is showing. War is not beneficial to any market and destroying wealth is detremental to all economies.
>This system has had its
> time. Everything withers and dies, becomes outdated and outmoded. Now we
> need something different.
We already tried your bloodbath, it continues in North Korea and Cuba. Maybe if you rename it again like the Zeitgeist crowd did, and add some snappy video, you might fool another generation?
>By the way, did you see that a socialist
> candidate in Seattle got 28% of the vote while running against the
> strongest Democrat in that state?
No, I vote on the other side of the country. They can vote for whomever they like, I am a freedom person that way. Socialist candidates used to win all the time in Michigan. One of them even refused to meet Teddy Roosevelt because TR was not Socialistic enough for his taste.
>They didn't have the unions behind them
> and all the money the two party system has.
>I suppose you think that is proof of something.
Now, I am done with this conversation. It is pointless to discuss things with people who just make things up. I am sure someone at the local student union will be glad to invent libertarian events and policy for you to echo.
Good day,
JT
