Democracy and Socialism - Emanuele Saccarelli - Parts I-IV

[socialist_n_TN]

3. OK, I watched them all. My impressions

are that this was something of an "Intro to Marxism" lecture. There wasn't anything that (probably) most of us didn't know. But that's the point. What we know and what the general public knows about the historical background of socialism are two different things. We might should put this in the resource post simply for it's value for people who are just coming to class analysis.

I thought the Q&A was pretty interesting in the one aspect of the "ism and ist" question. And I want to reiterate what the speaker said. The isms are good for refining your positions and finding exactly WHERE your common ground is with other people. You don't jump into an "ism" without knowing what that ism is about, but without the ism you can find yourself in a VERY shallow pool that winds up without ANY programme for getting things done.

I know from a marketing position how the word "socialist" has been demonized and might turn off potential allies who would otherwise agree with your positions. But by the same token the various tendencies of socialism tells the individual exactly WHERE he or she is politically.