Politesse
Lux Aeterna
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- Jedi Wayseeker
Just some hurried thoughts in between numerous meetings, so bear with me if this is a bit jumbled.
I've been listening to a lot of US news lately, owing to the resumption of my long commute and the fact that talk radio is the only bearable option on the dial. One of my local stations does conservative commentary in the morning, liberal in the afternoon. Something has struck me about the way "capitalism" and "socialism" are used in daily discourse, namely that they are entirely inconsistent in their definitions. And I don't just mean the obvious, that the two "parties" interpret these things differently. I mean that even the same speaker will seem to use one of these words differently depending on the situation. Sometimes "Capitalism" is spoken of as a sort of force, for instance, maybe even an agent with a will of its own that defies the expectations or intentions of those connected to it. Other times, it is spoken of as though it were a question of government policy; that a nation-state has to both choose and continually create it in order to exist, and they could change their mind at any time given that they have the desire. Sometimes it is a relational entity, a broker of sorts between socioeconomic classes, while at other times it is a purely material entity, whose relevance is controlled not by class but by individual attainment. Similarly, socialism seems to wear an awful lot of masks, as I'm sure anyone who has read this far into the thread already knows, as we spar about it on this forum frequently.
But..
I did notice one extremely consistent semiotic trend, and that is how they are positioned relative to one another. It seems to me that there is a key metaphor, a master plan of economic potential, that is present whenever Americans are talking about money and government, and that is the construct of Capitalism vs. Communism. The impression one might get is that there are essentially two possible extremes into which a modern economy might fall, with CAPITALISM occupying one far end, and COMMUNISM occupying the other. Countries and communities seem to be placed on a sliding scale somewhere in between these two extremes regardless of whether they had either philosophy in mind when their system was designed, or whether it was consciously designed at all. "Socialism" floats in the symbolic space in between the extremes, drifting closer or farther away from the communist end depending on who the speaker is and more crucially what they are talking about. This is treated as a scalar but antonymic binary; while you might not belong to a "pure" category, nevertheless the more Capitalist you are, the less Communist you are, and vice versa, in all possible cases. Socialism from a semantic point of view allows for navigation of the middle ground without violation of the binary, much as we invent new terms to navigate the space between other perceived binaries such as gender or moral conduct. Regardless of political or philosophical sympathy, this basic metaphor seems to be almost universally used.
Some possible questions for discussion:
1. What the hell are Capitalism and Communism? Do they exist in tangible, quantitative reality or are they categorical constructs whose purpose is primarily discursive? Is all of this Marx's fault for offering a compelling model for talking about economies?
2. Am I right about the way Americans tend to construct the key metaphor of economic life? For residents of other places, does this hold true for the way other nations discuss economies?
3. Are these true opposites? Is one, in fact, capitalist only and exactly to the extent that one is not communist, and vice versa? (examples: Does China necessarily become "less communist" if it encourages free market activity? Does the U.S. become "more communist" every time it introduces a new market regulation?)
4. What should we do with "socialism"?
I've been listening to a lot of US news lately, owing to the resumption of my long commute and the fact that talk radio is the only bearable option on the dial. One of my local stations does conservative commentary in the morning, liberal in the afternoon. Something has struck me about the way "capitalism" and "socialism" are used in daily discourse, namely that they are entirely inconsistent in their definitions. And I don't just mean the obvious, that the two "parties" interpret these things differently. I mean that even the same speaker will seem to use one of these words differently depending on the situation. Sometimes "Capitalism" is spoken of as a sort of force, for instance, maybe even an agent with a will of its own that defies the expectations or intentions of those connected to it. Other times, it is spoken of as though it were a question of government policy; that a nation-state has to both choose and continually create it in order to exist, and they could change their mind at any time given that they have the desire. Sometimes it is a relational entity, a broker of sorts between socioeconomic classes, while at other times it is a purely material entity, whose relevance is controlled not by class but by individual attainment. Similarly, socialism seems to wear an awful lot of masks, as I'm sure anyone who has read this far into the thread already knows, as we spar about it on this forum frequently.
But..
I did notice one extremely consistent semiotic trend, and that is how they are positioned relative to one another. It seems to me that there is a key metaphor, a master plan of economic potential, that is present whenever Americans are talking about money and government, and that is the construct of Capitalism vs. Communism. The impression one might get is that there are essentially two possible extremes into which a modern economy might fall, with CAPITALISM occupying one far end, and COMMUNISM occupying the other. Countries and communities seem to be placed on a sliding scale somewhere in between these two extremes regardless of whether they had either philosophy in mind when their system was designed, or whether it was consciously designed at all. "Socialism" floats in the symbolic space in between the extremes, drifting closer or farther away from the communist end depending on who the speaker is and more crucially what they are talking about. This is treated as a scalar but antonymic binary; while you might not belong to a "pure" category, nevertheless the more Capitalist you are, the less Communist you are, and vice versa, in all possible cases. Socialism from a semantic point of view allows for navigation of the middle ground without violation of the binary, much as we invent new terms to navigate the space between other perceived binaries such as gender or moral conduct. Regardless of political or philosophical sympathy, this basic metaphor seems to be almost universally used.
Some possible questions for discussion:
1. What the hell are Capitalism and Communism? Do they exist in tangible, quantitative reality or are they categorical constructs whose purpose is primarily discursive? Is all of this Marx's fault for offering a compelling model for talking about economies?
2. Am I right about the way Americans tend to construct the key metaphor of economic life? For residents of other places, does this hold true for the way other nations discuss economies?
3. Are these true opposites? Is one, in fact, capitalist only and exactly to the extent that one is not communist, and vice versa? (examples: Does China necessarily become "less communist" if it encourages free market activity? Does the U.S. become "more communist" every time it introduces a new market regulation?)
4. What should we do with "socialism"?
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