socialism will never work because it is impossible for everyone to be equal. Look at Venezuela, the general public is starving and murdering each other to get food, meanwhile Hugo Chavez is living in lavish houses, jetting around the world, and partying with Sean Penn.
[quote]charlotte49er wrote:
socialism will never work because it is impossible for everyone to be equal. Look at Venezuela, the general public is starving and murdering each other to get food, meanwhile Hugo Chavez is living in lavish houses, jetting around the world, and partying with Sean Penn.[/quote]
Not quite.
That’s a mischaracterization.
The population isn’t starving, but grocers are smuggling out food to sell to other markets, because the gov’t is restricting their profits to a set amount…which they find ‘unjust.’
[quote]John S. wrote:
Private schools cost less and produce better results, you have to understand that the way our economy is right now is not how it would be under capitalism, under Capitalism we would be a manufacturing giant thus parents could easily afford to send their kids to school.
[/quote]
And you have to understand that there are a lot of really shitty, really lazy parents out there, that even if they could afford to send their kid to private school, wouldn’t. If didn’t know at least one person in high-school who had to fight their parents to get out of the house and to school everyday, fight their parents to get homework done at night, fight their parents to let them participate in a sport, then you come from a particularly privileged and well-adjusted area. I’ve got nothing against private schools, but even a second rate public school system (run at the state level) is better than nothing for these kids.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Second, since we are not socialist our government has to run the military in a fascist way. It is simply merging cooperate and state, Also the Military is not egalitarian.[/quote]
I think that’s semantics. There’s no economy that’s 100% socialist, but there’s no functioning government out there that has no socialist tendencies. Our military is directly employed by the state for the general interest of the population. That socialist. If the military were instead beholden to a particular political party, or industry, that would be Fascist.
[quote]John S. wrote:
EMS can have many private contractors, I am seeing more and more private forces take over as states are forced to cut budgets.[/quote]
True. I’m sure they are non-profits which exist in that fuzzy gray space between government and private enterprise.
[quote]John S. wrote:
A private police force would be the best, since they can be replaced with another force very easy it will cause them to do their jobs much better.[/quote]
Who’s going to run a competing police for in every town “just in case” some buisness comes along? They would be government granted monopolies. No doubt they would start competitively cheap, and then become more expensive as they become a “necessary” recipient of government welfare. No, I’ll stick with cops employed by the government, accountable to my elected officials
[quote]John S. wrote:
Our government is not socialist, it is actually set up with the power granted to it by the constitution to have more of a fascist way of doing its duties.[/quote]
I don’t see that. I think our government has a few socialistic tendencies. I think the way we were setup originally, we had fewer: the military, printing money, regulating trade between states, taxing. I don’t think our government subscribe to a particular “-ism” at all, because there are so many competing ideas, at competing levels of government.
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
[quote]John S. wrote:
Private schools cost less and produce better results, you have to understand that the way our economy is right now is not how it would be under capitalism, under Capitalism we would be a manufacturing giant thus parents could easily afford to send their kids to school.
[/quote]
And you have to understand that there are a lot of really shitty, really lazy parents out there, that even if they could afford to send their kid to private school, wouldn’t. If didn’t know at least one person in high-school who had to fight their parents to get out of the house and to school everyday, fight their parents to get homework done at night, fight their parents to let them participate in a sport, then you come from a particularly privileged and well-adjusted area. I’ve got nothing against private schools, but even a second rate public school system (run at the state level) is better than nothing for these kids.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Second, since we are not socialist our government has to run the military in a fascist way. It is simply merging cooperate and state, Also the Military is not egalitarian.[/quote]
I think that’s semantics. There’s no economy that’s 100% socialist, but there’s no functioning government out there that has no socialist tendencies. Our military is directly employed by the state for the general interest of the population. That socialist. If the military were instead beholden to a particular political party, or industry, that would be Fascist.
[quote]John S. wrote:
EMS can have many private contractors, I am seeing more and more private forces take over as states are forced to cut budgets.[/quote]
True. I’m sure they are non-profits which exist in that fuzzy gray space between government and private enterprise.
[quote]John S. wrote:
A private police force would be the best, since they can be replaced with another force very easy it will cause them to do their jobs much better.[/quote]
Who’s going to run a competing police for in every town “just in case” some buisness comes along? They would be government granted monopolies. No doubt they would start competitively cheap, and then become more expensive as they become a “necessary” recipient of government welfare. No, I’ll stick with cops employed by the government, accountable to my elected officials
[quote]John S. wrote:
Our government is not socialist, it is actually set up with the power granted to it by the constitution to have more of a fascist way of doing its duties.[/quote]
I don’t see that. I think our government has a few socialistic tendencies. I think the way we were setup originally, we had fewer: the military, printing money, regulating trade between states, taxing. I don’t think our government subscribe to a particular “-ism” at all, because there are so many competing ideas, at competing levels of government.
[/quote]
We would have charities to help those kids out, we are the most charitable group of people the world has ever seen, we don’t need a gun pointed at our head to help children go to school.
I disagree we are arguing semantics, ever hear of the military industrial complex? If Eisenhower warned about it I think it stands to reason that he did so for a reason.
If a non profit gets their funding from the person they help they are capitalistic, if they get it from the government they are fascist.
The private police force would be less corruptible then a government police force. The cops in my town rob the evidence room all the time, everyone knows and know one will do anything about it.
Our government was to coin money, provide for defense, regulate(keep regular/open) interstate commerce, and taxing for the defense. It is designed to be as non intrusive as possible, hence why is does not have socialistic principles in it. It is undoubtedly fascist when it comes to the military but that is it.
Again, it depends on what particular branch you’re talking about, but “in general,” yes. In practice, I don’t see why there would be a vote on literally everything, and there would probably be some type of representative body that actually did the voting, similar to the way the Mondragon cooperatives work. Although, you couldn’t do absolutely anything, because you’re still responsible for fulfilling the plan you’ve been given.
But to specifically answer your question, I suppose you could do that, so long as you fulfilled the plan. But if you didn’t (which you probably wouldn’t working only two days per week), then the management would be replaced.
When you have a more equitable distribution of wealth, that frees up a lot of money to be used for other things.
He has a vote in matters that affect him, yes.
For one, there’s no profit anymore, so that’s a lot of extra money that can go towards salaries/wages. Second, there are unutilized resources (like unemployed persons) under capitalism that would be mobilized under socialism, producing extra surpluses.
Good point. In that case, you could either be put on a waiting list, in case someone left, or you could accept a transfer to a different location where there was a spot available. There are different ways to handle this, and that’s one thing that could be decided by the workers.
[quote]It all seems like a negative sum game to me. I’ll go with Churchill on this one. “Eventually, you are going to run out of other people’s money”
[/quote]
But that doesn’t make sense.
By the way, you realize that this arrangement has been used many times before with no problems, right? The Mondragon corporation does things basically this way now, and in the 19th century US, there was a cooperative movement where many of these types of workplaces were established by the workers. They were driven out of business, however, by the much better capitalized corporations. In short, whether it would work is not the question.
Well then good news! No socialists propose that!
[quote]mtylermartin wrote:
Socialism is where we all “work together and shit.”
What we learned in kindergarten is that there about two kids in each class that lead the rest of the herd, because the herd just isn’t capable of working together.
[/quote]
But absolute, pure capitalism with complete deregulation would allow the rest of the class complete freedom within the classroom, even at the detriment to everyone. Part of what’s wrong with an absolute free market/capitalism is that it assumes people will always do what is best for themselves and that this will translate into benefits for everyone. But we know from experience that the human being is THE great variable and does not always act rationally.
I think those who would like to see a little socialism in our society/economy would like to see so under the assumption that certain aspects of socialism will create some sort of “safeguard” for when people inevitably fuck up. Their argument goes that in the long run what is good for the poor or the ones who fuck up will eventually be good for society as a whole. Socialists assume that people will NOT always privately provide for the less-fortunate out of kindness or concern for society as a whole and so we should be forced to provide some sort of safety net because they assume doing so will be beneficial for everyone.
A hardcore capitalist won’t give you fish, they’ll SELL you the pole to catch it though. If you cannot afford the pole, that’s your problem, not theirs. Whereas a hardcore socialist will demand that, if you cannot afford the pole or have no clue how to use it, those who can afford to provide you with the fish should bear the societal responsibility to do so. Like anything, I think the true answer to this lies somewhere in the middle.
OK. So we live in a mixed economy. And we realize laissez-faire capitalism will not work (Rand was too generous of mankind) and that full blown socialism will naturally self-destruct.
So my question is: What is the best ratio of capitalistic to socialistic concepts in a economy?
(75:25 is my guess)
And further more, what is the nation like now? Are we half n half?
[quote]John S. wrote:
I am interested to learn more about the economic prinicples of socialism. Clearly if I am just a dumb Capitalist that doesn’t understand economics someone should be able to tell me how exactly things would work.
[/quote]
I think the basic principle of the socialist model was rooted in a common sociological idea known as conflict theory that stated the presence of dominant groups creates a power relationship over less powerful groups. In other words, the more powerful companies or industries get, the more they require lots of subservient poor people. Socialist thinkers thought they could solve this problem by sharing the profits of industry and eliminate the subservient class. This obviously didn’t work for the Russians.
[quote]THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
OK. So we live in a mixed economy. And we realize laissez-faire capitalism will not work (Rand was too generous of mankind) and that full blown socialism will naturally self-destruct.
So my question is: What is the best ratio of capitalistic to socialistic concepts in a economy?
(75:25 is my guess)
And further more, what is the nation like now? Are we half n half?
[/quote]
Rand was an author of fiction
There is no perfect ratio because our society is always changing. The only perfect system is one that has the ability to evolve as our society does. Also, a mixture of the two might not be the same from issue to issue. A heavy slant toward socialism might be better regarding healthcare, but the same ratio would not be applicable to free trade, or vice versa. We are too diverse a society to simply say “well, a 75:25 ratio is best across the board.”
I’m a card-carrying Libertarian, but there is room in my beliefs about what is best for the country to allow for some sort of socialist aspect to our govt. To me, the problem with this country isn’t necessarily what system is best and what is doomed to fail. It’s that there seems to be no room amongst our politicians to accept that their political opponents can actually be right about some things. Perhaps a blend of capitalism AND socialism is best for this country (not Marxist socialism but a less-radical, more pragmatic version of it, and the same would apply to capitalism.)
I have a question on the opposite side of this forum because something peaked my interest. Some say that no government can run without social programs. However, no one answered why we need government in the first place?
My thinking is that if there was no government, there would still be social justice programs.
Capitalism needs the government to protect private property. Socialism needs government to protect the new society against expropriated capitalists and their allies. Communism needs government not at all.
Anarchists seem to think we don’t need it at all, but I think most of them are kidding themselves in this regard.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I have a question on the opposite side of this forum because something peaked my interest. Some say that no government can run without social programs. However, no one answered why we need government in the first place?
My thinking is that if there was no government, there would still be social justice programs. [/quote]
yes thats a good question. the state or the goverment or whatever you call it are from a marxian wiew a instituion who preserv the rule of some class, in feudalisme the state was the state of the nobleclass, in capitalisme it is the state of the “capitalistupperclass” and in socialisme it is the state of the proletariat. A communist or a anarchist thinks that a society without a state is possible, and that it can be replaced with a system where people rule them self without a gun pointed to there head. This is in my opinion the true form of socialisme, and if you remove the idea of liberating mankind from tyranny and exploitation from the socialist ideology then the point of this ideology is lost. then you reduce socialisme to goverment regulation. And many on this forum do that. What they really talk about is socialliberalisme and bernsteinisme. This is not the socialisme I talk about, I talk about the traditions prodhoun, marx, bakunin, luxemburg, bjoerneboe and chomsky belongs to.
This debate is not really a debate of whats best of socialisme and capitalisme, its a semantic debate of what this different ideologys really meen. We must finnish our semantic debate and find usefull definitions before the real discussion can start, otherwise its meeningless.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
[quote]THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
OK. So we live in a mixed economy. And we realize laissez-faire capitalism will not work (Rand was too generous of mankind) and that full blown socialism will naturally self-destruct.
So my question is: What is the best ratio of capitalistic to socialistic concepts in a economy?
(75:25 is my guess)
And further more, what is the nation like now? Are we half n half?
[/quote]
Rand was an author of fiction[/quote]
So was Marx.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Since I apparently don’t get it and some of our members on here claim that socalism is the way I figure I would start this thread so that they can clearly describe how their system would work.[/quote]
Socialism is this great idea of how to do things with other people’s money. that is,until it runs out. Maggie Thatcher.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Capitalism needs the government to protect private property. Socialism needs government to protect the new society against expropriated capitalists and their allies. Communism needs government not at all.
Anarchists seem to think we don’t need it at all, but I think most of them are kidding themselves in this regard.[/quote]
Private property can be protected without the government.
[quote]Dustin wrote:
Private property can be protected without the government.
[/quote]
Do you really believe this? Or is this macho talk?
You might be able to “defend” your property from some high-school kids trying to take your TV, but that out of shape, scared, single mom trying to raise her kids becomes a victim.
And how many people do you think you can defend your property from, for how long?
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
[quote]Dustin wrote:
Private property can be protected without the government.
[/quote]
Do you really believe this? Or is this macho talk?
You might be able to “defend” your property from some high-school kids trying to take your TV, but that out of shape, scared, single mom trying to raise her kids becomes a victim.
And how many people do you think you can defend your property from, for how long?[/quote]
Could not an individual and/or a hired security force protect property?
A police force, established to protect property and not arbitrary laws established by governments, could serve this function as well.
The crux of Socialist doctrine is the idea of collectivism and that someone other than you knows what’s best for you and yours. These ideas imply the notion of the State to carry out “collective will”.
Here, Mises was much more thorough with a definition of Socialism and its subsequent reasons for failing to produce that which it claims – mainly due the problem of economic calculation in a world devoid of free floating market prices.
Edify yourself!