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John Oakley's avatar

Ahh, but I'm not that kind of socialist. The 'centrally managed economy' is the Communist extreme version of socialism. As Mandella, I favour some sort of Socialist Democracy, where Capitalism is still practised but in this system, despite there still being private property, the government generates tax revenue, typically from the wealthiest in the society and corporations, and distributes it to the poor, or even everyone in the society, via in the form of social programs. I can't support a system where there is such gap between the haves and have nots. This enables those able to be entrepreneurial to raise themselves by their courage and investment but avoids the situations where some individuals can accumulate more wealth than some nation states e.g. Musk vs Belgium.

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David Pinder's avatar

Nicely put, John. You'll convert me yet!

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Dr Neville D Buch's avatar

Well, done, David. "To cut right to the chase, it seems to me to come down to a debate about two factors - scale and scope..." I agree fully, and even as we may not agree on political details, sociologically we share a similar outlook. My latest contribution is to think of the model in spiral historiography. It is not set up to resolve choice in Growth-Degrowth nor Global-Local. It only addresses where the thinking can go wrong in considering such choice. https://drnevillebuch.com/the-spiral-history-theory-of-stupidity-getting-stuck-in-time-space-and-personal-breakout-of-historical-cognition-patterns/

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David Pinder's avatar

Well, thank you, Neville.

I'll take some more time to get my head properly around your spiral historiography concept but, from a quick reading of it, I assure you that I'm fascinated!

In other scribblings I have mentioned that I've been reading W.B. Yeats's 'A Vision' (1925). Here, again, there is the concept of the time-space spiral - the gyre - which itself seems to be traceable back to the thinking of Descartes (the vortex) and Boehme (the gyre).

Does this relate in any way with your thinking?

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Dr Neville D Buch's avatar

Indeed, there are threads in the past to the spiral historiography which I have yet to examine. I will have to take some notations from Descartes (the vortex), Boehme (the gyre), and W.B. Yeats's 'A Vision' (1925, the gyre). My original approach here is to explain the compatibility with progressivism, even conservative progressivism, as identified in Australian history by Marilyn Lake's Progressive New World. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674975958

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John Oakley's avatar

As an almost lifelong capitalist, since retiring and having time to really think about the social impact of capitalism I now declare myself as a socialist, a fellow traveler with Gandhi and Mandela. The headlong rush to grow only works in a world that has infinite expansion... and this one does not.

The only way forward is to be self sufficient in materials and skills. Growth only comes at the expense of others. Of course, we need to trade if a community does not have all the skills and materials... so there will always be inequality but if we only trade what we NEED then we can avoid all the negative effects that growth brings with it.

But there is not an organism on earth that operates this way so ... we are eventually DOOMED!

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David Pinder's avatar

That's quite a declaration, John :-) Thank you.

I, too, am an 'almost lifelong capitalist'. What I love about it is the entrepreneurial spirit that it enables. But the growth caper is now way beyond what could originally have been envisaged.

Nonetheless, I can't bring myself to embrace socialism. Any form of 'centrally managed economy' risks, it seems to me, top down takeover by the (potentially) wicked.

It's an interesting dilemma.

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John Oakley's avatar

I favour this compromise in some form, as it is being trialed in some parts of the world.

https://medium.com/pathways-to-universal-basic-income/creative-citizen-creative-state-a3cef3f25775

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John Oakley's avatar

As decided by the Political Compass https://www.politicalcompass.org/

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