The truth about Socialism

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: jamespond

The military is not a socialist organization.

Really? Who's paying for it then?

a reply to: jamespond

Just because tax payers fund some doesn't mean it's socialism. That's not how this works.

Socialism has a specific meaning that you are ignoring to make arguments that make no sense.

In your last post to me you made an asinine case that someone who owns their own property is somehow seizing it. (Your "capitalism is also seizing production" nonsense).

Please educate yourself on these terms before going any further. You look silly.

a reply to: jamespond

The American government has more than enough money to come up with a good education system. It's in a bad state because it's neglected, and it's neglected because it doesn't reap reward for private industries.

This is common fallacy that the only thing wrong with our education system is the money fed into it.

Did you know that in DC they spend so much per pupil that if that money were given to parents in the form of a voucher, they'd be a few thousand dollars/year shy of being able to send their kids to Sidwell Friends where the tony political set send their kids?

My point in that is not to say that giving that money in vouchers would let everyone in DC send their children to Sidwell, but to tell you that there is no way that the quality of education in DC public is only a few thousand shy in quality when compared to the quality of education received at Sidwell.

You can also find districts and private schools all across the nation that spend less per pupil who deliver better outcomes than DC public schools too. So this idea that it's just about spending enough is false.

Additionally, there are plenty of statistics out there you can look that show that the US spends more than any other developed nation on our education system and we receive less in returns. In fact, our returns have been steadily declining despite the amounts we spend. This ought to lead one to conclude the issue is not the money. Students learning on dirt floors in schools in Africa learn better than some of our inner city students. Do you think they are hampered by lack of money?

a reply to: ketsuko

I agree with you the problem is not money.

Probably there are multiple problems, but a big one seem to be a top-heavy bureaucracy, with unnecessary "administration" that does little yet gobbles up fat salaries.

originally posted by: Never Despise
a reply to: ketsuko

I agree with you the problem is not money.

Probably there are multiple problems, but a big one seem to be a top-heavy bureaucracy, with unnecessary "administration" that does little yet gobbles up fat salaries.

There are plenty of issues, but the common rejoinder when having this discussion is the one I was countering - We just don't spend enough.

And the one you mention is indeed one of the problems, but it's also one that's rampant in socialism. After all, someone has to make sure everything is "fair", and that's where the human element of corruption comes in.

People who think socialism is the way often hate big corps because they think this is the fount of all human evil and corruption, and that's a fair assessment, but in the next breath, they want to turn everything over to big government bureaucracy as though this is not the same kind of large, human control structure subject to the exact kinds of human evil and corruption.

The truth about socialism is it will soon become the only viable system in the world. With automation and 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence, and other snowballing production technologies, we are very close to a world that can provide for everyone yet needs very little actual labor. The biggest question of the 21st century is going to be how to distribute this cornucopia of wealth. Socialism -- in one of its many forms -- will be the answer.

People hate socialism in America because they have been taught to have themselves. This is the stumbling block that needs to be overcome. To quote Kurt Vonnegut:

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

a reply to: Leftist

There's always an excuse to subjugate the people under the banner of socialism.

If you really think an ideological relic of the Industrial Revolution will carry humanity into the future, then I have beach front property in Nevada I'd like to sell you.

a reply to: projectvxn

Any inkling of what kind of new "ism" will carry us beyond left/right, just as left/right took us beyond feudalism? I think you are correct that socialism is a relic of the industrial revolution...I also think capitalism is a similar relic.

I fully expect a totally new dichotomy to emerge this century. Since I am not a genius I have no clue what it will be like, however.

a reply to: Never Despise

I believe commerce will become an underlying societal process, indispensable to us, but hardly ever dealt with directly. Like the city sewer system. Capitalism will be relegated to a constantly updated ledger system to help account for resources. An underlying service that underpins our lives but does not play a prominent role as it does today.

a reply to: projectvxn

So long as people have goods and/or services to exchange for what they want or need in any capacity, capitalism will never go away. They didn't even manage to get rid of it in the worst communist systems.

I hazard a guess that people hate it so deeply because it represents the reality that there are and always will be things that others can and will do that you personally cannot or will not that you will need or desire done and the people who can do those things value their time and service.

a reply to: projectvxn

That's pretty freaking brilliant IMHO.

In a sense, this is the story of the upward swing of civilization in general...with each stage, that which took conscious effort and was visable (i.e., the night soil man collecting human waste) becomes streamlined, automated, and hidden (the night soil man gives way to the sewer system, quietly humming away out of sight of all but a few specialists).

My only possible objection is that information theory shows increasing complexity eventually brings diminishing returns...if systems become too complex, they become "brittle". It remains to be seen if we can devise a system complex enough to whisk the next level "out of our sight" yet robust to avoid becoming brittle.

Maybe AI will think of how to do it for us.

a reply to: Never Despise

AI and blockchain technology (or a blockchain-like tech) will likely get us there.

The issue for many complex systems is scaling. Socialism fails because of scaling. Capitalism handles scaling very well until it can't find a place to fit people into the equation. People who need an income but have no access to work. When this happens we need to look at new ways of dealing with things and I think AI and current fintech are the way to go.

a reply to: ketsuko

I think capitalism will always exist but to different degrees.

I believe the future still has a place for the artisans and poets. I believe the future has a place for human creativity as the new market economy.

I just believe that since machines will likely do most of the mass production work in the future, that much of what we do to engage with the market today will be automated away as a mere subroutine.

a reply to: projectvxn

I also think that where people make their mistake with it is in thinking that it's a political system. It isn't. It's a way to describe what takes place between people when you have what I want and we work out between us how that exchange will happen.

The problem with the other systems is that they necessarily do involve the political as they are society-wide systems with no avenue of escape for the individual.

As to the future, I question how well it will work out in the end. It sounds nice, but I think at some point in the chain we'll be looking at jobs people will have to do that people won't want to do which will lead to questions of compensation all over again and the rise of the haves v the have-nots.

originally posted by: CIAGypsy
This post is directed to the Millenial and Gen Z generation.

Ask anyone outside the US and they'll say the same thing about American Boomers.

The US Holocaust museum even censored Pastor Niemoller's poem to hide the fact that socialists and communists were front and centre in the fight against fascism a decade before the rest of the world got involved.

Ironically, many Americans love the idea of socialism as long as it's not called socialism.

The idea that Biden is a socialist is hilarious to anyone who knows what socialism is or was.

If you want to see what Stalinism looks like, albeit divorced from any ideology, look at Trump's cult of personality.

The closest we have to Marxism now comes from right wing think tanks, many of which are staffed by former Marxists. Steve Bannon's ideas about the future role of the state have more in common with Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto than any of Bernie Sanders's. Again, the ideology driving his thinking is different but the principles are the same.

So, please, post as many shonky videos as you like and tell us about gaslighting with a straight face. Like the movie said, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us he did not exist.

originally posted by: projectvxn


The issue for many complex systems is scaling. Socialism fails because of scaling.

An interesting point but a flawed one.

Socialism and statism are not the same thing.

Many socialist and communist thinkers speculated on organisation feeding organically into the much larger whole.

Some contemporary socialist thinkers are rediscovering those ideas and applying to a post-industrial world.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

The European struggle has always been between communism and fascism, but in reality, you are looking two kinds of tyranny in the end with the government controlling it all.

Step back objectively and ask yourself if communism anywhere it has been tried has actually done people much better than Hitler's Holocaust. Perhaps you should go find some Russian Jews before you answer.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

The European struggle has always been between communism and fascism, but in reality, you are looking two kinds of tyranny in the end with the government controlling it all.

Step back objectively and ask yourself if communism anywhere it has been tried has actually done people much better than Hitler's Holocaust. Perhaps you should go find some Russian Jews before you answer.

Nah.

The struggle, like everywhere else, has been between the forces of progress and reaction.

That applies to the conflict between Trotskyism and Stalinism as well.

You are conflating socialism and communism, which makes little sense because they are very different ideas. NATO, for example, was driven largely by Ernest Bevin, a British socialist that Churchill brought into his War Cabinet; after the war, he took a harder line towards Stalin than Churchill himself.

Likewise George Orwell or any number of socialists fighting fascism in Spain while looking over to make sure the communists weren't about to (literally) shoot them in the back.

The question is not has communism been tried anywhere without hurting people. The question is has communism been tried anywhere? Nope. Maybe here and there between 1917 and 1922 in Russia. Maybe in local experiments in Spain in 1936 and 1937. But proper Marxism hasn't really been let off the leash anywhere.

That's not to say it would work. I think it's all a load of voodoo.

On the other hand, unbridled capitalism has been tried. How did Russia turn out after 1992?

Where has economic liberalisation ever happened without repression? How was life in Pinochet's Chile? Stroesser's Paraguay? Reagan's War on Drugs?

Fact is, most people lean left on some issues and right on others. It's not about ideology, its about quality of life and moral purpose.

Re the Russian Jews. I have spoken to Russian and Polish Jews. I've spoken to a couple that ended up in the International Brigades, members of the Communist Party, in a time when communism and Zionism were seen as compatible, people who's parents remembered the pogroms. I've spoken to socialist kibbutzim of the 60s who could remember when Eisenhower threw Israel under the bus on 1956. They told me the Eastern Bloc only really had a problem with Jews since 1967, apparently something to do with Israel choosing a French weapons system over an East German one and triggering a purge of Jews in Warsaw Pact governments. It was a while back they told me so forgive my vagueness.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

Again, the problem you have is equating capitalism with political system. It's not. It's the exchange of goods and services. It's when government and politics and power get involved that it morphs into a hybrid monster of some sort.

A gardener selling his extra vegetables at a roadside stand who expands his crop every year because he likes the extra income and wants more is engaged in capitalism.

Communism and socialism are controlling to the point where they often nationalize and attempt to remove even the farmer's simple ability to expand his fortunes that much.

Socialism has been largely discredited in the West. No one advocates for its defining principle: collective ownership of the means of production, exchange, and distribution. But the word “socialism” and its goal of social justice still remain. In consequence, though socialism has been generally abandoned as a goal to be striven for, it is by no means certain that we shall not still establish it unintentionally.