Re: ''socialism has never shown itself to be better''

"Scandinavian countries Yes, they are capitalist. They may have socialist aspects ... but they are for free market economy" Well, you say that, but if I were to say that all the utilities (energy, water, etc) should be nationalised, preferably without compensation to their former shareholders, who've already stolen enough from the public, and that the shareholders should think themselves lucky that they don't go to jail, you would no doubt regard this as evil “socialism”. Discussions about what is “really” socialism are apt to get theological. This, I suppose, is why I prefer “Hard Left”. For me, the year 2019 had a big effect on my political thinking, as Johnson, for whom I nursed a visceral hatred, rose ineluctably to power. Even the Tories knew he was unfit for high office, but backed him because of his apparent appeal to the most bigoted, stupid section of the working class. They tolerated his incompetence because they believed that, like Doctor Dolittle, he could “talk to the animals”. I was a Corbynista. I still think that Britain, and the world, would have been a better place if, per impossibile, Corbyn had won in 2019. I think that Tony Benn is by far the most attractive political figure of my lifetime. I feel that the post-war social democracies of Europe represented the highest stage that civilisation has ever reached in terms of economic organisation. What, after all, was wrong with decent working conditions and paid holidays, well funded hospitals, free dental treatment, good libraries, and council housing with deliberately low rents? I did rather like the old patrician Toryism, before the defeat of Heath in '75 demonstrated that the Tory Party had been taken over by the spivs (yes, I know, I'm a complete snob). I am for CND and against NATO. Most of all, Hard Left policies are the only ones that just might, if we are very lucky indeed, prevent nuclear annihilation before the middle of the century. And let us look at the political alternatives in terms of what they offer to us as sexual heretics. The hard left may not like us, but I feel that one could at least have a conversation with them. They wouldn't censor us, because they too are outside the mainstream, and thus still value freedom of speech. I have also noticed that many on the hard left are sceptical of identity politics and feminism, seeing these (correctly, in my opinion) as the legitimising ideology of the ruling class. The centre, however, are intolerant because they are the ruling class and are used to suppressing dissenting narratives and thinking themselves virtuous in doing so. The right, meanwhile, with their weird obsession with “paedophiles” as the ultimate hate figures, can't be reasoned with at all. I don't believe humanity will ever realise utopia. Paradise is always being postponed. The best epochs are a gift of grace, not something brought about through deliberate human agency. I don't believe that there is a dialectic governing the historical process which ensures an outcome where we “all live happily ever after”, like the ending of a fairy tale. Marxism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc, are fascinating fairy tales, but somehow I find the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen more delightful reading than Das Kapital. Far from eventuating in some utopian society, it is becoming ever clearer that mankind is a biological species whose lifespan as the dominant species on this planet is finite. Furthermore, it seems that we are “in at the death”. (Well, some humans had to be, after all.) What happens next I don't know. What I would like is for the historical memory of the human race to somehow persist, and if possible for humans to persist as well. But that's only because I rather like humanity, and have zero interest in any post-human future. I am, despite everything, a humanist after all.