Poll: Whats so bad about Socialism

[Rooster Cogburn]

In fairness, Anarchists have a habit of shooting everyone.

Hollywood myth. You seem to have a problem with me, Thunder. What gives?

Not really. I have a problem with anarcho-liberatarians and libertarians in general, mainly because their theories make no economic sense, and I'm studying to be an economist. Same goes for communists and other extreme political and moral viewpoints.

My comment here, though, was a joke, but if it came off wrong, then I'm sorry you felt offended or under threat.

(Oh, and I may not have said this, but props on the avatar)

(Oh, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Tzar Alexander the First, President William McKinley and a fair number of other people would care to disagree .)

Thanks, Thunder. Perhaps I am being too generous to the traditional anarchist movement. I know in the case of McKinley, the assassin was a would-be follower of Emma Goldman. Although Goldman denied any relationship with him and it seems he was misguided on that point, Goldman always had a violent undertone which I find disturbing- and naturally led to bloodshed.

This kind of stuff usually comes from the Anarcho-communist camp. The Individualist/Market (I consider the latter the logical and modern conclusion of the former) and Collectivist strains of anarchy are very different. Individualist Anarchists like Benjamin Tucker have always explicitly condemned that kind of behavior and considered the Goldman types as actual traitors to anarchism. None-the-less, it is part of the baggage of the classical Anarchist movement.

EDIT: BTW, my facts on the McKinley incident come from the book Murdering McKinley which I read a year ago.

 

[Dreamhawk]

Oh hi guyz, can I has socialism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Growing up in a home that promotes socialism will probably make you think of capitalism as damn selfish, while I'm pretty sure having capitalism vowen into your upbring will result in negative views of socialism - be it the ever looming shadow of the Russian WW2 Communism, or just the "The goverment is taking our hard-earned money!" outset.

The goverment will always take our hard-earned money, period. Extreme-anything will undoubtedly push shit over its court untill it bounces and finally hits the fan.

 

[Captain Pancake]

Socialism's actually a sound political ideal. It supports all the people within the nation, accepting that they will usually return the favor in turn. It does have some issues, but then nothing is perfect.

 

[cannot_aim]

Socialism is a great concept and in small amounts it can work very well but if the entire government is based on socialism it almost never works.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Spoiler

Socialism would be great if it could work but people would take advantage of it so ultimately it is an idiolistic dream that can never happen although would be nice.

So is full employment when taken in relation to a capitalist economy. In other words, there will always be unemployed people. So what do you do with them? Ignore them?

snip

Your argument is well stated, but you ignore some of the basics. If you have rights, and everyone else has rights, you cannot exercise your rights to infringe upon theirs. You can't pursue happiness by stealing your neighbor's piano and violating his right to property. You can't use your liberty to imprison someone, denying them liberty.

And by the same logic, you cannot demand that the government take money from other people and spend it on your healthcare, since you are violating their right to property.

"QED"? Really? You can stretch a definition all you want, but it'll always snap right back.

Ah, but rights are a logical fallacy anyway. You have precisely those rights which you can personally defend. And believe me, those are few and far between.

People have no inherent rights, merely the illusion of having them. Consider how easily any 'right' is taken from you. - How can it be a 'right', if anyone can just choose to deny you that right if they happen to feel like it?

Who protects these 'rights' of yours? The government. Who is the biggest risk for denying these rights? Again. The government.

It's really obvious to anyone that looks closely at reality that there's no such thing as 'rights', but merely a set of conventions of how we would prefer to be treated.

In a truly fair system, most western countries, America included, would be much, much, poorer than they are today. And even leaving that aside, what about the 'rights' of non-human life?

I'm not exactly giving all that much thought to the 'rights' of all the things I eat, now am I?

In the end, 'forcing' everybody to pay for healthcare (or even social security, which is even more prone to being vilified.) does more good to society at large than the harm done in denying people the right to object.

You equate it with theft, apparently. But personally, I consider the alternative worse.
And unfortunately, giving people free choice in the matter usually results in a lack of resources for any given problem like this.

I support charity in the UK, and I was told only 4% of people here do... (and probably a rather minimal fraction of their income, at that.)
If we had to support things like welfare, the health service, public utilities, etc. From charity, I very much doubt there'd be much of anything available.

Really not sure the point you are trying to make in relation to mine and yes true socialism is a dream because people will always abuse the system and they even do in other systems to.

For unemployed people atleast in my country we have the unemployment benefit or "dole" so that is them sorted besides the fact that system is abused.

Yeah it's just sad that people abuse the dole, I've seen it first hand, I've also been on the dole (well my father has when the firm he was working with went under) so Iv'e seen what it can help benefit that's why I support it, I know there's parents out there who can't get a job and have mouths to feed, I've also seen that there are people out there perfectly capable of working who just refuse because they'd rather spend mine and every body else's money on lazing about getting drugged up and drinking with no ambitions.

But has I've said in other posts the benefit of helping the Parents out with kids to feed greatly overshadows the negatives of the Dole, The parasites.

Yes but something simple like only people who can't physically get work or in the case you said would greatly decrease the amount of leeches on the dole but that is up to government to do really.

 

[Lonan]

Both facism and the totalitarian dictatorship that Russia claimed to communism are actually extreme forms of socialism. That't the problem with socialism. "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely" -John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton. If you give too much power to the government, it corrupts. Want an example? Russia. The theory of Marxist communism stated that one man would rise up and teach the ways of communism once the revolution took place. Lenin rushed it, but the revolution still took place and one man took the role of teaching the people. His name was Joseph Stalin...

PS. In the Canadian health system, it takes 6 months to get an MRI. Lots of cancers that could be treated in the early stages, ones that could be diagnosed with and MRI and biopsy, will kill someone in 6 months.

I think you are blatantly prejudiced against against government control. That's why so many conservatives in the U.S. are attacking Canada and Europe right now. They are emotionally against public health-care and government programs. You probably want the figures on Canadian health-care to be as bad a s possible to back up your argument. Well sorry buddy, but Canada is going to kick some serious ass this century and eventually you will make a fool out of yourself when you try to make fun of Canadian and UK and E.U. healthcare.

Also, while this is a bit presumtuous, I'm going to assume that you just asked me to try to find negative things about Universal Health Care to make you're emotions happy. Well, I decline. As much as I respect your passion for what you believe in, I respectfully ask you to find somethiing more worthy of your passion. Perhaps global warming, which will put the world's most impoverished into even more poverty. I highly doubt that what your president (do you recognise him as you're president, if you don't mind?) is really going to create some sort of evil world where elderly are killed off to increase the efficiency of the system. I understand that Canada is just another country to you, and you are using it as an example of what you don't want, but I hope you understand when I get offended by you making lies about it. And also, despite what I think you seem to think, Canada is NOT an example of what should not be done. Work needs to be done on the system, but that hardly means it's an example of what shouldn't be done. I don't think there's anything in this world that couldn't do with some improvement, and certainly not something as bit as the health care system when looked at as a whole.

I will not offer my opinions on what you should do in the U.S., but I will tell you what I heard my mom saying. She roughly said "Why don't they look at places where it does work, like in Europe?" the answer, to me, is because they want to victimise the whole idea of free health care. Canada has only had free health care for a few decades, while in Europe they have had it for much longer. For something only a few decades old, it works pretty well (In Canada).

Lonan, I am sorry. I did mean to say surgery times instead of MRI times and meant no offense to you or Canada at all. I am prejudiced against government control because the government is run by people, and people are human, so to speak. But really, I was way out of line and I apologize.

No harm done. I respect that in the U.S., people have their own ways of doing things, and movies like Dr. Q or whatever are probably quite slanted.

 

[clicketycrack]

Pure socialism is a bad thing, but so is pure capitalism.
A perfect country would have a mix of the two.

Pretty much this. Its like the balance between unions and corperations. If one side becomes too overpowered, then both sides are fucked.

 

[Gigaguy64]

Spoiler: I'm sorry but i have to include the rant

Here we go again. Whats on the Escapist flame thread docket this week?

Socialism!!!

Thats right Pat. Last week was atheism and theology. A whole week without a socialism thread just begs for a reboot. The problem is, one thread leads to another, and to another, and before you can say hey, hey, hey, you've got economic threads up the ass!

OT: Socialism in its purity requires altruism. Which is a pipe dream. Its like asking a dog to live its life bipedal. It works for a few seconds, but then bam back to four legs. Its a bad idea because the four legged dogs take advantage of the bipedal dogs whenever and where ever possible. You need a little bit of capitalism to keep people aspiring. People are just worried Obama is going to make us too socialist.

exactly.
example, i wold rather have a doctor that has gone to school for years and studied to be the best because of a mix of its his dream...and he wants to be rich, than a guy who went to medical school and barely passed because he may want to help people but, there is no reason to be the best cuz they all make the same amount of money.

 

[Agema]

exactly.
example, i wold rather have a doctor that has gone to school for years and studied to be the best because of a mix of its his dream...and he wants to be rich, than a guy who went to medical school and barely passed because he may want to help people but, there is no reason to be the best cuz they all make the same amount of money.

No socialist system has ever paid everyone the same amount of money - for instance in Cuba medical doctors are paid 50% more than the average wage. (Note that all socialist countries have a national average wage, which by definition means there are different wages. If everyone was paid the same, it would just be the national wage.) Financial incentive still exists in socialism, it's just less extreme than in capitalism. In the UK, doctor salaries immediately post-qualification start higher than the national average, and with experience will become 2-5 times - or even more - higher than the national average.

Yet, Cuba both trains and has more doctors per head of population than the UK or USA. So clearly, Cuba manages to motivate people to become doctors in a way the UK/USA fails at, despite the UK/USA offering a much greater financial incentive. (According to several WHO statistics Cuba provides better healthcare on average than the USA as well.)

I would suggest that the common Western view that humans are greedy and money is the final word is not inherently true. In fact, we are culturally driven to believe that by our own capitalist system and culture, which bases everything around money.

You can motivate people by other means, both positive and negative: respect; status; duty; honour; fear; whatever. Societies since the dawn of time and still today have utilised them and made them central pillars of a functioning society. Just because capitalism doesn't use them doesn't mean they don't work.

 

[Gigaguy64]

exactly.
example, i wold rather have a doctor that has gone to school for years and studied to be the best because of a mix of its his dream...and he wants to be rich, than a guy who went to medical school and barely passed because he may want to help people but, there is no reason to be the best cuz they all make the same amount of money.

No socialist system has ever paid everyone the same amount of money - for instance in Cuba medical doctors are paid 50% more than the average wage. (Note that all socialist countries have a national average wage, which by definition means there are different wages. If everyone was paid the same, it would just be the national wage.) Financial incentive still exists in socialism, it's just less extreme than in capitalism. In the UK, doctor salaries immediately post-qualification start higher than the national average, and with experience will become 2-5 times - or even more - higher than the national average.

Yet, Cuba both trains and has more doctors per head of population than the UK or USA. So clearly, Cuba manages to motivate people to become doctors in a way the UK/USA fails at, despite the UK/USA offering a much greater financial incentive. (According to several WHO statistics Cuba provides better healthcare on average than the USA as well.)

I would suggest that the common Western view that humans are greedy and money is the final word is not inherently true. In fact, we are culturally driven to believe that by our own capitalist system and culture, which bases everything around money.

You can motivate people by other means, both positive and negative: respect; status; duty; honour; fear; whatever. Societies since the dawn of time and still today have utilised them and made them central pillars of a functioning society. Just because capitalism doesn't use them doesn't mean they don't work.

your right, ill try to research better next time i post on a topic like this.
though it was mostly my opinion, and a persons opinion tends to be baiased.
but still, biased views need to be cut back when talking politics, so thanks again.

 

[LCP]

it never works, and most of the times ruins countries. People cannot have nice things as their neighbor will want one.

It didnt ruin Norway.
Norways been socialist for a while and there country is fine.
The government even made homework illegal

Norway? idk there are always exceptions to the rules.