Opinions on Socialism?

[Accipeveldare]

It looks good on paper but what would it look like if we applied various versions of Socialism to everyday society? Could it ever possibly work well? Or is it just a hopeless idea?

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Most of Scandanavia seem to be doing pretty well with it.

 

[8Lou1]

i dont think it really matters. socialism was created in a 'boardroom' by people used to leading with kings etc. it sounds different, but it isnt. when a kid drowns in a river, socialists, just like any other, wait it out to see an other come to the rescue.

on the other hand the care of the lower classes has created funds, foodstamps, etc. , but when a leader becomes poor these things create hate, slavery, discrimination, etc.

good economics, now that would be cool. its my believe we know why idn arabi said concerning economics: stay in your own lane and focus. the world didnt and now we 'care' for the poor as solution.

want an example: meme coins. after the banking system agreed on crypto going worldwide, they started to roll out a new idea: everybody can play. come use your twitter or reddit account to gain coins. and why do they call it coins? so we can think of coins instead of money.

so the idea of socialism is very human, the enrollment of it is too.

 

[KjEno186]

Most of Scandanavia seem to be doing pretty well with it.

EVERY single article I saw in a quick search of the internet seems to disagree with the assumption that Sweden, Norway, etc., are "socialist" economies. You might want to define what you think a socialist system is before making broad claims as to effectiveness. You could pick several articles found in a web search and debunk them. Perhaps the writers have a different bias than yours?

I would also suggest to the OP to define in precise terms what the socialist system looks like "on paper" so that people aren't just talking past each other, arguing definitions rather than data points.

The global system is a market, corrupt and decaying though it may be, so every variant existing within the current framework depends to some degree on that capitalist market. Granted, there's no such thing as a pure economy. We live in reality and not in some Puritanical-Progressive Utopia where everyone makes rational choices for the sake of the betterment of the whole.

For just one example, the leader of the "communist/socialist" country of Cuba, Fidel Castro, had amassed about $900 million in net worth according to an article on Forbes magazine website. The valuation alone indicates that Cuba never existed within a sealed communist bubble but was still a part of and connected to the global market economy, even with so-called sanctions from the United States. That "communist" country was subsidized with global trade in currencies and commodities.

Don't make this thread about Cuba, however, because it is just one example of a human population with its own unique history and geographical location. What of Sweden? As a country it has avoided war on its soil for over 200 years, so there is a long-standing peace dividend allowing the nation to divert spending away from war and into social programs. But the social spending comes from taxes. Taxes don't just sit in a vault or on a computer hard drive. They get invested in markets. As the global markets expand, those taxes contribute to further growth. Sweden is a market economy with a high tax rate on citizens, which in turn pays for a social safety net. Capital pays for that system.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

EVERY single article I saw in a quick search of the internet seems to disagree with the assumption that Sweden, Norway, etc., are "socialist" economies. You might want to define what you think a socialist system is before making broad claims as to effectiveness. You could pick several articles found in a web search and debunk them. Perhaps the writers have a different bias than yours?

I had a look and most of it seems to be "Only a TRUE Scotsman" type arguments. Sure, if you stick to a laser-focussed definition of socialism, then there probably aren't any socialist countries.

 

[beardedeldridge]

Socialism can work in smaller settings, the larger and more diverse the group the more you have to move into a more hybrid system. In the end, greed and short sightedness ruins all systems eventually, the more securely power is held by a small group the faster the ruin happens.

-Eld

 

[Aeternus]

Socialism can work in smaller settings, the larger and more diverse the group the more you have to move into a more hybrid system. In the end, greed and short sightedness ruins all systems eventually, the more securely power is held by a small group the faster the ruin happens.

-Eld

Indeed. The smaller the group and higher the amount of power, the faster the chances of ruin are occurring.

That is why in some very populated areas of the world, Nationalism is kind of useless

 

[Accipeveldare]

Indeed. The smaller the group and higher the amount of power, the faster the chances of ruin are occurring.

That is why in some very populated areas of the world, Nationalism is kind of useless

Great point you make there. I believe maybe if the nations were a lot smaller it could work but other than that it becomes more of an authoritarian regime than anything

 

[8Lou1]

i live in the netherlands, one of the smaller cuntries in the world and its not working. ow yes the granted subsidies work like hell, if you know how to aply, which is like studying law and hitting walls.

i remember working at a community center and every november/december we were asked to create ways to spend money so the next year we would get the same amount or more. people have to create ideas. so we went on long weekends to retreats to thinktank about how to help the poor. and everybody went. the cleaning lady, the director, the volunteer, everyone. except the target audience of course.

someone ever had a meeting about when we have a meeting? thats city hall.

 

[KjEno186]

The Wikipedia definition of "Socialism" seems pretty squishy and vague. On the one hand they acknowledge that the Soviet Union was "the world's first nominally socialist state" while attempting to distance the way that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics actually worked from the article author's own idealism, claiming "that in practice, the model functioned as a form of state capitalism." Way to go, Wikipedia! Socialism didn't work in the USSR because they did it wrong! Just do socialism harder next time, and eventually you'll get it right after killing how many more millions of people! By the way, is Sweden's model also "a form of state capitalism"? Want to have cake and eat it too?

If one's idea of "socialism" is 'get more free stuff', then you need men with guns to take that 'stuff' from the ones who have it. The incentive to work to make 'stuff' is destroyed since the men with guns can take it to redistribute it. Sooner or later, the 'stuff' that gets redistributed isn't worth shit, and a black market is thriving between people who want what cannot be officially had. If you believe that people give their 'stuff' out of the goodness of their heart, well bless you, you sweet summer child. Any ideology where the 'social good' is held to be paramount means that the individual's rights are a secondary consideration. Thus one is always at risk of being forced to do something against one's conscience "for the good of society." Even if the government is secular or atheist, it doesn't sound any different from living in a fundamentalist religious hell hole.

In a capitalist system with a social safety net, taxes are levied to pay for the services rendered. Taxes are enforced by 'men with guns' of course. Presumably, the redistribution occurs in such a way that the majority experience beneficial returns in exchange for some loss of wealth. In the United States, Social Security has worked for decades and even now is nearly fully funded. The corrupt medical system in the United States is currently expanding because the US Government borrows most of the money funding it. Politicians will lie by claiming that "Social Security" is broken when in fact it is the Medicare/Medicaid system that has ballooned far past the taxes funding it. Wouldn't that be interesting to have the "sick care" system in the United States bring down the world economy because of the greed of the corporations benefiting from short term profits? Unsustainable debt expansion is...unsustainable.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Karl Denninger makes lots of posts pointing out the corruption in the United States. Maybe things are more resilient than he thinks they are, but it seems that humans haven't quite learned how to manage vast, complicated economies. Perhaps after the coming collapse things will organically reorganize around smaller centers of power.

You see, I'm not in favor of capitalism so much as I'm a student of human behavior. Perhaps I should be more grateful to have lived in a time where I enjoyed the luxury of doing so from a comfortable armchair!

 

[Romolo]

The workers' rights to strike and the protection of their wages, scholarships to promote social mobility for kids who grow up poor, reduced ticket prices for unemployed or students, social housing for single parents and - to some extent - market regulations of how high a rent should be per square meter, a few months pay when you lose your job---

I dare any liberal to make one step forward, but without any inherited money or family support, and see how they feel about socialism.

 

[Xenophon]

Socialism is no more the cure for capitalism than is treating an anemic patient with leeches. Speaking of which, this is the only time I ever quote Maggie Thatcher with approval: "Sooner or later socialists run out of other people's money."

Post automatically merged: Jun 19, 2024

Socialism is no more the cure for capitalism than is treating an anemic patient with leeches. Speaking of which, this is the only time I ever quote Maggie Thatcher with approval: "Sooner or later socialists run out of other people's money."

Come to think on it, you know what else looks good on paper? Bung wipings, that's what.

 

[Jackson]

Mondragon is alright.

 

[Mars]

If there was no concept of money and banks then perhaps it would work.

And the incentive to work and contribute to a state or Kingdom is spiritual and idealistic, aimed upwards, instead of physical aimed downwards at the wallet.

Would also only work in an homogeneous ethnostate, where all people share the same culture and racial spirit.

 

[Jackson]

mmmm ....No Fichte, not only your german people posses the motivation to contribute to their community etc......

 

[Aeternus]

If there was no concept of money and banks then perhaps it would work.

And the incentive to work and contribute to a state or Kingdom is spiritual and idealistic, aimed upwards, instead of physical aimed downwards at the wallet.

Would also only work in an homogeneous ethnostate, where all people share the same culture and racial spirit.

Hats off to you @Mars ! The points you summed up would present a good point and modus operandi of socialism.

Personal opinion: what you proposed here us real Socialism, not the National Socialism (Nazi) thing that was in the past. Hitler was just running baloney stuff and rules and to what extent, the extent of losing the War in the Third Reich by killing himself (like a coward) and leaving the German people and many other non-white people poor and suffering like hell.

Anyways, that is my opinion only

 

[Taudefindi]

It looks good on paper but what would it look like if we applied various versions of Socialism to everyday society? Could it ever possibly work well? Or is it just a hopeless idea?

To be fair, aside dictatorships, most systems seem "okay-ish" but as always the issue lies in those in power letting said power(and greed for more) get to their heads and not do it as a system's theory dictates.
You can't control the human factor, so all systems have high chances to end up "corrupted" regardless if they have good ideas on paper.

But still, socialism seems better than this capitalistic system that is every day demanding more and more out of those without power and money, and it never seems to fulfill it's promise of a change of status(for good), the rich stay rich and get richer while very few of the poor can actually get a better life.
A person lives to work and work to live, at least with a socialist system you can get some aids that make it more bearable to live(like a social healthcare system, which can be an overworked one but it's still much better than having none).

 

[Xenophon]

mmmm ....No Fichte, not only your german people posses the motivation to contribute to their community etc......

So why do "refugees" head to northern Europe like swallows to Capistrano? My progressive sister worked inside 8-Mile and scratched her head long and often over 52 year old great-great-grannies in Dee-troit for whom state "aid" was a family career spanning generations. THAT is what socialism gets you. Alienation wedded to entitlement.

 

[Jackson]

wELL, if we're getting political, although I wouldn't exactly consider Europe's policy best, some of the northern countries weren't exactly setting up the immigrants they brought in for success either.

 

[Wintruz]

I'm in favour of nationalising socialism.