Comments on: Socialism in One Country

By: Dan Hardie

Dan Hardie — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:03:12 +0000

>Good to see the LSE is maintaining its usual academic standards. Makes me cherish my Oxford degree more and more.< Nick, mate: I did my first degree at…dare I say this?... Balliol. In Oxford, you know.

By: nick

nick — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 19:57:35 +0000

Good to see the LSE is maintaining its usual academic standards. Makes me cherish my Oxford degree more and more.

By: Dan Hardie

Dan Hardie — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 15:09:31 +0000

>Dan: I bet you don’t last a month.< Me too, given that I have other things to do with my life; at the very least there will be month-long pauses between instalments. But that’s better than starting an argument with someone, losing it and then deleting their posts, as you did on ‘D-squared digest’.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:53:45 +0000

Walt: it’s not on the Web, but I very much recommend it. Dan: I bet you don’t last a month.

By: Dan Hardie

Dan Hardie — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 12:31:10 +0000

I have decided to inaugurate a new blogging feature, Shorter Daniel Davies, which will run on Crooked Timber and (until posts are spotted by Davies and deleted) Davies’s own site. This is, of course, a reference to ‘Shorter Steven Den Beste’, which Daniel Davies used to write until he lost an argument with the halfwitted Den Beste. Shorter Daniel Davies, part 1: Everyone in the military has no sense of personal responsibility and is morally worthless- this is a Scientific Fact, it says so in a book.

By: Flaffer

Flaffer — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 21:17:40 +0000

Speaking from my own case: a lot of people I have known who have joined the armed forces did so out of boredom or economic necessity. Barely out of high school, no desire to go to college, and no skills for high paying jobs. Most of them thought they had no choice. How this is reflected in political affiliation is not clear to me. Good post. Flaffer

By: Hanah

Hanah — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 20:49:08 +0000

It’s not socialism because it’s not self-supporting. These are benefits paid by one part of American society (tax-payers) to another part (military personnel). We pay them this as part of their compensation because the services they provide are worth that much to us. This so-called socialist paradise cannot be “expanded” to the whole of America because it would not be able to pay for itself. It would fail in the same way all national experiments in socialism have failed.

By: UsedToBeAGrunt

UsedToBeAGrunt — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 16:33:22 +0000

As a veteran, (Army, 1986-1991)(in the infantry), I think that most are arguing from complete ignorance here. I’m not surprised though. Experience is the best teacher. I don’t really see how one can seriously argue that the Army is Socialist, any more than you could argue its Fascist, or Communist or Democratic. The Army is an organization. The Army is not a society. The Army is not a country. The Army is part of a society and defends a country. I suppose one can say that the Army has its own mores and stuff like that, but you’d be arguing semantics at that point. Anyway, as to all the ‘benefits’; those are actually counted as part of a soldier’s compensation (notice the corporate speak), I can remember getting documents detailing what the Army thought my rations, barracks, & healthcare were worth, and what my actual compensation was, above the actual money I was paid. Frankly, they were right, too. Compared to what I have to pay for things like food, clothing and lodging as a civilian, I still don’t have the disposable income I did as a Sergeant in the Army. I did sign up for the GI Bill, and I did get a signing bonus for enlisting in the Combat Arms, and I used my GI Bill to go to a community college (paid for all the tuition and books and left me with some petty cash, too) and now I have a rather comfortable job playing with computers all day. I haven’t tried to get a job that requires a security clearance, although I did have one when I was serving. I am right now going through the procedures to get the guaranteed VA home loan. Do I deserve all this? I guess it depends on your point of view. But if you think its socialist, you don’t know anything about socialism.

By: back40

back40 — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 15:16:49 +0000

“But it’s good to see that your authoritative statement is founded on the immense intellectual effort of having read one whole book.” It’s what Aquinas called ignorantia affectata, cultivated ignorance, an ignorance is so useful you don’t want to get rid of it. Statistics known to be contrived and/or selective are used to support weak theses, poison conversation or persuade.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 14:39:40 +0000

Dsquared: I’ve never heard of that before. Do you know any links?

By: Dan Hardie

Dan Hardie — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 14:29:36 +0000

>Norman Dixon’s book “On the Psychology of Military Incompetence”, for the purpose of writing which he was given unparalleled access to the files and personnel of the British Army.< Unparalleled, eh? Remind me- what does 'hyperbole' mean? I remember Dixon's book as pretty light on research, to be honest. But it's good to see that your authoritative statement is founded on the immense intellectual effort of having read one whole book.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 13:13:57 +0000

back40: My comments about “responsibility” are taken from Norman Dixon’s book “On the Psychology of Military Incompetence”, for the purpose of writing which he was given unparalleled access to the files and personnel of the British Army. The actual passage models that of a Sandhurst cadet quoted in the book. It is perhaps possible that the US or Canadian armies differ materially, but Dixon presents decent evidence that they don’t. Furthermore, I can’t imagine that anyone’s trying to argue against the horrendous statistics for marital breakup and spousal abuse in military organisations around the world. It’s a known, huge, problem, and one that most armies are trying to do something about, in the face of a culture which specifically refuses to take responsibility.

By: Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 11:21:42 +0000

“I’m quite serious about this; anyone who knows how the US military live in their permanent foreign bases, has seen successful socialism in action. Free healthcare and dental care. Tick. Heavily subsidized groceries at your friendly local PX. Tick. High quality childcare. Tick. Whomping big grants towards your further education. Tick.” I wouldn’t call that socialism unless the means of production were controlled by the workers. You don’t need a socialist regime in order to implement your examples, just one with some common sense.

By: Daragh McDowell

Daragh McDowell — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:44:54 +0000

Intriguin argument cuz, especially since the Bush administration’s increasingly cynical slashing of benefits for the ordinary GI’s, running almost parallel to his praising this loose collection of rednecks and poor minorities who couldn’t jobs anywhere else as ‘America’s best’ mirrors the eventual treading on the working classes of the state that all communist nations have winded up doing. Even the wonderful GI Bill that grants free college education to former leathernecks (In the land where most students leave University with +$100,000 in debts) seems under threat. Whoo-Ra sempe fi.

By: dm

dm — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:36:55 +0000

It’s pretty simple, Henry. Soldiers aim to conserve the regime. Being conservative, they like old books written by white males. Reading Plato’s Republic, they learned that the just city is characterized by absolute communism and equality of the sexes in the warrior class. You did get the memo that Wolfowitz is philosopher-king, right?