Socialism Is The Future

I will say this: Democratic Socialism looks gorgeous on paper. I am sort of wanting to know how it is affordable for countries that have it. I know that the employ a more progressive tax model than the United States. That's the only way it will work for us here in the U.S. I think; and any time you mention progressive taxation someone starts shouting that they are raising taxes! whatever. I don't think we'll ever fully sort it.

 

Indeed

Capitalism is blamed for the problems it never created

Socialism is praised for the things it never achieved.

 

The economic system of perpetual growth is not caused and stimulated by capitalism?

 

So for example the NHS? That was no good socialism. The GI Bill after World War 2 in America was a similar idea too. Taxes and how we use them.

 

Precisely. I don't like the idea of raising taxes against someone's will. How do we go forward into a utopian democratic socialist era without consent of the masses? I hate that so many people are opposed to taxation for stuff like healthcare. I can see where people who are already out of college and don't want kids don't want to pay for someone else's kids' college tuition. But healthcare is pretty fucking universal! & I'm sure there are other examples too. I just don't have one on the tip of my tongue.

 

Socialists talk about owning the means of production, but the computers and robots are about to own Wall Street and the conglomerates. They all rely on the same Three Stooges cutthroat slapstick, making it easy for the machines to take over. They can not only think a million times faster, but they actually think to some modest extent.

 

Keep in mind that your doctor is a salesman for big-pharma.His/her job is to dispense pills and other medications nothing more. Profits rule the day. Some people have even convinced themselves the Medical -Industrial complex actually cares about them. More $ is actually made if you do not get cured of your ailments.
Examine the cozy relationship between big-pharma and the FDA, between them and Congress , the revolving door as personnel leave big-pharma go to work at the FDA then return to some other job in big -pharma.
Massive profits have corrupted a once honorable profession now it's the $ .

 

You'll get no argument out of me when it comes to the sheer greed of the entire medical industry from a Bandage manufacturer to Ben Carson. What we do have today though is a lot of controls that keep us from reliving the horrors of patent medicine and doctors who got their patients hooked on various drugs to keep the money rolling in. Although, this recent opioid spike is clearly an example of how quickly they will revert to their old patterns if not kept in check.

Unfortunately I have to play in the court where I find myself. Even though I know my doctor made enough to remodel his kitchen and game room with every kidney stone he blasted out of me. It's the sort of thing I don't want to have to wait in line for (and makes me scream like a little girl).

 

I've said this often before, but apparently not on this forum. Social democracy and democratic socialism are not the same thing. Social democracy is the sort of system found in the Scandanavian countries: welfare states, with high taxes but lots of benefits in medical care, old age assistance, higher education, etc., and industries that are regulated but in private hands. Socialism, democratic or otherwise, involves government or collective ownership of the means of production and distribution in a society. An example would be the Labour government in the UK under Atlee after World War II that nationalized Britain's main industries, including coal,electricity, steel and the railways. France under Mitterand would be another example: nationalization of some banks and heavy industry. Under the 1982 nationalization law, the government took over major industrial groups along with the country’s thirty-six biggest banks—at a cost of fifty-eight billion francs to the taxpayer. After Mitterand, the political consensus shifted to privatization.

To bandy the terms about as though they were synonyms is sloppy and confusing. I tend to favor a degree of social democracy, or welfare programs in the interest of social justice, in a mixed but basically capitalist economic system. I'm opposed to Socialism, because I don't think it works well. But there, too, it's important to distinguish between democratic socialism and the undemocratic kind (think Venezuela). One of my reservations about Bernie is that I think he really favors social democracy, not socialism, but he doesn't make that distinction clear.

 

No, waiting in line for urgent surgery is in fact unthinkable however some don't mind the idea as long as it's others doing the waiting.

On the opioid epidemic there's no question what's going on here. The pills these addicts are using in almost all cases are coming from legitimate scripts and funeral homes are packed while the profits add up.
One needs only read the obits and often within certain age group usually 24-54 drugs figure in the death. Truly sad and the Sackler family are sitting pretty because of it. Their current net worth is aprox. 14B and it all started with Oxycontin.

I think we can do better than this but throwing the baby out with the bathwater isn't an option either.

 

You can claim whatever you want, but there are perhaps 26 widely recognized definitions of socialism. Big Bird is an evil commie plot, because nobody can even agree upon the definition of stupid and who is the best example. Shakespeare said throw all the lawyers in the sea, but they were all taught by academics.

 

So... I'm saying it wrong. I'm really sorry. We learned both of the terms in sociology, and I think they forgot to really bring that part home - they're not the same. I think what I favor for our government is social democracy as it were, rather than democratic socialism. I like the idea of tons of social programming that we actually pay for. What works one place can also work someplace else. I hope for the best for our country. I hope our direction is toward something happier - we rank poorly in terms of happiness; we're not at the top of that particular list. Anywho...

EDIT: post script - my book, "Social Problems: Continuity and Change" from social problems class in sociology does say something about social democracy.

It says this among other things about democratic socialism. I think it may lean away from the point you're making, but I can't post everything it says lest I detract from the point of this thread. Here's something it says:

 

It's not a matter of what I want, but what is analytically useful. Socialism, like Nazism, has become a snarl word, and folks who like to use it to bash their opponents are prone toward definitions that serve the interests of propaganda. I'm using the term the way economists, sociologists, political scientists and historians use it; for political and social analysis, the academics have it over politicians, propagandists, and bar room pundits hands down:

• Alec Nove. New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition (2008)
• M.V. Rosser, J Barkley Jr. (23 July 2003). Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy. MIT Press. p. 53
• N. S. Arnold. The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism : A Critical Study. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 8
• D. F. Busky, (2000). Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey. Praeger. p. 2.
• Bertrand Badie; Dirk Berg-Schlosser; Leonardo Morlino (2011). International Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE Publications, Inc. p. 2456
• S. Zimbalist, A. Brown, J. Howard and Stuart (1988). Comparing Economic Systems: A Political-Economic Approach. Harcourt College Pub. p. 7.
• W. Wlodzimierz (2015). The Economics and Politics of Socialism. Routledge. p. 87
• Michie, Jonathan (2001). Readers Guide to the Social Sciences. Routledge. p. 1516.
• socialism | Definition, History, Examples, & Facts
• Socialism's Pros and Cons

 

Linguistic analysis is not a new science, while political rhetoric is a long established tradition of the academic military-industrial complex.

 

@Okiefreak I think they are using social democracy and democratic socialism as synonyms. Look at the passage here about lessons from other nations.

 

You're right.The 'they" you're referring to is the last article on the list, the one that begins with "Socialism is an economic system where everyone in society equally owns the factors of production. The ownership is acquired through a democratically elected government."
Yes. you're right. The example of Scandanavian "socialism" in particular is inconsistent with their own definition. They're wrong. Scratch them from the list.

 

Socialism will last until the billionaires that Sanders keeps vilifying run out of money.

 

Socialism will last until the next scientific revolution, based on self-organizing systems logics, which make classical logic obsolete for countless productive purposes. Forget about spreading the wealth around, growing wealth requires a healthy garden to begin with, and soon we will have the exact mathematics and physics that describe the human mind, brain, and laws of energy and motion. Capitalism and socialism as we know them are steam engines compared to a Star Trek warp drive that is self-organizing.

 

Wrong

Bernie said his economic system will work as long as there is billionaires to tax

 

You don't comprehend. Some 40% of all Wall Street transactions are already handled by computers, while over a trillion dollars was invested in AI research last year alone. Bernie might have bright ideas, but he's a bit outdated, because money is about to become synonymous with machines. Already complete houses with plumbing and wiring included can be printed in as little as four hours, the newest organic transistors can be printed on plastic including quantum dots that are self-organizing so you can print 40,000 televisions overnight and sell them for $50.oo at Walmart, every bureaucrat in DC can already be replaced with AI, the entire Chinese electronics assembly line that made their fortune is now being automated and they have more robots than people working in electronics, and the list goes on and on. Bernie has no clue what is coming or, if he does, he knows nobody would believe him in a million years.

The military figured half this shit out over half a century ago, and when the machines started taking over Wall Street in the 90s our rights flew out the window. Intel got setback 15 years by an unexpected limitation in silicon, but everybody's back on track again. All I can say is, keep your passport up to date. You cannot attack what you cannot comprehend, but try explaining that to a bunch of pissed of Libertarians who no longer have money to blame for their problems and start attacking robots. Sorry to be the one to tell ya, but Donald Duck is solving nothing and might as well be the magician waving his hands in the air dramatically, while Bernie can be replaced with a cheap microprocessor.

The only thing everybody in the semi-conducting industry knows right now, is nobody has a fucking clue what's coming. All the CEO's talk authoritatively and act as though nothing is happening, because they've all got twenty year plans and then thirty year plans. The military demands it, they love all that bureaucratic crap and any numbers you can give them.