The real face of democratic socialism

Seems like, I did not express myself accurately. I am talking about adequate reward for his work, not laziness.

Seeking and pursuing quick money-making schemes makes one abhor hard work. Being valuable to society by honest work has gone out of fashion. The rich and the ones craving to become rich have disdain for honest work, while the poor/nearly poor have lost their pride of performance. The number of people who are satisfied with their financial status is small, and is shrinking. The resulting loss of emotional fulfillment leads individuals to flagrant ways of pleasure.

 

Communism is total control of the government over the economy . Effective socialism can be had by upper tier laws of by the government. We need to differentiate between the two. A rule that rules the least is the best. Thus, democracy is the best form of government today. What we need to do, is to curtail the greedy, unscrupulous behavior of the rich. They manipulate our government and economy too much. Socialism is needed to contain greed, the same as violence.

 

Did you get a chance to read my detailed reply to you in post #47?

Communism was defined by Karl Marx. Do you accept his description as valid?

Which "two"?

Do you disagree with what I said previously regarding what democracy is?

I agree with that statement.

 

No matter how much you get paid for your work for most people it isn't enough. Buyer's remorse applies to what you sell your labor for as well as what you buy. I don't know how many people I've worked with in my life whose chief concern with their jobs is that it interfered excessively with their boozing and doping.

 

A community cannot function without some socialism. By definition, socialism is nothing but taking away some individual freedom for the good of the whole community. Even law of land is socialism.

Living beings have two basic concerns, security and comfort. We all have desires for gratification. These desires manifest themselves as greed and fear. Greed and fear are two sides of a coin; greed is the fear of not having enough to last in future, may be even forever. In interfacing others these cause unscrupulous behavior. Corruption is one expression of this.

We all posses a combination of the emotions for gratification and dedication/sacrifice. It is a question of degree. Self awareness (self respect) raises honor in our heart. An honorable person acts scrupulously.

Socialism aims to restrain the unscrupulous behavior of the members. For this, society makes rules, and adds and modifies to suit the changing conditions, and the evolution of mental attitudes of the members. The rules are enforced by the fear of punishment. The part of the community that is entrusted with the tasks, requiring quick and vigilant actions, like safety from outside factors, enforcement of the rules is the government and disaster relief. We call the rules within the authority of the government the laws.

A poor society tends to be closely knit, for the reason, that members get in crunch time frequently, and the approval and support of neighbors is essential. On the other side, affluent societies stress individuality much more. The charitable impulses emerge and flourish much more readily in the closely knit societies; the craving for prestige exerts high emotional pressure. In an intensely individualistic society like ours, we are too dependent on the government to regulate our high tier social behavior.

Basically violence and corruption destroy happiness of a society. Fortunately, we have high level of order. But the corruption by the rich in form of manipulation of the government by lobbying and string attached election contributions, and manipulation of the economy is rampant. The subtle influence of the rich on our legislature keeps our tax code from correcting the loop holes, which favor the rich heavily. This keeps the taxes of the less affluent high, and the entitlement programs strained. Look at how processed food is made unhealthy with harmful preservatives and cheap ingredients, the quality of food in chain restaurants has degraded over the years, farm produce is made unhealthy by high-breeding, and the quality of dairy products by rampant use of hormones and antibiotics. This makes the nation fat and unhealthy, requiring more medical attention. On the other side, medical drugs/treatments are marketed at exorbitant prices, and once they are in circulation, our medical drug industry shows instances of suppressing and discouraging immerging cheaper/better remedies, and of suppressing discoveries of dangerous side effects. The common man is getting squeezed from every side. Our automobile industry ignored, or bought and shelved technical innovations, to avoid prerequisite expensive modifications to production processes, loosing against foreign completion in the end, retarding the country’s progress. Even our national sports have turned excessively commercial. Our society is losing from every side.

As globalization advances, the economic gap between the developed and underdeveloped economies of the world keeps shrinking. This is eating away the advantage the rich countries enjoyed. The resulting tightening profit conditions within the rich countries make their big businesses, having had tested the blood of easily rising wealth during the post world-wars era, tend to exploit domestic consumers by low quality products and to shortchange the employees by keeping the remunerations way lower than the actual values rendered by their services, progressively more and more, creating unscrupulous competition for smaller businesses, forcing these ways down the line. This keeps lowering the standard of living of the masses. In the game of greed all involved loose.

Sward used to be greed’s tool to acquire wealth and power. Democracy detached sward from greed. But with unrestrained capitalism, greed uses money as its weapon. Too much concentration of greedy power of wealth in a few hands causes poverty and associated fears for masses. Poverty is the worst form of torture. All fears are detrimental to happiness. Societies, with just distribution of wealth, have been very content and creative, throughout the history.

Corruption results from greed and fear. Poor societies tend more to have corruption stemming from fear, while the rich ones experience corruption more from greed. Corruption comes in many forms, including outright bribes and indirect manipulation of the economy and government.

Sward used to be greed’s tool to acquire wealth and power. Democracy detached sward from greed. But with unrestrained capitalism, greed uses money as its weapon. Too much concentration of greedy power of wealth in a few hands causes poverty and associated fears for masses. Poverty is the worst form of torture. All fears are detrimental to happiness. Societies, with just distribution of wealth, have been very content and creative, throughout the history.

Our just and honorable dealings with brother members made us reach and strong. Until in the 70s our society had a lot of empathy; our ideals were lofty. After the increasing seepage of greed in our mentality, by now, we have lost a substantial portion of honor. We have drifted much from ‘Us’ to ‘Me’. This is how India lost the nation to the British. We are losing our progress. The need for more intense socialism is rising. We are very effective in controlling violence, but no so in controlling greed.

Actually socialism and corruption are two opposite things. We need laws to curb corruption. All laws are socialism. The trick lies in creating effective socialism. An effective socialism subdues corruption, does not cause it.

Communism failed because the government got greedy for power. Poor countries suffer from corruption, because almost all involved, including the guardians are corrupted.
A just society creates better living conditions, which raises affluence. With affluence the impulse of being honorable gets boosted. This reduces corruption over time. It is a vicious chain, but we have to start hitting a link in the chain.

 

I'm getting sort of tired of people struggling to create specific situations that they insist should exist, and then demanding that the rest of us struggle to find solutions to the problems their created situations present.

 

I don't know how to zero-in on each response. Can you help?

I am not sure of the precise definition of communism by Marx. I remember, the main thrust was on class warfare by the economically shortchanged. His, or may be Lenin's, idea was that the government take over the material aspect of the society. Then as the distribution of wealth is made just the pride of performance will rise. With that the government will fade out into nothing.

The potential for class warfare exists. When it happens, the citizens having louder voice in democratic governments, the democracies will lead the way, bearing the bigger brunt. Fortunately, since in democracies the spirit of law is not in cahoots with tyrannies, the revolution is liable to be less violent. It is possible to avoid it by pro-action.

The communism failed because the government got greedy for power. Power brings wealth. No entity associated with life, be it a living being, a business, a system, or an idea, ever wants to compromise its existence. If anything, it wants to grow.

 

In the bottom right corner of each post, like yours to which I'm replying right now, you
will see "#83 Like +Quote Reply".

Your post is post #83. Does that help?

Yes. The first stage is socialism, or "the dictatorship of the proletariat" according to Marx. In time, as the society stabilizes and the routine of socialism and absence of exploitation and private profit becomes the norm, and as those desiring to be capitalists disappear, the need (in maybe 10 generations!) for state machinery to enforce socialist standards of the economy will become less and less a requirement. In Marx's words the "state will wither away". This is classless society. There will be no classes to conflict. There will be no real presence of state machinery. The society will function by itself. THAT is "communism". Communism is classless, stateless society. As you can see, Marx's idea of "communism" has never been achieved yet. And there is no other alternate idea of "communism". It is Marx's.

Therefore, it is incorrect to speak of a "communist country" or "communist society" because none has ever existed.

But now you understand that there never was communism. There was a political party called the "Communist Party" however, and they called themselves that because that was their ultimate goal in the distant future. But the first step would be to establish socialism. And yes, those nations in which communist parties established socialism failed. And they failed for definite reasons. And the failure occurred in Russia and China by the economy sliding into state capitalism. Due to conditions they were unable to effectively recognize it and prevent it. Solving that problem is the challenge and work of modern socialists.

My reason for my last posts to you was to get to this point of clarifying what communism is and that it has never existed.

 

As least you understand why we despise communists.

Sorry, but you're just going to have to battle your way all the way to your tenth generation of communists, and we'll fight you every step of the way.

Communism is a cancer, and communists must be destroyed.

 

Do you feel that way about Bernie?

 

So, a theory of an idealism that has never existed "is" a cancer, eh? Like the flying attack elephants are a cancer? Your blind fears and fundamental confusion lead you to make odd and impotent statements.

 

OMG

Prager U is a FAKE UNIVERSITY.

It's propaganda that claims "Natural Gas is the real Green Energy".

Why do simpletons fall for this crap.

 

An over simplification of Sweden's governmental system but whatever...

Continue to blame successful socialist societies on cocamamy excsuses.

 

They are successful because they aren't truly socialist. They have an aging population because sexual pleasure is now held in higher regard than procreation. They will collapse in the not too distant future because the people they are bringing in to solve that problem are from an increasingly alien and alienated culture and didn't sign the social contract Sweeden began creating in the 1950's. And they will become increasingly hostile to it as time passes.

 

What does America have going for it again?

It's a negroid country over-run by brown illegal immigrants, an aging white population, and a collapsing social infrastructure as well as real infrastructure.

If Sweden's collapse is imminent then America is doomed to turn into an African shithole.

Your fantasies can easily be applied to America and America's much worse off...so you should be putting your money where your mouth is and leaving but you're not.

 

Oh boy! PREDICTIONS!

 

LOL! You cannot refute the OP so you attack the source....ok then.

 

Nice try. The percentage of the population that is African American has been falling for nearly 20 years. Abortion, gangbanging, the welfare state and drugs have done a more thorough job of destroying the African-American community by accident than the klan ever did on purpose.

They are being replaced by Latinos who are a very mixed bag, everything from devout Catholic businessmen, to MS13 gang bangers.

 

Odd to you, perhaps, but impotent is hardly accurate. We've been at war with communists for quite a long time now. The body count isn't nearly as high as the number of commies killing each other, but it's certainly not an impotent statement.

 

Well thought out post Kode...... however, I disagree somewhat. A socialist business still has to compete in the marketplace which, by definition, is capitalistic. I agree that our elected officials may favor a more socialist or capitalistic economic system but, IMO, it's the bureaucrats who really run our economy and our elected officials can only, over time, change the politics of the bureaucracy. Right now, IMO, U.S. bureaucracy is biased to the left-progressive-socialist side.

 

Well let's see about inaccuracies. We've been at war with communists? Who called for the wars? The Russian Communist Party had hardly gained the upper hand and the U.S. joined with Japan. Britain, and Italy to attack the Russian communists in an effort to crush them. It failed.

In the 1960s we heard that the Communists would be coming here to take over America and we would be fighting them here if we didn't go to Vietnam and Cambodia to fight them there. But there was never any attempt by communists to take the battle to us. Communism is not imperialist. Capitalism is. So, "war with communists"? Yep. U.S. capitalism just couldn't mind its business and let other people solve their own problems. Imperialism is like that. And your anti-communist propaganda is failing around the world, FAST.

I am not a communist. The socialist effort by communists failed and it failed for specific known reasons. That's history. Nobody but a handful of leftover hangers-on advocate it now. So you can rest easy. But at least we see now that the inaccuracies are actually yours.

 

Inaccuracies? I said we've been at war with communists for a long time, and that we've killed quite a few communists. I didn't say that the war has been won.

 

Right! No one is TRULY socialist or capitalist. It is only a question of how much of each.

There is no choice to be made between the two. One can only be for or against specific programs, like Obamacare [which isn't socialized medicine by a long shot], welfare, social security, unemployment insurance, workers rights, environmental protections, etc.