America: What's wrong with "socialism", anyway?

[MarkCorrigan]

If you cannot make an intellectual response…..resort to name calling!


Wow, I'm impressed...NOT.

DDWW

It isn't my fault you're so horribly ignorant that you smugly propose a ridiculous thought experiment that bears no semblance to reality.

I would have answered with an actual point, like I did to The Painter, had you not been so horrendously self satisfied. As it was, I can't be bothered to deal with someone so happy with their ignorance.

 

[DDWW]

It isn't my fault you're so horribly ignorant that you smugly propose a ridiculous thought experiment that bears no semblance to reality.

I would have answered with an actual point, like I did to The Painter, had you not been so horrendously self satisfied. As it was, I can't be bothered to deal with someone so happy with their ignorance.

Wow, condescension on top of name calling!

Really impressive!

DDWW

 

[Donal]

So, anyone want to define socialism?

Thats a question I can never get get 2 identical straight answers to.

On the detractors' side, I get a bunch of hyperbole and strawmen regarding human nature and such.

On the supporters' side, I rarely get a straight answer. When I do, it seems that every one of them has their own definition.

 

[Oliver]

In a communist country, no one would have ever bothered to create the Thinga4000Ultima in the first place. Who benefits?

Wait a second... Inventions are a matter of creative thinking. I don't see why money should be the primary motive in the first place. Those who feel that their way of life is socialism [or communism] may have the same motivation without the primary target of getting rich ... wrong?

 

[MikeMangum]

Yes, wrong.

 

[AvalonXQ]

So, anyone want to define socialism?

My definition (as a detractor): The features of a country's economy which are controlled by the government rather than the private sector, and either cannot by law be, or in practice are not, subject to free market forces.

 

[Oliver]

Yes, wrong.

R U Communist or Socialist?

 

[theprestige]

Wait a second... Inventions are a matter of creative thinking. I don't see why money should be the primary motive in the first place.

Well, money is just a way of measuring benefit, so you're really saying you don't see why benefit should be the primary motive, which seems... silly.

Then there's the benefit of the resources necessary to bring the creative idea to practical fruition.

The Wright Flyer did not spring fully-formed from the brows of Wilbur and Orville Wright. It required substantial investment of resources--the benefit of the Wright Brothers' hard work in other areas.

Typically, if you want somebody else to give you the benefit of their hard work--their time, their knowledge, the fruits of their labor, etc.--you must offer them some kind of benefit in return. Researchers don't work for free. Neither do investors. Why shouldn't benefit be the primary motive for investors?

 

[Oliver]

Well, money is just a way of measuring benefit, so you're really saying you don't see why benefit should be the primary motive, which seems... silly.

Then there's the benefit of the resources necessary to bring the creative idea to practical fruition.

The Wright Flyer did not spring fully-formed from the brows of Wilbur and Orville Wright. It required substantial investment of resources--the benefit of the Wright Brothers' hard work in other areas.

Typically, if you want somebody else to give you the benefit of their hard work--their time, their knowledge, the fruits of their labor, etc.--you must offer them some kind of benefit in return. Researchers don't work for free. Neither do investors. Why shouldn't benefit be the primary motive for investors?

Well, that's my "silly" point. If it benefits the whole society, that could be a good goal to some social persons as well - without any personal benefits. And yes, some ideas need to be sponsored to be realized. But that isn't a matter of socialism or capitalism since communist and socialist countries do sponsor research/science etc. as well. So?

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Wow, condescension on top of name calling!

Really impressive!

DDWW

Ok, quick explanation then. Your thought experiment is garbage because:

A. Grades are solid single things. It would be more accurate if it was a comparison of percentages.

B. Grades are earned in a different way to money. In order to earn a high grade you must be gifted and a hard worker, not so with money given the wage structure.

C. It ignores the central theme of Socialism in order to go for the emotional "they're stealin' our money!" red herring. That is, that in Socialist states, the method of production is owned by the state on behalf of the people. This leads (in theory) to a fairer system because the state (run by the people) would not shaft the workers in order to squeeze every penny they could out of it. Thus, the Socialist ideal is that there would be no giant businesses working on behalf of tax payers, but a state which is owned and run by and for the people, all people rich or poor, which handles the running of things.

Now, PURE Socialism is rather silly, I admit, because it's so easy for the state to become bloated and corrupt, with people fashioning it into whatever they want and getting jobs for life. Not a good thing. On the other hand, Democratic Socialism, for which I am a proponent, keeps the ideas of the state system, but instead would actually hand control to the people in the form of a proportional electoral system, thus in effect leading to a larger but regulated and changeable government which controls the basics of a country in the healthcare, education, some industry etc.

The idea that everyone gets exactly the same no matter what isn't Socialism, and it isn't even Communism. Instead, it's a pathetic strawman created by people who are scared of something even though they don't know why, so they create a hideous bogeyman and attribute the name of what they fear to it. They attack the object of their revulsion for holding opinions it does not, but that they have instead attributed to it. Thus the fear of something that is misunderstood is born.

Quite frankly, I don't mind if you think my own idea of a Socialist "utopia" is a ridiculous pipe dream, or itself a horrifying vision of dystopia, but please, please, I ask all of you, don't tell me what I believe in is evil when you don't understand it.

Some people would have more champagne in first class, but no one would have drowned on the Titanic.

 

[GlennB]

Every time the fire crews roar down the road, sirens blaring and lights flashing, to save lives and property we are seeing an element of socialism at work.

They don't stop to ask whether you have insurance or cash to cover the cost. They don't wonder what quality of fire-extinguishing they should apply according to your status. They don't even care if yours is the only house within 5 miles. It's a social benefit, applied equally, organised by the state.

 

[Darth Rotor]

America: What's wrong with "socialism", anyway?

In moderate amounts, nothing. It's a matter of degree, not kind.

Where to draw the line is where the fun is.

DR

 

[Cain]

College professors have a great opportunity to show how Socialism could work in their classroom. Run the semester under Socialism.

The Students are the workers. The products, or the production side, is homework, papers, exams, etc. The rewards or results of the production are the grades.

Put a ceiling on individual wealth.
Put a floor on individual poverty.

Typical American grades already have a ceiling (A) and a floor (F).

Set up a progressive tax.

All “A” students (the rich) will be taxed 2 grades.
All “B” students (the upper middle class) will be taxed 1 grade.
All “C” students (the working class) will not be taxed.
All “D” students (the lower class) will be subsidized 1 grade.
All “E” students (the poor) will be subsidized 2 grades.

Everyone gets a “C”.
No one has to little and no one has to much.
Everyone passes the class.

Utopia achieved!

This is a foolish thought experiment and I don't think you understand socialism at all. An ideal grading system would reward people in accordance to their effort. A person with impressive (unearned) native endowments then has an incentive to work her hardest for the highest possible grade; same goes for the C-student who feels, no matter how hard he tries, he'll never get an A, so he'll just attend class and shirk the readings, get a passing grade. Now he has an incentive to put more in. There's a problem when it comes to gauging effort, but this is very different than sheer ability.

I do not see why a socialist feels we should redistribute grades. Besides, the economy is not a zero-sum affair, right?

OP:

You put a ceiling on individual wealth.

I don't see why we should put a ceiling on individual wealth, although I suppose a stronger argument could be made for individual income.

You put a floor on individual poverty.

I do not see why able-bodied people should be entitled to laze around on the public's dime. If you can work, but choose not to, then you're free to starve. Of course, it's not always easy to separate genuine cases from frauds, the world's a messy place, and I have this crazy socialist belief that people should not starve because of circumstances beyond their control.

Fundamentally socialism refers to the idea that the workers own and control the means of production themselves. As noted above, people are generally paid a flat wage, and their only incentive is to avoid getting harassed by their boss. We have all kinds of inefficiencies, especially in the American system, because of our ****ed up incentive structure and culture. An old statistic, but I remember reading the Japanese have 1/3 fewer bosses, which means money can be spent in more productive ways rather than surveillance.

In a workplace democracy, everyone shares in the profits, which is ironically regarded by some as ultra-capitalistic because people own stock. Yeah, the people doing the actual labor. I think William Greider had a book five or six years ago about co-ops organized along lines of economic liberty and empowerment.

In the American context, socialism/communism/Marxism is associated with government involvement in health care -- because, you know, universal health care was a vitally necessary precondition for the creation of a Stalinist police state.

All citizens need access to essential primary goods, especially health care and education (almost everyone agrees with police protection).

One of the more interesting things about self-described admirers of capitalism is that they're do not advocate meritocracy. Property rights figures more prominently into their belief system, trumping even merit.

The problem with this overheated rhetoric about "socialism" is that conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, teabaggers -- they're not morally serious people. They have this almost axiomatic belief system about the size of government and the "appropriate" functions of government, but they've never thought about these things for longer than five minutes. If we did have a totally free market in education, would kids receive vouchers? Then you're saying it's OK for the state to "redistribute wealth." Is a consumer protection agency "socialist?" If so, should mattress and pajama manufacturers be allowed to make their products out of flammable materials? Do we allow negative externalities in the form of pollution to go unchecked?

These are just more basic arguments we need to have before anyone can hope of ameliorating hierarchies in the work place.

 

[Donal]

Every time the fire crews roar down the road, sirens blaring and lights flashing, to save lives and property we are seeing an element of socialism at work.

They don't stop to ask whether you have insurance or cash to cover the cost. They don't wonder what quality of fire-extinguishing they should apply according to your status. They don't even care if yours is the only house within 5 miles. It's a social benefit, applied equally, organised by the state.

It's a little more complicated than that. At least, it is in the US.

Fire fighters, police officers and other services are funded mainly by by real estate taxes. They do receive some federal aid, but its mostly local taxes that cover their day to day expenses.

This means that the nicer the precinct, the more expensive (and valuable) real estate is, the more real estate taxes are collected, the more funding goes to the local fire house, police station, sanitation etc etc.

So, rich people in the nicer areas get better service than poor people in crappy areas.

 

[DDWW]

Typical American grades already have a ceiling (A) and a floor (F).

An ideal grading system would reward people in accordance to their effort. A person with impressive (unearned) native endowments then has an incentive to work her hardest for the highest possible grade; same goes for the C-student who feels, no matter how hard he tries, he'll never get an A, so he'll just attend class and shirk the readings, get a passing grade. Now he has an incentive to put more in. There's a problem when it comes to gauging effort, but this is very different than sheer ability.

Looks then just like capitalism.

Thank-you

DDWW

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I guess you've never heard of piecemeal. Not everything is by the hour.

The point is that even in capitalism pay isn't always linked precisely to productivity. I'd say that it's a rather rare situation when it is.

Also, there is nothing inherent in socialism to prevent pay from being linked to productivity (or some other form of merit).

So once again, the situation you describe:

Factory worker A makes 50 Thingamajigs in a week.
Factory worker B works harder and makes 300 Thingamajigs in a week.
Factory workers A and B make the same paycheck.
Factory worker B sees no benefit for working harder and drops production down to 50 Thingamajigs in a week, like worker A.
Entire production drops. Soon there are not enough products for the population. Society crumbles.

has nothing to do with socialism. And since it happens now without society crumbling, as someone else pointed out, it's wrong on top of being irrelevant.

 

[uk_dave]

Anyway, it's Piecework.

 

[Dancing David]

So, anyone want to define socialism?

Thats a question I can never get get 2 identical straight answers to.

On the detractors' side, I get a bunch of hyperbole and strawmen regarding human nature and such.

On the supporters' side, I rarely get a straight answer. When I do, it seems that every one of them has their own definition.

so·cial·ism
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/socialism

NOUN:

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.


So there can be various mixes of socialism , just as there is with capitalism or democracy.

Now I tend not to favor the state owned bussiness myself, but I feel there are raeas where the for profit solely motive goobers up the works. But on the converse I also don't like the idea of central planing.

Take the development of science and technology, much of that is government funded, as was the space program. There are many areas of the common weal, where it is appropriate to have public funding and oversight, safety for example, bussiness often does not care for teh safety of the product. Now the highways are a good example of socialism, they are government funded and owned.

So you can have both.

 

[Dancing David]

Well, money is just a way of measuring benefit, so you're really saying you don't see why benefit should be the primary motive, which seems... silly.

Then there's the benefit of the resources necessary to bring the creative idea to practical fruition.

Ah yes, the entrepenurial spirit, which is a good thing. However the entrepenuer is often using the government now a days to fund their research. And the main detraction in capitalism that I have is that capitalism often favors cronies over worthies and often tries to squelch competition. So the free market which is really another name for laissez-faire has often as many impediments to advance as any other form of economy/politics.

When you have Milton Freidman writing about the benefits of not having anti-trust, it is sort of ironic. It benefits the company, it does not benefit the market. He pretends that he favor the comp[etitive markets, except when he says companies can use monopolies to squelch the competition and increas the profit. Just because large corporations exist does not mean that they benefit the economy.

I take a pragmatic approach, if bussiness can't regulate the public weal on its own, which it has shown it doesn't, then some government intervention is merited. So seat belts, and evil socialist imperative, are a good thing.

 

[Tony]

Name one innovation that came from socialist environment... Can't think of one?

I'll name 2. The internet and GPS.