Socialism

Try that with oil, automobiles, and most other products. And even though a smoker rolling his own cigarettes would save him over $20 an hour, not all time should be considered financially.

 

Most products are mass produced, by using big, expensive tools. If you build, or pay someone to build for you, some big, expensive tools, you can produce anything you want. No one will stop you, other than a government. Oil is spread out over big land masses. And you need big expensive tools to get it. If you buy or rent some of the land where oil is, and build, or pay someone to build for you, some big, expensive tools, you can sell oil too. No one will stop you, other than, of course, a government.

 

Because what you describe is a socialist utopia, which does not exist in real life. Just look at history, it's not that hard. The US government has become inefficient ONLY because of the socialist measures that have been passed over the years.

 

Except no socialist measures have been passed over the years, and even if those measures were socialist it's not them that has made us decline.

 

Really, well lets start with social security, what is that, a capitalist idea? Then Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, I can keep going.

 

That's social democracy, not socialism. To have socialism, you have to have social ownership of the means of production and cooperative control over the economy, and capitalism can't exist.

Since we are a VERY capitalist nation and meet neither of the other two quals, we are not socialist.

 

Really, last I learned, democracy meant every individual got to vote for what they felt was right. The US does not have a democracy, its a republic and always has been. So it's certainly not a social democracy. At best you have social republic, not democracy mister technical.

 

*sigh* A republic is a type of democracy. There are two contexts for the word. One of them is "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections," which definitely describes the U.S. There are various forms to that, one of them being our federal constitutional republic.

The other one is majority rule, which we are not.

So yeah. Social democracy = U.S. We're a terrible one, but we are one.

 

Actually those are all definitely capitalist measures. They're small concessions designed to pacify the working class and maintain capitalism.

 

Um, no they aren't. They came out of Roosevelt's (*)(*)(*)(*) near dictatorship. And LBJ's disaster. That does not make them rule. Those are two of the worst president's of US history.

 

Wrong! It isn't social democracy specific at all! Its consistent with all forms of capitalism, from liberal democracy to the Anglo-Saxon variety that allows neo-liberalism to run amok. Try accuracy!

 

The origins of the modern welfare state here can be traced basic to imperialist competition with Bismarck's Germany

 

It's called a representative democracy Einstein. A liberal democracy. All democracy none the less.

 

The poverty rate in the US make it inconsistent with the political economy used to understand liberal democratic capitalism. When attacking others, try to at least be accurate!

 

A democracy is determined by its form of government, not the state of its economy.

 

Defines one of the many forms of socialism. Like most socialist you believe only your preferred strain of socialism is socialism. Ever since Marx defined the word, socialist have constantly redefined what it means, struggling to find some modificatio to make it even plausible

 

Poverty rate is irrelevant to liberal democracy einstein

 

Again, you only show your ignorance of the political economy used. Capitalism is typically split into 3: social democracy, liberal democracy and Anglo-Saxon. That split largely reflects the nature of the welfare state and the poverty rate consistent with stability. The US, like her Limey Mummy, stand out for their high poverty rates (although the UK does have a more effective welfare state). You'd know that if you bothered to type with knowledge.

 

"How often has this little word [sc. -ism] In genteel arguments occurr'd, As tho' the soul of socialism Must be transmitted thro' a prism... High in the front see atheism, And next in rank stands Tom Paineism", Vermont (1801)

 

You are a liar. I never said such a thing.

There are twenty variants of socialism. I am personally opposed to seven, almost half. All twenty, with the ones I like in bold and don't like in italics:

Agrarian
Anarchist
Democratic
Ethical
Green
Guild
Impossibilism
Liberal
Libertarian
Market
Marxian
Reformism
Religious
Revisionism
Revolutionary
Scientific
State
Syndicalism
Utopian
21st Century

I'll accept your apology and retraction now.

Marx did not define the word. It was a defined word for at least two hundred years prior to Marx. Marx himself was inspired by other socialists, like Libertarian/Anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) and Utopian socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837).

You are increasingly displaying your ignorance on this subject.

 

You really are clueless. Liberal democracy has nothing to do with the form of the economy. A liberal democracy could implement any kind of economic system they choose.

 

Had I claimed that Marx coined the term, you would of had a relevant point. I didn't and you don't. Just who do you think originally DEFINED Marxian socialism?

 

You claimed Marx defined the word "socialism." Now you're moving the goal posts to "Marxian socialism."

Just admit you were wrong. It's less painful and doesn't make you look half as ridiculous.

 

Oh so add an S and make it strainS of socialism.

 

??? Marxian socialism is in fact socialism. Just read some of marx's writings and you will find the word "socialism" used, without any such qualifiers.