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Why is socialism bad?

Started by Pineapple, August 14, 2009, 12:51:25 AM

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-43-

Einstein, he's a great political philosopher to the plebs.
I'm a miniarchist, so I detest government, Socialism is a giant lumbering inefficient mess.

Brizz

Quote from: "-43-"Socialism is a giant lumbering inefficient mess.

But....capitalism is evil! lol

KayLP87

Quote from: "-43-"Einstein, he's a great political philosopher to the plebs.
I'm a miniarchist, so I detest government, Socialism is a giant lumbering inefficient mess.

Yah its so bad, Capitalism is the best. It is the system that forced by Dad to give up on his dream of being a teacher because after his 2 bouts with Hodgkin's Dieses he was so in debt because of medical bills that he could not return to college, he had to work full time. It is the same system that because he does not have a college degree he has to work nights stocking shelves at a local supermarket to pay bill's. A job, because of his health, that he will not be able to work much longer, and he cannot yet afford to retire. He cannot find any other jobs that pay what he is getting right now, that would require less physical labor. If my dad had been born just 50 miles North of here, in Canada he probably would be living a much more comfortable life.  :shake:
"For as long as space remains,
For as long as sentient beings remain,
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the miseries of the world."
- Shantideva

Spatiality

Honestly, I do find the majority of the free American people to be incompetent. Smarter people are waiting to have children and are establishing balanced lives. Where as uneducated people have a many more children teaching them bad life skills at home which bleeds into our education system. Socialism shouldn't be about taking away freedom and creating a conformist society. It should be associated with teaching tolerance to all, providing a stable country, and eliminating violence. I think America could be better if they stop letting alcohol and fire arms in the hands of mentally unstable people that keep the media running in circles. Maybe then we can advance in science. China is getting ahead of the world, but then again they had a 4000 years head start!

Minkyaman

Went to the library one day and decided to check out books on socialism, communism, and marxism.  It was kinda nice, ya know, being able to wander into an institution and get books on subjects that I wanted to read about.  If only socialism weren't so evil and bad it might work right.

After the extensive research and years of thinking the same way, I concluded the only form of government that is best in its purest form is communism.  Now knowing nothing is capable of being truly pure, I amended my hypothesis that communism really only works in small groups.  I was able to test it using MMO's.  Now people may laugh but the thing is MMO's can be used to study social interactions in a limited role.  An example in my own experience is when I played Star Wars Galaxies, which had a truly capitalistic economy where the best 'crafters' made the most money and you could set up shops and your name got around the server as making the best gear or food or equipment.  My guild was a little smaller than most, numbering between 10-20 people, and we decided to use communism to run the guild, where no money was exchanged between us and we shared everything.  Our leader was the leader because someone had to have the title but we ran it as a whole community.

Now you may ask how it worked out.  Very well actually.  We became one of the most powerful guilds on the server bringing in more resources through our 'farms' than even the best crafters.  Now this may not be entirely applicable to the real world but it gives you an idea as to how a communistic or socialistic society would work.  Everyone has a job that they like to do and move the community together as a whole to benefit everyone.  As it was once said by John Adams 'If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?'

Now after my ramblings, knowing full well that communism really can't work until we age more as a civilized society, we have to mix forms of government and economic systems.  Capitalism will not work on its own.  Socialism will not work on its own.  Democracy will not work on its own.  Balancing the 3 into a new form of government is the trick.  The government must pass regulations upon corporations to make sure they do the right thing.  As of now, if it were purely up to the corporations, the middle class would disappear and we would be back in a feudalistic society where you have a select few people whom are rich and the majority of the population whom are poor.  Applying the same principles to an earlier argument, that also stifles creativity and the want to advance as a society.

I personally have nothing against most corporations, but they need to be regulated, as does the government.  That is why we theoretically have a system of checks and balances, even though your 2 party system tries to ruin that.  As Obama said in his State of the Union address, it is time for both Republicans and Democrats to stop trying to push their individual agendas and do what is best for our country.  If that means making use of everything we have available to us and mixing government and economic models then so be it.  

The only thing I ask, especially from this board since everyone here asked the question as to why, is to not take the media propaganda that socialism is EVIL as is communism, but to do the research yourself, use the socialistic entity of the public library that we have and read books on the inherent principles of each.  Do research and understand each thing before knowing jumping to any conclusion.

Now that my rambling is done......carry on =)
[size=150]Today's religions are tomorrow's myths[/size]

Sheeplauncher

Its interesting how people decry socialism. I agree it leads to big government which is very bad but its even funnier how most claim that capitalism has failed. In the USA we haven't had free market capitalism in a very very very long time. Its been corporatism for awhile now and claiming capitalism is the problem is not correct. The more governments regulate the markets the more prices go up. The fact that we have a central bank compounds the problem because it can mess with the market so much that  we shouldn't really even be calling ourselves capitalists.

Davin

I think the problems of taking care of a society cannot be solved by a magic pill: pure capitalism is bad, pure socialism is bad... but mix the two and you can have people working their way up while making sure the bottom doesn't fall out.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Sophus

Did anyone else catch Lawrence O'Donnell's explanation of why we're all socialists tonight? Thoughts? Opinions? It makes sense to me.
‎"Christian doesn't necessarily just mean good. It just means better." - John Oliver

hunterman317

Three reasons.
1. People aren't encouraged to work.
2. Money keeps going in a circle, making it easier for politicians to steal from.
3. It causes decay. The government is so large and expected to do so much that no one can organize it or keep track of it.

Now if you're talking about progressivism (coined from Fox News), there's nothing wrong with that. Since this is a capitalist country, odds are that is what you're referring to. In fact, if you believe in socialism, there's nothing wrong with that either. I just hope you're elected president.
And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence~
Bertrand Russell

The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion~
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

Pray. Maybe the aliens will hear you~

Lermontov

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"Well, duh, I know why socialism is bad: because I've heard people use the words "socialism" and "Obama" in the same sentence and he's the devil, so it must be bad!  I mean, if you're socialist it means you're communist and if you're communist it means you want to destroy America and kill babies and be Russian or Chinese or something, right?

 ;) There's a number of reasons why Communism never works in the real world (ever heard the phrase "Communism and roommates"?), the most detrimental of which being that it is inherently opposed to a universal aspect of human nature: greed. Communism is, at its core, an economic model. It's when it's used as a social control mechanism that it gets a bad name. Read up on some Marxism and you'll see. It's actually not such a bad thing; people just screw it up.

Thats the nail getting hit on the head. Except that part about greed being a 'universal aspect of human nature': Thinking like that is another symptom of the Cold War (Check http://science.howstuffworks.com/game-theory5.htm). Nonetheless its true that in essence Communism is a economic model, but one that does rely on some assumptions about human nature. Not least of all 'alienation' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation#Significance_in_Marx.27s_thought) which is actually a very similar idea to socialist thought ('common ownership of the means of labour' was only removed from the manifesto of the Labour party in Britian in the 1990's, and only then because Tony Blair was as much a centrist-conservative as his opponents). Its the tendency of any far left/right party to endorse big government - political spectrum is circular, not linear - and I'd hate socialism to get a bad name becuase of that.

To really understand socialism I think it needs to be seperated from that tradition of Communist, lefty slamming media thats especially rife in America. Socialism essentially means the adoption of a consitent perspective with which to approach political issues I think, one which has solidarity and empathy at heart; you're either born that way or not.

Rich.
"If you want to be happy, be."  Tolstoy.