What's the deal with socialism?

[Armitage72]

Better that nobody ever have any cake at all, than a single undeserving person get a slice! Because knowing that one person didn't deserve their piece of cake would ruin the flavor of everybody else's pieces!!

There's a saying I've heard that there are people who would be happy living in a cardboard box under an overpass, cooking sparrows on an old curtain rod, as long as they knew that the person in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod or a sparrow to put on it.

 

[VanillaCone]

Better that nobody ever have any cake at all, than a single undeserving person get a slice! Because knowing that one person didn't deserve their piece of cake would ruin the flavor of everybody else's pieces!!

How, when and why did we start thinking this way? You would think that the people in the richest country would be the most willing to share their ample wealth. What's the harm in sharing a little when we are all going to be perfectly fine regardless? Why does the notion of sharing a little of what we have fill so many among us with rage?

 

[angrysoba]

What America forgets is that capitalism is square and socialism is groovy.

Look at Sean Hannity! Could anyone be more square and boring than him?

Look at Che Guevara on the other hand! Totally cool!

[/Russell Brand]

 

[VanillaCone]

What America forgets is that capitalism is square and socialism is groovy.

Look at Sean Hannity! Could anyone be more square and boring than him?

Look at Che Guevara on the other hand! Totally cool!

[/Russell Brand]

Well one thing's for sure. Only one of them has a video game based on his struggles.

 

[VanillaCone]

Part of the problem may be a (possibly willful) misunderstanding of the origin of the word "Socialist" in the National Socialist German Workers' Party, combined with an ignorance of the actual definition of Socialism.

I remember a scene in the documentary about Republican reactions to the 2008 election, "Right America: Feeling Wronged".
A young man was wearing a hand-made tee shirt condemning Obama as a Socialist (misspelled) and the filmmaker asked him to define Socialism. He initially tried to look it up on his phone but was pressed to just explain it in his own words.
With considerable hesitation and "umm"s, he described it a "basically the policies of Hitler" and "midway between Communism and something else that I can't remember".

The scene is here.

Holy mackerel I just watched this. It is my sincerest hope and belief that this gentleman is an outlier. Because if not, then who cares about my stupid questions because the Apocalypse is nigh.

ETA: Opponents of socialism, what do you think about this guy? It has to bother you a little that he is arguing your side, while of course taking the necessary pauses to breathe solely through his mouth...

 

[Loss Leader]

I think it's interesting that some people think socialized emergency healthcare, which has been around in the U.S. for decades, is just dandy, while socialized non-emergency healthcare, which is new, will destroy the fabric of our nation.

Especially in light of the fact that preventative healthcare is far, far cheeper in the long-run than just waiting for something to become a problem.

At the very least, women should have unlimited free prenatal care and children should have free well-visits (with vaccinations). We'd save billions.

 

[Armitage72]

At the very least, women should have unlimited free prenatal care and children should have free well-visits (with vaccinations). We'd save billions.

[sarcasm] If people can't afford decent health care, they should stop being poor. It's nobody's fault but their own. [/sarcasm]

 

[VanillaCone]

Especially in light of the fact that preventative healthcare is far, far cheeper in the long-run than just waiting for something to become a problem.

At the very least, women should have unlimited free prenatal care and children should have free well-visits (with vaccinations). We'd save billions.

Exactly! You have to wonder if the only thing holding us back from the abyss is a reluctant disdain for the notion of watching poor people bleed out on the hospital steps.

 

[VanillaCone]

At least that's what I heard from some guy. Me personally, I have no opinion.

 

[Francesca R]

The political left of centre in the US apparently voluntarily eschewed the word "socialism" when the right used it as a label to bash the left with.

As such they handed their political opponents a victory.

However they also managed to kidnap and subdue the word "liberal" to mean stuff that it doesn't mean in other places which is pretty much an equal opposite win.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

To reiterate the problem with this definition of socialism, I coincidentally just read this interview with an actually existing socialist:

At this point, they understand it to be "not capitalism." For most young people, that’s as far as they understand it. It may be nicer, softer, friendlier, maybe more likely to help them out. When you push their understanding a little further, it tends to be more about the role of the government. The government takes a bigger role. It protects working people. It protects corporations and the rich but also average people. You hear that kind of talk; it's mainly about the government.

And, you know, when I hear this I get sad, because that's not what I understand the alternative to Capitalism to be. That definition reveals a lack of awareness of the reality that the government is already a massive force in modern capitalism, and always has been. It falls into the trap of the tragic history of how capitalism and socialism came to be differentiated by so many people…as if the difference between the two meant that the former refers to “private, individual enterprise,” and the latter refers to “government-controlled enterprise.” For me, because I teach Marxism, that differentiation is certainly not primarily what Marx had in mind. The state running the economy is not what the alternative to capitalism is...so then I begin to realize, oh boy, is our work cut out for us. And it creates a real danger here that the lack of a clear alternative might eventually turn people off.

...

My view is this: lets not continue perpetuating the story that socialism is government ownership, operation and regulation of enterprise, and lets not stress planning over markets. Let's muddy those waters. I don't want to have a debate over more or less government. As a socialist, I don’t find that terribly exciting. I don't want to have a debate with my colleagues about more or less government or about the relationship between planning and market. I want to focus instead on how we organize the enterprises that produce the goods and services on which we depend. I want to talk about how we organize the workplaces and work processes that absorb most of our adult lifetimes and energies.

Linky.

 

[VanillaCone]

To reiterate the problem with this definition of socialism, I coincidentally just read this interview with an actually existing socialist:

Linky.

Tsukasa, you've weighed in on this thread twice now but I still do not understand your point of view. I agree that socialism is the antithesis of capitalism. That is what socialism is, right? For instance, market forces do not dictate that we in the U.S. should build $5 billion worth of Zumwalt class stealth destroyers. So we take taxpayer money and use it to pay General Dynamics the $5 billion, thus redistributing that wealth to a specific corporation and its unionized workers for the sake of national security. Pure socialism. My guess is that you feel this is bad. Can you please elaborate on your opinion about such things?

 

[Loss Leader]

Can you please elaborate on your opinion about such things?

I think he was pretty clear in stating that, at least according to the article he read, the socialism/capitalism definitions are far more nuanced than can be expressed as either pro or con.

As a pretty classically trained Marxist philosopher, I agree. It's not how much government, it's how well the government uses its resources and the labor of its people.

 

[SezMe]

Tsukasa, you've weighed in on this thread twice now but I still do not understand your point of view. I agree that socialism is the antithesis of capitalism. That is what socialism is, right? For instance, market forces do not dictate that we in the U.S. should build $5 billion worth of Zumwalt class stealth destroyers. So we take taxpayer money and use it to pay General Dynamics the $5 billion, thus redistributing that wealth to a specific corporation and its unionized workers for the sake of national security. Pure socialism. My guess is that you feel this is bad. Can you please elaborate on your opinion about such things?

You must be joking. What percentage of the General Dynamics work force do you think is unionized?

 

[GlennB]

You must be joking. What percentage of the General Dynamics work force do you think is unionized?

Some 6,000 in their Electric Boat division alone, it appears (though the wording is ambiguous). What percentage that is of the total isn't clear with a quick googling.

GD Land Division also has active union representation, here covering 1,500 current workers.

Their NASSCO division is also unionised.

Then I got bored googling their many divisions

 

[Corsair 115]

So we take taxpayer money and use it to pay General Dynamics the $5 billion, thus redistributing that wealth to a specific corporation and its unionized workers for the sake of national security.

Re: the bolded. I can't speak to General Dynamics specifically, but according to BLS data for 2013, the union membership rate for wage and salary workers nationally in the U.S. was 11.3%. (In 1983 it was 20.1%.) The unionization rate was higher amongst public sector workers: 35.3%. The rate for private-sector workers was just 6.3%.

Source.

 

[mgidm86]

Then by your definition ALL governments are socialism since they all supply things of common benefit. The problem level is when the gov makes hand outs to individuals.

When I look at the Big Picture, I see that we have become so efficient at what we do, we just don't need full employment. So what to do with those we don't need to employ?

Will we become unemployed Eloi, and employed Morlocks? ( I miss the Future Fiction aspect of Science Fiction. Now it's all magic and dragons, no more looking at possible societies.)

I've seen this mentioned here a few times recently, perhaps by you. I do not think it is necessarily true, however I don't know exactly how I could prove that with the time I have to type this. I guess an example would be that there will always be new services and new inventions and new ideas. For instance, people keep complaining about lack of jobs, as if working for someone else at "a job" were the only way to make money. People can create their own jobs - I have - and we always will. Your prediction will probably become true simply because people are becoming disenfranchised with the system and their role in it and will opt out of working if given the choice.

I think the prospect of people being able to sit around and enjoy their free time as if it were some Utopia is, even if true, not desirable. How exciting that everyone would have the same amount of money, the same prospect for the future. Most likely we would all be poor - where is all the money coming from?

As to the definition of socialism - I prefer having an equal opportunity to succeed, not a guarantee of comfort. Not sure how I'd define socialism right now, but that would be an opposite description of it to me*.

I think people are being conditioned to not want to work already, without the Utopia part of it. Cart before the horse. I hate to use the word, but there is a growing feeling of entitlement in the US. People are seeing things fall apart around them and are willing to listen to anyone or any ideal that promises something better.

People are animals, the more you spoil them, the less inclined (or less skilled) they will be to take care of themselves. That, in a nutshell, is where we are headed. Socialism/whatever ya call it: killing the human spirit.

*I believe my definition of socialism is incorrect , but the way terms are thrown around these days, who can be sure. Call it what you want.

 

[Caper]

And for the redistribution part, it's one thing to have a safety net to ameliorate the rough edges of capitalism, such as sudden job loss, and another thing to have an ever-increasing, if well-meaning, burden placed on the engine of capitalism, leading to an ever-downward spiral of weakening economy, until you end up with places like Greece (or Detroit proper) where an enormous chunk of the population is employed by the government, who must tax more to pay for it, leading to more business leaving, or just outright failing without going anywhere, as medium and smaller businesses must do.

We can see these proportionate burdens as a hundred different experiments across Europe and the rest of the world, and the lightening of said burdens in Asia, with commensurate explosions in wealth.

For this reason, I think it's intellectually dishonest to butter up socialism and talk of its successes, when you really mean the success of freedom-based capitalism to generate sufficient wealth to provide for its own safety net, and also to provide a powerful economy that rapidly moves technology and invention forward.

If you burden it too much, back down the other side of the progress hill you slide, towards the same pit as dictatorships and failed states and states with corruption where people go into government so they can be officials who get in the way of business to get paid to get back out of the way. Business doesn't care why its money is being seized, or it's activities blocked.

That was a really good post.

 

[Rat]

I would have said that using Greece (or Detroit) as an example is at least misleading. The problem with Greece appears to be overwhelming corruption more than anything else. Was Greece's social security system any bigger than, say, Finland's?

 

[WildCat]

That is a pretty accurate reflection of what capitalists want, I think. I'm just wondering when and why socialism became an especially dirty word in the United States. Maybe it's like you said, we made some connection between socialism and communism that has stuck with us all these years?

If you're using the word "socialism" as a contrast to "capitalism" then you are using the definition of it which means the state owns the means of production.

You are using it in the Marxist meaning of the word.