Manisortov

I think that it is the case that, as they concretely manifested historically as products of a certain set of ideas and technologies, there is a large degree of moral, intellectual and economic equivalence in the bankruptcy of both Capitalism and Communism. I say this as someone with family wedded absolutely to both one or the other cause. If one recognises that "Communism" did in 70 years everything, good and bad, that Capitalism did in a few hundred but that Capitalism had a head start, one gets an idea of the symmetry. In the abstract I'm sure its easy to convince oneself that either system should be perfectible, but that is very suspect, and the fruit of the ideas held by both camps can be spelt out in a few words (war, slave trade, Gulags, genocide, mass literacy, industrialisation, famine, agricultural expansion, relative emancipation of women etc) Both systems had all this and more in abundance. Both are children of the enlightenment and both have had their fair share of growing pain. Global Trade, The State, Partial Democracy, Industrialisation, The Idea of Human Rights, Weapons Technologies, Mass Unemployment and Rule of Law are just some of the Genies let out of the lamp by this parent figure and they swept around the world taking all in their path. This is not something that was under central control but was a force of Human Nature opening up to new and terrible power (although this force was built out of the actions of each human in that system) In short I feel the first part of the slogan I was brought up with of 'Neither Washington nor Moscow.' was a good one. The second part 'But International Socialism.' I think is just a recipe for a farcical rerun. However I think 'But International Social Democracy' might be a good place to start. What China and the USA would have to say about that is...well. I think there are a couple of things to insist on though. Social Democrats must fiercely oppose any involvement by their governments in any conflict that is not self defence in the strictest sense or peacekeeping that has broad support in the UN (Seriously, how come the Insecurity council are the only ones who get to make such choices), States must be strong enough to maintain day to day order of business yet democratic enough to avoid corruption and abuse of power. The global economy should be sufficiently open and liberal that it largely runs itself but individual states must be able to regulate to ensure social justice and break up monopolies and other corporate abuses. A plurality of political views must be allowed and human rights must be maintained from the right to pray to the rights of gays to marry. Most importantly we must start thinking outside of the mass graves of the twentieth century, where the ideals of the 19th are buried and think of fresh ideas of how we could and should run this world. Oh and in case nobody noticed, the ice caps are melting. That is all...