Socialism Is The Future

I read what you wrote here and I appreciate the critical thinking/exchange. I think you've misplaced your enthusiasm though & want too little government. & I disagree about education, mostly. I think that it's great.

what you said about school and diplomas is interesting... I think that we need more diplomas/degrees, but that should not be at the expense of performance. Also, I feel like there is unneeded emphasis on reading.

 

I have met many and made friends of some. The last thing they'll fall for is the promise of socialism improving things. They know better! And unabashedly think a lot of us are stupid, lazy, and gullible.

Perhaps I'm overly-optimistic, but I expect the smarter people will prevail and won't allow their lands to fall to this matrix-like condemnation.

 

Mostly, people are uneducated about the cost benefit analysis for a democratic socialism - where the leader is elected and all that. The modes of production are integrated such that there is both public and government control. I think I said that right!

 

Or... Your description could equally apply to capitalism. Like the way it works now.

 

Ok. I agree.

I think we have a mixture of capitalism and socialism.

12.1 Overview of the Economy – Social Problems

 

Everyone agrees that socialism is bad, but there is no reason to discuss it, as no one is promoting pure socialism as a complete alternative to capitalism. We're all still going to work and make money, and there will even be filthy rich people and celebrities. No one is disputing that. You guys act like we're all going to be wearing pink panties and berets while carrying AK 47s.

 

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I am old enough to remember my grandparents living with the first few decades of social security. The Great Depression had wiped out their retirement and without SS they would have been on the street. Medicare was still in the future and would have helped even more.

 

Yes, you might. Or, you could lose EVERYTHING in some unexpected way, and then you'd be completely destitute on your senior years, when old age and age-related illnesses make you unable to take care of yourself. Imagine being on the streets in this condition. This is where public services are needed, for the people who cannot manage on their own.

Bullshit. Be it healthcare, water supplies, or the energy sector, every time something has been privatized, the prices will start getting higher, while you as the customer start receiving shittier service, because the company execs will simply begin to cut costs (a.k.a quality of service) for more profit and line their own pockets with money that was supposed to be invested in the offered services and infrastructure. So you get a system such as the US healthcare, where a simple blood sample will run you a 4-figure sum on your hospital bill, potentially ruining your finances. Here, in your much hated euro socialist wonderland, where the system is publicly owned and big government shuts this shit down with those evil regulations of yours, I've never ever had to pay such exorbitant fees for a simple hospital check-up, and I don't even have insurance. Sounds pretty cost effective to me.

As opposed to the company executives, who are so well-meaning, moral, incorruptible, and holy all the time?

And yet, the Scandinavian, and even the Baltic countries with their public, government funded and run school systems frequently beat you in PISA-scores.

 

Americans prefer to pay more for a service for themselves then to to pay less if everyone uses it because then people took "their" money. Sadly this ignorance on what socialism really is has become a point of pride for some. We have many socialist ideals and government agencies already. It's amazing to me how much the American people demanded socialism in the 1950's while still saying they hated it. No, you hate a dictatorship which is possible through any form of government really.

Look at North Kora they say they are democratic but are they? No Was the USSR all that socialism can be? no

 

Baloney, sir. Socialism does not provide equivalent services less expensively. When people do not have to pay out of pocket, they are of course less concerned about costs.

I hold that that government that governs least, governs best.

 

Coincidentally works great for the wealthy, especially those who have a family inheritance, for the rest of .......well, wait for the trickle down, and wait, and wait, and...

 

Pure nonsense, sir. Capitalism has allowed billions of people to escape poverty- it is the greatest engine for economic growth yet devised. All wealth in the world today depends on it. Socialism- try Venezuela as your model.

But yes, there is a sense of "trickle down". It is inevitable. We all ride on the shoulders of the Jay Goulds, the John Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegies & Groves, even the Steve Jobs, all who made incredible fortunes by creating new goods or services, or new ways of doing business, or rationalized industries. We all benefited from their successes. Contrary to your glib claim, capitalism is not a zero sum game: socialism is. You appear clueless about the source of our own prosperity, which, while it may be small, is, I will wager, far beyond what the average human in history as had, or, indeed, the average human today.

 

You can’t afford healthcare, but at least you’re not lying in a bed of hay with the plague. Just diabetes. Thank those who made fabulous fortunes.

 

Are you under the illusion that you had something half way intelligent to say?

 

After reading the drivel you write, I feel like a god damned genius.

 

Americans who can't afford health-care are petrified of catching Covid - 19, because if they have to be hspitalised, it will also bankrupt them too !!!

 

Even the ones that stay healthy will not be able to afford the health insurance increase. The entire American way of living is about to either turn European or it's going to go full 1984 North Korea. It depends on how many of them call the upper class out. The evidence is all there for insider trading and mistreatment.

 

But wealth trickles up.

"They [Republicans] didn’t start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands. They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue." Will Rogers, 1932 “Plus ça change..."

 

the ultimate future is the elimination of all ideology all together. however, it is the label "socialsim" that is too often and too generally 'weaponized' against any government in any form, earning its keep by making itself useful to all people, and not just those with the resources to buy political favors.

 

the ultimate future is the elimination of all ideology all together. however, it is the label "socialsim" that is too often and too generally 'weaponized' against any government in any form, earning its keep by making itself useful to all people, and not just those with the resources to buy political favors.

The only reason people buy politicians in the first place is that these self-described servants of the people have the ability to initiate the use of force against productive elements of society. A government with minimal powers- those properly outlined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,would offer no reason to try to "buy it".

That's a good one: "earning its keep by making itself useful to all people". You funny guy- what you really mean is taking from those who produce wealth, and giving it to those who do not, with a "suitable cut" going to those same politicians you reference (think the Clintons and the Bidens). But as I've noted before, channeling Margaret Thatcher, the problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

All organization if human societies is driven, implicitly or explicitly, by one or more ideologies. To think that you are going to "eliminate" ideology is utter nonsense and merely illustrates the banality of your thinking.

Capitalism is the only economic system, beyond those applicable to the tribe, or even the clan, that does not involve the initiation of the use of force, fraud, or threat thereof. I suspect the inability to coerce others is a large part of the reason people like you so detest the greatest engine of wealth generation ever devised by humanity.