Explaining Socialism

[Ashmada]

Kuya: GG's being very optimistic about a future that might one day happen and does show signs of beginning, but won't come soon.

The biggest failure with all of these theories of the perfect/ideal society (socialism, capitalism, etc) is that they never account for (or even seriously address) greed and corruption.

In a perfect world, yeah, both ways could work very well in there own ways.

But the ultimate failure in implementation tends to just be greed; whether it's the monopolies/trusts/price-gouging, or the over-indulgence and excessive gluttony of the successful, or the unsustainable attempts at socialistic policies without paying for them (cause 'tax' is such a bad word now), or just the people that will make a way of life off of living on the system.

All of that said though, choosing between the extremes I'd still rather live in a society where some people cheat, but everyone is well-provided for... than the essentially Darwinist alternative, even if it does foster higher levels of innovation.

Exactly. Excesses and failures will happen, but the damage caused by so-called welfare queens is lesser than that of monopolies and trusts, at least in the current global conjoncture.
Which is why I always find laughable the discourse of some conservatives of absolute market freedom with no intervention whatsoever: the model self-destructs if it's completely limitless: "too big to fail" megacompanies operating as monopolies/oligopolies are a perversion of capitalism and, at this point in time, need to be reigned in; so does a financial sector that has also lost all accountability.
Accountability is the backbone of capitalism, yet letting it run completely unchecked has resulted in the removal of accountability... if that's not a self-destructing model, I don't know what is.


GG: Nouvelle raison d'être. "Raison" is feminine.

[Greatguardian]

GG: Nouvelle raison d'être. "Raison" is feminine.

Bah, romance languages! I can never keep noun genders straight

[Ashmada]

Not exclusive to romance languages, but yeah, you kinda have to be a native. Don't worry, I mix up my "het" words and "de" words anytime I try to speak/write in dutch.

[Kuya]

Kuya: GG's being very optimistic about a future that might one day happen and does show signs of beginning, but won't come soon.

I wasn't talking about GG's discussion since i don't care about what he's saying. What i was trying to say was, that the problem isn't some misunderstanding in America about the meaning of words such as socialism, because the misunderstanding is ideological and produced on purpose. People who believe socialism is the devil aren't going to listen to stuff like this, and the republican party doesn't care about it either. What stuff like this is good for, is for discussions between left leaning individuals about what words mean, because trying to educate a public about this doesn't work, because it's a topic that the public feels emotionally and ideologically vested in and therefore far less willing to let new information in when it doesn't fit with a previously held position.

[Greatguardian]

I wasn't talking about GG's discussion since i don't care about what he's saying. What i was trying to say was, that the problem isn't some misunderstanding in America about the meaning of words such as socialism, because the misunderstanding is ideological and produced on purpose. People who believe socialism is the devil aren't going to listen to stuff like this, and the republican party doesn't care about it either. What stuff like this is good for, is for discussions between left leaning individuals about what words mean, because trying to educate a public about this doesn't work, because it's a topic that the public feels emotionally and ideologically vested in and therefore far less willing to let new information in when it doesn't fit with a pre-established position.

So what would be "good" for a society that doesn't want to process new information, then?

[RKenshin]

Why does it matter?

That's a serious question, by the way. Why does it matter if some people get greedy, or leech off the system, or wantonly consume without paying their dues to society?

When all members of a society are able to be provided for even if they don't do anything - even if they leech off the system, even if they're greedy, even if they're corrupt - why does it matter if some number of people act this way?

I'm assuming you're talking particularly about socialism.

If enough people do it, the system can't sustain itself. That's why it matters.

See: Greece. Of course, many factors went into the failure of Greece, but among the biggest ones are rampant tax fraud/evasion and major abuse of the benefits in the system. The trend of 'no one wants to pay into it but everyone wants to take as much as possible from it.'

It doesn't work if it becomes acceptable and/or common for people in society to cheat the system (whether by not paying into it, taking short-cuts, or living off of/abusing the system).

There is of course a level of tolerance. One guy not paying taxes isn't going to crash the economy. But don't under-estimate the desire to take the easy way out and how it can grow through a population.

I mean, just look at our obesity rates for a good example of that. There are more programs, information, and ways to maintain decent shape out there than I could possibly ever find... yet obesity rates are rising.

Don't get me wrong about this though. None of this is to say I don't agree with the concepts or implementation of socialism, it's just that I believe a great part of the failures other countries have had with it are due to greed (as with capitalism and other structures of society).

[Ashmada]

What i was trying to say was, that the problem isn't some misunderstanding in America about the meaning of words such as socialism, because the misunderstanding is ideological and produced on purpose. People who believe socialism is the devil aren't going to listen to stuff like this, and the republican party doesn't care about it either. What stuff like this is good for, is for discussions between left leaning individuals about what words mean, because trying to educate a public about this doesn't work, because it's a topic that the public feels emotionally and ideologically vested in and therefore far less willing to let new information in when it doesn't fit with a previously held position.

No argument there. It's so ingrained in american society, thanks to deliberate misinformation, that socialism is teh evulz that a shift in mentalities is highly unlikely to happen within our lifetimes. Might happen some day, but not soon.
And it goes back to the historical reasons: them fatlanders have no socialist tradition.

[Greatguardian]

I'm assuming you're talking particularly about socialism.

If enough people do it, the system can't sustain itself. That's why it matters.

See: Greece. Of course, many factors went into the failure of Greece, but among the biggest ones are rampant tax fraud/evasion and major abuse of the benefits in the system. The trend of 'no one wants to pay into it but everyone wants to take as much as possible from it.'

It doesn't work if it becomes acceptable and/or common for people in society to cheat the system (whether by not paying into it, taking short-cuts, or living off of/abusing the system).

There is of course a level of tolerance. One guy not paying taxes isn't going to crash the economy. But don't under-estimate the desire to take the easy way out and how it can grow through a population.

I mean, just look at our obesity rates for a good example of that. There are more programs, information, and ways to maintain decent shape out there than I could possibly ever find... yet obesity rates are rising.

Don't get me wrong about this though. None of this is to say I don't agree with the concepts or implementation of socialism, it's just that I believe a great part of the failures other countries have had with it are due to greed (as with capitalism and other structures of society).

I think we're slightly missing each other. You're talking about the implementation of socialism in the world as it is now, I'm talking about the concept of socialism and related utopian ideals in the future.

I wouldn't call greed a fundamental flaw with utopian ideals so much as I would call it a situational flaw whose relevance is inversely proportional to a society's technological advancement and ability to generate global sustainability at any given time.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

I wouldn't call it a debate, more a discussion. And it has more to do with modernism and post-modernism than it does with socialism and capitalism at this point. No one's in here defending the free market, last I checked.

Look if you don't want to think about shit that's cool, but there's no need to be dismissive. You're being pretty arrogant for someone who charged into the thread without even knowing what the fuck we were talking about.

Quote the first post I responded to in this fancy little discussion y'all is having.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Then kindly proceed to shut the fuck up.

[Demosthenes11]

is GG a maxteem sock or something? i swear

[Greatguardian]

Quote the first post I responded to in this fancy little discussion y'all is having.

One thing this thread perfectly illustrates is the fact that socialism is intrinsically more idealistic than conservatism.

And naïveté is the usual criticism levied by the cynic towards the idealist.

Hey, genius. You quoted a Belgian. Like I've said since you Rambo'd in here, we're not talking about the same shit you're talking about. The meaning of those words is not static.

Socialism is, by definition, more idealistic than contemporary Conservatism. It has nothing to do with how one or the other succeeds in practice. If you don't understand that, that's fine, but I am not particularly motivated to dumb it down for you.

[RKenshin]

I think we're slightly missing each other. You're talking about the implementation of socialism in the world as it is now, I'm talking about the concept of socialism and related utopian ideals in the future.

I wouldn't call greed a fundamental flaw with utopian ideals so much as I would call it a situational flaw whose relevance is inversely proportional to a society's technological advancement and ability to generate global sustainability at any given time.

Ah, gotcha, I was definitely talking about now.

Although, in reality I can't really say I agree with the concept of greed sort of phasing away with time. And if it did, that quite literally would likely be hundreds of years away still.

But, either way, what we may or may not become a long time down the line doesn't help us solve the problems of the present. I suppose that's where our points differ though, in that I'm attempting to problem-solve for current time and you're discussing what problems would be relevant in the future.

[Greatguardian]

Ah, gotcha, I was definitely talking about now.

Although, in reality I can't really say I agree with the concept of greed sort of phasing away with time. And if it did, that quite literally would likely be hundreds of years away still.

But, either way, what we may or may not become a long time down the line doesn't help us solve the problems of the present. I suppose that's where our points differ though, in that I'm attempting to problem-solve for current time and you're discussing what problems would be relevant in the future.

Right, sorta. I'm not implying that greed would disappear, but rather that greed would have a decreasing negative impact - to the point where it would eventually be irrelevant if people decided to be greedy or corrupt. It wouldn't matter because we'd be capable of sustaining ourselves regardless.

As for what problems we're interested in, we are trying to solve the same problems. We're just going about it in different ways. I don't think that short term gains are worth very much in the long run. When I see a problem with society, I'm not concerned with what I can do to make it a little bit better right now - I'm concerned with what's causing it to begin with and what sort of permanent solution can be found. If anything, I find the focus on short term efforts to be as much of a problem as the very things they're attempting to solve.

For example, and this is a controversial one but its relevance is peerless in this regard, the LBGTQ movement is one such effort which focuses so much on the short term that it loses the ability to generate a long term solution.

[Darus Grey]

Not sure why everyone's ragging on GG, he brings up an important point to the discussion.

The reality is the world doesn't need all the people it has working, and this is getting more pronounced over time. One engineer today can do the work that 1,000-10,000+ workers did just a few generations ago. This is increasing over time, we've already seen large sets of skills be completely out-dated, people with 30+ years experience in a field made useless by technological advancement.

Right now we have a situation where 60%~ of society works to support themselves and the other 40%~...in 100 years it's very probable that we're going to be in a situation where 5% of the population can sustain enough productivity to support the other 95%. Which leaves the question, how do we as a society evolve when we realize that capitalism AND socialism are completely untenable in this situation, in fact economics as we know it, would pretty much be dead. When monetary advancement ceases, and the illusion of the "profit motive" is broken...what do we do?

Personally I think we'll adapt just fine, "the profit motive" is bullshit anyways, the majority of innovators are not motivated by fiscal greed, most entrepreneurs see money as an obstacle to whatever their goal is, not the goal itself. But survival itself as a goal, may disappear within a couple generations, or least be significantly reduced.

I think this will be extended a long time by the need to be more efficient, which is what drives this process to begin with. But there does come a point in any process where the most efficient process, method, material, what have you, has been discovered. So we'll have 50%+ of society essentially working at making the 5% of producers more efficient, this is practically what we're doing right now.

But there is eventually an end to discovery, so what will be the motivation of the remnants?

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

is GG a maxteem sock or something? i swear

He's one aspergers claim away from the safeface trifecta. I think he just tried to tell me the applied concepts and definitions of methodology changes if you go to Belgium.

[Kuya]

So what would be "good" for a society that doesn't want to process new information, then?

I think that's an more interesting topic of discussion than what you're having right now. How do you progress towards a more socially democratic economy or perhaps a socialist economy with the obstacles you have today? Talking about that seems more relevant than talking about the limits of a system that does not even conceivably exist today. It's getting ahead of yourself.

As a sidenote, i'm currently reading Einstein and i did not know he was a socialist.

[Greatguardian]

I think that's an more interesting topic of discussion than what you're having right now. How do you progress towards a more socially democratic economy or perhaps a socialist economy with the obstacles you have today? Talking about that seems more relevant than talking about the limits of a system that does not even conceivably exist today. It's getting ahead of yourself.

As a sidenote, i'm currently reading Einstein and i did not know he was a socialist.

It goes back to posts I was making a couple pages ago which weren't really responded to, so I do agree it's a plenty interesting topic. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear we look at it from completely different modes of thought, so I'll just say up front that I'd be willing to discuss the issue if you are.

It's just that I still look at these problems from a modernist perspective. Modernist thought has a propensity to ignore the current situation and focus on the ideal solution, regardless of how different the two are. Post-modernist thought, which you seem to subscribe heavily to, has a propensity to believe that the constraints of the current situation are of the utmost importance and that any solution which does not make immediate progress in a contemporary climate is not worthwhile.

Therefore, there is a distinct possibility that any solution I generate will be meaningless to you and any solution you generate will be meaningless to me. Are you still interested in this discussion?

Sidenote, Einstein was pretty baller.

[Kuya]

Sure, whatever. But first of all, do you even agree that for the US, moving towards a social democrat economy is the right thing to do? Or what do you think about a full blown socialist economy, or perhaps a socialist economy as something you progress to after social democracy?

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Sidenote, Einstein was pretty baller.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...g/seinfeld.gif