In reply to John Berry's message of Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:05:35 +1300: Hi, >I find it incomprehensible that anyone could seriously support >communism/socialism and actually be talking about the same thing that >created some of the greatest atrocities that have ever occurred and been so >dysfunctional as to then fall part. > >So if that is not what you mean, if you are not championing the murder and >oppression of humanity then say so. > >There are many positive examples of something that could be termed positive >examples of socialism in the west, socialistic health care practiced in most >places seems more attractive than the capitalistic version in the US being >just one example and you don't need to watch Michael Moore's "Sicko" to >recognize it. [snip] There is a trap that almost everyone falls into. It is the assumption that the situation is dipolar, when actually it is quadrupolar.
Rather than just "left" and "right" there is also an "up" and a "down", or perhaps a better analogy is the 4 points of the compass. If East and West are collectivism and capitalism, and North and South are totalitarianism and anarchy, then all forms of society fall somewhere on the plane thus described. IOW, there is an economic axis (E-W) and an order (or control) axis (N-S). The worst atrocities appear to be committed by peoples that tend toward the N-S extremes. The most prosperous and happiest societies tend toward the centre. In the N-S direction, you need some measure of control, but not so much as to stifle the individual. In the E-W direction you need freely flowing trade, with some government interference in some cases. By trying to see everything as only E-W, the economic aspects are frequently confused with the "order" aspects. To take two examples from the real world, China and the US, I would say that China is currently approaching the centre on the E-W axis, from the collectivist direction, but is still rather strongly totalitarian on the N-S axis. With the new administration in Washington, the US is approaching the centre in the E-W direction from the capitalistic side. In the N-S direction, it isn't yet clear (to me) what direction the new administration is going in, but the previous administration was clearly going away from the centre in the totalitarian direction. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
