What are your REAL opinions on socialism and the welfare system?

Based on your own definition of socialism when did that occur?

 

Don't they teach history anymore in US schools?

After all Thanksgiving is right around the corner

 

Well I was last in University about 20 years ago and I never took a history course then. My last history course was probably about 26 years ago or more in High school and they never taught us about the era of socialism in America. So maybe you can enlighten me.

 

I'll stick with accuracy

 

Not in the least. Socialism/Communism isn't a master/slave relationship (where the productive fund the unproductive), it's work-to-eat. If you don't work, you don't eat, period.

Any model in which 50% of your citizens work to support the other 50% - or in the case of Welfare States if they keep heading in the same direction, 20% working to support 80% - is absolutely NOT Socialism/Communism. That model is more like an oligarchy.

Capitalism has more in common with Communism than the Welfare State does - because Capitalism requires that we work to eat.

 

For a change, we agree!

 

LOLsies. He was a socialist like Prince Charles is a socialist.

 

“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it”

Hmm, to agree with the man himself or someone pretending, badly, to be left wing on the net? Difficult one.

 

So just watch the people left behind starve and live on the streets?

Capitalism has poverty. Built in. So safety nets are essential.

 

Were that to be the case, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from local government in Red State America would be heard loudly.

NO Red State is a net contributor. Most are getting more of the Federal tax dollar than they put in. It’s the dirty secret of right wing politics. Almost all Red states are receiver states. And yet, they collect, while sending elected officials to Washington to campaign against the money!

 

So you telling me you stopped learning when school was finished?

Well that explains alot

 

The Democrats made the rules thinking they would hold on to the redstates forever, look in the mirror

 

Dude, I am just trying to working within the parameters of your own statements. You can't seem to back up what you said without moving the goal post and resorting to insults. You questions whether US schools teach history anymore and then you ignore it and ask don't you learn when school is finished. I simply asked you when American meet your own definition of socialism that you outlined and said we went through in this thread and you refuse to answer and point to history and future thanksgivings?

 

Not really, even the small state that that I gave in my example generates a fair amount of tax revenue. They can better manage their spending or try to expand revenues through growth or worst case increase taxes.

 

Not a nickel. It should be illegal for federal government to send money to state and local governments. It is what killed states rights and turned what was originally a union of states into a central government with 50 provinces and a few scattered territories.

The problem in all of this is that we have taken power from the entities that have competition and given it to the central government that answers to nobody. If a citizen doesn't like the way a state is managed, he or she can move to another state. Not an option at the federal level. The loss of the union and states rights is at the base of today's political divide.

 

The State can only ensure poverty does not become 'dangerous' (i.e. risk profit through revolutionary spirit). Even then, its often used to ensure more compliant workers. For example, if you're sacked from work many countries will employ some form of welfare punishment. The purpose? Ensure workers do as they're told!

 

Given the ability to freely migrate over state lines if a State does what you say and treat the workers so poorly, couldn't they just move to another state?

 

I am not sure I understand you. Are you saying the Federal government should not receive any tax revenue at all or just saying they should not receive any tax revenue beyond what they need for their spending?

 

I'm saying that federal funds should never be sent to state and local governments. They are taxing entities themselves. It is a vehicle to take power away from the states.

 

You haven't understood. It was a general comment, referring to the State as the national government. In capitalism that actually encourages 'race to the bottom' (e.g. inter-state competition in attracting multinationals). End result? Greater rent seeking behaviour.

 

Unequal contributions is a long standing topic of debate.

I always prefer apportioning by population like the Fed is required to do with direct revenue and would prefer if they did it with indirect revenue. In my mind the FED should operate as a clearing house.

In retrospect if there are short falls in areas within the country we can deal with it directly.

The way the apportionment works now it tends to hide problems and is open to abuse. To continue with this system a mandatory minimum of state level taxation would need to be set and , to me, that’s a step beyond. What gets under my skin is some states crowing about low taxation when the reality is citizens from another state are effectively paying those taxes plus the increase in their own state tax to cover short falls.

It doesn’t bother me if a citizen, locality, city, state needs assistance and actually I believe that applies to most Americans left, right, or center. What bothers me are systems—like this one —that cloud or hide need. I’d prefer to be punched in the face by the need like, a tornado ripping through an area of the country or a rural area with a thousand citizens that need basic infrastructure to function as part of the whole. Paying taxes so another doesn’t have to pay and then gloating about it I don’t get.

After that rambling, I support apportionment by population and “welfare” and no I wouldn’t define that as socialization but rather a mixed economy that deals with reality.

 

There wasn't an ounce of socialism in that privileged ****. Hated mixing with the proles, and lived the life of an aristocrat playing at understanding the peasantry. A total fake.

 

Well you have that correct, at least. Western Democracies have been working towards that end for at least the last 20 years.

Dependence as a control mechanism. The very last thing they want is an independent and therefore empowered citizenry. That's the purpose of the Welfare State .. to make sure as many people as possible give up on self-determination.

 

Some would refer to his lack of political economic insight. Even then they are wrong. His focus on authoritarianism has proved to be the crux in both forms of feasible socialism.

You talking about fakes? Chortle chortle!

 

Document that claim.