Socialism

[jtwhite]

Wikipedia:

Socialism refers to various theories of economic organisation advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterised by equal access to resources for all individuals with an egalitarian method of compensation.[1][2][3]
Most socialists share the view that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital and derives its wealth through exploitation, creates an unequal society, does not provide equal opportunities for everyone to maximise their potentialities and does not utilise technology and resources to their maximum potential nor in the interests of the public.

What do you think about socialism? What's good about it? What's bad about it? Could it be used without corruption? What could be changed about it to be better? How does it compare with Capitalism?

[mac173]

Socialism is a perfect governmental model. Every resource, supply, need, want and requirement is regulated and distributed equally. A perfect social structure.

The problem is, people are NOT perfect. No governmental system can exist without some corruption and guile, and that destroys the socialistic system.

The ironic thing is, the very things that socialistic theory predicts for a capitolistic system, actually happend in China, the only truly socialistic country in the world.

Socialism does not work.

[moiety]

It's a lovely idea in one sense, but cannot possibly work because there's always a percentage who take the piss. Also, there's the aspect of abdicating control over your life. Who decides what my needs are?

George Orwell's Animal Farm is an excellent book on the subject, set as a children's story. The animals throw out the farmers and set up a socialist society. The ideals are good, but the given inch, as normal, becomes a mile. The corruption gradually creeps in, and at the end of the book the rest of the animals look at the pigs (who have eased themselves into running the place) and can't tell the difference between them and the farmers.

[fractalfeline]

Agreed with Mac173. If all people were equal and had equal needs, and people weren't greedy or lazy, then socialism might work. Unfortunately it's just not true. Some are born physically stronger than others, some with more intelligence, some with better charisma and social skills, some are born insane, some with disabilities, and everyone has their own unique personality and sets of values and beliefs. How do you determine fair and equal distribution of work? How do you divide the goods and resources equally? Is it fair for the guy who scrubs the muck from the bottom of the sewer to be compensated the same as an office worker who does an easy desk job, filing papers and keeping things organized? Is it right to compensate someone who goes through years of intensive training to become a specialist in some field, be it science, technology, medicine, law, or whatever, as much as someone who works on the farm with little training or education? Who gets educated, and who doesn't? Who decides my fate; do I have any say in it? What happens if I'm a farmer, and I work hard, and bust my butt in the field, and Joe Blow next to me can't be bothered to pick up a farm tool most days. What if he gets paid the same? Who oversees and decides what to do in this case? Who is in charge of keeping track of which resources go where, and how to you keep them from simply "losing track" of things into their own pockets every so often?

Alas, a good dream, but just that: a dream of a better society, with better people.

Granted, capitalism at its most idealistic is a "perfect system" too. Your hard work and ingenuity get rewarded, people get to decide how much they value something and the worth of any good or product, the deserving get their just rewards, and the lazy and stupid get the bottom of the barrel. IF you do your work properly, you get compensated for your time according to the value of the work, and if you don't do your part to help society, then you get nothing at all. If you decide that a banana isn't worth the price that a seller is trying to sell it for, you can choose not to buy it, and if everyone thinks the same, the prices will go lower. All prices will reach an equilibrium where the supply and the demand are balanced, so that everyone pays for a good as much as it is worth, no more, no less. The seller is happy, the buyer is happy, and everything is distributed according to its value and worth.

Ah, but how much is my time worth anyhow? Is that tangible? Is my time worth more to me than to others? Does one employer value my time and skills more than another? And exactly how many beans is a banana worth anyhow? For my neighbor, it might be a handful of beans, but perhaps I don't like bananas, and I think it's worth maybe one bean. If there is only one person selling water, and I need water to live, how much value do I place on the ability to live? Two bananas? Ten? 20? What if you work hard, and aren't lazy, and have good character, and simply want to buy water for yourself and your family, and all the bananas you can muster is ten per week, and the water seller demands 20? And how is it that only one person owns the well for the water anyhow?

And for that matter, is moral and ethical character worth anything, in either system? Is it worth anything at all? Who decides which values and beliefs are worth something, and how much? Is there such thing as a correct moral/ethical system? Would it make sense to compensate someone for how honest and hardworking they are, and not compensate someone because they are lazy and dishonest? Would such a system even work?

(Granted, it's feasible to say at this point Isn't that the job of Religion? I won't answer that question.)

[WyrGecko]

I basically agree with what mac173 wrote.

People aren't perfect, so it doesn't work. If people were to be perfect, they'd probably be pretty similar, which would be absurdly boring from my current point of view. It's already obvious from group projects, whether at work or in school; you'll always have leechers and clueless people.

A lot of this may also do with where people are/grew up. I'm in the US, so there are bound to be some biases, though I'm not anti-socialism either.

Other than that, I think that it'd be nice to be more socialist in terms of more serving the public good and trying to even things out a bit more without it being a complete "free ride". People who already start out on a different level early on in life can't claim to have had the same resources as someone else on a lower level. "zomg, we're all equals (...except that the guy over there never had a chance to go to a decent school or have a stable family life...)"

Competitions is good, just that it sometimes needs to be reigned in, and people need to not take advantage of others to such an extreme degree.

It'd be impossible to completely convert a capitalist country, and I wouldn't want it that way but people who freak out about it need to think over things a bit more (e.g. US health care, death panel crap is even worse, heh). The other thing is that some people seem to think that it has something to do with communism and bring up the red scare stuff >.>

whoo rambling >_>;

[fractalfeline]

I basically agree with what mac173 wrote.

whoo rambling >_>;

Bahahahahaha me too! I'm totally guilty of that. I mean, who really wants to read all that crap we type anyhow? Get to the point man!

Clear, concise, to the point? What's that mean anyhow?! :dunno:

Teasing btw

[compass]

Socialism sucks in real life.
I was born and raised in a socialist country so I know of what I speak.

Every time I've spoken about this with Western Europen "socialists" they keep going on about "what Eastern Europe had, what Russia had, what China has, what Cuba has, what North Korea has, is NOT true Socialism...".
So, for the Chardonnay Socialists the only acknowledged Socialist States in the world were not in fact Socialst?!?!
Of course this is their position now that it all failed.
In the '70s and '80s Soviet Union was "the progressive dream of all humanity..." for these people.

I better stop now or I'll get angry...

[pixxel]

I agree with Mac173 also. I am from Serbia, which had a "bent out of shape" form of socialism as a regime and "a way of life" all until 2000. After that, democracy came. To be honest, for me (the end user of government's "resources") I don't see much of a difference, except in more open market (we do import much more than we used to, thus our industry is suffering losses), and some minor issues, like administration, which is huuuuuge now (for example, to get a paper stating that You are employed, Your boss has to sign 52 (yes, fifty two) different documents. )
It had its good sides, and also some bad sides - it all depends on who's running the country, thus ranging from totalitarian socialism (read feudalism ;) ) up to absolutist socialism (read monarchy).
Real socialism doesn't exist, unfortunately. In real socialism, there's not even a remote possibility of corruption, because there's no need to (free studies, free medicare, free social care, developed social programs for the less fortunate, good jobs with oportunityof advancement, without salary gaps (today, in democracy, it is common that an ceo of a company has 6-10 times an average worker earns a month, and in socialism that was limited to about 2-3 times higher)
Capitalism, minus wealth equals socialism. There are no poor and rich in socialism, everyone has just enough. That's why socialism in its true form can not exist.

[mstring]

Socially speaking, you'd ideally want some form of proletariat revolution to implement proper socialism in any given society.

Kinda crushes those dreams to see how the last one of those ended up though... :/

[Stormscape]

Socialism is a lot different from Communism. The USSR was recognised as a Communist State afaik, same said of Cuba and China. Socialism (real Socialism, not dictatorships, cults of personality or Communist state) does work, but not 100%, just like every other system. Ideally it wouldn't be a truly Socialist state, more like 50/50 or 60/40, with major aspects of society managed by the Government while other portions are Privately operated.