Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Flynn's A Conservative History of The American Left

I have read the first two chapters. The first chapter deals with the religious left.
The chapter talks about the debacle of religious attempts at communism. We get several
examples of failures including the pilgrims abolition of private ownership of property.
There are some interesting paragraphs about the Shaker movement.

Chapter Two deals largely with the failure of Robert Owen. Owen unlike Marx, placed his
ideas into action and formed a commune called New Harmony. It failed miserably an Owen
like Communists was authoritarian.

The communities in both chapters fall apart because lefties fail to understand human nature.

"It's not that socialism inevitably leads to oppression. Socialism is oppression."

6 comments:

Ducky's here said...

You might also mention Owen's success at New Lanark which did a great deal to improve working conditions during the industrial revolution. It was clearly not a failure. Nor was Owen.

Z said...

your last sentence alone is worth the price of admission.

thanks, Beak........I'd like to know what the Shaker inclusion is...I've always been intrigued by that society. I suppose they are a bit like a socialist kibbutz, so to speak?

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Leftists, by nature and definition all tragically afflicted with an incapacity for rational, coherent thought, fail to recognize that groups and collectives are built from individuals, and that every discussion of a collective must be done from outside of that collective. Which naturally creates a "class" in their "classless" system - the individuals that can "see the whole collective" enough to speak about it to people outside the collective and to those within it. Some of the more zealous (i.e. more imbecilic) leftists even go so far as using verbiage that makes you wonder if they imagine themselves in some sort of domed city cut off from reality. It certainly brings out the paranoid, bunker mentality of the typical leftist. It can only lead there.

Right-wingers forgo all that nonsense by embracing rationality.

Ducky's here said...

Hey Beak, the whole Georgian fiasco worked out pretty well didn't it? Israel sold Georgia about a billion worth of arms (where did Georgia get the money?) and now the world's biggest welfare queens get to sell Georgia another billion at our expense.
I bet you love it when a plan comes together.

beakerkin said...

Z

The Shakers disdained sex and were aesthetics. Flynn paints them in a
somewhat eccentric light that may be
too generous.

Ducky

Define success. There were critics of that venture as well. The New Harmony fiasco was no success.

As Owen was a self promoter with grandiose delusions we can speculate what was real and what hot air.

A glorified company town sounds more or less on the money.

Anonymous said...

So the shining example's of the Left's tremendous successes are all in the past, mr. ducky? How come?

Gee, a cold-water flat w/ one light bulb. Somebody sign me up... errr... forget it.