Why Is Socialism Doing So Darn Well in Deep-Red North Dakota?

It is very funny to hear the western supercapitalists spout on and on about how privatization is the only answer to all. This is funny because roaring State Capitalist China is standing right behind them. Do they think we are all stupid? China is right behind you genius. You are bankrupt and China is roaring. Silence you stupid free market capitalists. Enough. You embarrass yourselves.

Australia was near on State Capitalist when I was a kid. Now we have been Americanized. Our public education and public health services have all fallen away in favour of US style corporate insurance and low funding for public schools.

Europe and nations like Australia have traditionally done a great job of protecting the public utilities and assets. American influence has seen us sell off our assets and utlilities that actually bring in revenue and left us with pretty much just schools and hospitals that must be paid for with ever increasing taxes.

The free market corporatist will tell you that the privatization will create competition and that will drive down prices which will benifit the consumer. Do you see this happening? Or are monopolies created and we the public are left beholden to the evil free market corporatist.

Thank the lord for China. We can now expropriate without fear of America dropping bombs on us. Venezuela expropriated exxonmobil of all corporations and got away with it. Argentina has nationalized stuff recently as well as Bolivia. In the past these nations would have ended up like Cuba or worse, but not today. Its a brand new day thanks to China and their friends the BRIIICS. China will still deal with nations that choose to expropriate.

So dont stress everyone. Expropriation will be our salvation. What US corporations should be expropriated in an emergency? ( this being an emergency. You are almost done you know America. Tick, tick tick.... )


edit- how about you guys expropriate the Federal Reserve first to get things rolling. That one is a no brainer. Next I would look at Big Oil.


edit HA!

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by FyreByrd

 

It's a pickle you put people in though when the terminology is chosen. Socialism is a well defined term and perhaps not what it may have meant before 1918. Now? Err... To a good % of the world population, it's synonymous with utter failure and collapse of empires, let alone mere nations. It brings images of Gulags when they existed as true hard labor camps across the Soviet Union, Tiananmen square massacres of people protesting for freedom and leaders put to the wall and shot to death like Chauchesku in Romania.

Ummm...NO. This is how the GOP, Tea Party and Libertarians describe socialism. And what you are describing is communism, not socialism. Socialism is an economic system, which has nothing to do with your above statement. Communism is a political system, which has everything to do with your above statement.

Originally posted by Circumstance

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by FyreByrd

 

It's a pickle you put people in though when the terminology is chosen. Socialism is a well defined term and perhaps not what it may have meant before 1918. Now? Err... To a good % of the world population, it's synonymous with utter failure and collapse of empires, let alone mere nations. It brings images of Gulags when they existed as true hard labor camps across the Soviet Union, Tiananmen square massacres of people protesting for freedom and leaders put to the wall and shot to death like Chauchesku in Romania.

Ummm...NO. This is how the GOP, Tea Party and Libertarians describe socialism. And what you are describing is communism, not socialism. Socialism is an economic system, which has nothing to do with your above statement. Communism is a political system, which has everything to do with your above statement.

Well, actually.... It's BOTH. I'm not sure where you learned about 101 level political science, but I wasn't taught it with an ideological twist. Just a straight, cold presentation of the systems, how they're defined and how they've functioned in real world examples. Socialism has worked in a few places while failing in most as a foundation.

1. (Economics) an economic theory or system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned by the community collectively, usually through the state. It is characterized by production for use rather than profit, by equality of individual wealth, by the absence of competitive economic activity, and, usually, by government determination of investment, prices, and production levels Compare capitalism

2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any of various social or political theories or movements in which the common welfare is to be achieved through the establishment of a socialist economic system

3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) (in Leninist theory) a transitional stage after the proletarian revolution in the development of a society from capitalism to communism: characterized by the distribution of income according to work rather than need

Source

Sharing the same collective view of mankind as communism socialism is a political system in which the means of production, distribution and exchange are mostly owned by the state, and used, at least in theory, on behalf of the people (whose 'good' is decided by the legislator). The idea behind socialism is that the capitalist system is intrinsically unfair, because it concentrates wealth in a few hands and does nothing to safeguard the overall welfare of the majority, we will see later that this is fallacious. Under socialism, the state redistributes the wealth of society in a more equitable way, according to the judgement of the legislator. Socialism as a system is anathema to most Americans, but broadly accepted in Europe - albeit in a much diluted fashion. Socialism is a system of expropriation of private property (regardless of how this was earned) in order to distribute it to various groups considered (by the legislator) to warrant it, usually the unemployed, ill, young and old and significantly, those with political pull. Since all property must be created before being distributed modern socialists allow some free market enterprise to exist in order to 'feed' from its production. This seems to admit that the free market is the best way to produce wealth. The current British government (Labour) purports to be quasi-socialist but is in practice conservative (non-radical) with additional taxation and state intervention. I believe that genuine socialism has not fared that well in Britain due to a sense of individual sovereignty shared by many Britons, expressed in such sayings as "an Englishman's' home is his castle".

Source

any of various social systems based on shared or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

Source

System of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control; also, the political movements aimed at putting that system into practice. Because “social control” may be interpreted in widely diverging ways, socialism ranges from statist to libertarian, from Marxist to liberal.

Source

I hope that helps clarify the universally accepted definitions of the Political Ideology and, you're right, economic aspects which form Socialism.

Love the pointless (and deflective) arguing over semantics in this thread.

Take an idea that people like, i.e. socialized banking, and it's:

1. Social programs are not Socialism.

Take an idea people don't (or more realistically - are conditioned not to) like, and suddenly it's:

Originally posted by FyreByrd

Yes!!! - you see the whole point - that this nation was founded with many socialist ideals - they were not called that at the time but that is what they were in fact.

Mutual Aid societies (as the libertarians like to call them) but without exclusions.

Government run public utilites - by the people and for the people - are socialist/collectivist. It is in fact Democratic Socialism in action.

Wow...people like you twist, and lie so much that you actually believe such lies yourself it seems...

If it were up to people like you being in a society itself means being socialist... Heck, being in a group "is socialist"...

Oh wait, I forgot... being "compassionate" is also socialist according to people like you... right?...

The only true socialist bank in the United States is the Federal Reserve. Under socialism only ONE bank can be in charge of everything through the government, and yes progressives and democrats created, and gave power to the Federal Reserve... The same BANK, the Feds, that has crippled this nation by creating a paper economy with nothing to back it up except empty promises... It is the same bank which has caused every economic crash, depression and inflation since with their constant raise of the debt ceiling meanwhile printing more, and more, and more PAPER being passed as tender coin...

North Dakota is not a nation, and it's bank is not in charge in the nation. That bank is a credit union, but I find it ironic how socialists and communists love to twist and lie trying to sell your diseased ideology every way you can...

Think of Socialism in the context of the Terminator movies (go with me on this one).

Socialism can be a useful tool to get things done. Just like computers can make all of our lives much easier.

In the Terminator movies, computers started thinking for themselves, and then things got ugly very quickly.

Socialism becomes dangerous when the machine forgets that it requires human input.

If society is truly working together to pool resources and talents in a form of social democracy, this can be good. The more locally this is done, the better in my opinion.

Problems, even disasters arise when the socialist state determines that they are above the people. This is the situation that we find ourselves in more and more today.

A sliver of elites attempting to dominate all facets of society under the guise of democratic choice. The "nanny state" as it is sometimes called.

I will give a couple local examples.

A local electric co-op of which I was once a member recently built a mult-million dollar office building.

Now the idea of a community coming together to provide electricity to its members at reasonable rates makes some sense. One could argue that this started out as a sensible community effort at some point.

However, do you think any of the co-op members were polled to see if they thought "we" needed a new multi-million dollar office to rival any bank in town? Of course not. What began as a community effort was now in the hands of a few people who could control the community's money and make rash and wasteful decisions with that money.

Another example was a local library board that chose to raise taxes in a down economy. This library was set up as a private taxing district. As such, they were instilled with the ability to raise taxes by a certain amount each year.

So years ago, the community got together and decided that a library would be a good thing for its citizens. A collective effort, with a taxing authority established to boot. Many years and millions of dollars spent later, this library has become its own machine. With the rest of the economy suffering, they built a new building, raised taxes, and laid off no employees.

Again, what started out as a form of social democracy was now concentrated in the hands of a select few who were acting against the will of the people.

My question: if this happens on a local level, then how much more severe the consequences when Federal Institutions gain control over each and every aspect of our lives? At the local level, we know the players and stand a fighting chance to make changes, even if it takes years. What of a nameless, faceless federal bureaucracy handing down edicts from on high? Grin and bear it, or fight to what end?

Count me as another that doesn't buy the bank as socialism. There needs to be a collection of profit and a re-distribution of said profit, where collection is sourced based on amount, but re-distribution is per capita. In the case of a bank, I would think that collection would be interest on loans minus prime, and re-distribution would be dividends to shareholders (the whole state) and interest on accounts. To be socialist, the re-distributions would have to be equal per capita, which would imply that they had no regard to the amount of money that the interest was paid on. Most certainly that's not happening here.

There was supposed to be a federal bank too, and it's function was not socialist. Unfortunately we got stuck with the federal reserve, and that's tyranny.

Originally posted by wemustbreakyou
It is very funny to hear the western supercapitalists spout on and on about how privatization is the only answer to all. This is funny because roaring State Capitalist China is standing right behind them. Do they think we are all stupid? China is right behind you genius. You are bankrupt and China is roaring. Silence you stupid free market capitalists. Enough. You embarrass yourselves.

Australia was near on State Capitalist when I was a kid. Now we have been Americanized. Our public education and public health services have all fallen away in favour of US style corporate insurance and low funding for public schools.

It's nice to have someone share this type of personal experience with us. Having a bit different perspective on the capital vs social ideas is helpful.

Right now in the US we have been so bombarded with propoganda from Big Business that any mention of reality is taken as an attack on the country for some reason. Your use of the word 'exproriation', for those that know it or bother to look it up, will set off the propogandaized conservative, 'constitution waving', gun loving folk here on ATS

Thanks for the new word too: Expropriation.

I got the drift of it but had to look up the real definition:
From Merriam-Webster
www.merriam-webster.com...

Definition of EXPROPRIATION

: the act of expropriating or the state of being expropriated; specifically : the action of the state in taking or modifying the property rights of an individual in the exercise of its sovereignty
Examples of EXPROPRIATION


First Known Use of EXPROPRIATION

15th century

Originally posted by mc_squared
Love the pointless (and deflective) arguing over semantics in this thread.

Take an idea that people like, i.e. socialized banking, and it's:

1. Social programs are not Socialism.

Take an idea people don't (or more realistically - are conditioned not to) like, and suddenly it's:

This isn't socialized banking though. This is a central bank at the State level(it has one location). You can't just take something and call it socialist because it suits your needs. How is it Socialist if nothing has been Nationalized?

Originally posted by lynxpilot
Count me as another that doesn't buy the bank as socialism. There needs to be a collection of profit and a re-distribution of said profit, where collection is sourced based on amount, but re-distribution is per capita. .

I refer you to Wrabbit2000's well sourced definition of the economic aspects of socialism:


"It is characterized by production for USE rather than PROFIT."


In the US and the western world we have been conditioned to believe that the only goal of life is profit. That no industry, business or person can survive without constant growth and profit. Profit is the excess of revenues after all the costs of business have been satisfied.

Now, I will buy that individuals and groups need constant spiritual and ethical growth to avoid stagnation but that is a side issue of this thread.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I think that, slowly, the US public is waking up to the fact that pure capitalism doesn't work.

Now that the public has gotten a good dose of what the bankers, who control the capitalist system, will do if given free reign.

Pure socialism is bad, and so is pure capitalism. What has been demonstrated to work well is a mixture of concepts.

Credit unions are controlled by the members. They are not private owned for profit, they are public owned non-profits, which translates into a mix of socialism.

It seems to work best when some things are controlled by the government.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


The Fed Res is pure capitalism, privately owned and privately controlled.

It isnt even 1 bank.

First the free market supporters vote in politicians who deregulate the banks (eliminate the laws that keep banks from committing fraud and committing other crimes), and when that blows up in your face, you start calling it socialism.

What pure and utter nonsense. At what point in these mental gymnastic do you start to realize you have been conned?

I think a big issue that people, and especially Americans, fail to realize is that we do not live in a capitalist or "free market" society. What is touted as capitalism and free markets now a days, although at it's core can be construed as such, is actually unfettered capitalism that has morphed into corporatism, or corporate socialism.

There is no competition for one, which is essential to capitalism and free markets. With all the deregulation the past 50 years we have a system that facilitates consolidation whether its in the energy industry, the telecommunications industry, the banking industry, or in media.

We have a system that privatizes profit while socializing the losses. It is not real capitalism.

For the record, I also believe a mixture of political and economic ideologies would work best. If we had true capitalism it would almost certainly work brilliantly, as competition WOULD drive down costs and help eliminate useless and unreliable products and companies, pushing forth better and more reliable products.

I also believe people should have a say, whether it's the workers or the members of a community, in what a company or corporation does while operating in their own backyards and communities, such as helping to choose a board of directors.

And despite what Rabbit has pointed out, yes there is a strict definition of Socialism as far as political ideology goes, but that does not stop people from not understanding it or conflating it with other ideologies such as Communism and/or Marxism. I know many right leaning people (I'm a registered republican myself but am more libertarian probably. Fiscally conservative and socially liberal) who have no idea what Socialism is or means, same with the word "liberal", yet campaign and rally against it believing it to be the work of Satan while at the same time not being able to tell you what it means besides what they've been told on TV. "Redistribution of wealth". Funny they have a huge issue with their tax dollars being distributed to poor and less fortunate people but don't raise a whimper when it's funneled to multinational corporations, many who do not pay taxes themselves, who need no help in surviving.

And this has a lot to do with globalization and so-called free markets. People need educating.

reply to post by notquitesure


The situation you describe applies pretty much to everything. People come together and set up something good that works effectively, and then the wrong people take it over and turn it into something bad.

The thing is, when such a thing is controlled by a local government, you can get involved, make changes, work to democratic process. When such a thing is controlled by a private entity, you have far less control.

Now if you can just go to another provider, take your business elsewhere, then the problem can be easily remedied. When a monopoly is established, like by the power company, then it is a lot more difficult to change the system.

Oh, and from my experience, local and state governments are always far more corrupt than the fed.

The fed is so big, and so many people are involved, it is not so easily hijacked by some rogue committee.

reply to post by wemustbreakyou


You know what else is funny? You won't address one on one challenges against your own propoganda. You obviously have an intense dislike for the US, and it creates an extreme bias towards every opinion you have.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by ElectricUniverse

 

The Fed Res is pure capitalism, privately owned and privately controlled.

It isnt even 1 bank.

First the free market supporters vote in politicians who deregulate the banks (eliminate the laws that keep banks from committing fraud and committing other crimes), and when that blows up in your face, you start calling it socialism.

What pure and utter nonsense. At what point in these mental gymnastic do you start to realize you have been conned?

edit on 31-3-2013 by poet1b because: Add phrase to clarify

Now there, we agree. It's impossible to argue that we've now seen Capitalism as a general system run totally amok. I think you're old enough to recall how it wasn't always this way. Not to these extremes and not by a long shot. It's like all the worst aspects of free market when into hyper-speed under Bush though ..and in many ways, have still not slowed down much, if at all.

We all know what Socialism looks like, run amok. The Soviet Union and Red China (before China started playing both sides to form a new paradigm anyway) showed how extremely abusive that direction becomes.

So, yes, we probably DO really need to look at how the best of both sides can be mixed. The statements on the thread about Socialist roots to the founding of the nation are correct ...to a DEGREE. That's what some miss. Hamilton and others were damn near communist before that ideology even had a name. What gets missed, I believe, is the fact the Founders who leaned socialist by today's standards, had as many or more directly and strongly opposed to it.

So... I guess we need to look back to where we came from to find answers. Compromise, working together in good faith and finding a path forward out of the mess ...just like they did at the turn of the 19th century.

...If a State Owned bank is Socialism, then what would that make the Federal Reserve?

Price Fixing, Centrally Planning an economy, Market Manipulation...Sounds like Socialism to me.
Lets not kid ourselves, Socialism has been in America since 1913. This is no surprise. America isn't as Capitalist as people seem to think. We're Crony Corporatist...and I'm sure that there is a lot of powerful people in North Dakota are making a tidy profit on the existence of this State Owned Bank somehow.

reply to post by FyreByrd

Who cares what kind of ideology it is if it works?

Why do we have to classify everything. I don't want to be socialist, republican, democrat, democratic, a republic, or any of this nonsense. I want freedom and equality, fare wages, and a fare shot at life.

Oh i forgot to mention, enjoyed the read want to move there now, thanks.

S n F

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I see the change in the wind a coming.

I don't think, economically, things were turned around at the turn of the 19th century. In a nutshell, technological innovations at the end of the 19th century completely changed humanity in ways that have yet to be realized. It's like a portal was opened, and we entered a new dimension. Economically we went through massive changes as well, boom and bust economics created levels of economic chaos, people made fortunes that rivaled emperors of old. This lead to the Great Depression and major economic reforms.

The economic reforms created in the great depression carried over to the post WWII era, where US economic development succeeded in realizing the American dream.

It seems that if we are going to find economically stability again, we are going to have to get back to what has been proven to work.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I'm missing where this has any relation at all to the Socialist ideology? It sounds like a giant Credit Union at the state level, to me.

State owned, not-for-profit. Yes, that's socialism.

Very much like a modern version of the Central State Banks which existed at the founding of our nation and ..to various degrees, right into the Civil War. It's nice to see one state has held the independence this way as t really should have been all along.

It's key feature being loans below market rates to business that directly leads to improved conditions/employment within North Dakota though? (From article). Yup.. Sounds like a state sized credit union. Good Job North Dakota!

Credit unions themselves were a socialist idea. This one is state-wide and state owned.

(Maybe this is part of their secret to having an unemployment rate in the 3% range while most of the nation suffers in the 7's and 8's. Not bad at all for them)

No, that's because of being lucky enough to be a small population state which happened to be sitting on top of petroleum which suddently got economical to produce as a combination of high prices and new technology.