What does socialism mean to you?

Socialism is the noxious idea that someone in a government building 1500 miles away knows more about your life than you do.

 

Exactly.

But I would say that the average Prog is a flaming individualist capitalist (no responsibility for anyone but the self .. they HATE the expectation of conformity and compromise that family life brings with it), who would like to exercise tyranny for reasons of boredom and vanity.

 

They fail. All of them. There are no communes anymore, because 10 people couldn't make it work. The reason is you're expecting an equal output, and it's physically and/or mentally impossible for all individuals to be exactly the same. What I'm saying is, your examples, definitions, etc are completely impossible

 

That being said, in the 60s, the idea of communal living was at least a noble attempt. In San Fran with the free clinics, second hand stores, etc. it actually did work for a few years, until it was overrun with hard core dope dealers and beggars

 

I heard that Bernie Sanders got kicked out of his commune back in the day because all he did was sit around writing bondage poetry

 

Seriously? Do you not realise that every stable family is a commune/collective? Every religious group which cohabits? Every agrarian village? Every small business partnership. The world is lousy with communes/collectives.

And they literally CAN'T fail, because people are in them voluntarily. If you don't like that kind of life, you won't volunteer for it. Or if you're born to it and grow to dislike it, you'll leave. Obviously.

 

Those are not examples of socialism, though. They're capitalists, using the wealth of capitalism to fund the luxury of indolence.

 

so·cial·ism
/ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/
noun

1. a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
   synonyms: leftism, Fabianism, syndicalism, consumer socialism, utopian socialism, welfarism; More
   
   • policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism.
     synonyms: leftism, Fabianism, syndicalism, consumer socialism, utopian socialism, welfarism; More
     
     
   • (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.

 

Is this for real? I sure hope so

 

Generally speaking, mutts tend to be smarter, healthier and more robust and adaptable than purebreds. The New Deal was a couple of small but essential quasi-socialist "tweaks" added to our capitalist system so that it would function more as a tool to serve working families.

Today the New Deal is all but erased these last forty years and as a result, instead of minimum wage earners being able to afford a cheap and crummy flophouse and a couple of gallons of gas in his jalopy and couch change tuition for school to better himself, they can barely swing rent with the paycheck from TWO jobs.
Thus we have despair, and despair is poisonous.

Instead of a single income earner supporting a family, rent/mortgage, health care, school, one or even two cars and savings for the future, it takes a two earner family, sometimes with three or four jobs between the two, and health care and college are still an iffy proposition.

We cannot demand or expect perfection but I will say this: If we alleviate more of the despair, a lot of our other problems will slowly begin to take care of themselves.
And to that end, I really couldn't care less what you want to call that, because all I know is, I was fortunate enough to grow up IN the New Deal era and I've never seen anything since 1980 perform even a fraction as well since.

I don't care who fixes it, and I don't care what it's called, I just know what we as a society must do in order to help fix it, or at least get a good start on fixing it.
We need to fix our despair problem. We need an economy that is somewhat more egalitarian, we need to invest in our future generation.
We need to reestablish some trust in our institutions and we need to balance our partisanship and accept at least some legitimacy between conservatives and liberals in order to hammer out compromise and solution.

Screaming about an America headed toward Marxism and communism is hyperbolic knee jerk reactionary nonsense. America will never be socialist in that regard, not ever.
And we already had experience with dabbling with a mild hybrid.
It was the best experience America ever had.
So don't be scared off by reactionaries, just learn what the various ingredients do and learn to be a good cook.

 

Socialism can ONLY work on a voluntary basis. And 'greater society' is full of collectives of one sort or another.

 

I just checked and it's partially true.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/br...d-off-vermont-commune-for-loafing/2016/04/20/

 

In the excellent book cited below, is a supreme discussion of socialism. It was first imposed in China. It failed there. This was as I recall somewhere around 5000 BC.

 

I don't know. If you want to go live in a hut with 15 bush people, more power to you

 

There is a terrific movie showing how Socialism works.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/

In Logan's Run he questions being put to death and escapes under tremendous pressure.

 

That's a single iteration of collectivism, out of the infinite number which exist.