Forum Post: There's nothing wrong with socialism
Posted 13 years ago on Sept. 29, 2011, 1:23 p.m. EST by shinyheart
(27)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The working class in this country has been brainwashed by MSM, Fox News, and the right wing propaganda machine against "socialism," but there is nothing wrong with "socialism," which the working class can't even define - they have just been emotionally brainwashed against it.
We are protesting deep inequality in this country, the non-socially productive people on Wall Street, and the ability of the super-wealthy to buy politicians who then funnel them more money.
We need to de-program people against the brainwashing they've experienced over the past several decades against the idea of socialism, because that is exactly what this country needs.
https://occupywallst.org/forum/money-doesnt-exist-not-really/
Inequality links:
The wealthiest 1/5 own 84% of the wealth in the US, while the bottom 2/5ths own 0.3%. Most Americans think the US is much more equal than it is: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsense_08-16.html
Robert Reich explains the economy in 2 minutes, including how the economy has doubled in size since the 1980's, while wages have remained stagnant, because all the gains have gone to the wealthiest 1%: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE
Many economic institutions are driven by waste, not efficiency, because waste is a "fitness display," and thus it is sexually selected for. (You can only afford to waste huge amounts of resources if you are really really wealthy - so think of peacock's tails, bling, and MTV's cribs).
Knowing this, a rational society only allows so much of it: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/business/sales-of-luxury-goods-are-recovering-strongly.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/business/darwin-the-market-whiz.html?pagewanted=all
There are record corporate profits, yet no hiring: http://www.slate.com/id/2289619/
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on." -Warren Buffett, a smarter, better man than Paul Ryan will ever be
"When rich speculators prosper While farmers lose their land; when government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures; when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have nowhere to turn- all this is robbery and chaos."
-Tao te ching
"Those who create phantom wealth, and those who are the beneficiaries of mutual funds or retirement funds invested in phantom wealth, may never realize that they are giving its holder a claim on the real wealth produced by others, and that phantom-wealth dollars created out of nothing dilute the claims of everyone else to the available stock of real wealth. They may also fail to realize that Wall Street and its international counterparts have created phantom-wealth claims far in excess of the value of all the world's real wealth, creating expectations of future security and comforts that can never be fulfilled."
David Korten
I respect your views, but there is something wrong with the word socialism. If you say it in a political context, you lose. People put in minimal brain effort and lump us all together unfortunately, just as liberals lump all tea partiers together.
Maybe we can just agree to disagree about our complete political ideologies.
I agree with you that it's the word, more than policies, and it has been that way for awhile. There's a famous quote from Upton Sinclair:
"The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to "End Poverty in California" I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie." - Upton Sinclair
There's another quote from George Orwell that is relevant:
"Even a single taboo can have an all-round crippling effect upon the mind, because there is always the danger that any thought which is freely followed up may lead to the forbidden thought.” – George Orwell.
If we're going to make progress, we have to break the taboo and fight the Big Lie.
FIXED: There's nothing wrong with socialism as long as it happens on a voluntary basis.
(did you notice the gun?)
Unless you understand the real concept of socialism and not Fox news definition, how can you convey it to others.
Just replace the word "Socialism" with "Democracy" in order to get Americans to understand what it is.
Socialism is just democracy in our economic system.
Both our government AND our economy should be run democratically. Just like we should not stand for an oligarchy in our government, we shouldn't stand for an oligarchy in our economy.
Democracy is a society organized on the principles of Freedom, Equality and Science.
It means everyone has the FREEDOM to pursue whatever lifestyle they want, everyone has an EQUAL power to build that lifestyle and the purpose of SCIENCE is to make those lifestyles possible.
In a real democracy, you would have real equality: equal votes, equal treatment under the law, equal ownership in the economy, and equal pay for equal effort.
If pay was allocated equally in the US, everyone would earn $127,000 per year, enough to make everyone wealthy and enough to end most social problems.
Why can't we all just acknowledge there is a problem and go after that problem rather then trying to promote radical beliefs above all else. If we're going to be anything lets be libertarians, you know, "do what you want, leave me alone unless I CHOOSE to be involved" you know REAL freedom. Instead it seems the majority here are promoting a political ideology that's always best implemented through the barrel of a gun, and many of you wonder why you can't get more support from the general public............The American people know that socialism is just a stepping stone to communism and they're NOT going to support that.
As bad as things are , as a US citizen I for one , do not want socialism.
I'll make it simple for you. Watch this. Make mine FREEDOM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6H63CD7uQA
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150409084095833
Similarly, the drones of the matrix whine on about and against socialism and communism. Two very exact political theoretical systems which HAVE NEVER EXISTED.
In each case, some patent elite money centered oligarchy PRETENDS to have a political system while in fact running that political system as a MERE CON SCAM
designed to MAINTAIN THE PEASANT CASTE.
There has NEVER been a "Democracy". Not once on this planet. There has NEVER been "Socialism". There has NEVER been "Communism". There has NEVER been "Capitalism."
But you all argue as if these things have not only existed but provide concrete examples of cause and effect inside of social and poltical systems.
Nothing could be further from the truth."Socialism" and "Communism" are being used as mere ideological PROPS, to which is pinned the assorted angst which republicanism
inverts against "government" in order for the elites to point the finger at government and thus distract from themselves as the actual culprit. The Point of the smoke
and mirrors is to say" Communism " or "Socialism" is bad, and then to say that doesn't work, and then to claim that what somebody proposes as a solution is "Communist"
or "Socialist". Meanwhile, whats really going on is corporate oligarchy, and the only way that can be turned into a genuine democracy is to balance against corporate powers
and empower government to force corporations to be fair and moral and ethical instead of allowing them to be evil.
And we should really make the point. Because just like all of the evil scum sucking bottom feeding pigs that we can now continuously reality test to PROVE they are evil and etc...
Corporations are by their inherent nature EVIL entities. They are mass consuming reptile godzillas. They are the ultimate evil negative social entity. They via market and economic
forces alone will always become absolutely sociopathic; will always turn human beings into commodities, will always lie and steal and cheat and even kill people to make that buck.
But there is a curious and important truth about such things which is quite a bit like keeping a crocodile as a pet in the yard. It has no conscience. It is an evil reptile and it
has no warmth, no love, no compassion, no capacity for higher reasoning. It does not care unless you are to eat. And that does not seem like a very useful or meaningful yard pet unless
this is a dynamic permaculture system and we are in fact using that croc to scare other animals like a living scare crow and keep certain populations stable. Suddenly then your croc becomes
a dynamic and necessary creature in a functioning ecology. Similarly, you can't get away from corporations, because thats how technology is implemented. What you can do is design a lucid
ecology and USE and CONTROL the nature of that beast so that there aren't assorted toe jam innocent victims everywhere it steps.
Similarly, police are not evil because of what they do just to protesters. They are evil because thats what they will do live on film, and thats not half as bad as what they do every day someplace else otherwise.
The only thing that is changing is we are forcing them to show that their only power is control and violence, the only thing that is changing is we are reality testing the question of their service. If they
were public servants 400+ people running wall street would be in jail right now, and the Citizens would have arrested the guilty. Instead, we are now given a transparent window into the actual truth.
The police are merely servants and guards in a giant prison of make believe civil rights you don't really have. Their job is actually to maintain the peasant caste, to control it and discipline it for the elites.
They have no moral authority, just violence and implied violence and threats. They do not operate according to laws; they operate above their own laws. If ONE police officer is assaulted it will make the news
as a violent evil protest. But if hundreds of protesters are violently assaulted and then denied medical attention; thats business as usual. Nothing to see here.
This isn't about socialism. I think it's safe to say that, in theory, the vast majority of us believe that the system itself works, but is being corrupted by the 1% who abuse the system to their benefit. And while I agree that (again, in theory) that socialism is in itself not a "bad thing", the same could be said of capitalism. The same could be said of any legitimate economic model. The problem is the thieves at the top who find the loopholes and exploit them, not only for their personal gain, but to the detriment of everybody else. Small businesses are being forced to sell out to large conglomerates because they cannot compete. And those jobs, once held by Americans, are being outsourced to other countries for pennies on the dollar. These conglomerates cry poverty in doing so, just so their CEO's can keep their multimillion dollar luxury bonuses. The fact is that many of these executives don't even show up to work much of the time, and feel that they should be entitled to millions above their salaries because they "do such a great job". I don't see how anyone could find that to be fair. That onetime, yearly bonus can keep hundreds of thousands of Anericans working for the duration of a year or more, manufacturing goods, and bringing true prosperity back to the country as a WHOLE. Not to just a few "elites". I have very little problem with base salaries for executives, and maybe a percentage bonus if they actually work. But when these obvious crimes of avarice put thousands of people on the streets, there is a huge disparity that needs to be resolved. And it doesn't just rest with corporations. It stretches into government, into the MSM, and into wall street, where corporations', politicians', and banks' gambling debts are paid off on credit issued from the bank of China.
I was born in Chile and I can tell you that socialism doesn't work. Allende tried it and all it did was put people in charge that had no idea how to run the companies.People had to wait in long lines in order to get government issued food and the economy was doing very poorly. Later on Pinochet killed him and took over. He went to other extreme and implemented "Austrian economics". Chile's wealth went up, but it came at the expense of a few people having most of the wealth. Now there are protest in Chile to improve public education. There is no shortcut I'm afraid.You can't slap in an -ism and expect everything to work out perfectly. It is all a balancing process between government and business to adapt with whichever issues are the most important.
There is no one scientific dis-ambiguous definition of socialism. Your claim that it doesn't work is not exactly right.
yes, there most certainly is such a definition, and no, fox news and assorted cheap far right use of the term is not it- its a cheap spun lie ad hom with NO merit in reality.
Yes there is. If the government owns corporations instead of businessmen then its considered socialism. The only difference between socialism and communism is that socialism is done democratically.
That is your own understanding/definition of socialism. My definition is when the government taxes the rich the most and distributes that money to poor, irrespective of whether the govt owns corporations are not, that is socialism :)
your definition has nothing to do with how the word is defined in science; and proves that republican dupes and con scammers are just redefining words to suit them
Just so that you know, I am a socialist in the way I have defined socialism. In ronimacarroni's definition, I am a democrat.
please, for clarity sake, lets just be democrats here. I will again state that at least socialism and democracy can exist in one system. Capitalism or corporate oligarchy or republicanism are all mutually exclusive with democracy. Depending on how you define and implement socialism its either a very bad idea or the other half of democracy. A democracy by definition is a free market system plus government social services. social services do not = socialism. We are democrats fighting for genuine democracy instead of corporate oligarchy, not socialists.
I don't want to called a democrat here as I don't want to be treated as partisan. The people who come here shouldn't care about my political orientation. I'm more interested in the issues and I believe a true democracy will keep the greed of the wealthy under check, prevent excesses and economic crash. Also take care of the poor and the needy.
agreed. we are only fighting for genuine democracy. DEMOCRACY!
No that's called the democratic party. Or what used to be the democratic party...
GOP calls it as Socialism though :)
They called it socialism because companies like General Motors and the banks were "nationalized" after the bail-out. By that I mean that the government brought the majority of their stock. However the corporations paid the money back to the government and can now get back to doing what they do best. Terrorizing the economy.
I just want the true democratic party government then. Will do the job for me, I don't care for the name.
yeah. proving that they are ignorant liars who will stoop to any low for a cheap insult.
There are thousands of shades of grey between capitalism and socialism. When a local government funds a football stadium to attract a team they are engaging in an act of socialism. Ditto for US support of the cruise ship industry, the airline industry, the agri-business industry. When the NIH subsidizes medical research to help brings meds to market - it is engaging in a form of socialism. My impression is that most Americans do not want full-on socialism. They don't want all of the doctors and nurses to work for the Dept of Health. They do not want Washington to take a majority stake in every major corporation on US soil. My impression is they do want to be protected by the unethical behaviors of government and corporations who sometimes make profits while doing damage to citizens. My belief is the answer lies in the power of deeper democracy. For instance a mandate that all companies have representatives of their employees and consumers sitting on their boards would - in my opinion - allow for happier stakeholders all around. This might actually be seen as a conservative notion in that it is fundamentally democratic. Bottom line: I believe DC is satisfied with a situation in which they only have to listen to the voices of a few -- except on voting day. They are inundated with demands and terrified they won't have enough money to buy ad-space for their impoverishing, thirty-second sound bytes. Thus it's up to the citizens to invent (or recycle) new democratic tools, new ways to be heard until federal policies become more of a reflection of the majority's realities and aspirations.
yes, socialism is a stupid idea. no we are not proposing socialism. no socialism is not the same as social services. no you are not helping matters by conflating socialism with social services. I am pro democracy. DEMOCRACY. Not socialism, not communism, not marxism. DEMOCRACY.
According to Nikoli Bucharin: "Socialism is an intermediary stage between Capitalism & Communism." Bucharin also wrote "a Communist society will not have money". ("ABCs of Communism", 1919)
More abolish money quotes: http://666ismoney.com/MoneyQuotes.html