Any idea what Socialism actually is?

Any healthy society must contain elements of socialism.

 

Holy mother of non-existent God. There are so many misconceptions in this thread that I can feel my brain cells dropping out as I speak.

Regarding Western Europe, I've lived there/here all my life, and let me tell you, if it were socialist, I would not be on the internet ranting about how much everything sucks. I would be enjoying socialism. Higher taxes, a welfare state and redistributive policies are not socialism; they constitute Keynesian-inspired, "big government" capitalism, a.k.a. social democracy. And they have just as many repercussions as capitalism with freer markets. This is why Sanders (also Hollande, Corbyn, Iglesias, Tsipras, Maduro and countless others) is not a socialist - he's a capitalist who supports more state intervention in the capitalist system.

The Nazis absolutely hated socialism and killed every socialist they could get their hands on, as well as sucking up to industrialists for the entirety of their time in power and robbing workers of any rights they had. The only reason they ever paid lip service to socialism was to woo the working class. That's what populists do.

As for the state, well...Lenin says it best:

Nor was the idea of the withering away of the state solely Lenin's - it was first postulated by Marx in Critique of the Gotha Programme. Communists and socialists (socialists being people with an end goal of socialised means of production, and communists being socialists who advocate a certain, specific means to this end) have been advocating an ultimately stateless society for years. That's far from big government: it's no government. The Washington bureaucrats and their international counterparts are the last people who are going to benefit from this. The working class will expropriate their property, seize their power and crush their resistance.

It's funny that you should mention that specific quotation (it's actually "from each according to [their] abilities") because it actually describes the state of overabundance in full communism, during which everyone can take what they want from communal stores.

I would agree that democratic socialism is an oxymoron, but that's because I'm a revolutionary. But as I said, socialism is very different from social democracy/big government capitalism and involves getting rid of the state and not redistributing wages, but abolishing the wage system.

 

So socialism is abolishing the wage system?

Why would I do anything if I'm not getting paid?

 

Why do Americans have a pink fit every time 'socialism' is mentioned? The confusion in the US about the reality of political systems is so entrenched you lot think China is communist when it's actually a capitalist mafia (read Peoples Liberation Army) controlled hybrid.

 

The above tells me that you do not know what socialism is. Socialism at its base is government controlling the means of production and distribution. Currently there is no purely socialist country in the world as the governments we associate with socialism are an amalgam of socialist and capitalist ideals.

To cherry pick Natizism as typifying socialism reveals your bias as some of the European so called socialist countries have a higher quality of life and overall happiness amongst its citizens in comparison to America. Socialism is only as good as its leaders, just like any other forum of government.

 

Indoctrination. I was born in the 60's and was fed a steady stream of propaganda that demonizes socialism. As an adult I came to see that much of what I was taught was whitewashed and since then have done my own research on many topics that has led me to a different conclusion than that which I was taught.

 

There are only 2 basic forms of human existence.

There is the school of thought that humans are sovereign and are born as free beings with natural rights.

And there is the school of thought that humans are subservient to ( fill in the blank) Kings, Dictators, The Government, The Party, Society, etc. etc.

In the first example you are a sovereign free human or a citizen.
In any of second examples you are a (fill in the blank) subject, peasant, worker, serf, servant, vassal, slave, or peon.

It is about that simple.

 

Yes here are a large number of us who know what real socialism is and do not listen to gabbering idiots on talk shows or on forums who think that know but would not know a socialist from a German sausage.

 

I asked a simple question. If socialism is no wages, then why should I work?

I read the dictionary and it says "state ownership of the means of production" (or something like that). I read Marx and find out that socialism is an inevitability due to the masses being tired of unequal allocation of resources, and anger over being abused by a system that rewards hard work with private property.

Now I find out that it's about not getting paid for my work.

So again, why should I work if I'm not going to get paid?

 

Some gaboomkas get hung up a name or a word and think that they understand something but they are way very often. Just because the NAZI OFFICIAL NAME IS national Socialism does not make them socialists.. They were a criminal gang of oligarchs.

Names can fool you, and fools are easily led astray. The old East German Communist state was called the German Democratic Republic. It was not democratic, not a Republic , and sometimes not very German but run by Russians from Moscow.

In the USA there are states that have these laws called "Right To Work " laws. These laws have no bearing on anyone's right to work but are anti-union laws. I never was in a union in my adult years so I am not a big union buff but I also do nt want to destroy unions as the "RIGHT TO WORK " laws try to do.

There are groups called Liberty Lobby, or Concerned Citizens for Liberty, etc etc

Year ago there as a group called the US -SOVIET Friendship Committee. It was not about friendship is was a KGB run sky network that attracted well meaning but naïve Americans to help the Soviets steel American industry and military information.

People need to be careful with names because they may not be what the names says.

 

It's not about the name, so much as it is recognizing that the basic idea is saying "If I make a snow man, it'll melt in the spring".

The basic idea doesn't mean you're going to have a snow man as a permanent fixture on your lawn. The idea means that it's going to melt and then all hell is going to break out because economics is not about designing how it works, but realizing how it works.

When you build a snowman in winter, do you know that it will melt? Yes, you do.

Now you know more than every keynesian or socialist/communist/marxist/whateverist when it comes to economics. It's not about how you think it should be, but how things are. Economics is the study of the allocation of resources. Not a plan for the perfect redistribution of resources.

 

That would be the transition period. Some (confused) people refer to this transient phase of state ownership as socialism.

The end of capitalism is inevitable, but socialism isn't necessarily so. Socialism or barbarism.

That's only one facet of socialism. The main, definitive characteristic of socialism is social ownership of the means of production.

I could go on forever about the incentive issue, but the gist of it is that work is not unnecessarily unenjoyable. It is made that way by the alienation, oppressive workplace structuring and lack of freedom of capitalist labour-selling/working, and the fact that barely anyone does what they love because of the necessity of making money and because our education system is hardly conducive to pursuit of one's passions. In communism, work will not be the stressful, regimented and disempowering task of selling labour - it will be creative, self-managed production to benefit oneself and the rest of society and, essentially, as a means to enjoying life. So people will want to work in the same way in which they might pursue a hobby.

Well communists don't want to redistribute resources (we're not liberals), but optimising allocative efficiency necessitates a planning mechanism. If you leave it to the market, you get the mess we're currently in, in which almost a billion people are starving while the super-rich squander money and resources on the most ridiculous things.

 

Socialism is the Social ownership of the means of production. State ownership is one interpretation of that.

 

That is a redundant statement.

 

Best answer I've seen in months!!

 

Even with a wage system, the wages themselves aren't really the incentive to work. Wages only serve as the means for an individual to satisfy their needs or desires. That's the real incentive.

In the absence of money, that incentive still exists.

Generally, the dictionary isn't going to be a good place to learn about a diverse political philosophy that hundred of theorists have contributed for over 2 centuries. I generally define socialism as the social ownership of the means of production, but even that isn't entirely satisfactory.

It's hard to define a school of thought as diverse as socialism with a single sentence.

Not every variety of socialism is opposed to a monetary system (in fact most probably aren't). Socialists view the wage system specifically as being exploitative, arguing that the value of a workers labor over a given time is more valuable than the compensation they receive for the same time in the form of a wage.

Regardless, the incentive to work in a system without money is the same as it is in a system with money... The fulfillment of an individual's needs and desires.

 

Is capitalism a transitional period from barbarism to socialism? It's certainly barbaric in many respects, but there are rules that have to be followed for it to work. The most important rule is the concept of private property. With socialism, that rule seems to be thrown out the door in favor of societal property rights.

Is my hammer actually mine under socialism?

A hammer can be used to produce things, so I guess it isn't mine. Yet I paid for it with the efforts of my own labor. Again, I am wondering why I should get out of bed and go to work if my stuff can be taken from me by socialists.

Of course work is not unnecessarily unenjoyable. There are ways that certain jobs and employers could be improved on, and capitalism is doing that. When there is a high demand for a low supply of employees, conditions improve. When there is a high supply of employees, conditions deteriorate which gives people an incentive to figure out some other way to be of benefit to society.

The wealth that a person accumulates during a lifetime is a measure of the good to society that has been accomplished under a free market capitalist system. Your idea seems to be that removing that incentive will improve society, so I am still left wondering why I should get out of bed on a socialist monday morning. It's not that I work in a stressful regimented and disempowered situation, but I do have hobbies, so maybe I'll put work off until tuesday or thursday...

And in the free market, that planning mechanism involves me. I am the CEO MC Master of My Universe when it comes to deciding how to use my own resources to benefit me. You have that ability as well, and I wouldn't take that from you. We could come to a mutual agreement in order to exchange a bit of your labor for ownership of my hammer (means of production or mayhem), but you're not going to get my hammer for free.

 

North Korea, USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, yeah it seems socialism eventually leads to the individual having no rights doesn't it?

 

Yet you support Hillary Clinton....

 

*shrug* Either the collective runs your life or you do. The more you ask from the state, the more it takes from you in return. You want the state to do everything for you, you end up with no rights. It's unavoidable.



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I don't like any system that rewards people for NOT working(who can) or artificially evens the odds to make things "equal", by punishing the best.

Does socialism do that? Yes it does.

 

Your spoiling their trick. They convince the people they will get what they want, even by taken their rights away, and then a massive genocide of Biblical proportions ensues. American tax money is not enough for these people, they want the entire world's tax dollars.

 

You are clearly unaware of what socialism is Please allow me to help.

Any form of redistribution of wealth via taxation is "Socialism".

Building roads is "Socialism"

Having a military is made possible through "Socialism" In fact, Total Military Spending is one of the largest social and corporate welfare program on the planet.

Police are made possible via "Socialism"

Healthcare and Education "Socialism"

Clean water, Sewage and Garbage "Socialism"

Extreme forms of Socialism such as Communism is where the state owns all resources and means of production. This is what Stalin had.

It is rank stupidity to claim that any form of socialism is communism, as we so often hear in relation to Sanders.

Your second issue is thinking that all forms of socialism necessarily leads to Stalin's "Communism" or Hitlers "Fascism"

The last thing I might add is that extreme forms of socialism (communism for example) and extreme capitalism meet at the far end of the spectrum.

In both cases you end up with a few elite owning most/all resources and means of production.

There are then two (2) dark paths to this outcome. An outcome in which the citizens are reduced to a form of indentured slavery.

In this country we have somehow managed to combine the worst of both worlds into what I call the "Oligopoly-Bureaucracy Fusion Monster"

This beast is taking away our individual rights and freedoms/ trashing the constitution and increasing police powers towards totalitarianism.

This beast has destroyed much of the free market economy via price fixing and anti competitive practices, regulations and tax law.

Someone mentioned "Democratic Socialism" this is one of the tools of monster aka "Tyranny of the Majority"

 

I'm not quite sure I understand. Wages aren't the incentive to work because they only serve as the means to satisfy my needs and desires? Wages are exactly why I get up in the morning and go to work (one of them anyway). That's the incentive. My bills and expenses don't pay themselves, and that provides the motivation/incentive to get up in the morning when I would rather spend another few hours in bed.

Hence my question of why I should work without reimbursement for my labor.

I agree that dictionary definitions are not perfect. It's often times a good start, but if there is a disagreement over what the words being used mean, then you ask. When you say "social ownership", what are the requirements for not being in this society? What is a means of production? Is my hammer considered a means of production? How about the arm that swings it?

I don't think anybody is asking that. However, we do need to define our terms if we want to communicate.

It's more valuable, but only if you're lucky. My employer naturally wants to make a profit off of my labor because I am using the facilities that are owned by my employer. There are secretaries, janitorial staff, desks, toilets, maintenance crews, etc. etc. etc. and everybody who works there, as well as the owners who sign the paychecks, have come to a mutually agreeable financial arrangement. If a lady scrubs a toilet, she's doing that because her wage is a carrot attached to the rim of each and every properly scrubbed toilet in the joint. She didn't have to agree to clean that toilet. She could have stayed at home watching daytime television while watching the cable and electic bills pile up.

On the flip side, the head boss could do the same, and his business would collapse. He wants to make money, I want to make money, and everybody is happy.

I realize you look at that arrangement and think that he's siphoning off a bit too much from the profits. If that's the case, then you could easily get your socialist society together and compete with him. You'd be offering better incentives to the workers, so we'd all jump ship and start working for this socialized joint. Then the toilets in this competing facility will be scrubbed by the same lady, and the carrot for doing so will be bigger and oranger and fresher.

Yet this rarely seems to be the case. Why isn't the socialist competition putting the capitalists out of business?

This we can certainly agree on.

 

Over the course of his career, Sanders has voiced support for the Sandanistas, for Chvez, and the governments of Cuba and the USSR.

That is the direction he wants to push the US.

If he were allowed to do what he wants, The US economy would crumble.