Socialism

Debate Socialism here. Voice your support or opposition to modern forms of Socialism.

Socialism, in my opinion, is the pathway to Communism. It is the begnning of government control on society. Although some forms of socialism are necessary (Police and other similar public services), full control of all public establishments is wrong. Once a government reaches that stage, all they need to do is write the legislation bounding every citizen to a Communist state.

I concur with the above statement.

I used to be quite Libertarian in my views, but I've changed somewhat now. I wouldn't mind some elements of our society being public entities (Police, Fire Department, Schools, etc.)

I would say that Socialism is more or less Communism. The difference is that Communism is more violent than Socialism. Socialists trick people into thinking what they're doing is the right thing while Communism requires force to make a point.

nevermind

i agree with batman and patton

You guys have no idea what Communism is. Communism is a stateless and classless society, it is essentially Anarchism. The Socialist state is used to overthrow capitalism and allow society to transition into Communism. Then, an equal society shall slowly be established, in which people share everything they own for the benefit of all the people around them. It's not violent or oppressive at all.

It's violent when some people don't want to share their stuff/want too much from others. Without a state to control this, a chain reaction could occur and soon, everyone's fighting and killing each other.

You guys have no idea what Communism is. Communism is a stateless and classless society, it is essentially Anarchism. The Socialist state is used to overthrow capitalism and allow society to transition into Communism. Then, an equal society shall slowly be established, in which people share everything they own for the benefit of all the people around them. It's not violent or oppressive at all.

Problem is that human is a power hungry creature and as there are no effective mechanisms for preventing power struggles after socialist revolution,it renders entire idea of Communism into utopia.

You guys have no idea what Communism is. Communism is a stateless and classless society, it is essentially Anarchism. The Socialist state is used to overthrow capitalism and allow society to transition into Communism. Then, an equal society shall slowly be established, in which people share everything they own for the benefit of all the people around them. It's not violent or oppressive at all.

And a state without leadership is good? Ok.... Also, a man owns what he works for, sharing with others is a choice Unfortunately, it's a choice that not many people make nowadays. But never mess with a man's possessions.

it is essentially Anarchism.

C'est ne pas vrais. I quote:

"Communism is a stateless single world organization of post-proletarian humans who work for the fullest expression of their individual and collective interests"

Not Anarchism.

Also, since Marx wrote that Communist society would, one way or another have to be a largely post-scarcity one, there would be no need for people to share, at all.

It sounds pretty peachy the way Deadly Virus explains it. The problem is that, as good as his plan may sound, it's not reality.

You guys have no idea what Communism is. Communism is a stateless and classless society, it is essentially Anarchism.

Stateless and classless societies generally cannot possibly exist. Lets take the lessons of history as our example, The Soviet Union and China for instance; in those countries, as in all socialist countries, the state government is REPLACED BY, but not annihilated by, the party government, and the party then becomes the new state. As far as classes go, they are bound to exist in any society either through nature, circumstance, or deliberate plan. In the Soviet's case, at the very least, one can argue that the new privileged elite in society is the party leadership itself, and the underprivilaged (underclass, lower class, ect) consist of those who resist the change in economic policy.

The Socialist state is used to overthrow capitalism and allow society to transition into Communism.

Socialism overthrows capitalism usually through violence. Societies also do not naturally transition peaceably into communism, which in every case is the result of a minority violently forcing its views on a majority.

Then, an equal society shall slowly be established, in which people share everything they own for the benefit of all the people around them.

"Equality" is an unnatural situation which can only be established by coersion, as people do not readily share "everything" for the benefit of others, especially when they consider their own needs as being unsatisfied. Communism is little more than an attempt to force this sharing on all society. In the end, society is harmed by shortages of goods, rationing, and centralized planning.

It's not violent or oppressive at all.

Violence is unavoidable because socialism/communism involves central planning, in which the authority decides 'who gets what, when, and how." Freedom absolutely must be eradicated in order to achieve this goal, and those who refuse to play the game are labeled as "reactionaries" and are punished, not uncommonly with capital punishment. The total control of economics, production, social values, and human interaction which makes a centrally planned economy possible also preclude the possibility of freedom and choice among the population, which enters an existence of slavery under an elite of bureaucrats which constitute a new privileged aristocracy created by the communist system. In effect, communism takes control of the state's monopoly-of-violence, expands it, wields it remorselessly to achieve a radical fundamental change in society, and then when socialist policies inevitably lead to economic ruin, wield the same monopoly-of-violence with equal brutality in order to protect the new state from the wrath of the people whose lives were ruined by its failure to deliver the promised paradise.

On paper socialism works perfectly.

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No need to say how badly it works in practice. See what happened to USSR.

let us be honest here. does communisim work? in russia no. in north korea no, in china kind of but only because usa and england pretty much help them out.
in theory, communism, every1 being equal same pay blah blah. is a nice little lefty thought, would it work? of course not only a theorist would dream it would, has it worked? nope history has shown us it hasnt. would a doctor take the same rate of pay as a machinist making chairs? hell no...thats just being realistic
to sum it up. communism is a nice dream for the lower class. who dont get paid . (i myself am lower class and unemployed for the moment, yet im severly right wing)
communism is a band of dreamers. right wing, monarchists, conservatives and national socialists (there right wing)...(nazis lol) there what the world calls today, realists. people who knows how the world works and actually ing tries to make it better, they know they cant make eveyone happy (which is what communism tries to do and fails) so they make the majority happy.
Stalin tried to make everyone happy and equal under his thumb (he failed in that respect, they became paranoid and bankrupt because of it)
hitler tried to make the majority (germans) happy. he in part actually succeded (im not talking about the war im talking before it). even though lets be honest. he was a right .

i hate comunism in all its forms, the people who believe in communism are nice people, its just there dreamers, me being a righty knows how the world works and tries to make it better for people even if i piss some-one off and make someon eelse happy, thats life and its called being a right wing realist
anyway nice little group, im notonline much.
i like the little political groups these forums have its great to know the opinions of many even if i only take notice of the opinions of the few (being a right winger does that to you lmfao)

Stateless and classless societies generally cannot possibly exist <<<< harden 007 speaks sense in this respect. in fact harden007 is what i would call a realist and intellectual on history. harden is correct, we are human and afterall lets be honest, themajority or humans do not believe in free pay, equality and stuff. even the russian people in the USSR were most definitly pissed of with their government but were to scared to voice their opinion for the russian army wouldkick their ass. (yes right wingers...well...extreme right wingers do this too...)
also harden007 is correct about the party or the people within government or military positions become the elite social society,
all you have to do is look at china, russia and north korea to discover this....who rules in north korea? there army does!!!! (they have the largest army i tihnk?:S)
who ruled in russia? there army!
who rules in china...there army!
Quote:
It's not violent or oppressive at all

im sorry but your either working for a commnist group or you havent even studied history at all.

but i do believe goofy is correct, on paper communism works good. lets be honest it does. and if it worked. who wouldntwantto be a communist? where we lived in a hate free world and all got paid good money....but lets be realists and say to ourselfs, OK im a doctor who saves babies lifes everyday and i run charity projects all over my town and i help people...yet i get paid the same wage as a man who hands out leaflets and goes home to feed his crack habbit?.....you wouldtell your government to do one.
anyway love to you all! be realists! or to make it simpler if you hatepolitics become a right wing facsit dictator and kill anyone who believe different! lol
(im not here to disrespect anyone, or hurt anywones feelings, i just want friends! oh and i wanna find my rome total war CD to play roma surrectum II

Just to make my standpoint clear I am a leftie but I have a lot of serious issues with communist groups because I think they are more like a social movement and a weekend tea party with militant jaunts against the rightwingers. It's all very homosexual and geeky. It's not relevant to the common man at all. They all go on about the glories of Lenin and Stalin and ingore the fact that Lenin was a facist which is NOT what the original ideology or the spirit of the revolution was about.
If modern Communists really think that they can hope to change the world by creating a violent revolution they are totally deluded and need to get out more- no one wants to have a violent revolution- the masses in the west will never be convinced that communism is anything more than historical states have proven it to be which is a form of oppressive facism.

Communism cannot expect to be able to be seen as a legitimate democracy (which is what it was originally intended to be) when it creates a one-party state. There are a lot of references to the USSR, China and Cuba here which are all fair examples but let's not forget the lessons of pre-Marxist revolutions that influenced Marx and Engels' theories and which they were well aware of as failed models- the English Civil War and the French Revolution. Both Cromwell and Napoleon arose as monarchs in what was an alleged revolt of the masses to overcome a monarchy or oligarchy. History has repeated itself so many times.

The only way for Communism as an ideal to survive is by reviewing its agenda and making it relevant to the people it proposes to represent (which currently as a fringe group it clearly does not). The issue with capitalism is that in the west we are clearly being governed by oligrachies of the rich that follow their own agendas too, completely irrelevant and ignorant of the voice of the people. For instance, in Europe alone there are so many countries whose people have been refused the right to a referendum over joining the EU or EMU. The way in which both the US and the UK have gone about duping their countries and others including the UN - or worse ignoring the UN!- that their cause in both Iraq and Afghanistan was correct (however moral the reasoning might have been) the execution and falsification of evidence is all indicative of the kind of lies and manipulation that you can see in 1984.

People are leaning towards questioning their corrupt governments, but less and less people are engaged in voting. People in general are fairly happy with their lot, and are apathetic. Rousing only to grumble occassionally over the odd governmental act. On the other hand you have this band of excited masked youths stoning police and shops and generally making their parents turn the TV off in shame. That kind of revolution or communism has to take a serious look at itself in the mirror if it wants to actually polarise itself with the Bushes and Blairs of this world and make people want to back it as a reasonable hope to improve their already comfortable if slightly corrupt and selfish countries.

As much as I would call myself a Marxist, a red etc the fact is that Ché t-shirts and a failure to tell the difference between socialism, liberalism and communism which a lot of you here (on both sides of the argument) seem to be guilty of- is what is keeping these terms a dead language.

The issue with capitalism is that in the west we are clearly being governed by oligrachies of the rich that follow their own agendas too, completely irrelevant and ignorant of the voice of the people.

That situation is not produced by capitalism, but by interventionism by the state, and interests competing with each other to use the state's monopoly on coercion to enrich themselves. In essence, state privilege, which is not conducive to free-market capitalism.

I don't like it when people confuse socialism with communism, because I belief that all people have the same rights, but are unique...

i agree with u megas !