Socialism in America

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Jacoby
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12 Nov 2010, 12:45 am

marshall wrote:

Sand wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

In a socialist America people exist to serve the state (the elites in Government).

Human Beings are very poor hive animals. We are not evolved to serve the collective as are bees, wasps and ants. Humans tend to be egotistical and will put their own personal or family interests before the interests of the greater society. That is why a Socialist America will be an economic failure. People will produce shoddy goods and render shoddy service in a shoddy system.

ruveyn

At the moment the wealthy elite and their corporate powers are milking all the finance out of education, health, and other basic population maintenance producing an uneducated populace with nowhere to go. The USA is sliding downhill very fast for ts neglect of basic fundamentals and even those with college degrees are finding work difficult or impossible to locate. The static wages for the past decades has killed off the market to a huge degree and that is where unregulated capitalism has landed the country. The corporations have gotten rich and are moving out to places where they don't have to support a middle class with a decent life style.

Yea. A large percentage of people attaining advanced degrees at the top US universities are foreign students. Pretty soon we'll have to start begging the more educated foreigners who use our universities not to leave the country.

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

marshall
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12 Nov 2010, 12:49 am

Jacoby wrote:

marshall wrote:

Sand wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

In a socialist America people exist to serve the state (the elites in Government).

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

Then the universities will wither and die along with all science in our country. The top universities will then relocate to other less anti-intellectual countries.

phil777
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12 Nov 2010, 12:50 am

Y'know Ruveyn, it doesn't have to be highly sophisticated to be efficient. <.< I think it was Da Vinci who said that Simplicity is the highest sophistication (Feel free to correct me on that quote). But uh, i think my dad told me that for one, the Russians are pretty good with space-related (as in, shuttles, etc.) stuff, because what they make is simple. (Now, whether that's true or not, i await confirmation)

ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 12:51 am

Jacoby wrote:

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

Two bad things will happen if that policy is implemented:

1. Our grad schools will be underutilized which will lead to the layoffs of some of our best technical teachers.

2. We will deprive ourselves of the talent of people who want to come here to learn and will pay for the privilege.

The problem, currently, is that too few native born Americans are choosing careers in engineering, science and mathematics which is why we have so many opening for qualified foreign students. Where did all of that "Yankee know-how" go?

ruveyn

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12 Nov 2010, 12:54 am

ruveyn wrote:

Jacoby wrote:

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

Ruveyn is right. But i will add that these people contribute a great deal to the local economy where they study.

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marshall
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12 Nov 2010, 1:05 am

ruveyn wrote:

Jacoby wrote:

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

The quality of our graduate programs and technical degree programs is the one thing we have going for us in the US. We just have to make sure our country is a desirable enough place to live so that all the global talent we attract decide to become US citizens and work within our economy rather than in China or India. We have the edge now but it isn't necessarily going to be that way forever into the future.

auntblabby
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12 Nov 2010, 1:10 am

Sand wrote:

can anyone say "race to the bottom"?

ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 1:12 am

marshall wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Jacoby wrote:

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

Given the political trends I say we have about ten more good years. By the end of that time our economy will be so degraded by the Pinko Stink Liberals and the Republican Meddlers that no one will want to come here. Once we lose our technical edge the Corporations will outsource all of the brain work and any Americans with original ideas will have to go abroad to develop and exploit them.

By the way, this is historical. Prior to inheriting the cream of Europe's science establishment (thanks to the Nazi persecution of Jews and other intellectual) Americans had to go to Europe to learn physics and mathematics. For example J. Robert Oppenheimer got his doctorate in physics at Guettingen in Germany (that was pre-Hitler, pre-Nazi of course).

ruveyn

ruveyn

Sand
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12 Nov 2010, 1:15 am

ruveyn wrote:

marshall wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Jacoby wrote:

We could just not allow them entrance in the first place. No begging needed.

Weren't Robert Oppenheimer and his buddy Einstein Pinko Stinko Liberals?

ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 1:20 am

Sand wrote:

Weren't Robert Oppenheimer and his buddy Einstein Pinko Stinko Liberals?

Yes indeed. But they were top notch physicists so they could be forgiven their political foolishness. Neither of them were career politicians or aparatchiks so they did little harm to the country. In Einstein's case his political attitudes could be characterized as eccentricities in the same class as his refusal to wear socks. There is nothing wrong with being a pinko stinko liberal as long as one is not implementing such policies at the political level . Every kid with a heart has been a socialist (or tending in that direction) when young.

ruveyn

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12 Nov 2010, 2:17 am

NeantHumain wrote:

Let's talk socialism, specifically within the context of the contemporary United States.
[*] How could socialism be implemented in the U.S.?

With great difficulty, given that ours is a very anti-socialist culture.

Quote:

[*] Is the American system of governance fundamentally incompatible with socialism?

Not necessarily, given that our Constitution is flexible enough (or vague enough) to adapt to many different possible systems.

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[*] Is a socialist revolution possible (even if quite unlikely) in the United States' future?

Possible, yes. Likely, hell no.

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[*] Should socialism embrace the market as a determinant of price?

It would hardly be socialist then, would it?

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[*] Should socialism accept private enterprise?

See above.

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[*] Is socialism best accomplished through a bureaucratic state apparatus or through voluntary association (i.e., anarchism)?

Either would be an abject failure. Pick your poison.

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[*] Are contemporary Western European and Nordic social-democratic parties socialist? Should American socialists try to introduce their model?

No. They are capitalistic (Sweden consistently scores very high on the Heritage Foundation ranking of economic freedom) with a social safety net.

Maybe some aspects of their systems would be useful to draw from.

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[*] Are socialism and American liberalism at odds?

I will assume you mean American liberalism as in the ideals of the Progressive wing within the Democratic Party.
If that is the case, the answer is yes. American liberals and progressives are still in favor of a capitalistic market economy.

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[*] Could socialists work for incremental gains through the apparatus of the Democratic Party?

They could try, but I doubt they'd be successful. Socialism involves a highly radical restructuring of society, and it's somewhat hard to do it through an incremental approach. There is a reason socialist and communist theorists have emphasized revolution.

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psychohist
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12 Nov 2010, 2:21 am

marshall wrote:

At one point I thought you were an intelligent person on the conservative side of the political isle from whom I might actually learn something. Now I see that you are swimming in the same bigoted crock of sh*t as the rest of 'em and I can no longer trust anything you say.

Why would you trust anything anyone said? You should think it through for yourself.

I'm merely answering the questions in the original post. You're free to answer it too if you think you have another way of implementing socialism in the U.S.

psychohist
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12 Nov 2010, 2:29 am

marshall wrote:

We already do. For example, most of the graduate students at MIT seem to be foreign students, but a majority seem to end up staying here in the U.S.

ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 7:45 am

psychohist wrote:

marshall wrote:

We already do. For example, most of the graduate students at MIT seem to be foreign students, but a majority seem to end up staying here in the U.S.

And if they stay here long enough to produce results beneficial to us, it is well that they come to our shores to study and work.

ruveyn

marshall
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12 Nov 2010, 1:26 pm

psychohist wrote:

marshall wrote:

Why would you trust anything anyone said? You should think it through for yourself.

I wouldn't trust anyone. It's just useless to take an argument seriously when it stems from a bigoted perspective. You seem to think a majority of people in the US are lazy bums and are under you.

Quote:

I'm merely answering the questions in the original post. You're free to answer it too if you think you have another way of implementing socialism in the U.S.

I don't think a "capitol S" Socialism (implying a communist-style command economy) can or should be implemented in the US. It would never come about without violent revolution and things would have to get pretty bad economically for that to ever happen.

As for a Scandinavian-style state with lots of social programs. I don't see why such a transition couldn't come about democratically over time. The Scandinavian states are still fundamentally capitalist so the difference is only a matter of degree. It seems unlikely that a transition would come about quickly though as a lot of Americans would balk at the idea.

Inuyasha
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12 Nov 2010, 2:00 pm

Obama and Co. tried to further a socialist agenda, why do you think the Republican Party beat the Democrats so bad at the ballot box that it made 1994 look like a "good" Democrat year.

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