In a socialist society everyone is equal

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Would you rather people feared their local warlord or tribal elder instead? Too much power invested in one place without effective scrutiny, no matter whom holds it, is bad for everyone.

What utter rubbish. Of course First Nations had governments. In fact, there was great diversity in First Nation governments, from rigid, hereditary chieftanships to dynamic collectivist decision making.

Living together in communities means living within a set of rules. Who gets which parts of the hunt? Who gets to till which fields? Who gets to marry whom? As soon as you have a community you have rules. And when you have rules, you have to have a way of articulating those rules and of enforcing them. That means government.

Now, perhaps many of the institutions look different from what you understand government to be, but government they are, nonetheless.

The reality is that these argument are altogether too facile. The nature of a country's economy is not like picking a combo plate from a chinese menu with "no substitutions." Economies develop and adapt to suit the conditions in which they exist.

Singapore, Gibraltar and Hongkong may well be financially prosperous--but they are not viable states without the ability to import water and food. They could not exist as closed societies, so their economies develop in the only way that they can to survive.

North Korea, Sudan and Somalia, on the other hand, have no meaningul financial system. The economy in these places is operated with the currency of connections and influence. Those with power accumulate goods and control access to services, and they are dispensed to those loyal to the people in power.

There is neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism anywere in the world. All there is are diverse economies that have developed according to the natural and demographic conditions in which they find themselves. Some countries have the balance of features pretty finely tuned, others are gross distortions.

Only a foolish person runs uncritically to one extreme or another. The wise one looks to the moderate approach.

I was more implying those in a positon of power should fear the citizens of the society, otherwise they get out of hand and start thinking they can do whatever the hell they want without any challenge.

That's quite a liberal thing to be saying.

Most countries that are socialist or have socialist features generally aren't particularly liberal regarding criticism. It can be mild, as in Scandinavia, or it can be quite severe. They tend to think they know what's best for their people.

People living in a capitalist society are taught that the lust for power and wealth are all part of human nature because you are considered a traitor for believing otherwise.

The kind of war that happen in a capitalist society is price wars.

The kind of wars that happen in a socialist one, I don't want to talk about it.

The kind of wars that happen because of capitalistic societies like the U.S are resource wars......why try to ensure the resources are split up in such a way to ensure everyone has their needs met.....screw that its much better to wage wars for resources to ensure only some have enough resources to have thier needs met.

Which rather goes to my point that the best economies are those economies that use the best features for their particular needs.

Let's start from some basic principles:

1) Innovation is the engine of growth. The plow and the tractor allow farmers to grow more food on the same amount of land. Engines allow us to create mechanical force from fuels, which enable factories to produce more goods, and to get goods to markets. Money allows us to set a medium of exchange so that we can specialize in a particular type of labour

2) People respond to incentives. Money is simply a means to an end. Anyone who wants only money is a callow fool--money is only good for what it gets you: food, sex, a home, clothing, recreation, travel, luxuries and so forth.

An economy can work (in theory) without money by providing other incentives of these desirable ends--but nobody seems to have invented one that works, yet. Until someone comes up with that innovation, it is clear that the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people continues to lie within capitalism.

However--and this is a very large, "however"--capitalism has many shortcomings that must be constrained. I suggest to you that the most prosperous societies (not merely measured in money, but in issues related to quality of life) are those societies which find the best balance between capitalism and constraint.

The aim of socialism is not to make everybody exactly equal but to allow everybody the full chance to develop their abilities. In fact, even if racists were to be shown to be right that one group of humans were less able to learn than other humans (which of course they haven't been, just the opposite in fact) this would still not invalidate the case for socialism. The long-standing socialist principle of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" is based on people having different abilities and everyone, whatever their abilities, having the same right to satisfy their needs.

There has never been a socialist country in existence so It is ignorant to say that it has failed in the past.

anyone who truly thinks any single ideology works is bonkers to begin with so why are we still thinking in badly drawn black and whites?

In a socialist society everyone is equal...

Everyone has equal wealth, which is good for the time being. Everyone has equal medicare and social security( for the time being).

Everyone can drive a nice car like this one, for the time being and have a comfortable house.

But is everyone equal. NO.

Socialism is great if you have no ambitions, no dreams, and no hope for obtaining anything beyond which the government deems appropriate for you.

"So, you want to be a scientist? Sorry, we have enough scientists already. What we need are street-sweepers, so a street-sweeper you are."