It Appears That Bill Maher Doesn't Understand What Socialism Actually Is

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Space_Time, Jun 5, 2016.

  1. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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    Does he not really understand? Is there a difference between socialism and social democracy? How much should the government do for people and how much should they do for themselves?

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...tand-what-socialism-actually-is/#566da1d16137

    JUN 5, 2016 @ 06:50 AM 47,964 VIEWS The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
    It Appears That Bill Maher Doesn't Understand What Socialism Actually Is
    Tim Worstall
    CONTRIBUTOR
    I have opinions about economics, finance and public policy.

    Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
    Bill Maher tells us all that rather a large number of young Americans rather like socialism. In doing so Bill Maher makes plain that he doesn’t actually know what socialism is. He conflates capitalism with free markets and socialism as being against both. And that’s simply not what the word means at all. Effectively, Maher is making the same mistake Bernie Sanders is: confusing socialism with social democracy. Still, he does manage to make one halfway decent joke about the Grand Tetons which is a useful innovation for Maher’s show.

    Here’s the confusion in more detail:

    “Real Time” host Bill Maher last night, during his popular “New Rules” segment, clowned laissez-faire bull(*)(*)(*)(*)ters who demonize socialism while allowing capitalism to spread like wildfire into every nook of American life.

    “Someone needs to explain to the free-market crowd that when it comes to socialism, you’re soaking in it,” Maher said. “So many Americans hate the word ‘socialism’ but love the concept: Medicare, unemployment, disability, farm subsidies. Forget the transgender debate. What America really needs is a separate bathroom for welfare queens.”

    Medicare, unemployment (he means unemployment insurance, not unemployment itself which is something socialism is rather good at producing), disability supports, farm subsidies, none of these are socialism in any form or manner. Socialism is about who owns the productive assets in a society. There are various flavours of socialism: the Soviets thought it should be government that should own everything and run it badly. Other flavours emphasise more communal versions: it might be the workers who own an enterprise, could be the customers. But the distinguishing feature is that it’s not the capitalists who own it.

    And that’s the difference between socialism and capitalism: who owns the productive assets of the society. And I’ve got to say that I don’t particularly worry one way or the other about those two systems. I look around my native UK and see socialist organisations all over the place. John Lewis has a part called Waitrose, one of the major supermarket chains. Rather a good one in fact, largely catering to the better off. It’s a socialist organisation: it is owned by the workers within John Lewis. The Co Op is another supermarket chain aiming at rather lower income groups. It’s owned by the customers. It’s a socialist organisation. We also have several capitalist supermarket chains. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are owned by the shareholders of those publicly listed corporations. Aldi and Lidl are both owned by private companies ultimately owned by German billionaires.

    Credit unions and building societies are socialist organisations, banks capitalist ones. Really doesn’t bother me very much either way and as long as people are free to choose which method they themselves prefer to join, work for, buy from, almost certainly shouldn’t bother you either.

    The clip itself is here:


    None of the things that Maher is talking about have anything at all to do with socialism. They’re social democracy. Taxing the rich a bit more to give a bit more to the poor? That’s social democracy. Running a program so that those disabled by chance or ill fortune still get to live? That’s social democracy, not socialism.
    Further, none of this has anything to do with markets either. We can have socialism and or capitalism both with and without markets. Capitalism without markets is something closer to fascism than anything else, socialism without markets is the mistake almost all real existing socialists have generally made. The Soviets, Venezuela today, others, they’ve all assumed that we should not be using the market and the price system in its dual role as an information system and and an allocation system. That’s why they ended up as fragments of economic rubble. The places that do understand the role of markets are pretty nice places. You can have the tax heavy social democracy of the Nordics, the rather lighter welfare systems of the US or UK. All have large swathes of both socialism and capitalism within them and they work largely because they do use that free market to do what markets do. In fact, the Nordics are notably more free market than the US is.

    I might (and do) argue against social democracy of that Nordic style simply because of my prior beliefs. I think the world will be a better place with a basic welfare state and no more than that basic one, leaving people with more of their own money to do as they damn well wish with. I don’t argue about socialism and capitalism simply because as long as the choice is free I don’t think it matters that proverbial damn. And I’m absolutely adamant that we do need to use the market to coordinate economic activity. As Hayek won for the Nobel prize for pointing out, we don’t in fact have any other method of doing so that actually works.

    I don’t mind if people discussing these issues don’t agree with me. But I really would prefer it if they actually understood the issues and definitions here. It’s markets that matter, not the system of ownership. And social democracy might be a good or a bad thing, but it’s absolutely nothing to do with socialism.
     
  2. Lesh

    Lesh Banned

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    Someone tell this "genius" that wrote that garbage that we have a mix between capitalism and socialism and that we have that because of the failures of pure capitalism.

    And guess what?

    It works pretty damn well.

    What's going on above is nothing but word games.
     
  3. tharock220

    tharock220 Well-Known Member

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    Most American liberals have no clue what socialism is, and they don't have the first idea how things are done in those European countries they've never visited.
     
  4. TRFjr

    TRFjr Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    the less a society is required to have socialist/welfare programs the better reflexing it is of that society
    wouldn't you love to live in a society that no socialist/welfare programs are required that everyone is able to take of them selves and family
    that is what a society should strive for getting to a point we can eliminate socialist/welfare programs not expand them
     
  5. Belch

    Belch Well-Known Member

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    Even socialists don't agree with each other on what socialism is. That's why Hitler, who was a socialist, hated the bolsheviks who were also socialists, but a different flavor of socialism. It's why there is communism and fascism and socialist democracy and maoism and marxism and a million other flavors that are all socialist variations on a socialist theme.

    We see the same thing with other religions such as christianity and islam. Christianity sprang from Judaism, and they all sprang from Abraham, but they're all the same thing, just as baptists are just like seventh day adventists, as are the sunnis and the shia.

    So whenever you hear somebody saying something like "Communist Russia failed because it wasn't true communism, realize that Lenin would probably agree, and so would Mao, and so would Pol Pot, and so would Kim Il Sung. Hell, Stalin would rise up out of his grave and agree with the sentiment, and he'd love to round up a few hundred million more people for re-education purposes.
     
  6. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Socialism boils down to redistribution of wealth by the government. They take from achievers and give to under achievers. Whatever flavor of socialism you choose that is the main ingredient.
     
  7. PreteenCommunist

    PreteenCommunist Active Member

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    Can someone please explain to me why Americans associate my continent with socialism? Seriously. I'm perplexed.

    Anyway. The article is correct in that social democracy (in the modern sense of the word; it used to be much more closely related to the revolutionary left) is pretty much unrelated to socialism. But it slips up on the part about the flavours of socialism. All socialists agree that ultimately, the means of production should be owned by the whole of society. Where we disagree is in terms of revolutionary tactics and means to this end. The Soviet government (Marxist-Leninists, or "Stalinists" for most of its existence) nominally supported the end goal of socialised means of production just like any other socialist. They just got stuck in a rut for various reasons and ended up with bureaucratic, state-controlled capitalism as their mode of production. Additionally, all Marxists (i.e. non-anarchist communists) support a transition period with at least de facto state ownership of the means of production, but the feature of such a period which we'll tend to emphasise is that the state is controlled by the working class, and therefore we have proletarian ownership of the means of production.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Words have meanings, y'know. "Socialism" has a meaning and "social democracy" has a different one. You won't do justice to either concept without accepting that.
     
  8. Belch

    Belch Well-Known Member

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    As a capitalist, this difference between socialism and social democracy doesn't matter to me. To socialists, you can sit around at your political meetings discussing exactly how my property can be taken and there can be emotional discussions on how this can be achieved. Do you do it through taxation or do you do it militarily?

    I'm sure there's a difference to socialists, but to a capitalist, the difference boils down to the color of the shirts you wear when you come for my property.
     
  9. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Of course Maher doesn't know what socialism means; he used to call himself a libertarian back when he thought it was just about pot. For someone who has had two politically based shows, he sometimes seems to have a very shallow understanding of politics.
     
  10. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Bernie advocates for a form of Socialism
     
  11. creation

    creation New Member

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    Good thread. Excellent comments.
     
  12. logical1

    logical1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Most ding bat libs in this country obviously dont understand socialism. The young ignorant supporters of Bernie just think they are going to get something for nothing.
     
  13. Lesh

    Lesh Banned

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    Yea,,,because you can always trust businesses to do the right thing.

    I mean they'd never trade wages for the promise of a pension and then reneg on that pension...oh wait.

    Yea they would. They do it all the time...

    - - - Updated - - -

    So everything is the same and words don't have meanings.

    How existential...
     
  14. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I like the Waitrose gardening youtubes....and it isn't just Bill Maher. Building a big old wall and kicking out the immigrants is old skewl democratic socialism at its finest, but Lord forbid you tell a democrat or a republican that in the US. They would say bad things about your mother at the very least.
     
  15. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    The gov't doesn't want your property. As long as you keep paying the rent, er taxes.
     
  16. tharock220

    tharock220 Well-Known Member

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    Was this directed at me? It wasn't my intention to imply that your continent was socialist.
     
  17. justlikethat

    justlikethat New Member

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    What I find amusing, and troubling at the same time, is how pro socialists (mostly the lazy) think their type of socialism is going to work. Never mind all the failures in the past, they just rebrand it, wrap it up in shiny package and tell us all how different and successful it will be.

    What they don't understand is that the deterioration and ultimate failure is not immediate. Do they honestly think government is going to tell us they'll control all of society right away? Of course not, the frog doesn't get thrown into a pot of boiling water, it starts out at room temperature!
     
  18. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    What those afraid of socialism seem to fail to understand is the definition of socialism.

    And, they probably also fail to notice that working as a team isn't really all that horrible.

    And, they may also fail to notice that few systems on earth are pure, because no pure system is going to solve all the problems. So, for example, free market capitalism would kill us if we failed to temper it with solutions we find in other systems. One can read some American history on this one.
     
  19. Belch

    Belch Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, but no. Most historians are well aware that the only problem with socialism is that your central planners never plan for enough body bags.

    You can try reading european history.

    Oh, and since you can't survive without capitalists, you will need the power of the state to force capitalists to play your little game. Pointing guns at people and robbing them is the only way it can work. And even then, it doesn't last for long.

    violence is your solution, and that's the history that people need to understand about socialists/communists/thieves.
     
  20. For Topical Use Only

    For Topical Use Only Well-Known Member

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    I'm never sure why Maher gets mentioned so often as though he's some kind of authority figure or arbiter of political mood and belief, I've always just considered him an occasionally funny entertainer. His pronouncements often seem fairly silly to me. I believe he's described as a liberal but he seems more into dickism than anything else. :-D

    Does he have a background in any kind of serious field?
     
  21. For Topical Use Only

    For Topical Use Only Well-Known Member

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    If you're not worth a billion dollars you're merely a wannabe capitalist, fit for eating, and it's not some spectral brownshirt socialist who's warming the pot.
     
  22. erayp

    erayp New Member

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    LOL, any you trust government? At least with business if you don't like it you can quit and find another job. With government, not so much, you're screwed.
     
  23. justlikethat

    justlikethat New Member

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    Okay, then name my five things government does better than the private sector!
     
  24. jack4freedom

    jack4freedom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Only conservatives who live in trailer homes and listen to Rush Limbaugh really understand the evils of socialism, and the white liberals, negroes and Mexicans that are trying to thrust it upon us. Thank god for you guys?
     
  25. jack4freedom

    jack4freedom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    1) Assemble, organize and support a Defense System.

    2) Plan out, build and maintain a national transportation system such as our Interstate Highways.

    3) Create and run a cost effective Health Care System such as Medicare.

    4) Create fund and run a law enforcement agency.

    5) Create, fund and maintain a constitutional Legal system in several jurisdictions.
     

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