what’s the argument transformed into now? why socialism is bad? or why maher is a douchebag?
[quote]limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Rockscar wrote:Every time you type you prove to us more and more that you have communist ideals.
Read a book, please. Do you even know what communism is?
Free education to all children, centralized banking, and a progressive income tax are all part of the socialist movement to bring about the classless utopia that it called Communism.
Sound familiar to you?
Those are also part of social democracy. What’s your point? The important part that makes it socialism is expropriation of the capitalists and the common ownership of the means of production.
No. Socialism is a movement by which expropriation of the capitalists and the collective ownership of the means of production come to fruition. Communism is the sought after reality brought about by socialism.
Social democracy is an intermediary between capitalism and communism that includes socialist transitional policy.
My point is that any individual socialist policy, perpetuates ALL other socialist policies. This is the very foundation of communism: that is it the inevitability that arises from capitalist class struggle.
The problem, though, is that men are not ants and that class struggle is also an inevitability.
Totalitarianism out of socialism is the end-game outlet for creative-destruction on the sovereign level.
By your standards, many mainstream economists would be socialists.
Many certainly are.
Most modern(Keynesian) economists support 3 or 4 of the conditions for transition to communism.
But, many also support price caps and other price controls, which is de facto ownership of the means of production being regulated. With the inclusion of price controls and open ended authority to confiscate private land or rental property for public appropriation, almost the complete model of conditions of transition to communism is included.
The remaining relevant conditions: abolition of inheritance rights, centralization of communication and transport, and confiscation of emigrant property, come to fruition through totalitarian measures.
At this point It’s clear to me that you’re unfamiliar with many of the tenets of socialism.
Everything I’ve written describing socialism and socialists(except in **) in this thread I’ve taken exclusively from The Communist Manifesto or Marx’s related writings.
Have you read Marx?
If not, I suggest you do before commenting further on the vehicle he enumerated.
lim@infinity
[/quote]
Christian morality has to take a lot of the blame for the evils of Socialism/Communism. Preaching selflessness to beings that are by nature selfish gives some the idea that they should enforce selflessness on others. “If people are greedy and selfish, then let’s stop that with governmental power!” The Soviet Union and its gulags are the result.
Why can it not be both?
i personally believe communism/socialism is NOT the next step in the evolution of political economy. industry is not there yet, and probably never will be.
[quote]skaz05 wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
Ryan seems to be the only person here who actually knows what socialism is. Maybe this whole debate is just the result of people not knowing terminology?
Actually, it’s a bunch of people who all of a sudden, because of popular trend, think that socialism is a really swell idea.
Isn’t it obvious? 1 year ago I didn’t hear anything positive about this so called “socialist society”, but then after the election, EVERYONE is a fucking expert on how socialism is the best cure for “the economy dude”, and how capitalism is “the fucking worst dude” for the country.
The same rolls for how EVERYONE is a fucking expert on what conservatism is… The same assholes that were badmouthing “Barry Goldwater conservatism”, are now in favor if it??? WTF?
This is just fucking stupud… And so are these “say one thing, mean another” assholes. Go fuck yourselves.[/quote]
No, the reason you’re hearing about “socialism” all of a sudden is that your overlords realized that “liberal” wasn’t scaring people any more, so they decided to evoke a boogeyman from the Red Scare.
Amusingly, the result of the Republican media outlets calling Obama’s popular and decidedly non-socialist policies “socialism” seems to have been that people are increasingly inclined to say they like socialism.
When a mainstream politician calls for government control of the means of production, you’re allowed to use the word. Until then, you’re only embarrassing yourself.
[quote]limitatinfinity wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
I think we should go full blown socialized medicine
You really aren’t playing with a full deck are you? I really hope your joking and I just missed it.
Let’s leave aside whether it’s even a good idea or not (it’s not). Let’s just talk about money. There is no fucking way on God’s green earth that we can afford that right now or for the foreseeable future. That amount of spending is simply not feasible.
You are allowed to disagree, just my opinion. I believe the Ins. Companies are making too much profit on the whole thing as we know it. You do know where that profit comes from?
yeah, it comes from the productivity of the employees and assets of the company.
Insurance companies are basically banks today and banks are Insurance companies. It is a big Goat fuck. There are no mechanics, it is all shuffling paper and creating wealth.
I bet calculus is all just moving numbers around, right?
No mechanics there either, right?
What about physics?
No rules there either…just a Goat fuck?
Economics is a science.
Just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t make it magic.[/quote]
Economics is social science. Sorry, try again.
Nuff said
Pitbull talked about our public education as well??? Our education system produces a large number of morons. Look at how many people who are products of our education system and aren’t intelligent enough to sit in for jury duty, we don’t exactly succeed world wide when it comes to comparing to others in the education department, say 4-12th grade.
To the issue of health care, my grandfather lives in Canada, sure he says there are a few things that are great about it but when push comes to shove and issues arrive the equality is just as absent because you can flaunt a little cash and go to the front of the line. For us to take steps in that direction would ruin the health care system for the people who are employed by it.
For the fool, Pitbull, who things profit is bad…or at least that’s how you came off. Like the others said before me, it is what drives a free market. It gives us all the ability to succeed or to fail. I don’t like the idea of a larger government with more control, it was never meant to be a business just a regulatory device. We need to start electing people who are statesmen, who truly care about where we are going and how things are going, not just people who say they care then turn their backs.
[quote]Therizza wrote:
i personally believe communism/socialism is NOT the next step in the evolution of political economy. industry is not there yet, and probably never will be. [/quote]
Finally, someone noticed this one. The foundation for a fully socialist/communist society is an economy based in agriculture and manufacturing, everyone putting their little drops into the giant bucket. On paper it’s a great system, and if it were to instantly change to a system like that here, the rich would stay rich (comparatively rich) but the poor would suddenly find themselves out of poverty. At least, on paper.
But it can’t happen in this country. We have no real production in this country anymore. We are a service based economy. People in this country are no longer laborers. We’re “Customer Service Associates” or Middle Management or Call Center Supervisors. Nearly all of the goods we “produce” in this country are fabricated overseas, assembled in Mexico and shipped in.
It’s no surprise that our recession hit us as hard as it did, we simply had no hard products to back it up, nothing to sell but some useless service that people are learning they can do without. That’s why people seem to be thinking in the last year or so that Capitalism has failed.
They see our “Capitalist” system and see a corrupt, overweight and confused collection of giant corporations running us into global ruin. But that’s not what a purely Capitalist system is supposed to look like. Our economy should be a nice mix of mega-corporations running the big show (Automotive, Utilities, railroads and such) mid-sized companies, and small single owner business competing and growing as a unit.
The idea being that as new processes and technologies are available, the best and most fundamentally sound companies will adapt and be the most successful in the long term. The consumers should see prices DECREASE as costs decrease, assuming demand stays flat. That’s not what happens in our bastardized version of Capitalism though.
Here we see the costs of business paid for on credit, guaranteeing higher costs (interest!) and never seeing the costs actually decrease. That’s a fundamental part of the system, decreasing the costs of business to improve the profit margins through the entire industry. I can guarantee you that if GM was seeing 20% ROI they wouldn’t give a damn what Ford or Toyota was doing. And you can be sure that they would be keeping pricing lower to attract more customers, creating actual competitive pricing.
If these companies would worry less about keeping their shareholders happy for a year or so and took a solid look at their fundamentals they’d see immediate opportunities to decrease their costs and bring them back in line with an actual Capitalistic corporate model.
Capitalism is NOT an exercise in exploitation, as is commonly believed. It’s simply an Economic model that encourages growth, adaptation and competition.
SOCIALISM, on the other hand, exploits everybody in the system, excluding only the top members of the government. The people toil for less money than is fair to support the lavish tastes of the top Dog. Even in a “fair” system, one where the leadership IS actually looking out for the people, there are major flaws.
There’s no choice. This one is overlooked by almost everyone in this country who thinks a socialist system would be a step up. You will have no choices. Need something from the hardware store? Where do you go? Ace, Lowes, Home Depot? Not in a socialist system. Those companies will be gone, replaced with something like “The People’s Republic Hammer and Nail” No choice means no competition, and no competition means NO progress.
The only advances we’d ever see in any industry would come from military advances. You can forget new medicines. Forget them. No profits mean a set R&D budget, and when you’re giving out all of your products for free, that budget is going to be pretty small.
And doctors, forget them too. At least any good ones. Nobody would sit through and extra decade of school to make a marginally better wage than the cleaning lady. So when our health care system comes to a fiery crash, what comes next? Schools probably. You think overcrowding is bad now in some places?
Try closing down all the private schools. That’ll go over well. And once the education system shuts down, it’s a ripple effect that essentially kills everything else we know today. Everything about the socialists ideology is destructive. It suppresses progress to the point of moving backward.
It gives the people only one freedom, and that’s the freedom to do nothing, not contribute anything and still reap the benefits the rest of society has given them. Enough with socialism and communism. There’s a reason why the Russians gave it up, and there are free markets popping up all over China.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
When a mainstream politician calls for government control of the means of production, you’re allowed to use the word. Until then, you’re only embarrassing yourself.
[/quote]
If you don’t believe the gov’t already has control over means of production, you are embarrassing yourself and quite close to the ignor list.
Do you know what the term “mixed economy” means?
Are we a socialist country? Not entirely.
Are we a capitalist country? Not entirely.
Which direction are we headed? Towards more gov’t control over means of production or less? More freedom (economic or otherwise) or less?
Is the gov’t involved in the birth of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the raising of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the education of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the employment of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in health care?
Is the gov’t involved in what kind of house we can build and live in?
Is the gov’t involved in the food we eat?
Is the gov’t involved in the services we chose to buy or sell?
Does the the gov’t take more of our income than any other expenditure does?
Is the gov’t involved in our retirement?
Is the gov’t involved in our death?
sweet someone agrees with me
Socialism fails and always will fail because it lacks the checks and balances of the free market. A managed economy is completely counterintuitive to the natural order because action is bases entirely on “best interests” and when the signals are not available no one knows what is in his own best interests. The reason these signals are not available is that socialism seeks to do away with profits and thus the incentive for entrepreneurial activity.
How does an entrepreneur, for example, know if consumers want a new type of cell phone technology in a socialist economy if there is no profit to be made? In fact, in a socialist economy entrepreneurs do not exist – they are replaced by bureaucrats doing the political will of the ruling class.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
When a mainstream politician calls for government control of the means of production, you’re allowed to use the word. Until then, you’re only embarrassing yourself.
If you don’t believe the gov’t already has control over means of production, you are embarrassing yourself and quite close to the ignor list.
Do you know what the term “mixed economy” means?
Are we a socialist country? Not entirely.
Are we a capitalist country? Not entirely.
Which direction are we headed? Towards more gov’t control over means of production or less? More freedom (economic or otherwise) or less?
Is the gov’t involved in the birth of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the raising of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the education of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the employment of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in health care?
Is the gov’t involved in what kind of house we can build and live in?
Is the gov’t involved in the food we eat?
Is the gov’t involved in the services we chose to buy or sell?
Does the the gov’t take more of our income than any other expenditure does?
Is the gov’t involved in our retirement?
Is the gov’t involved in our death?
[/quote]
It’s funny he would even suggest someone else is embarassing themself. Norman Thomas once said “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of ‘Liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened”…funny because he just so happened to be a socialist and 6 time presidential candidate for the socialist party in America.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
Which direction are we headed? Towards more gov’t control over means of production or less? More freedom (economic or otherwise) or less?
Is the gov’t involved in the birth of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the raising of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the education of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the employment of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in health care?
Is the gov’t involved in what kind of house we can build and live in?
Is the gov’t involved in the food we eat?
Is the gov’t involved in the services we chose to buy or sell?
Does the the gov’t take more of our income than any other expenditure does?
Is the gov’t involved in our retirement?
Is the gov’t involved in our death?
[/quote]
Pretty much every government that has ever existed since the creation of writing has involved itself in all or most of these things. If you think that Hammurabi, Lincoln, Charlemagne, Harding, Tutankhamen, Henry VIII and Cleopatra were all socialists, then the term really becomes kind of meaningless.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
Which direction are we headed? Towards more gov’t control over means of production or less? More freedom (economic or otherwise) or less?
Is the gov’t involved in the birth of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the raising of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the education of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the employment of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in health care?
Is the gov’t involved in what kind of house we can build and live in?
Is the gov’t involved in the food we eat?
Is the gov’t involved in the services we chose to buy or sell?
Does the the gov’t take more of our income than any other expenditure does?
Is the gov’t involved in our retirement?
Is the gov’t involved in our death?
Pretty much every government that has ever existed since the creation of writing has involved itself in all or most of these things. If you think that Hammurabi, Lincoln, Charlemagne, Harding, Tutankhamen, Henry VIII and Cleopatra were all socialists, then the term really becomes kind of meaningless.
[/quote]
Well they were tyrants.
We could compromise on tyranny.
Obama wants to be a tyrant, enslaving people with their own money.
Better?
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
Which direction are we headed? Towards more gov’t control over means of production or less? More freedom (economic or otherwise) or less?
Is the gov’t involved in the birth of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the raising of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the education of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the employment of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in health care?
Is the gov’t involved in what kind of house we can build and live in?
Is the gov’t involved in the food we eat?
Is the gov’t involved in the services we chose to buy or sell?
Does the the gov’t take more of our income than any other expenditure does?
Is the gov’t involved in our retirement?
Is the gov’t involved in our death?
Pretty much every government that has ever existed since the creation of writing has involved itself in all or most of these things. If you think that Hammurabi, Lincoln, Charlemagne, Harding, Tutankhamen, Henry VIII and Cleopatra were all socialists, then the term really becomes kind of meaningless.
[/quote]
And what wonderful, lasting societies they all were…
The word “socialism” is not as important as the actions that refer to the idea itself. Yes, socialism has its roots in totalitarian governments.
[quote]orion wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
Which direction are we headed? Towards more gov’t control over means of production or less? More freedom (economic or otherwise) or less?
Is the gov’t involved in the birth of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the raising of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the education of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in the employment of our children?
Is the gov’t involved in health care?
Is the gov’t involved in what kind of house we can build and live in?
Is the gov’t involved in the food we eat?
Is the gov’t involved in the services we chose to buy or sell?
Does the the gov’t take more of our income than any other expenditure does?
Is the gov’t involved in our retirement?
Is the gov’t involved in our death?
Pretty much every government that has ever existed since the creation of writing has involved itself in all or most of these things. If you think that Hammurabi, Lincoln, Charlemagne, Harding, Tutankhamen, Henry VIII and Cleopatra were all socialists, then the term really becomes kind of meaningless.
Well they were tyrants.
We could compromise on tyranny.
Obama wants to be a tyrant, enslaving people with their own money.
Better?
[/quote]
You think Lincoln was a tyrant? You think every government that has ever existed was a tyranny? You’re really hard to take seriously.
Out of curiosity, what historical societies, if any, do you think were well governed?
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
You think Lincoln was a tyrant? You think every government that has ever existed was a tyranny? You’re really hard to take seriously.
[/quote]
Lincoln was most certainly a very bad man. He was a democratically elected tyrant for sure – just like many of them are.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
You think Lincoln was a tyrant? You think every government that has ever existed was a tyranny? You’re really hard to take seriously.
Lincoln was most certainly a very bad man. He was a democratically elected tyrant for sure – just like many of them are.[/quote]
Okay, you’re a crackpot. Thanks for clearing that up.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
Out of curiosity, what historical societies, if any, do you think were well governed?[/quote]
The ones that lasted.