What is so bad about socialism anyways?

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Conservatives teach that people are not entitled to anything that they do not pay for.

Yes of course.....they fail to realise if taxes where used for programs people need and everyone with income pays taxes then most everyone would be paying except for those who are too old or disabled to work and kind of need to be taken care of

Seriously, you're using the classic left wing appeal to emotion routine, because you can't win in a debate on the facts.

Uhh that was actually not even close to emotional appeal, that is more of a fact........people need basic things to live, so any logical society would try to ensure all the citizens have access to those things. I do not see what is so emotinal about that, if you got emotional I do appologize.

I don't like misused emotional appeal either, sure I have used this tactic in debates but only were it is appropriate to bring empathy into the picture.

The leading economies of Europe and North America became great under capitalism. It was only when they were rich and powerful that the socialists and fascists were able to loot them. Socialism has produced very little from scratch. Socialists specialize in redistributing assets created by non-socialists.

ruveyn

Not true.

So what do you suggest then...we continue down the path we are going......so far it seems there has to be a combination of socialism and capitalism for a good system. Though I think we do not have enough aspects of socialism here.

The problem is that with socialism, the socialists never stop. They relentlessly go on about the rich until the rich have no more to give. It's total envy. Many just envy the successful for being, rather than having a proper system where people are justly rewarded for hard work and a minimum amount is given for essential services and a small welfare state.

Socialists often want more and more, whilst the people who use the services get less and less functionality, until the whole machinery is broke.

What you call socialism is state sponsored redistribution of assets and income. To redistribute assets and income they first must be produced. If we had a government that encouraged the growth of small and medium size firms and did not hand out political favors to the "mega corporations" there would be enough wealth produced that charitable voluntary activity would meet most of the needs of people who really need the help. What we have is "crony capitalism" which creates a class of rich parasites and screws the the really productive people in the country.

ruveyn

Yes - there really isn't free market capitalism here. It's a mixture of corporatism, cronyism and statist socialism - here at least anyway.

I think those countries are rather social democrats than socialists. Some american nuts however, consider social democracy = socialism = communism.

I'm still waiting for someone to define socialism properly, I know I already did but my post was conveniantly ignored since it would mean most of the posts so far would have reality dissonance if what i said was taken in: you are all completely backward on what "socialism" IS, it's when the workers control their workplace and recieve the full allotment of their labour ("to each according to how much they work").

Communism, in all seriousness, is not an economic system, it's a way of organising your government. (in this case, into a highly inclusive democracy)

heres what proper communism looks like

" In Spain during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties (republicans, left and right Catalan separatists, socialists, Communists, Basque and Valencian regionalists, petty bourgeoisie, etc.), this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high salaried managers, or the authority of the state.

Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity....

This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other.
"

Well I can see your point..but why should a minimal amount go to keeping public services in place so that those on the bottom are taken care of? As far as having access to medical care, food and shelter. Capitalism can to go an extreme to and people can jump on the 'if you're poor or disabled it is somehow totally your fault and you should suffer because you're not making enough profit' mentality. I mean for instance that 1% of billionaires are not happy with their excessive wealth they want even more.

So both sides can be very extreme.

But how do you know there would be enough wealth floating around to creat enough caritable voluntary acitivity, when you and others have blatently said human nature=stepping on others to get to the top. If human nature is really that self centered that woulden't that mean there has to be laws in place to ensure that mentality does not get out of control and hurt more people than it helps?

And what we have is capitalism in general, there are not enough limits on it so it allows for rich parisites to do that.

Well walls of text tend to be rather hard to follow.......I know what socialism is, and I was not talking about communism so I am not sure why you are bringing that up.

Because it's the right thing to do? It's morally right to see that those that really can't fend for themselves are taken care of. Everyone else should either work or not get fed, though.



Yup. A lot of it's the mismanagement and the bureaucracy and the 'target' culture where a lot of it has really gone wrong.

I consider myself broadly classical liberal, so free-market capitalism with light regulation is my bag.



Again, as I say - the sick, elderly and disabled should be looked after. Everyone else should be working. I want to work at some point in my life - I want to contribute. Unfortunately the system we have in this country discourages people from bettering themselves. It's not a terrible position to be in (other people here, including many on this board, have things far worse than I) but it disincentivises self-growth.