What is Socialism?

[rogue06]

Now you got that song stuck in my head, but it's way better than the one that was there!

The original curse song:

[One Bad Pig]

Drat!!!!

"It's a world of laughter, a world of tears...."

You know the rest.

[Terraceth]

I'm getting a laugh how some of her supporters are positive that she'll run for president in 2020 and beat Trump. I keep offering to bet one of them where I work (she recently moved here from Vermont and thinks Bernie Sanders is "da bomb") that she doesn't even run figuring she's not educated enough to figure out why this is a sure thing.

Setting aside the obvious age ineligibility, going directly from the House of Representatives to the presidency is exceedingly rare. I think the only one who ever did that was Abraham Lincoln.

[Starlight]

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Well, yes, that is about a 2 year-old's understanding of it, as depicted.

Obviously a key difference is in the amount of money a person ends up with. Through working you can earn a lot more money, despite taxes, than a person who doesn't work would get from the government.

Yes, it is possible, if you design the system particularly badly that some minimum wage workers might be incentivized to not work rather than work, but that would indicate both that the minimum wage is too low and that the design of the benefit system is poor.

[Starlight]

Just about every convenience you enjoy, medical and technological advances, longer life, are largely do to free markets.

No.

Let me, as a scientist, make this abundantly clear to you: Most scientific advances are government funded. Governments pour money into university research, and into subsidizing private research and development. Computers and the internet came almost entirely from government funding. It wasn't private companies who put a man on the moon. Most medical advances come from government funding. Elon Musk's innovative tech companies have received $5 billion in government grants.

The free market, in general, tends to be incredibly poor at scientific development left to its own devices because it chases short-term profits. Most general scientific research has no obvious immediate financial profit, and while it might lead in 20 years time to someone on the other side of the world managing to build on it and create something wonderful, private profit-driven companies tend to have little to no interest in that sort of thing. The time-frames are too long, the need for global collaboration too big (and thus the need for engagement outside the company meaning the company can't monopolize the discoveries), and the possible future gains too vague, for private companies to generally be much interested. That is why governments have always been and continue to be by far and away the primary funders of scientific research.

[Psychic Missile]

maybe a very small percentage. And they negotiated those packages which they can do because of Capitalism. It's great. But if they drag the company under I am pretty sure they don't get squat, because that would be part of the contract too, plus if the company goes bust, there isn't any money to give them. What you should be actually worried about is when the GOVERNMENT bails out these failing companies and gives them money to save them even when the market says they should go under. Like Obama and the banks.

Do many severance packages have negative company performance-related clauses? Also, it's not uncommon at all for bankruptcy judges to approve retention bonuses.

I don't have any issues with government bailouts if in exchange the business enters into conservatorship. My real issue was with the lack of consequences for those involved.

it is not incidental benefits. It is built into the system. People who work hard and innovate and produce things people want, do better and make more money. And tell me, why if socialism "has benefits intentionally" does it fail everywhere it has been tried, and everyone end up poor?

You don't see caravans of immigrants trying to sneak into Venezuela or Cuba do you? If capitalism is so bad, why is the USA one of the richest countries in the world and everyone is trying to get in?

Hard work isn't correlated with quality of life or wealth. Unique individual characteristics, opportunity, and family wealth are the real correlators. As I have mentioned previously. there is no singular socialism. It may be true that some forms of socialism do not work, but that does not mean all forms of socialism do not work. My argument is not that capitalism does not have any merit, it is that there are flaws in capitalism that can be corrected with socialism.

[JimL]

My brother shared this excellent video on Facebook from Gloria Alvarez, a Guatamalan Author and Political Commentator, who during an interview explains what Socialism is, and what the problems with it are. She makes some excellent points.

She starts about 2:50 into the interview.

Well, we have socialism in these U.S. now, and most people are very happy with those socialistic aspects of our government. We progressives just want more of it because unregulated capitalism and a corrupt congress are distributing all the wealth to the top while the majority of the people are doing all the work and barely squeeking by. Here is a good video somewhat explaining what we mean by democratic socialism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD94UUTvMts

[Psychic Missile]

Nonsense PM, nothing has done more to raise the general standard of living than free markets. Just about every convenience you enjoy, medical and technological advances, longer life, are largely do to free markets. Socialism, even socialism light must leach its life off the capitalistic host.

Although I would say that just because an innovation occurs within a system doesn't necessarily mean the system caused the innovation, I don't otherwise disagree that capitalism has benefits. The issue is that capitalism also has flaws, and those flaws can be corrected through methods that are called socialist.

[Sparko]

My family escaped socialism, now my fellow Democrats think we should move the party in its direction

Democratic socialism is a lot like the system my family fled, except its proponents promise to be nicer when seizing your business.

Cuba’s socialist revolution was supposed to work for workers — like my grandparents who lived in Miami during Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship. In January 1959, just two weeks after Fidel Castro seized power, they returned to the island to care for my grandmother’s ailing mother. For the next 20 years, they remained prisoners in their own country.

As Cuba’s political and economic situation worsened, my grandfather told a friend he wanted to return to the United States. Someone overheard the conversation and reported him to the authorities. For this, the Castro regime threw him in jail. He was later stripped of his job and salary as an accountant and assigned to feed zoo animals. In addition to the emotional distress it caused, this made my family’s financial circumstances even more precarious.

To understand my grandparents’ desperation to flee socialism, imagine leaving everything behind and starting anew at almost 60 years old.

I was born in Miami a little after my family was able to return to America — when President Jimmy Carter allowed travel restrictions to lapse. Growing up, a framed photo of my parents with President Ronald Reagan was a mainstay in the living room of our modest duplex. Yet, during the first election I was able to vote, I served as a precinct captain for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Four years later, I knocked on doors in New Hampshire for then-Sen. Barack Obama. In 2016, my wife and I drove 14 hours to volunteer for Hillary Clinton and this June, we marched in support of immigrant families.

The popularity of 'democratic socialism'

Despite my working-class immigrant roots, I am concerned by the popularity of socialism within my party. On the night of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in New York, I thought her use of the term was a misnomer. Then I began studying the views of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the rapidly growing national organization she belongs to, and was disturbed by what I learned.

Like those of yesteryear, today’s socialists believe the government should nationalize major industries, propose eliminating private ownership of companies, and reject profits. In other words, democratic socialism is a lot like the system my family fled, except its proponents promise to be nicer when seizing your business.

When I confronted some progressive friends about this, they initially dismissed my concerns. After sharing some articles with them, the conversation shifted to "they just want us to be more like the Nordic countries" and "they’re not like real socialists!" Both are reductionist, self-delusions to avoid confronting difficult truths.

The latter is a particularly absurd fallacy because it requires one to believe that adults who willfully join socialist organizations, sound like socialists and call themselves socialists are not what they claim to be.

Claims of "Nordic socialism" are also largely exaggerated. As Jostein Skaar, of Oslo Economics, told me, "I would stress that the Norwegian economic system is capitalistic, heavily influenced by the U.S. and U.K."

This is probably why DSA argues that the Nordic model is not good enough.

The ideological counterparts of America's democratic socialists are likelier to be found to our south than in northern Europe. For instance, Cuba — where the state controls three-fourths of the economy, limits private-sector activity, and employs the majority of workers — is clearly more representative of DSA's economic vision than Denmark, where 89 percent of the wealth is privately owned and seven out of 10 Danes work in the private sector.

Moreover, as an investigation by Transparency International revealed, the Venezuelan government owns at least 511 companies — resulting in a state-owned enterprises per-capita ratio that is more than three times greater than all of Scandinavia’s combined.

As someone who spent years defending Democrats from "socialista" charges, I understand why people roll their eyes when Cuba and Venezuela are mentioned alongside democratic socialism, but to reject the comparison simply because we don’t like those countries' outcomes misses the point of why they turned out the way they did. I’m under no illusion that increased access to health care and education will turn us into the Venezuelan capital Caracas, but it’s foolish to believe that democratic socialists — who promise to end capitalism — would be satisfied with Medicare for all, if given the reins of power.

This must never happen. The descendants of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels should have no place in the party of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. Given its horrific record of human suffering, it would be a moral disgrace for Democrats to embrace socialism just to win elections, as some suggest. Those who use the blitheful ignorance of many for the political gain of a few deserve to lose. Indeed, if socialism represents the future of the Democratic Party, that’s a dystopia no American should want to be a part of.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/1106307002/

[Sparko]

Although I would say that just because an innovation occurs within a system doesn't necessarily mean the system caused the innovation, I don't otherwise disagree that capitalism has benefits. The issue is that capitalism also has flaws, and those flaws can be corrected through methods that are called socialist.

imagine.jpg

[Cow Poke]

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Wow, that sounds like something from the Twilight Zone!

[Sparko]

Wow, that sounds like something from the Twilight Zone!

[Starlight]

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They are called the Republican party.

[Cow Poke]

They are called the Republican party.

[Sparko]

They are called the Republican party.

They aren't the ones trying to control everyone's lives and money. The socialists are. "You are too rich! Let me help you with that!"