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Socialism (Page 6)
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Athens
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Mar 16, 2012, 03:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Who said they don't ?

Their debt/GDP ratio is about 84% (est.). Sure, not as bad as the US or Greece, but still high.
And this doesn't account for future liabilities, because governments all over the world hide their real obligations by using cash accounting.

Btw, household debt is even worse:


Canada's brewing debt storm - The Globe and Mail

So, really, saying that Canada is SOOOOO different is just not the case.
Thei saving grace in the last years has been their natural resources, which helps offset the effects of inflation.

-t
Yup.

Personal Debt is high because of home ownership, its getting really costly to own a home because of foreign competition. Asia and now other parts of the world is parking investment money in our real estate. Medical costs is sky rocketing because of the baby boom population putting larger demands on the medical system. A wasteful arrogant government spending large deficits budgets with ideology paving the way to ruin. Deficit spending was expected with the down turn in the economy in 2009 and 2010 but not to the levels they did it. Example of ideology spending that is going to add a lot to the debt is the new crime bill. Even though Canada had the lowest crime rate ever over the last 40 years and for the last 20 its been dropping every year the Harper government wants to waste a trillion dollars on a crime bill that will require lots of new prisons built, a lot more jail time for minor crimes, minimum sentences taking away the power of a judge to decide on the merits of prison and a new war on drugs, mostly marijuana which will put us in the same level of stupidity as the US. So we absolutely have a debt problem and half of it is a Government taking its lead by G.W. Bush 1 in policies.

I've personally added $50 000 in personal debt just in the last 10 months some how lol yay me.
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gradient  (op)
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Mar 16, 2012, 04:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Alright then, I'll shut up then, because I have no desire to discuss the "theoretical merits" of Socialism.

My guess is that most people here are not interested in that type of discussion anyways.

-t
By all means keep on with other elements of the discussion, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Again, my intention isn't to talk about the merits of Socialism, whether they be theoretical or otherwise, though, so I'm not sure why you're getting hung up on that when it comes to my comments/questions.
     
Athens
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Mar 16, 2012, 05:30 PM
 
The problem with true socialism is the human factor. It can never work because of greed and the struggle of power. Its really that simple.

Communism was a means to reach a goal of Socialism. The state takes over everything. The goal is the state equalizes everything and then power is dissolved and the people continue on in a socialism society. Sadly that last step can never be achieved. Communist governments can't let go of the power.

In a economic situation a socialism economy can't work either. Its to damn expensive. 100% of what you make would have to be turned over to the state to fund everything. And if people can't keep and enjoy the money they have because it all goes to the state, they won't work nearly as hard either. USSR, the state pretended to pay people and the people pretended to work.
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Mar 16, 2012, 05:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
The problem with true socialism is the human factor. It can never work because of greed and the struggle of power. Its really that simple.
100% agree with this statement.
     
subego
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Mar 16, 2012, 05:38 PM
 
As the saying goes, "Socialism runs on goodwill, Capitalism runs on self-interest. We have way more of one than the other in this world".
     
cgc
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Jun 3, 2012, 06:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by gradient View Post
100% agree with this statement.
Animal Farm illustrates this perfectly. Here's a message I saw years ago I think also points out the problems with socialism:
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
     
ebuddy
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Jun 3, 2012, 09:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
As the saying goes, "Socialism runs on goodwill, Capitalism runs on self-interest. We have way more of one than the other in this world".
The question is; will dismantling one somehow bolster the other?

Those who advocate larger government for expressing the collective goodwill by having you give more are statistically less apt to donate to charity than those who advocate smaller government and less entitlement. IMO, goodwill is not best defined by the forced redistribution of the fruits of your labor.
ebuddy
     
Wiskedjak
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Jun 3, 2012, 09:47 AM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
Animal Farm illustrates this perfectly. Here's a message I saw years ago I think also points out the problems with socialism:
That's all nice and very propagandic, except nobody is proposing a US economy where all earnings are equalized. The quote also more accurately represents Communism rather than Socialism (though I recognize that you may have been conditioned not to recognize the difference).
     
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Jun 3, 2012, 09:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
The problem with true socialism/communism is the human factor. It has never worked because of greed.
Fixed.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Athens
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Jun 3, 2012, 12:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Fixed.
It has never worked and never will work. Absolute power corruptions absolutely and the transition requires absolute power.
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subego
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Jun 3, 2012, 02:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
The question is; will dismantling one somehow bolster the other?

Those who advocate larger government for expressing the collective goodwill by having you give more are statistically less apt to donate to charity than those who advocate smaller government and less entitlement. IMO, goodwill is not best defined by the forced redistribution of the fruits of your labor.
Well, let's be fair. Capitalists are going to have more to spare.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jun 3, 2012, 04:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
It has never worked yet and probably never will work. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and the transition requires absolute power.
Fixed.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Jun 3, 2012, 04:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Well, let's be fair. Capitalists are going to have more to spare.
Fair enough. One more reason to dump socialism and force everyone into Capitalism.

-t
     
Athens
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Jun 4, 2012, 12:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Fixed.
%#&@ Off
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cgc
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Jun 7, 2012, 06:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
That's all nice and very propagandic, except nobody is proposing a US economy where all earnings are equalized. The quote also more accurately represents Communism rather than Socialism (though I recognize that you may have been conditioned not to recognize the difference).
I understand the difference between socialism and communism but the natural progression of governments is from feudalism-->capitalism-->socialism-->communism-->feudalism---> etc

After the easy money is taken from the rich to help those less fortunate the gov't take more and more money to appease the needs of the many which eventually will result in a communal form of government. Since it doesn't help you in a socialist society to do well everyone will sink towards mediocrity...with no big earners everyone pays into the system. Once the gov't take all money to redistribute that's when corruption rears its head more so than before (e.g. the Animal Farm pigs). Eventually we see what happened in the USSR where they broke up and fought for land to reform a society that's decidedly more capitalistic than before though the fighting over land epoch didn't last long so people may have kept the money sharing aspect as it felt natural to them.
     
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Jun 7, 2012, 07:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
...the natural progression of governments...
There is no such thing. There is no "slippery slope," there is no inevitable movement, there is no historical necessity, etc.

Karl Marx pioneered the idea that history has a "direction," which it doesn't, and listening to non-Marxists repeat this ridiculous notion is painful.

Some of the founders of the USA also believed that freedom is transitory and the path back to tyranny was inevitable, but they were utterly wrong too. The USA became more free over time, and not because of "inevitability," but because that's what the people wanted.
     
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Jun 7, 2012, 08:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
I understand the difference between socialism and communism but the natural progression of governments is from feudalism-->capitalism-->socialism-->communism-->feudalism---> etc
How many governments have followed this "natural progression"?
     
Athens
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Jun 7, 2012, 09:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post

Some of the founders of the USA also believed that freedom is transitory and the path back to tyranny was inevitable
I think they where right not wrong, have you not paid any attention to US politics for the last decade? Corporations own and run everything now and the corporation is one of the things some of the founding fathers feared most.
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lpkmckenna
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Jun 8, 2012, 01:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
I think they where right not wrong, have you not paid any attention to US politics for the last decade? Corporations own and run everything now and the corporation is one of the things some of the founding fathers feared most.
Did you miss the key word: inevitable? Yes, corporations have made some gains (Citizens United for instance), but they've made gains in the past too, and were pushed back. And today's abuse is nothing close to the scale of the Gilded Age, or when businesses hired thugs to murder union organizers, or when the sky over industrial towns looked like a district of Chinese factories barfed vaporized evil into the air.

The continued abuse by corporations isn't inevitable, it's contingent on our resolve to resist.
     
Athens
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Jun 8, 2012, 01:25 PM
 
No one is resisting, they have complete and total control now. It was inevitable, it has happened.
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Jun 8, 2012, 01:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by Athens View Post
No one is resisting, they have complete and total control now. It was inevitable, it has happened.
Pffft. Today is *nothing* like the Gilded Age. Stop being so ridiculous.
     
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Jun 10, 2012, 09:57 AM
 
So... what's the question here? Why communism refers to itself as a Socialist Republic?

Of course socialism is transitional. As the Government continues doing bigger things for the collective, it requires big money over and above that which the collective can reasonably produce. Hence, the marriage of Big Government to Big Corporation.

As the collective becomes more beholden to their government and more dependent upon its provisions, the spouse of government becomes the scapegoat for government failure. The government responds to the duped appeal of its new dependency class through more regulations that continue to squeeze out the more organic, small business sector (how the collective expresses its economic freedom) until you're left with a few, wink-nod TBTFs.

When the TBTFs eventually do fail, they find themselves under the ownership of the State to "clean up the mess" by first utilizing billions of dollars of our money to distort the marketplace even more by bailing them out (making them bigger and more dependent) until they eventually draft their business models and hire and fire their employees.

Oh... all the while using your money to grant sweetheart deals that directly compete against you in the labor market thus empowering the united government employees (read- Unions) the opportunity of appealing directly to the government for pay and benefits unlike the rest of us. Which of course renders all these other arguments of "equal protections" most laughable.

I mean c'mon... it's not like we've seen any of this before.
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Jun 10, 2012, 11:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
So... what's the question here? Why communism refers to itself as a Socialist Republic?
So? East Germany referred to itself as the German Democratic Republic.
     
turtle777
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Jun 10, 2012, 02:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
So? East Germany referred to itself as the German Democratic Republic.
So ? It just tells you it can be even worse, a "Democratic" name tag with a Communist system.

Sort of like the USSA.

-t
     
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Jun 10, 2012, 03:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
So ? It just tells you it can be even worse, a "Democratic" name tag with a Communist system.

Sort of like the USSA.

-t
All I'm saying is that the name means nothing. "Socialist Republic" in the name of a communist country means about as much as "Democratic" means in the name of a communist country.
     
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Jun 10, 2012, 03:58 PM
 
I'll take it one step further. The word "socialism" is meaningless. Period.
     
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Jun 10, 2012, 08:27 PM
 
So far as I can tell, none of the "socialist republics" ever were truly socialist, let alone republics. The USSR was anything but socialist; it was a nation of central control of everything for the good of the Party (not even the nation), and of the nomenclatura who were either very high in the party or lower but important to the higher ups.

It is important also to note that places like the DDR, (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) were also anything but democratic, being modeled on the USSR (because they were established BY the USSR). The difference in the quality of the products made there is purely due to the culture of German craftsmanship.

Many countries are structured at some level with socialist social systems, with Israel being apparently the most socialist of the bunch. All good unless you're "not Jewish enough" for the ultra conservative arbiters of who gets what sort of special treatment (including being able to join the army). Most of the Northern European states are highly socialist; Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are all very thoroughly structured to support social systems, with nationalized health care, a thriving dole, etc.. A Danish friend noted that it was all well and good until workers from Eastern Europe and farther east began settling there. The difference in culture between the solid Nordic self-reliant Danes and say Turks led to something unexpected: people not trying to get off the dole. This is another example of the problems with social support systems: they have to adapt to changes in society before they are overwhelmed or become irrelevant. This is something our revered law makers have never actually gotten. They keep trying to make what we have work, when it was built for a different society than that which uses it today.

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Jun 10, 2012, 09:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I'll take it one step further. The word "socialism" is meaningless. Period.
Would collectivism be a better description?
45/47
     
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Jun 13, 2012, 07:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
So far as I can tell, none of the "socialist republics" ever were truly socialist, let alone republics. The USSR was anything but socialist; it was a nation of central control of everything for the good of the Party (not even the nation), and of the nomenclatura who were either very high in the party or lower but important to the higher ups.
By this standard there is no true anything. Leninism was a hybrid of Marxism in its political and economic policy while granting constitutional powers to only one party; the communist party. To say the USSR was "anything, but socialist" is patently mistaken. The remainder of your point is taken however in the manifest failure of the paper ideology in practice. I also agree with those who've maintained that there is no true socialism, but that is only because it has no staying power to become fully realized before it is superseded by communism, but even then not a true communism mind you; the kind that merely replaces the cigar-chomping capitalist fat cat exploiting the working class with a cigar-chomping government fat cat exploiting the working class. What I've maintained is the sole cause of failure not only of their system, but of our own (US) progress toward the same phenomena. After all, if power can corrupt a businessman, it can certainly corrupt a politician. The question is, which one gives the common man more leverage and/or which one can be more directly held to account. IMO, certainly not the ones who draft your laws.

It is important also to note that places like the DDR, (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) were also anything but democratic, being modeled on the USSR (because they were established BY the USSR). The difference in the quality of the products made there is purely due to the culture of German craftsmanship.
Point taken on the need to give your system a kinder ring to it. My only point by invoking system-names was to illustrate how intertwined socialism and communism are in the ultimate path away from capitalism, not to say that a leadership is incapable of propaganda.

Many countries are structured at some level with socialist social systems, with Israel being apparently the most socialist of the bunch. All good unless you're "not Jewish enough" for the ultra conservative arbiters of who gets what sort of special treatment (including being able to join the army). Most of the Northern European states are highly socialist; Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are all very thoroughly structured to support social systems, with nationalized health care, a thriving dole, etc.. A Danish friend noted that it was all well and good until workers from Eastern Europe and farther east began settling there. The difference in culture between the solid Nordic self-reliant Danes and say Turks led to something unexpected: people not trying to get off the dole. This is another example of the problems with social support systems: they have to adapt to changes in society before they are overwhelmed or become irrelevant. This is something our revered law makers have never actually gotten. They keep trying to make what we have work, when it was built for a different society than that which uses it today.
The root cause of failure among these paper ideologies in spite of their sociological interest, has always been an inability to calculate and account for human nature.
ebuddy
     
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Jun 13, 2012, 12:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I'll take it one step further. The word "socialism" is meaningless. Period.
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
Would collectivism be a better description?
Wait, Statism is even a better term
45/47
     
subego
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Jun 13, 2012, 02:52 PM
 
Well, what do the statists think?
     
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Jun 13, 2012, 03:05 PM
 
The word Socialist isn't meaningless at all. It means government ownership of the factors of production, most narrowly.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
By this standard there is no true anything. Leninism was a hybrid of Marxism in its political and economic policy while granting constitutional powers to only one party; the communist party. To say the USSR was "anything, but socialist" is patently mistaken. The remainder of your point is taken however in the manifest failure of the paper ideology in practice. I also agree with those who've maintained that there is no true socialism, but that is only because it has no staying power to become fully realized before it is superseded by communism, but even then not a true communism mind you; the kind that merely replaces the cigar-chomping capitalist fat cat exploiting the working class with a cigar-chomping government fat cat exploiting the working class. What I've maintained is the sole cause of failure not only of their system, but of our own (US) progress toward the same phenomena. After all, if power can corrupt a businessman, it can certainly corrupt a politician. The question is, which one gives the common man more leverage and/or which one can be more directly held to account. IMO, certainly not the ones who draft your laws.


Point taken on the need to give your system a kinder ring to it. My only point by invoking system-names was to illustrate how intertwined socialism and communism are in the ultimate path away from capitalism, not to say that a leadership is incapable of propaganda.


The root cause of failure among these paper ideologies in spite of their sociological interest, has always been an inability to calculate and account for human nature.
None of the systems set up by the USSR, including the USSR, was actually socialist. The root of the Party's drive was to oust the monarchy and replace it with an elitocracy constructed of the Party faithful for the benefit of those faithful. By painting the Revolution as a socialist movement, they managed to get many of the members of the tiny middle class to at least buy into the movement, which bought momentum. They used socialist mechanisms, but did so to benefit the mechanisms that maintained the elite in power.

I cannot imagine ANY manager so totally incapable of management that he or she could screw up a centralized economy as badly as the Party screwed up the Soviet system. Repeatedly. If they had been actually trying to establish a socialist system, they would have had to have succeeded in a few things now and then. But they didn't, and I firmly believe that this was due to not seriously intending to build a "workers' paradise," but rather to look that way so that the Party could establish and maintain its elite in control and relative wealth.

It is not possible to build a system that depends, exclusively, on altruism and internal rewards for motivation. Instead, this sort of structure tends to de-motivate because if everyone is equal, then nobody ever gets the external rewards the human spirit needs to reinforce and sustain altruism and internal rewards. Without external validation, the social animals we call humans devolve to depending on personal rewards, which eliminates altruism, group-orientation, and even community orientation. A system that fails to notice individual effort (even as an example of how the group can perform better) dooms itself. Pure socialism is limited by the altruism capacity of the individuals in that system. Adding more chefs cannot allow a kitchen to produce edible food from garbage, no matter how hard they try, and putting more workers on a job that requires extra effort to make a good product simply costs more while often reducing the quality of the output (distributed blame is the converse of recognizing individual performance).

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
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Jun 14, 2012, 08:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
The word Socialist isn't meaningless at all. It means government ownership of the factors of production, most narrowly.
Ok. So, which factors of production does the US own that has it on the path to the slippery slope of Socialism ---> Communism? How is the Canadian economy even more socialist?
     
subego
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Jun 14, 2012, 08:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
The word Socialist isn't meaningless at all. It means government ownership of the factors of production, most narrowly.
I've found with some, this definition breaks down once you point out it would include things like the US military and Interstates.
     
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Jun 18, 2012, 08:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
None of the systems set up by the USSR, including the USSR, was actually socialist. The root of the Party's drive was to oust the monarchy and replace it with an elitocracy constructed of the Party faithful for the benefit of those faithful. By painting the Revolution as a socialist movement, they managed to get many of the members of the tiny middle class to at least buy into the movement, which bought momentum. They used socialist mechanisms, but did so to benefit the mechanisms that maintained the elite in power.

I cannot imagine ANY manager so totally incapable of management that he or she could screw up a centralized economy as badly as the Party screwed up the Soviet system. Repeatedly. If they had been actually trying to establish a socialist system, they would have had to have succeeded in a few things now and then. But they didn't, and I firmly believe that this was due to not seriously intending to build a "workers' paradise," but rather to look that way so that the Party could establish and maintain its elite in control and relative wealth.
Thanks for making my point? This is exactly why socialism has no staying power. This is what happens when you attempt to execute the paper ideology. I've already stated there's no such thing as actual or pure anything. There is either movement toward or away from free market capitalism. There's a long continuum between free market capitalism and communism.

It is not possible to build a system that depends, exclusively, on altruism and internal rewards for motivation.

Instead, this sort of structure tends to de-motivate because if everyone is equal, then nobody ever gets the external rewards the human spirit needs to reinforce and sustain altruism and internal rewards. Without external validation, the social animals we call humans devolve to depending on personal rewards, which eliminates altruism, group-orientation, and even community orientation. A system that fails to notice individual effort (even as an example of how the group can perform better) dooms itself. Pure socialism is limited by the altruism capacity of the individuals in that system. Adding more chefs cannot allow a kitchen to produce edible food from garbage, no matter how hard they try, and putting more workers on a job that requires extra effort to make a good product simply costs more while often reducing the quality of the output (distributed blame is the converse of recognizing individual performance).
You certainly don't need a purely socialist model to demonstrate the problems above as these are all an increasing phenomena right here. You not only create a moral hazard among the collective, but a growing intoxication of power among the elite.
ebuddy
     
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Jun 18, 2012, 09:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I've found with some, this definition breaks down once you point out it would include things like the US military and Interstates.
I'd be more inclined to agree with you had these been opposed by a majority of the states. I don't think the word socialism is meaningless simply because a pure form of it has never existed. A string can be fat, long, or short, but the word string is defined by the characteristics that are unique to it, not characteristics shared by other words. If a system is defined more by its limitations and what it doesn't do than what it does, it will likely not fit well with the characteristics unique to the word socialism. IMO
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Wiskedjak
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Jun 18, 2012, 09:20 PM
 
The problem is that people will twist it's definition to suit whatever they're trying to spin. A very common twist is to attempt to equate "socialism" with "communism".

I think the most accurate definition is the one submitted by Big Mac ("government ownership of the factors of production"), but that won't work for those who want to attack social programs.
     
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Jun 18, 2012, 11:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
I'd be more inclined to agree with you had these been opposed by a majority of the states. I don't think the word socialism is meaningless simply because a pure form of it has never existed. A string can be fat, long, or short, but the word string is defined by the characteristics that are unique to it, not characteristics shared by other words. If a system is defined more by its limitations and what it doesn't do than what it does, it will likely not fit well with the characteristics unique to the word socialism. IMO
I'm assuming you're not saying opposition by a majority of states is a requirement of socialism... so I'm lost here.
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 12:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
The problem is that people will twist it's definition to suit whatever they're trying to spin. A very common twist is to attempt to equate "socialism" with "communism".

I think the most accurate definition is the one submitted by Big Mac ("government ownership of the factors of production"), but that won't work for those who want to attack social programs.
Why not?

Let's take public education for example. Is this not government ownership of the factors of production?
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 06:59 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I'm assuming you're not saying opposition by a majority of states is a requirement of socialism... so I'm lost here.
No, I'm saying socialism is generally more pervasive than this program or that and that there is no pure system of any kind. There is either movement toward or away from free market capitalism. If the centralized authority were to usurp control over the multiple states against their will, this would be more a reflection of the type of socialism most are decrying.
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Jun 19, 2012, 07:09 AM
 
So you disagree with the Big Mac definition?
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 08:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Why not?

Let's take public education for example. Is this not government ownership of the factors of production?
Sure. It really depends on how loosely you wish to define "production". Define it too loosely and, as you mentioned earlier, it begins to include things such as "military protection", creating a paradox that conservatives can only resolve by saying that "military protection is mandated by the Constitution" as if the Constitution couldn't possibly mandate something socialist.
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 10:47 AM
 
Both seem to me like they're situations wherein the government owns the factors of production (providing an education and killing foreigners respectively).
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 08:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
So you disagree with the Big Mac definition?
With what he refers to as the "most narrow" of definitions for it, I guess? Do you disagree with his definition?
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Jun 19, 2012, 10:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
Sure. It really depends on how loosely you wish to define "production". Define it too loosely and, as you mentioned earlier, it begins to include things such as "military protection", creating a paradox that conservatives can only resolve by saying that "military protection is mandated by the Constitution" as if the Constitution couldn't possibly mandate something socialist.
Leftists trying to say military is socialist is just you (as usual) making things up, not defining something too broadly. (Since it lays entirely outside of the realm of the proper definition.)

Otherwise, you'll have to show where a nation's military is ever expected to be a private sector entitiy.

This is one of the dumber things you leftists have latched onto and keep trying to run with. It's like saying "having a government is socialist" since something that by definition is always going to be public and never private must certainly be socialist. It's just stupid, but then that never stops you from repeating something.
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 10:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Leftists trying to say military is socialist is just you (as usual) making things up, not defining something too broadly. (Since it lays entirely outside of the realm of the proper definition.)

Otherwise, you'll have to show where a nation's military is ever expected to be a private sector entitiy.

This is one of the dumber things you leftists have latched onto and keep trying to run with. It's like saying "having a government is socialist" since something that by definition is always going to be public and never private must certainly be socialist. It's just stupid, but then that never stops you from repeating something.
Case in point. Universal military protection is about as socialist as universal health care is.
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 11:02 PM
 
For our not very bright friends on the left, another pointing out of the obvious:

Healthcare industry= legitimate private sector function
Military= integral part of national government, NEVER a private sector function.

Wiskedjak: for once in your life, pick up a book. This has been true since the dawn of history.
     
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Jun 19, 2012, 11:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Military= integral part of national government, NEVER a private sector function.
Doesn't make it any less socialist. That just makes it socialism that you're o.k. with.
     
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Jun 20, 2012, 01:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Leftists trying to say military is socialist is just you (as usual) making things up, not defining something too broadly. (Since it lays entirely outside of the realm of the proper definition.)
Give us the definition you are using.
     
 
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