I have come to embrace Socialism!

Assuming that this "marketing campaign" is targeted at the US, Since there are a number of countries who embrace some form of socialism, one wonders why not just go to those (or stay) there? The obvious answer, I think, is that more....what? saps? are needed to be drawn into the plan.

This Maslow is a curious character. He was born to "uneducated" parents in the Soviet Union. The Wikipedia article concludes his legacy as "In 2006, conservative social critic Christina Hoff Sommers and practicing psychiatrist Sally Satel asserted that due to lack of empirical support for his ideas, Maslow's ideas have fallen out of fashion and are "no longer taken seriously in the world of academic psychology."[7] But Maslow's has enjoyed a revival of interest and influence among leaders of the positive psychology movement such as Dan Thompson and Martin Seligman.[8]"

I am banging my head aganist the desk because nothing you're saying makes any sense.

After typing a long rebuttal to each of your miscommunicated points, I decided to delete it all and condense my message into one question.

Why do you think the only place in the world where everyone is employed, is a prison or plantation?

That's socialism baby.

Originally posted by Wally Hope

Originally posted by jaktenstid
reply to post by Wally Hope

 

Impossible, because socialism requires a state to enforce its principles. If it does not, then the first capitalist who comes along will succeed. And he will in the black market which will easily subvert the socialist paradigm. Try again

No it does not, please read a little about Anarchism, which is basically socialism without the state.

'Anarchism is "stateless socialism".' Michael Bakunin

The only way a capitalist can succeed is by exploiting labour, if people are in a socialist economy how is the capitalist going to exploit labour?

Yes mate try again...

Also lol @ "coerced to work". Last i heard you apply for jobs in a free country. Geezus christ.

edit on 11-10-2010 by jaktenstid because: Adding another point

You are coerced to work for a private owner due to the fact that is the only way to gain access to needed supplies other than breaking the law. There is no choice. The closest you can come to socialism is to open a business of your own, but then if your hire people at an hourly wage then you are just perpetuating the problem you escaped from. Run your business as a coop, with all workers having an equal part in the company, then you are creating a solution to the labour problem.

When you 'apply' for a job you are in competition with other workers for the limited amount of jobs available at any given time, including now countries such as China and India. It has nothing to do with the people. It's because the means of production are privately owned (capitalism) and they control the economy and the jobs and the resources you need (the reason you get a job in the first place) and they'll drop you like a hot stone if they can make more money somewhere else. Capitalism has no morality, it doesn't care about you. This is not freedom.

edit on 11-10-2010 by Wally Hope because: typo

reply to post by gncnew


well using ur school of thought it seems i would be on the recieving end as i would say i would fall under the %90 with the "rich" being the 10% with %90 of the wealth on the planet. i would be getting a lot of nice things as i am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. i never made the arguement a poor vs rich arguement. my arguement was for a change in the thought process of humanity. problem is ur taking what i said and pushing it to the furthest extreme possible.

Originally posted by jaktenstid
Why do you think the only place in the world where everyone is employed, is a prison or plantation?

That's socialism baby.

I don't know what you're talking about.

That is not socialism. I have explained what socialism is, if you refuse to educate yourself then it's not my problem.

It's almost impossible to debate with media educated 'experts'.

Originally posted by gncnew
Socialism requires a communist government to operate - because without enforcement of the state we're relying on everyone just being a really "good" person.

This just proves you have no idea about what you're talking about. Communism and socialism are two separate systems, they only connect because of Marx and his idea of using a state version of socialism as a stepping stone to communism. Because socialism allows markets Marx wanted to use it to make money in order to finance a communist system (no markets, everything freely shared).

Neither communism nor socialism are governments, they are economic system and neither require government.

This is why Anarchism has been traditionally socialist, see my post on this in this thread.

People are generally good...

Human infants as young as 14 to 18 months of age help others attain their goals, for example, by helping them to fetch out-of-reach objects or opening cabinets for them. They do this irrespective of any reward from adults (indeed external rewards undermine the tendency), and very likely with no concern for such things as reciprocation and reputation, which serve to maintain altruism in older children and adults. Humans’ nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees, also help others instrumentally without concrete rewards. These results suggest that human infants are naturally altruistic, and as ontogeny proceeds and they must deal more independently with a wider range of social contexts, socialization and feedback from social interactions with others become important mediators of these initial altruistic tendencies.

www.wjh.harvard.edu...&Tomasello_2009b.pdf

Anti-social behavior is mostly a result of the system.

As a population grows and resources don't - something's got to give.

Why would resources stop growing? The point of socialism is to take the means of production out of private hands in order to allow more production of resources, not less. It's capitalism that keeps resources artificially scarce in order to maintain market prices and high profits for the few, and high prices for the many.
Socialism was a system designed to end the capitalist hold on our resources.

Technological capacity to produce enough to satisfy everyone's needs already exists globally and has done so for many decades. Yet needs continue to remain unmet on a massive scale. Why? Quite simply because scarcity is a functional requirement of capitalism itself.

Production today is not primarily geared to satisfy human needs but "effective demand"--when "consumers" are able to buy goods at a price which will enable enterprises producing them to realise a profit. If what people can afford falls short of what they need, increasing output to satisfy the latter would cause prices to fall--to the detriment of profit. So the need for profit conflicts with the satisfaction of human needs...

Be sure to read the rest...

www.worldsocialism.org...

“The giant corporations which control the economic, and to a large degree the political, destiny of the country constitute the very opposite of the democratic process; they represent power without control by those submitted to it.”

www.allaboutworldview.org...

The only true attempt at a socialist revolution was in Spain, and they increased productivity among other things...

The 'Spanish Revolution of 1936' began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in areas with heavy Communist influence. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivized and run as libertarian communes. It has been estimated by Sam Dolgoff, author of ''The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution'', that over 10 million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers. George Orwell describes a scene in Aragon during this time period in his book ''Homage to Catalonia''...

...Despite the critics clamoring for "maximum efficiency" rather than revolutionary methods, anarchic communes often produced more than before the collectivization. In Aragonia, for instance, the productivity increased by 20%.[1] The newly liberated zones worked on entirely libertarian principles; decisions were made through councils of ordinary citizens without any sort of bureaucracy (it should be noted that the CNT-FAI leadership was at this time not nearly as radical as the rank and file members responsible for these sweeping changes)....

That was a true socialist revolution, would have worked if the PTB had not started WWII.

reply to post by Wally Hope


Quite arrogant for someone who claims to understand economics and government, but offers not a single shred of intelligent discussion. Linking to snippets from websites shows that you need someone else to do the heavy lifting because you are not able to do it on your own.

An economic system only functions when there is a contract. The contract is valid when there is an exchange of value between parties called consideration, and obviously both parties believe they benefit as a result. This holds true for the exchange of goods or services (labor), and thus applies in a situation like we discussed where an employee is competing for employment, and an employer is competing for an employee. Understand that there are limited resources and limited or unlimited demand. Sharing with others is fine and dandy until the noble socialist is hit with the reality of scarcity. It is at that point that sharing becomes bartering, and capitalism becomes vital to survival. Just look at the failed mayflower compact at resulted in the deaths of so many pioneers. Because bartering inevitably results, a contract is required to allow both parties to reach a consensus on the expectations of performance, Exploitation by either side is a possibility, which is why an impartial third party is required to arbitrate disputes, and if necessary, enforce the contract or punish those who breach terms. There will always be someone willing to exploit a transaction for personal gain. How is this prevented?

By creating a third party that has no vested in the transaction, perhaps? Suddenly a government is established because it is necessary. This is inescapable, and no matter how you try to think it away, all paths lead back to this truth. Separating economics from government is impossible, and once you see that, you Will eventually come to realize that capitalism is the only economic system that works with the aid of an honest government, that is, one that is defensive of individual rights and is founded on negative, natural laws.

reply to post by jaktenstid


No, it's you who doesn't understand that socialism is NOT sharing, that is communism. I am not a communist. I am not saying anything about sharing, you are making assumptions. That is why it's good to actually read the posts you are replying to, and the ones previous, in an ongoing discussion.

Socialism simply moves the ownership of the means of production to the workers. So instead of private entities taking the majority of what is made in personal profit, it would be more fairly distributed to the workers. The economy will change because our priorities will change. Capitalists motivation is for money, the peoples motivation is their community, or at least it used to be and could be again like it was before television. Capitalists keep resources artificially scarce because it increases their profit and secures their future profits, they have no concern with the needs of anyones community.

I fully understand what I'm talking about and add links because posters seem to demand them. If you actually look at what I'm saying, and the links I provide, there is no doubt of my facts.

Guys!! Take it easy on one another!
What is Socialism?
Let your brain melt!

Originally posted by gncnew

Originally posted by Magnum007
reply to post by infolurker

 

Ok... So can you explain why the US FAILED and most of "socialist" Europe and Canada recovered from the "recession"?

Just asking...

Have you read the news? The EURO is seriously still close to collapse - and the U.S. hasn't quite failed there bud...

Ask Germany how much money they've dumped into Greece and tell me Socialism is great... DENY IGNORANCE.

If it wasn't for China the US would be in a depression right now. We owe them trillions of dollars. If capitalism works so great then why do we have to get them to pay our debts?

When I first learned about our system of government in the USA, when I was a child, I pondered to the adults around me, “what would stop everyone from voting themselves each an income from the government, along with everything else they could ever want or need?” (I was about 8 years old at the time.)

The adults replied, “1. The country would go bankrupt in no time and 2. People are moral and ethical and everyone knows they need to do their part. Only a silly child would consider such a preposterous idea. You need to grow up and work hard to earn what you have. Once you have done that you have earned the right to vote.” True story.

I took that at face value as it made good logical sense and continued to follow the path that leads to the American Dream.

In college I was once again faced with this question when I thought it would be a great idea to join a hippie commune for a while one summer. Peace, Love, and Happiness as everyone chipped in their part to make a community of 2000 people a utopian society. “Gosh, why can’t the rest of the world be this awesome?!”, I remember thinking.

Soon I started noticing that some people just got high all day and did nothing. Others took their leadership roles and continually expanded them until they were dictating every facet of life around camp. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this system only can work if EVERY SINGLE PERSON pitches in a fair share and those who were community organizers didn’t get power hungry. Well it was all fun and hip for a while, but totally impractical long term. (My parents, 60’s hippies, tried this too about 20 years before me…and came to the same conclusion.)

After that experience I spent some time studying more history and politics. I diligently finished college earning a masters degree in engineering and getting a job and am proud to say living the American Dream, with one exception… I have to watch our society devolve around me driven by people who have a utopian view of socialism. Maybe you should all go form a little commune together and demonstrate to the rest of us “evil” and “selfish” capitalists and freedom lovers how great it works and we can join you when it becomes a wild success. Duh!

Socialism is a political/social viewpoint that I think everyone should have gotten out of their system while very young and naive or at the latest while getting stoned in college. Wake up folks! This is the REAL world, not Woodstock, not Jonestown, not an Amish community in which everyone is indoctrinated at birth to build their neighbors houses and if they don’t participate will promptly get ejected or socially stigmatized.

I have heard this quote before, “If you’re 20 and not a liberal you have no heart, if you’re 40 and still a liberal, you have no brain.”

Ok. So everyone is going to have to work in your utopian social order. 40 million people are on food stamps right now. Are you saying that because an American like you or I built a company from a small business and is now enjoying the fruits of his labor, that it keeps YOU from working and contributing to society?

Do you know what happens to people who don’t contribute in some societies, they don’t eat. From a young age they learn, no work = no food. That’ll get your butt out of bed in the morning when the tribe doesn’t let you eat with them! So how is that different than today where people like me believe that if you don’t contribute (when you are physically able), then you better get you butt up and work! Meanwhile, the rest of us who do put in the effort will get to keep more of our money and contribute it to society in the way of charity…. you know, like JESUS!

By the way, I still take my annual retreat to the hippie communes for about a week each year. I *SNIP*, run around naked, play music, do community projects, share food, plant trees, do my community chores, etc. I am a neo-pagan. The difference now is, I don’t delude myself into believing that the real world can work this way for very long.

The old fat chicks never sign up for any work chores, neither do the guys who are young and fit but think they are above doing work. They *SNIP* all day…why not some other good natured person will fix them dinner. It won’t work long term.

Government taking the money and redistributing it by force won’t work either or you have to give up liberty, which I find an abhorrent idea. If everyone just did their best to work and make the best lives for themselves and their family that they possibly can, their would be plenty resources to take care of those who truly can not take care of themselves in the most generous country on the planet Earth.

Please wake up. I beg you. Every time I read a thread like this it finally answers the question of why throughout history people willingly gave up their freedom for the promise of utopia which is and always will be a HUGE LIE!

It has failed before and it will fail again. Open a damn history book PLEASE! Experience it for yourself PLEASE! Start your own society if you don’t believe me. You have 40 million others out of work to join you, see how it goes, and let me know. Good luck with that!

reply to post by JonInMichigan

Thank you JonInMichigan. That was perhaps the best post in this entire thread. I wish I could give more than one star.

Originally posted by JonInMichigan

Please wake up. I beg you. Every time I read a thread like this it finally answers the question of why throughout history people willingly gave up their freedom for the promise of utopia which is and always will be a HUGE LIE!

edit on 13-10-2010 by JonInMichigan because: typo

That was your best line Jon.

Enjoy Facism, have fun.

And misuse other doctrines and label everything else as utter evil while humanity suffers the realities of that yoke of slavery that had been imposed on them. Some slaves do love their masters, espacially the bootlicking few that refuses to wake up nor watch others sufferings and instead chide them for being lazy or incompetent

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


Thanks, but I'm expecting someone to say I described communism not socialism. Someone will say it eventually. Many of us know that it only takes a matter of time for the good intentions of socialism to degrade into less desirable forms of government. People sadly always wake up way to late in the game to change their minds about things. On the bright side, some number of years later, a revolution sets things right again.

Originally posted by JonInMichigan
Thanks, but I'm expecting someone to say I described communism not socialism. Someone will say it eventually. Many of us know that it only takes a matter of time for the good intentions of socialism to degrade into less desirable forms of government. People sadly always wake up way to late in the game to change their minds about things. On the bright side, some number of years later, a revolution sets things right again.

Oh, you're probably right. People don't like to see the unintended consequences of their own utopian ideas (if they did, they'd almost certainly turn pro-market). Of course, to be fair, probably at least half of the people who post on these boards are teenagers, with no real experience and whose entire conception of the way the world works comes from public school. Where, I should add, real economics is not taught (for obvious reasons: its conclusions do not make TPTB who run the schools look good at all).

It reminds me of one of my favorite Rothbard quotes: "It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."

Originally posted by SeekerofTruth101

Originally posted by JonInMichigan

Please wake up. I beg you. Every time I read a thread like this it finally answers the question of why throughout history people willingly gave up their freedom for the promise of utopia which is and always will be a HUGE LIE!

edit on 13-10-2010 by JonInMichigan because: typo

That was your best line Jon.

Enjoy Facism, have fun.

And misuse other doctrines and label everything else as utter evil while humanity suffers the realities of that yoke of slavery that had been imposed on them. Some slaves do love their masters, espacially the bootlicking few that refuses to wake up nor watch others sufferings and instead chide them for being lazy or incompetent

The "yoke of slavery"...you mean like over taxation?

You mean like the inability to make your own choices in life because the government is going to tell you what to do from cradle to grave?

No one is making you go work for those “evil” corporations. On the contrary, people are forcing you at the point of a gun of an IRS agent to give up your money to the government.

Every dollar you make is equivalent to some time in your life you spent working for it. The government is, in a sense, stealing a portion of your life to pay for someone else so they can be relieved of the “yoke of slavery”. So who is the slave?

WHO!?

There was a time where you could say, “screw this, I’ll take care of myself and be free from taxation”. That would admittedly be a hard life, to somehow get your own food, etc. But in theory, you owed no taxes because you had no income. Enter Obamacare. Now you are forced, even if you don’t make a dime, to buy healthcare. Is that the slavery you’re talking about? Being FORCED to work?

The guy who has a ranch and makes just as much as he needs to take care of his family and formally owed a small tax to the government to manage national defense and the highway system is now forced into slavery to the government to make money so they can give it to whom? An insurance corporation. This government is arguably more fascist than before now that we have introduced the behemoth monstrosity and you guys don’t even see it. Vote them out. Vote them all out and restore some sanity to this country.

Originally posted by JonInMichigan
There was a time where you could say, “screw this, I’ll take care of myself and be free from taxation”. That would admittedly be a hard life, to somehow get your own food, etc.

And when was that? A long time before 'Obamacare' lol.

The majority of people are forced to work because it's the only way to secure resources needed for life. Who the hell chooses to work in a kitchen cleaning pans? Or the thousands of other menial jobs?

We call it 'coercion' because it's not physical force, but force from having no choice.

If true socialism was taught in schools, along with capitalist economics, then we would have some start towards real choice. Obviously that won't happen as capitalists would not allow that, they still remember when the people were educated on socialism (ironically long before teh net, and even TV). More access to information does not make people smarter, it just confuses.

A lot of you seem to have this illusion of choice, that just doesn't work in the real world unless you are already privileged in some way. Being an American, compared to the rest of the world, makes you privileged.

80% of the worlds population live on less than $10 a day, did they choose that?

You all focus so much on health care, that is only a very small part of the social problem. Socialized health care is not socialism. Obama is not about to turn the means of production over to the workers. It's the capitalists who take all your money, without them YOU would benefit directly from your labour through profits coming back to you.
Why should such a small percentage of the population monopolize so much of its wealth. Capitalists can not create wealth by themselves, they need labour. Labour does not need capitalists. Labour creates the wealth, capitalists just control how it is distributed.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
To learn more about Socialism I also recommend you Wikipedia

Stalin
Lenin
Mao
Pol Pot
Castro
Mugabe
Chavez

the socialist "heroes" of the last 100 years.

It is useful to study as Lenin said. However, once you studied the ideology and its goal and its "implementation styles," you can easily come to the conclusion that ruthless dictators do not fit the original Western idea of Socialism. Maybe Castro and Chavez do for a certain extent... Socialism was originally supposed to be an ideal based on satisfying the needs of simple upholders of society, and bloody, authoritarian Oriental regimes had but paid lip-service to their own ideas, Briefly, Democratic Socialism is a bottom-up organization, and not a top-down one. I think we are soon getting ready to have that.

It would be nice if theorists on ATS distinguished Bolshevik or Soviet dictatorship and Maoism as movements in another direction - how to make violence and repression serve the goals of the society of absolute freedom and cooperation, where eveyone receives according to his needs... Or how to manufacture iron circles out of wood. Or the squaring of the circle. Pretty impossible task, as the usual devils of human society from the old system - status, rank, property, privileges, mafias - started to rear their ugly heads,
and that's definitely not what Marx and Engels had as their chief goal - the elimination of collective poverty.

Racism is against a true Socialist vein, yet there ar Left-wing dictator stories where it wsa practiced. In the Soviet Union, you had to mark in your indispensable ID if you came from Jewish ancestors. Well... as if THAT idea did not originate from the Right---):

One could argue that original Christianity was full of socialist ideas - give away to the poor, go into communities that worship together etc. and these ideas and habits were later turned into monastic rules as they ossified.
Think about the Paris Commune, not the KGB! Think about South American Proests standing up the the death squads and not Mao's occupation of Tibet!

Originally posted by ImAnAlienOnMyOwnPlanet
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

Thanks for the list. But I chose to embrace Socialism by facts then trying to attack a person using images of death. Here's a great article of the history of socialism and the many people who influenced the thought of socialism.
History of Socialism

Quote supposed "facts" all you want to, but you still haven't answered the question of: where has it worked before? Look at Europe right now... most all of Europe has worked on the Socialist/Marxist model for over 100 years, and now they have come to the point that they have run out of other peoples money. What is the average weekly take-home pay in Venezuela since the little tyrant has taken over? Communism, Marxism and Socialism is a hairs breadth apart, and none have worked at any time in history.. except for those running the show, of course.

Originally posted by ImAnAlienOnMyOwnPlanet
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

Well yes. But you're coming from a point into attacking me for embracing Socialism. Being a bully about it is not going to make me feel guilty. I would welcome constructive criticism. I can say the same thing about Capitalist, the United States and countless others.

Facts??? Embrace anything you want, but live under the rules of what you claim to believe in before you stake your life on it. Move to Venezuela for two years and get back to us.

reply to post by zappafan1


I'll to Brazil and Canada as well numerous other countries under Democratic Socialist countries.
Chart
Have you ever seen this chart before? I'm pretty sure you have. Most of these countries are Social Democracies or have political parties in office that are Socialists.