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How do you feel about socialism?
heretoinform
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I don't understand all of the negativity surrounding socialism. Why do people hate it so? It was being called the "s-word" on CNN yesterday.
How can Americans hate socialism when, at the core, America is socialist?
How can Americans hate socialism when, at the core, America is socialist?
Socialism is the concrete foundation of America. Capitalism is the flimsy tin shack that sits upon it.
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and because McCarthyism is still alive, for some goddamned fucking reason
mixed market economy ftw
It's becoming more prominent with McCain, but it's been a bogeyman for a long time and never really went away. I guarantee that if you openly said you were a socialist in the 90's you'd be vilified by most Americans.
Because various fascist regimes through the last 80 years have wrapped themselves up in the rubric of socialism, and thus the imagery surrounding those fascist regimes now serves as an effective scapegoat by rich people who aren't above manipulating the public to protect their privileged status.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Really it seems a lot of people on the right have no idea what socialism (and even communism) is, and that includes both Canada and the US. I've heard the anti-socialist propaganda spewed by some of our more right leaning politicians here, which is even funnier then in the States, because Canada is much more a socialist country then the States could be.
I never finish anyth
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
You are correct.
I just meant that it's probably being discussed a lot more now because of McCain.
She's on my list of historical figures that I would punch in the mouth.
Her and Dickens.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
What about working for the joy of it? Working for the pure pleasure? Must there always be a monetary reward to spur discovery and growth?
Though, perhaps it's a chicken/egg thing. Is monetary growth required now because it was and money was given, or is it there because money was given and now we require it.
In order for any manner of real socialism to have a chance, humanity as a whole needs to grow up a bit. Mental and emotional evolution needs to happen. We are hardly the same species now that we were in the Dark Ages, and we will continue to grow and develop. I think little by little everything will just become more socialist.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Not always, but usually.
As much fun as being a sewer worker is.
Seriously, some jobs just have to be done, and there has to be COMPENSATION for having to do it.
Otherwise you have to pull a Utopia and use slaves.
Or automation. No one has to do it if no one needs to do it.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
You have to use Minds.
ELM get on this.
If you look at basically every attempt at a socialist/communist society ever, work ethic at best never continues past the first generation because there's nothing to spur it on. The first generation can survive because it sees itself as working against some sort of outside oppression, but anyone born into such a society usually slacks off or calls it quits because they don't feel any sense of progress or purpose. See: the Israeli Kibbutz.
The only exception I can think of is the Amish, but this is largely because when Amish youth are briefly allowed into the real world they burn out incredibly fast and return convinced that the real world is a perpetual destructive lifestyle of constant random drugs and sex.
True socialism is the total abolition of private property. It's a bad thing. Don't do that.
Lies. Socialism is an essentially contested term, like democracy. If you want it to be meaningful, you have to define it.
However, it is used as a short hand in Europe and Canada to mean "democratic socialism" or "social democracy" of the sort espoused by the NDP, Labour, and SPD. The key points being universal medicare (NHS, et. al), state ownership of utilities (BC Hydro, etc) and infrastructure, with the market place being limited to goods and services that are not natural monopolies.
Socialism is not dangerous or dirty, and anyone who tells you so is an alarmist or has no idea what they are talking about.
As, sorry, never mind then.
And nice avatar.
It's always good to reward hard work, but after a certain point the reward becomes incredibly redundant.
You only need so many yachts.
Not until I have all the yachts. Then we'll talk.
Anyway just throwing in there that even though I've changed now (and I find myself rolling my eyes at people levying the same arguments I used to maintain- "THAT WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED WITH THE FREE MARKET!"; "A FREE MARKET WOULD PROVIDE MORE EFFICIENTLY FOR THE POOR!", etc.) I totally 'sympathize' in some ways with a lot of the people who feel that way about socialistic policies (even if we're not talking the out and out absolution of private property). While I now disagree with the reasoning, it's really not fair to defame all of these people as racist, redneck Republicans who hate poor people.
Some are just young and stupid.
Which idea?
Which country?
The current financial crisis wouldn't be such a big deal if people didn't have to worry about being kicked out of their homes, losing their health care, and not being able to feed their families.
Socialism.
Yugoslavia.
But there was nothing else significantly wrong with the country which may have caused problems apart from the socialism?
Nothing springs to mind?
Stable and, relatively speaking, prosperous during the Tito years.
The relatively speaking is towards both what it became later and in comparison to other Eastern Bloc countries.
So for most of its existence as a socialist nation, no not really.
And besides, does the existence of other problems in any way negate the fact that socialism wasn't actually working? It only reinforces the fact that strong state socialism didn't do anything to correct the growing weaknesses of the state, but merely repressed them due to the power of a single man.
And once he died, it all imploded. Accounting for all the other problems doesn't speak for socialism, either.
I know this kind of thing devolves into semantics, but for a lot of people socialism is a democratic form of government having some of the wealth-sharing characteristics of communism.
Whether you use that definition or not, if you think socialism is identical to communism, why not say so?
Socialism does not equal Communism
It just isn't.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Socialism can be democratic and it can be dictatorial.
For instance, both, say, the USSR and Yugoslavia were nominally communist. However, neither really ever reached a stage of "actual" communism. They ended as socialist dictatorships.
They were nominally socialist surely? They said they were socialist.
What's the difference between the two to you?
This is usually the problem with these conversations with Americans. They often define socialism very differently to the entire rest of the world, making actual discourse on the subject difficult.
Even if you considered those countries to be socialist, you can't really compare it to the kind of socialism that they have in, say, Sweden. It'd be like saying that capitalism must be bad because Zimbabwe is a shithole. (Zimbabwe is capitalist, right?)