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Nothing is free, we all pay one way or another. Pay for fire, police, postal, roads, you name it, we do pay. And thank goodness we have what we do in America. And if that's socialism, bring it on.
I have to laugh at some of the people from Europe talking about how great their FREE medicine is, it's not free, they pay in other ways, like higher taxes and however else they work it in their low population countries.
I've lived in places where you had to pay for your own basic services.
You want running water? You had to pay the city to run pipes to your house. You want drinkable water? You pay to have a well sunk in your back yard. You want electricity? You pay the city to sink poles to your house. You want police and fire protection? You pay companies for that.
You want medical care? You go to the hospital. A doctor listens to your complaint and estimates the fee. If you have that much cash in your pocket, you get admitted for care.
I've lived in places where you had to pay for your own basic services.
You want running water? You had to pay the city to run pipes to your house. You want drinkable water? You pay to have a well sunk in your back yard. You want electricity? You pay the city to sink poles to your house. You want police and fire protection? You pay companies for that.
You want medical care? You go to the hospital. A doctor listens to your complaint and estimates the fee. If you have that much cash in your pocket, you get admitted for care.
That kind of place sucks.
Yeah, just on a pragmatic level I think that we as most people accept that level of "socialism" aka paying taxes for said services. I think it's part of our "social contract" that most level headed people accept.
I think where people diverge is just how much all of this stuff costs. I think that is a separate subject overall.
Yeah, just on a pragmatic level I think that we as most people accept that level of "socialism" aka paying taxes for said services. I think it's part of our "social contract" that most level headed people accept.
I think where people diverge is just how much all of this stuff costs. I think that is a separate subject overall.
In at least a couple of cases under discussion, it's a rather inane argument. Most people appear to be ignorant of the money already being spent.
For instance, today in the US, right now, the Department of Education provides more in direct tuition grant money annually than all the state universities in the country collect in tuition fees.
If the DoE merely said to state universities, "Send us your tuition bill, and we'll pay it," they would actually save money up front that is already being spent, and could also eliminate a great deal of government overhead handling individual grants.
Socialism is nothing more than communism through the ballot box. Think of the frog in the pot with the heat being turned up gradually. People keep voting for free this and free that and pretty soon everything is free, but there isn't a whole lot to go around. Communism skips the ballot box and achieves power through revolution. Either way, you have the elite few and the masses. And the masses don't get a whole lot. Think North Korea and Cuba.
You're conflating economic systems with political systems. It has nothing to do with voting. In communism, the workers own the means of production. Benefits from productivity get spread around equitably, and according to need. In socialism, the workers don't own the means of production; the state does, on behalf of workers. The workers get paid for their labor, however minimally. A portion of the benefits from their productivity gets spread around, as in: health care, schooling including higher education, housing, and so on. These are the economic theories. The Soviet Union had regular elections, as did capitalist countries.
The most successful society to implement true communism was the Shaker communities in the US, in the 1800's. "Hands to work, hearts to God" was their motto. Everyone worked willingly on behalf of the whole society. No one got paid for their labor, but everyone had their needs met. The communities came to be so successful, their success was one factor in their undoing. They produced so much wealth for the common good, that luxuries became the norm to some extent: fine carpets and other furnishings, for example. People got accustomed to luxury, and started to slack off, according to some histories. Conflict on how to manage the wealth crept in.
This is one model Marx and the Soviet Union had hoped to emulate: stressing that everyone's labor would go toward creating a sort of heaven on Earth, for everyone's benefit. They even tried to turn it into a religion, with images of baby Lenin in lieu of the Christ child, and a holy trinity of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Why it didn't work out is debatable, and complex. It was weighed down by a huge, inefficient bureaucracy, for one thing. And central planning, central price-setting by authorities completely disconnected with needs and conditions in the far-flung territories resulted in a lot of waste, and needs not being met. The bureaucracy and political ideology also hindered some of the creative people and high achievers from being recognized, rewarded, and being given free reign to contribute to society's improvement. It tended to breed mediocrity.
But socialism doesn't need to include dysfunction, manipulated elections, or huge, stifling bureaucracies any more than capitalism does. Those aren't what define socialism, communism or capitalism.
Maybe they are what define humans in large groups, though....?
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 05-13-2019 at 12:37 PM..
You're conflating economic systems with political systems. It has nothing to do with voting. In communism, the workers own the means of production. Benefits from productivity get spread around equitably, and according to need. In socialism, the workers don't own the means of production; the state does, on behalf of workers. The workers get paid for their labor, however minimally. A portion of the benefits from their productivity gets spread around, as in: health care, schooling including higher education, housing, and so on. These are the economic theories. The Soviet Union had regular elections, as did capitalist countries.
The most successful society to implement true communism was the Shaker communities in the US, in the 1800's. "Hands to work, hearts to God" was their motto. Everyone worked willingly on behalf of the whole society. No one got paid for their labor, but everyone had their needs met. The communities came to be so successful, their success was one factor in their undoing. They produced so much wealth for the common good, that luxuries became the norm to some extent: fine carpets and other furnishings, for example. People got accustomed to luxury, and started to slack off, according to some histories. Conflict on how to manage the wealth crept in.
This is one model Marx and the Soviet Union had hoped to emulate: stressing that everyone's labor would go toward creating a sort of heaven on Earth, for everyone's benefit. They even tried to turn it into a religion, with images of baby Lenin in lieu of the Christ child, and a holy trinity of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Why it didn't work out is debatable, and complex. It was weighed down by a huge, inefficient bureaucracy, for one thing. And central planning, central price-setting by authorities completely disconnected with needs and conditions in the far-flung territories resulted in a lot of waste, and needs not being met. The bureaucracy and political ideology also hindered some of the creative people and high achievers from being recognized, rewarded, and being given free reign to contribute to society's improvement. It tended to breed mediocrity.
But socialism doesn't need to include dysfunction, manipulated elections, or huge bureaucracies any more than capitalism does. Those aren't what define socialism, communism or capitalism.
Maybe they are what define humans in large groups, though....?
I think that communism and socialism don't work very well, in it's pure form, as a goverment.
I think communism and socialism work just fine in other formats. For example, churches run as socialist entities. Individual families run as socialist or communist organizations mostly, and they thrive that way.
I think that communism and socialism don't work very well, in it's pure form, as a goverment.
I think communism and socialism work just fine in other formats. For example, churches run as socialist entities. Individual families run as socialist or communist organizations mostly, and they thrive that way.
Let's remember that communism and socialism are not forms of government, they are forms of economies. They've both so far only been implemented (and may only be implementable) under totalitarian or extreme authoritarian governments.
As I said, that may be the only way they can be implemented. I mentioned earlier that militaries are economically socialist--and militaries also have extreme authoritarian governments.
I think that communism and socialism don't work very well, in it's pure form, as a goverment.
I think communism and socialism work just fine in other formats. For example, churches run as socialist entities. Individual families run as socialist or communist organizations mostly, and they thrive that way.
Yeah, I've heard the macro/micro arguments centered around this subject and see some merit in.
I'm not sure from an American point of view if we'd ever be a pure socialist nation. I mean the core fundamental value structure of how this nation was founded sorta points the ship into the individiaul and his own merits and hard work territory. Success is preparation
I'm a free speech free will type of guy and I find the nature of communism to be off putting to me. I think it dumbs people down to some degree. I think people that are scrappy and hard workers should be able to reap the rewards of life. That said I find that humans are also too greedy and can't be trusted to be fair and equitiable and we need a certain level of governmental regulation to not allow people to be used. Basic stuff here, no govement overreach, I'm talking just low level basic stuff here.
I said something similar over in POC and you'd think I was stomping on kittens the way some of the libertarian/conservative crowd reacted.
Socialism as others have noted is a term that is loaded, particularly in this present climate. I think if we are loose with the absolute definition of the term we already have some form of socialism in place. Schools and infrastructure come to mind, specially schools. We've decided as a society that the for the greater good of society that we need to pay to educate our kids.
I think really our brand of "socialism" is really more just social safety nets really as capitalism has a larger role.
I guess using this information we could say that communism is probably more of what is considered "bad" I think the ideas and rational behind those two terms would seem sensible at first glance.
I still think though that people are fundamentally more about their own drives, desires, and wants. Not to get too much into Ayn Rand territory.
It would seem like greed in some form or another is still driving the human psyche, I noted in some form. Greed at it's very best could be a motivator and at it's worst... well, just look around the world and our history. So much pain is caused through the extreme forms of greed.
We (attempt) to tamp down what some view as our natural inclination toward violence with laws against murder and assault...we have similar laws against stealing and fraud that are potentially working against greed and some argue we should go much further by redistributing wealth to varying degrees.
My point is that we currently do a lot of things as a society that shape people to get them beyond their baser instincts - nothing unique or anti-human about using socialist ideas to do that.
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