Socialism Doesn't Work?

For one, they are not socialist countries. Which among those has had its means of production nationalized?

 

Well, we didn't argue when I was an anthropology major. We observed it in Amerindian tribes, and Amazonian tribes. and historical literature is full of such accounts.

Oh, but most of the right side equation communal sharing, which later manifested as a commons once a gov't was created and in place.

But understand, the socialistic principles used in early tribal cultures was not forced, it arose naturally, for it was the optimum way to provide for human survival. Humans are social animals, they lived in groups, for there is security in numbers, and a group effort works better in survival of the individual than the lone wolf paradigm. Being kicked out of a tribe in ancient times was probably certain death, if by nothing else than the other tribes who warred against his tribe.

Socialism is forced upon people today, and there has always been some kind of dictator involved who would purge people who did not want to be forced. Socialism has been used as just another way for some power hungry human being becoming dictator. If socialism, without some power mad dictator could arise naturally by mutual consent of a people, I have no doubt it would be successful. For we know something close was successful for thousands of years.

There must have been a lack of individualistic selfishness in ancient times, which again arose naturally, as intelligence found the optimum way to insure survival. This became and helped to form the culture, its values. Sharing was a survival tool, it probably help to form societal bonds in those societies. Everyone had a part to play, which in later times, in civilization, this was no longer the case. I sure do not need the poor black in the local ghetto to do anything for my own survival.

I find it funny that you would from the get-go call into question what is well known about tribal, hunter gatherer cultures. In many of those, self worth was tied to how good a sharer you were. It yielded social status in such societies, instead of hoarding your personal surplus, giving status as today.

 

These people equate a Commons with real deal socialism. I guess it smells the same to them?

 

I am using the terms state, and nation, in a specific meanings not the confabulated way too often used. The state is a country like France is but the nations are groups of people, hence the term nation-state. The United States of America is a hybrid country composed of many States, which even now are quasi-independent. The Electoral College is responsible for giving the States the power to allocate the electoral votes as they choose. The College is supposed to represent the individual States desires, not the country as a whole. They are not provinces, or territories, but even today independent countries with their own (if they choose, and some do) completely independent military.

There has always been a tension between the individual states, and the federal state. Are we one nation-state, or one nation with many states, or multiple nation-states bound together? Since the whole country has over 300 million people, and fifty, often very different, states, plus assorted territories there are stresses, and the college is supposed to act as a kind of buffer.

 

Slavery is compatible with different economic systems. The Roman Republic/Empire had free markets and plenty of slaves. The United States is a republic with free markets, and capitalism, and the peculiar institution in a least a third of the country.

Further, the German economy of 1933 was very different from the economy of 1943. The former was peacetime free market capitalism, and the latter was a centralized war economy, using of the goal of the Nazis, which was the extermination of the Jews, and Slavs, especially Poles, Ukrainians, and Russians by getting free labor while working them to death.

Don't forget that fascistic movements often uses the support of the wealthy elites such as bankers, and industrialists, to gain power. They promise jobs, social supports, to the workers, freedom to make money to the business elites, and order of the country by destroying any other political party, social organizations, or any nongovernmental organizations such as independent unions thereby centralizing all political power to one party.

 

Fascism was very popular with conservative Italians.

 

Actually the National-SOCIALSTS German Workers' Party was formed, or at least supported by conservative nationalists, who were antisemitic, anti-socialists, and anti-communists, and rose to power under Hitler with the backing of the conservative banking/industrial leadership which did not want the German Socialists, or the even more, the German Communists to come to power.

The quid pro quo was that the wealthy conservatives would make money, the now embarrassing brown shirts, along with the socialists, communists, any other troublesome groups would be contained, or destroyed, and the Nazi party would get the conservatives' support.

The central goal of the Nazis (read Hitler) was to gain power so that a Greater Germany could be created using all the lands where large ethnic German populations lived, plus most of Eastern Europe as more living space using genocide, often by death by overwork, to clean the land for Germans. Everything else was either camouflage, or gravy.

 

Exactly.

 

I'ts certainly true that socialism isn't broken. It was never a viable large scale and/or long term system in the first place, so there's nothing to break.

Democracy, in it's pure form, isn't really much better than socialism. It's a lion, a bear and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Viable self-governance requires rule of law that protects everyone's rights; not just those in the majority; and also protects citizens from government.

 

None of those countries is socialist, regardless of what they choose to call themselves. To be socialist requires that the means of production, exchange and distribution are owned/run by the community as a whole.

Those countries are all just run-of-the-mill dictatorships or oligarchies, run by a small group of thugs.

 

No, the US is far from the only "democracy" in the world where candidates who get fewer votes can win. Most of europe, for instance, governs by coalition, where the party that got the fewest votes in a given election can end up in the governing coalition, while several parties that got far more votes are left out.

The electoral college is an excellent example of the founders' desire to protect the US from "pure" democracy, where 50.00001% of voters can have complete power to ignore the rights, liberties and everything else, of the other 49.99999% of the voters and impose their will upon them. Like the "two senators per state" rule, the electoral college was designed to ensure that the wants and needs and rights of smaller states(population-wise) cannot be completely ignored by candidates running for national office, or by politicians from the more populous states in the legislative branch.

And the winner in the US presidential race does have to get the most votes(and a minimum of 270); from the electoral college(or from the House of Representatives in the case of a tie)

 

The true death of Liberty as we know it.

Which should be so low that the government can only fund that which is
Constitutional.

 

You cannot argue socialsm from a singular point of view with any credibility. There are many different forms of socialism that have evolved since the time of the Patriarchs. Christian Socialism, Democrat Socialism, and then the dreaded Marxist Socialism which you refer to. The form of "socialism" found in the Nordic countries is like that of that found in the US. It is based on the concept of the social contract, and a mix of Christianity. Hobbes, Locke, Paine, and before them Plato, and Aristotle. . Plato with his "Republic", Thomas More with his "Utopia," Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis", Thomas Paine with his "Rights of Man", John Locke "The Second Treatise of Government", or Rosseau's "The Social Contract".

 

Sure you can argue socialism from a singular POV. In order for it to be socialism, the means of production has to be owned and controlled by the collective.

The welfare state redistributionism that all first world countries engage in to varying degrees is a socialistic practice, but it's not socialism itself. You simply cannot credibly call any state a "socialist" state unless the state owns and controls the means of production; and the fact is that many european countries now are more Laissez-Faire capitalist than the US is in many areas.

 

People get too hung up on the terms. I want Nordic democratic socialist programs in this country. Call them whatever you like to make you feel better

 

You'd need Nordic people to make it work. But you don't have that do you?

 

Its truly comedic how as your socialist dream keeps getting debunked you constantly narrow your definition - its gone from socialism to "Nordic democratic socialist programs". Just give up, socialism does not work.

 

Uh....yeah it does

 

Europe is just a airline flight away.

 

Tomatoes are red. I love random facts

 

Here's another one. Liberalism is a path to societal suicide.

 

Based on this thread and your posts, it obviously does not work.

 

Based on all of scandanavia it does. LOL

 

Cows go moo. This is fun

 

Don't make assumptions on limited experience. I am Swedish and a socialist. You are probably young and possibly an immigrant?