Socialism made simple, why it doesn't work

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You guys are funny. I just have to wonder - if social conservative fundy Christians were pro-socialism, would that make you all capitalists? It may sound like a stretch, and yes - no system is anywhere close to perfect - but some of the things I keep hearing about Cuba make me think I'm watching some type of koolaid-drinking contest on ESPN that they might air to help wash down the 61 hotdogs. If you can't admit that an idea has fatal flaws and deal with them by pretending that redefining 'flaws' as 'talking-points' solves the whole issue - it'll continue to be a flop because when all the chatter stops and people take action all that matters is will it float? If the answer is no then it'll be a world with representative-democracies under a system more on the capitalistic side of the continuum who will always continue to be the powerhouses of the world and socialization of living benefits will prove to breed the same kind of monsters as yuppy doctors who buy their kids who buy their kids new cars everytime they wrap them around telephone polls driving drunk or high.

Giving people opportunities or help (yes, opportunities not 'opportunities') - important. Giving people sustenance regardless of what choices they make; for whatever reason, evolutionary psychology or otherwise, it psychologically deforms us. In other words I really think its almost all nature, nurture comes from nature's realities and can only take when its attempting to bridal rather than wholly reverse nature or pretend with all its might that nature doesn't exist. Any system that goes cross-grain with nature is something really as pathetic as people obstinantly inflicting wishful thinking over reality (so I guess if your an atheist - you could relate to this in that I see this way of thinking as VERY religious).

That's what I'm saying, we're all just speculating. If you don't take it too seriously it can be fun sometimes.

Jobs certainly want ambition in their employees, ambition to please their managers.

Brilliance, yes they want those windows to shine and the dishes spotless.

Honesty, no job wants honesty from their employees, that's a quick way to be fired.
They only want the appearance of honesty when you pay them their "due respect".

haha!

that does not need a comment.

Well I visited Cuba when I was teen. There are problem there no doubt, but to be fair I've lived in worse places like Angola. It all amounts to the same thing in a poor country regardless of the ideology.

Cuba does have some advantages. They have quite good health care. They also have a very high number of centurians. People are not dying young like they are in other developing countries.

Downside is a Doctor earns more money braiding tourist hair on the sly than she would in her actual Job. There is a privileged tier who are allowed to run and work in the tourist resorts. However compared to Chinese 'Chuppies' The wealth disparity is not that much.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 09 May 2009, 7:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

You have in Europe such groups and they play an important role in politics, mostly in Christian Democratic parties. In Germany they are nicknamed "Herz Jesu Marixisten" (Heard of Jesus Christ Marxist). In fact the positions of the Catholic Church can be in question labour relation left of what in the USA is still regarded as mainstream

Last edited by Dussel on 10 May 2009, 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am of the opinion that a mixed economy is ideal at first, and should make a transition to socialism at some point as soon as it has engulfed most of the world. Still, that's just my opinion and it is subject to change.

There is no doubt that previous attempts at socialism have been coupled with totalitarianism to frightful results partly due to the poorly designed systems for production to respond correctly to demand and to a large degree to the absolute power maintained by those in control which quickly motivated the system to descend to a governance by thugs. But to indicate that capitalism is somehow superior is to ignore the rampant corruption and thugism throughout the capitalist world where brutality and starvation and lack of basic necessities for a huge section of the populace is very obvious today.

Well, i don't know how relevant what i'm going to say is, but from what i've seen in my classes, after observing past civilizations, we've concluded that most systems or organisations of society are unstable and can collapse at any given moment.We've yet to establish a system which lasts for a long time without any drawbacks.

This is called "Progress of the Human Race": If e.g. the Feudal System would not be collapsed, the vast majority of people would work and live in appalling conditions and even the elite would have a standard of living below the lowest grade in society today. There is no reason to assume that our society would be an exception - but I am certainly not a prophet how the society emerging out our society will look (just think how an English of the Tudor Period would see our current society).

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I have a problem with your wording "at any given moment": That's not true. The collapse of societies is marked by clear indicators. The most important indicator is that the economic system does not fit any more with social and political system. One of the benefits of our current political and social system is an enormous flexibility. Look e.g. at countries like Sweden, which transformed itself since the 19th century from a poor agricultural society to a wealthy industrial society without revolution or clear cut in political or social structure, but with an evolutionary transformation of the structure of society (the same is to say for other countries). No former society was able to make such transformations peaceful and without a "collapse". One of the feature of capitalist society is that it "cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society." (Marx)

This "constant revolution" does prevent our society for the foreseeable future from a collapse.

Capitalism is less bad than socialism, has events have proved.

As long as humans are incapable of feeling the pain they inflict on others as vividly as their victims, things will not get much better than they are.

ruveyn

that's truth, extreme socialism can be bad. BUUUUUT... since capitalism is such an open sistem you can mold it an make it a little capitalistic to make sure poor people get enough to have a dign life and yet feel pressed to work. That way you make sure this people will have no economical reason to attack or take advantages of the people that does have money meaning a more safe enviroment.

You see, the problem with capitalism is that you only get the chances if you have the money (not even when you work hard since there are borned a lot of very poor people already condemned to die poor), with socialism you get the chances if you have the capacities. In soft cocialism the guys with capacities and money together rule the economy.

Example? The netherlands.

ooooo yeaaaah?!?!?!?!?!?!??!

THEN WHY most if not All of the countries before USA in the list of human development index are socialists (already for like the last 60 years or more) and have better life standards than america.

Rank Country HDI
2006 data[3][nb 1] Change compared to 2005 data[nb 1][3]
1 Iceland 0.975 ▲ +0.001
-* Norway 0.972 ▲ +0.001
3* Canada 0.967 ▲ +0.002
4* Australia 0.965 ▲ +0.002
5 Ireland 0.962 ▲ +0.002
6* Netherlands 0.958 ▲ +0.002
7* Sweden 0.958 ▲ +0.001
8* Japan 0.956 ▲ +0.003
9* Luxembourg 0.956 ▲ +0.002
10* Switzerland 0.955 ▲ +0.002
11 France 0.955 ▲ +0.002
12 Finland 0.954 ▲ +0.004
13* Denmark 0.952 ▲ +0.003
14 Austria 0.951 ▲ +0.003
15 United States 0.950 ▬
16* Spain 0.949 ▼ -0.003
17* Belgium 0.948 ▲ +0.003


My question: have you ever even actually got out of your little world called america?!?!? gone to other capitalistic lands, socialistic or comunistic countries?

thought so... you speak as if all of the socialistic world was ex-soviet union or even asia.

LMAO "to the absolute power maintained by those in control" tell you what! the * next to the numbers indicates countries with Constitutional monarchies... KINGS AND QUEENS! some one whose family has been sitting in the throne for the last decades (perhaps even 500 years or more) now THAT'S MANTAINING the control! and yet they don't interfere with politics so they let all this socialist thing go on cause it's good for the economy. It's also good for them, in a socialist system if you are in control and you suck it means you loose the head, like most monarchies that didn't survive. So you just let people ruling their own destiny, cause in most socialist sistems people is aware of the power they have. Their presidents or prime ministers, most of them have terms of 4 years and people votes for them ... THEY are the guys ruling the politics (after the senate, congres, and representatives off course).

Socialism is not perfect at all, it's a very open system and at a certain point one can make what ever you want with it. Yet it ensures that people will get more aware on what's happening in their sistem instead of just folowing like sheeps and getting scared every time someone come with revolutionary ideas like Mr. Obama, people will try to understand and then would oppose or not, with heavier arguments than a mythical experiment in a classroom wich doesn't even barely understands all the complexity of possible variables you have in the real world.

ps: sorry for my misspellings, I really need to go to sleep.

1, the list seems old. Iceland was a nation that really hit the crapper in this economic downturn.

2nd, our definitions of "socialist" are likely massively different. If you asked me, all of those economies on the list are capitalist mixed economies, without a single socialist one on there. That's my straight-up answer, even for Sweden.

If you apply the definition of socialism given by these dictionary sources though:

so-cial-ism (sosh-lizm)n. 1. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community. The theory or practice of those who support such a social system. 2. The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.

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Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Main Entry: so·cial·ism
Pronunciation:\ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date:1837
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

"socialism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 10 May 2009
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism>

socialism
noun
1. a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
2. an economic system based on state ownership of capital [ant: capitalism]

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

It would appear that claiming that none of those countries as socialist is a valid position, perhaps even *the* valid position.

The highest standards of living in the world according to the UN and the happiest people on Earth are all from Socialist countries

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland,

To be honest, those aren't really socialistic countries, there's capitalism too.