User:Scottish Socialist

Hi, not going to create a detailed page cause I suck at making things look cool or even tolerable. Also I do feel way too terminally online rn (during exam season haha) so I am just going to sum up my views instead.

I am a 16 year old Scottish socialist with an interest in history, anthropology and politics. I have read the first three books of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, George Orwell's animal farm and Yanis Varoufakis' A Brief History of Capitalism. So as you can see I am very poorly read and would like to read more books on political philosophy, so if you have any recommendations (easy to understand ones, I am a poor and easily bored reader) please leave them somewhere here.

I self describe as an Ethical Socialist because I disagree with Marxist "ends of history" or a natural conclusion as well as disliking the overly materialist focus of Marxism, though I have read excerpts of Marx and enjoy most of them. As well as knowing the contributions Marx made to socialism and a deep disdain for utopian socialists and left wing liberals who have no real plan to go further than their own noses and struggle to appeal to the masses. I call myself an Ethical socialist because capitalism is the best system for material ends, no other system has produced (or can) as much material satisfaction as capitalism. However capitalism is degrading our society and tearing the fabric of humanity apart with its rugged individualism and profit above any sense of decency. We need to use capitalism to build an economy to fulfil as many needs as possible while socialising the economy (through co-ops, mutual aid and nationalisation). Eventually we should de commodify everything as commodification degrades humans by valuing themselves with the value of their work. However in a scarcity economy this is impossible so we must ration resources according to need, not wealth.

The state is a necessary evil as no other institution can be large or powerful enough to ration resources for, eventually, the world entire. Charities and local assemblies are inadequate, even nations cannot ration resources effectively as no one nation can produce everything. Hence we must form one nation, one global country in order to guarantee every human a comfortable life without worry or grief.