Socialism works every time it's tried.

I'm 71 now and comfortably retired. I'm done with the work life. I travel way too much for that. But go ahead and criticize me if it makes you feel temporarily superior.

 

That's the problem with anti-socialists. They haven't bothered to learn any political economy.

 

They are in effect annuities -- annuity like -- to distinguish from socialistic doles.

 

That's true, but most employees haven't. They work to get money. Other reasons are less important.

 

Oh. Ok. So they are "annuities" like they are "gold bullion" or anything else we might make up.

 

That is exactly why we should not give to those government employees authority over and responsibility for us. They are no better than the rest of us. They are no worse than the rest of us. I just don't want their, or our, best intentions for each other to be imposed upon each other by force, not even by force of law.

 

Who is proposing giving those government employees authority over and responsibility for us?

 

Russia, Germany, China and Venezuela!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Liberty is the individual's authority over and responsibility for them self.
Socialism is freedom from liberty. Socialism is freedom from authority over and responsibility for self.

Freedom is always freedom FROM something. It can be freedom from infringement upon liberty, or it can be freedom from liberty. It can be freedom from wealth or freedom from poverty. But liberty is always liberty TO the same thing. Liberty is the individual's authority over and responsibility for them self. All socialists want is to free themselves , and others, from liberty. In my opinion, that is the sort of benevolence that should be reserved to the parents of small children.

 

That isn't possible since socialism would be the most democratic society the world has ever known.

That's nonsense. Since you're so knowledgeable about this, tell me what the slogan of communists was in the beginning of Marxist communists.

 

I don't doubt your good intentions or benevolence; however, socialism has a mandatory nature. It does not have the same mutually voluntary nature as does a free market. In socialist societies, authority emanates from the group not the individual. In my opinion, that's insane. As imperfect as individuals can be, there is at least some possibility of sanity within an individual. Actually, insanity is rare in individuals, but it is the norm in groups because all groups have multiple personalities.

In my opinion, the power to impose one's good intentions and benevolence upon others by force, even by force of law, should be reserved to the parents of small children. It should not be exercised by those who simply cannot feel fulfilled, as individuals, unless they're telling other people what to do.

Democracy is not a noble goal; it is a means to a noble goal. Our noble goal is the fulfillment of the ideals of our republic. It is not the whim of the current majority.

Our democracy is as different from our republic as our currency is different from our economy.

 

Unfortunately socialism is the dying end of success.

 

socialism is koolade with artificial sweetener...

 

In our system today, the president doesn't run the show. He needs the approval of others. The same goes for senators, CEOs, and Boards of Directors. None of the individuals involved is the final authority. Same in socialism.

And in worker co-ops, all workers have one vote each and all developments are determined by vote as they are in Congress or any organization. Meanwhile, in socialism, individuals living in family units as we do today, make decisions as we do today regarding what to buy and what to do with their time. If we want to live in society today with opportunities and improving living standards, most of us elect to work in jobs for someone else. In socialism if a person wants to live in society with opportunities and improving living standards, they will elect to work in jobs in which they have a say and a stake, unlike in capitalist society today.

So you favor individual power and control.

But your story here is a concocted fantasy with no truth to it. You're saying insanity is the norm in Board rooms, Congress, clubs, and other collections of sane individuals. And your evidence is absent. But common experience and common sense say otherwise.

So here, you oppose the power and control of an individual. You just contradicted yourself. It seems you haven't thought this through.

But even so, here, you oppose allowing the imposition by force of anyone's intentions and wishes on others. But conditions come closer to that when one person has power over the military, yet the military finds that this arrangement is most efficient and most effective. And conversely, in socialism everyone has a much greater say in their own lives. We have no democracy on the job. We do as we are told. But in socialism we would have a say on everything on the job. That's democracy.

Yes, democracy is not the goal. But neither is our republic and/or the fulfillment of its ideals the goal. So you're wrong there. Democracy, the fulfillment of the ideals of our republic, and our republic itself together comprise the means to the goal. And the goal? The goal is a happy, secure, rewarding, fulfilling life. We don't live for society. Society "lives" for us. Human kind originally formed societies in order to benefit from collective effort, action, planning, and doing. Socialism finally provides the means to realize genuine democracy so we may finally reach the true goal via effective ideals.

Notice please that your whole perspective on what socialism is, is incorrect, as is your assessment of the "superiority" of our current system.

 

Other people need to stop running purity tests and creating straw men which create phony arguments that feature any significant number of imaginary Americans advocating for some kind of total socialist transformation of the largest capitalist economy on the planet, which is mathematically impossible.

If you were in Cuba, it means you were NOT in the USA 1947-1980.
If you WERE in the USA between 1947 and 1980, then you experienced social democracy operating within the framework of capitalism, also known as FDR's New Deal.

That is how socialism was applied TO capitalism in America.
And the result was the strongest economy and highest standard of living for Americans in all of recorded history. It was a capitalist system with a few tiny hybrid socialist tweaks.

The closest America EVER came to adopting socialism was in the early 1930's during the Great Depression, and yet somehow we managed to "keep the Marxists at bay."
Hysteria and gross exaggeration hurts your credibility.

 

Robert Minor = communist

 

Progressives are the progeny of Marxists, and they are very much alive and kicking.

 

If you're going to get sloppy and use that broad brush, no point in even seeing another post from you.

 

Could I trouble you to edit and repost your above post eliminating the ad hominins? All I'm asking for is a concise response in kind. I don't expect you to exceed the standard to which I've maintained my above responses, but I would like you to rise to them. After all, I'm no better than you.

I look forward to reading your response because I feel as if there's some good stuff in what you're trying to say. I'd like to read your next draft of the same exact concepts. I'm sincerely curious.

 

Ok. Here it is...

 

You might want to go on youtube and hear Reagan talk about the pending horrors of medicare. Or listen to opponents of SSI especially those who refused to let farm workers and poor people into the system at first. Sorry, but throwing the term socialism around without taking a good look in the mirror is just lying to oneself. We all love socialism when it helps us. Some even like it when it helps other people. But some just cannot abide it when some poor person gets something to help them in life.

 

Yeah except there's no validity to that. Nobody has seen socialism. We've seen strategies, but we haven't seen the product. Without that your entire statement falls apart.

 

I have heard the fear mongering talk for all of my life, coming from conservatives who hate what FDR did. That he is also reputed as saving capitalism goes over their rather shallow ideological beliefs.

I know what socialism is, for it was rightfully taught, its definition in public school in the 50s and 60s when I attended public school. It is when the State owns all means of production of goods and services and the distribution of those resources. A Commons contains those things that a modern civilization see as being beyond the profit motive, and the society then finances the Commons collectively, via taxation, in the best interest of the society in question.

I am against socialism, and communism, but I do not make the mistake of blurring the lines between those economic systems and a Commons that dates back to the first civilizations, long before Karl Marx was even a gleam in his old man's eye.

Confusing a Commons with socialism had been done so long by some on the right, that they are not capable of discerning the distinction difference. I think it is a case of intellectual laziness at best, and a corruption of the thinking process at worse.

 

Socialism implies that it helps people, but the implication is all platitude and it is never explained. Helping people is not in the actual definition of socialism. It is thrown in by most who espouse socialism but don't have a clue what socialism actually is.

 

One M., socialism is not what you say. Let's first establish that all socialist parties and all socialists uphold Marx. So Marx's words on what socialism is, are what we should hold to as a definition.

Marx, as you know, was all about the working class "casting off their chains of wage slavery". By "wage slavery" he meant (as you would see in his many writings) that workers have no say in what they produce, where they produce, how the produce, and what is done with the proceeds of sale. THE WHOLE THING IS ABOUT HAVING A SAY, HAVING OWNERSHIP, HAVING CONTROL. As such, it's about a change in the relationship between worker and management.

State ownership of the MoP does not change that relationship. As history shows, with state ownership the worker still takes orders and has no say. The worker has not "cast off his chains of wage slavery" in that system. That is part (a large part) of the failure of that state-owned system that we've seen.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" translates as "working class dictating to the capitalist class to ban and stop wage slavery". No country has fully done that yet.