Socialism

[Mike Christ]

Who here believes in it, and why do you prefer it over other systems?

[BripleRipple]

If Socialism would alleviate the fear Americans face daily of how to provide for your family I would take it over capitalism any day.  We were brain washed as children to believe "America is Great" and free.  What a bunch of horse @#%#@.   I would love to live someplace where I can wake up in the morning and smell the roses instead of what we have today where all you can smell is the sweat of fear.  Hate, lack of empathy and total greed is what we have.   If you were not lucky to be born with healthy, secure middle, upper or rich class parents who did not divorce then there is no hope for you.  If one of your parents becomes disabled to soon then there is zero freedom and opportunity for you.  Your life becomes nonexistent due to the responsibilities of disability and the inability to cope with imprisoning your loved ones in a hellish nursing homes.  There is no help or assistance.  Only Fox news telling you its your fault.

[Spendulus]

.... There is no help or assistance.  Only Fox news telling you its your fault.

Oh come on.  If they make use all beggers then we are easier to please.

Long forgotten would be that good life you mention, just little trinkets, cigarettes, maybe a free Obama phone would do the trick.

[giantdragon]

I think with technology progress and increasing automation (when "Luddite fallacy" will be no more fallacy) many governments will have no other choice than to reject market capitalism. Europe will be the first IMHO.

[smscotten]

Earl Warren famously said that most people consider the things that government does for them to be social progress, and those things which government does for others to be socialism.

I find it useful to use a definition of socialism based on political theory rather than just the right demonizing the left and vice versa. And the closest thing I've found is that socialism is the ownership by the people of the means of production. In practice that ends up meaning ownership by the government.

So let's start there by saying that if I say that I'm in favor of socialism, it does not mean I am in favor of class-based transfer of wealth. If government paves roads, it owns the means of production of roadways. If government provides public schooling, well "production" might not be the right word there but it applies there as well. Many people on the right who are in favor of government building roads and keeping public schools will sputter, "that's not socialism" but my response to that is: get real. It's not necessarily left-wing redistribution of wealth (though there is an argument to be made, I'm not going to make it here) but it is socialism.

So, yes. I am in favor of some socialism. Government ought to own the means of production of some services.

That said, I am not in favor of redistributive practices. "Rob from the rich and give to the poor" does not sit well with me. What I prefer is more like "rob from the rich and give to everyone." That's not entirely accurate but illustrative. First, I take it as a given that the rich will bear more of the burden than those who are less rich. I am even in favor of a slightly progressive tax system. But even with a non-progressive totally flat tax system, most of the money would still be coming from the rich. So no matter what, even if government is stripped down to nothing but national defense, we're still going to be robbing (mostly) from the rich.

The question is: what to do with what we've robbed? I believe that the important thing here is that everyone ought to have equal access to whatever it is that government supplies by spending tax dollars. Roads? Everyone has access, rich or poor. Public schools? Everyone has access, rich or poor. If the wealthy are paying for it, they ought to have access to it too.

I also believe that the closer you are to home, the safer socialism is. I live in a city with municipal power but I would not support a plan for the federal government to take over electricity in the United States.

And i believe that important distinctions are lost in the din of "socialism" versus "fascism" when neither side is really either.

I could go on, but I did once a few years ago: http://splicer.com/2010/12/28/toward-new-right in which I describe myself as a socialist republican. I've already crossed the TL;dr threshold here.

[Anon136]

typically i like to play the devils advocate but i really dont even know how to formulate a single remotely defensible argument for socialism. if someone put a gun to my head and forced me i would just have to use irrelevant semantic quibblings, appeals to aesthetics, strawmen and red herrings like the statists of these forums.

[smscotten]

typically i like to play the devils advocate but i really dont even know how to formulate a single remotely defensible argument for socialism. if someone put a gun to my head and forced me i would just have to use irrelevant semantic quibblings, appeals to aesthetics, strawmen and red herrings like the statists of these forums.

Well, as long as there are other states, we will need a national defense because those other states will send people with tanks and bombs to annex us. It might not be Canada or Mexico either. So any strategy for getting to a post-statist world will have to be a slow one. So at the very least we need nationalized (==socialized) defense. Maybe only for a few dozen generations until humanity evolves but in my lifetime I don't see a non-state solution to the issues that face us.

[Mike Christ]

snip

Interesting insight, thank you for the well thought-out response.  Any thoughts on the novel by Orwell, 1984?  Also, when people who advocate socialism say, "Well that's just American propaganda that you're saying--that's not real socialism," exactly what are the differences between "Americanized" socialism and actual socialism?

[hawkeye]

typically i like to play the devils advocate but i really dont even know how to formulate a single remotely defensible argument for socialism. if someone put a gun to my head and forced me i would just have to use irrelevant semantic quibblings, appeals to aesthetics, strawmen and red herrings like the statists of these forums.

Well, as long as there are other states, we will need a national defense because those other states will send people with tanks and bombs to annex us. It might not be Canada or Mexico either. So any strategy for getting to a post-statist world will have to be a slow one. So at the very least we need nationalized (==socialized) defense. Maybe only for a few dozen generations until humanity evolves but in my lifetime I don't see a non-state solution to the issues that face us.

If they did that they would bankrupt themselves.   The largest military in the world with more resources by far than any other military can't successfully invade relatively weak countries.

Japan didn't want to invade America because there would be a gun behind every blade of grass.  The national defence excuse for a state is actually pretty weak when you really examine it.

[hawkeye]

A stable and free economy that allows as many people as possible to support themselves is the most crucial thing.   There will always be needy people in society but you can't help those people if you have a failing or collapsing economy which is where socialism leads.   Rich economies are able to afford philanthropy not poor ones.

Government supporters always have different ideas of what they think govt should be.  It should always be what they want it to be.   If they actually thought about this they'd realise the concept is nonsensical, because people are always going to be fighting over it and generally the most devious and power-hungry will succeed and get what they want.  And funnily enough, that's exactly how the world is today.

[smscotten]

A stable and free economy that allows as many people as possible to support themselves is the most crucial thing.   There will always be needy people in society but you can't help those people if you have a failing or collapsing economy which is where socialism leads.   Rich economies are able to afford philanthropy not poor ones.

Government supporters always have different ideas of what they think govt should be.  It should always be what they want it to be.   If they actually thought about this they'd realise the concept is nonsensical, because people are always going to be fighting over it and generally the most devious and power-hungry will succeed and get what they want.  And funnily enough, that's exactly how the world is today.

We're agreed on all of this. Where we (seem to) differ is that I believe in enough government to enforce rules against force and fraud and… I'm skeptical about the argument that the defense argument is a weak one. If nothing else, a foreign army could take out California where we have enough gun control that we'd be sitting ducks if the armed forces disappeared.

I'm in favor of the sorts of things that support equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. I think those things do some good and while I'm willing to entertain the notion that eventually we'd be better off if everything were strictly voluntary, there is the question of how to get there from here and I think slower is better than faster and there is an order in which things ought to be changed. I think it would be a mistake to eliminate public schools or even welfare programs while we still have enormous portions of our crony economy being siphoned off into corporate bailouts and boondoggles. (Those things, while redistributive, are not socialism, though they certainly are not capitalism either)

[Spendulus]

Earl Warren famously said that most people consider the things that government does for them to be social progress, and those things which government does for others to be socialism.

I find it useful to use a definition of socialism based on political theory rather than just the right demonizing the left and vice versa. And the closest thing I've found is that socialism is the ownership by the people of the means of production. In practice that ends up meaning ownership by the government.
...

Just a quick clarification on the terms.  Ownership by the people of the means of production does not work for purposes of discussion as a definition.  The simple reason is that today we have many political parties who advocate something other than that under the umbrella of socialism.  For example, the broad trends in "Social democrats".

Take Australia.  Definitely socialistic, but ownership of the means of production for the most part is in the hands of the people.  You see, taxes average 60%, and by varying the tax percentage you can effectively own that fraction of the "means of production" while leaving the ego of the business owner intact that he "owns it".

By your definition, title would have to pass to the government before "socialism" existed.  In fact, many businesses are essentially controlled and operated by the government even though they are private businesses.  They are simply hired by the government to do jobs for it.

Thus, it might be better to view socialism not as the takings, but as the givings.  There it is much cleaner.  The givings include both those to individuals, as in welfare, and to companies, which in that role are just an extension of the state.  By looking at the outflows, we see the scope of interventions in the free society of the state, and can critically judge them.

By contrast, were one to look just at 'ownership', what we don't know is what the evil state did with the money....if there was any, in reality after inefficient collectivist management, the net is likely a loss.  Which leads one to ponder whether the truly clever and most evil socialist would prefer the capitalist state, from which he could suck the most blood, between his retiring to the crypt before the sun rose.

[tvbcof]

A consider myself a 'socialist' but that is mainly because I rely on myself to define the term rather than accepting the spin that others use to color and contrast it.  A run-down of my philosophical chain of thought follows.

1)  Human history has been dominated by a hunter-gatherer mode of existence and that is the social grouping mode that we've evolved toward being successful in.  As populations have grown this mode is largely obsolete.  In this mode of existence individual variation in humans would account for, for instance, a somewhat larger production of game.  But these societies tend to be very equitable so the best one achieves for being superior is a little extra respect.

2)  In modern societies a modest elevation of one skill or another can translate into a lasting accumulation which impoverishes the rest of the group in some proportion.

3)  In even more modern societies like the US today, there a modest wealth accumulation can be leveraged in a sling-shot effect to create enormous accumulations and impoverish an even larger percentage of the population.

4)  Significant disparities in wealth inevitably lead to social strife and revolutions which are bloody and unpleasant.  In the proceeding interval (which can last for generations) totalitarian systems develop in order to protect the wealth accumulations and that makes life less than ideal for most people.

5)  The synthesis of 1-4 lead me to the conclusion that 'distribution of wealth' is necessary for stable and tolerable existence in society.

6)  Distributing this wealth in the form of education, health care, insurance for those who have the misfortune of being invalid or aged, etc, is to me the most logical course of action and will product the largest amount of human content.  If it can produce a society which the participants can be proud of then it is likely to have the credibility to be enduring.

[smscotten]

Just a quick clarification on the terms.  Ownership by the people of the means of production does not work for purposes of discussion as a definition.  The simple reason is that today we have many political parties who advocate something other than that under the umbrella of socialism.

Political parties lie and redefine words as a way of misleading people. I just went to a dictionary:

socialism noun
The theory, principle, or scheme of social organization which places the means of production of wealth and the distribution of that wealth in the hands of the community.

I'm pretty sure I don't understand your distinction between it being about the "givings" rather than the "takings." I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't know what that means.

[hawkeye]

When I see socialism, what I read is "forced monopolies on certain services, leading to restricted supply and/or higher prices than a free market would achieve".  

That's what means of production in the hands of the community means to me.  And of course, when we say community, we really mean it's in the hands of the government.

Socialism has a nice warm, fuzzy feel to it, along with the name.   Being against it almost makes you seem anti-social.   But I think when you look at the way it operates in the real world what you find is that socialism itself is anti-social.  It is about using force and coercion which most people regard as unacceptable in their private lives.

Being free market doesn't make you callous.  It's the only way to generate true wealth in society and is not incompatible with charity.  Quite the reverse.

[Spendulus]

Just a quick clarification on the terms.  Ownership by the people of the means of production does not work for purposes of discussion as a definition.  The simple reason is that today we have many political parties who advocate something other than that under the umbrella of socialism.

Political parties lie and redefine words as a way of misleading people. I just went to a dictionary:

socialism noun
The theory, principle, or scheme of social organization which places the means of production of wealth and the distribution of that wealth in the hands of the community.

I'm pretty sure I don't understand your distinction between it being about the "givings" rather than the "takings." I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't know what that means.

Don't go to a dictionary, go to Wikipedia.  You'll see the entire group of definitions discussed in length. 

takings - money the government takes from me for whatever it does
givings - money the government spends on whatever it chooses to

I'm just saying that as a way around discussing the meaning of a word, which is sort of not productive, if you look at the 'givings' and/or proposed extensions or reductions of them, you can get somewhere.

[hawkeye]

We're agreed on all of this. Where we (seem to) differ is that I believe in enough government to enforce rules against force and fraud and… I'm skeptical about the argument that the defense argument is a weak one. If nothing else, a foreign army could take out California where we have enough gun control that we'd be sitting ducks if the armed forces disappeared.

Here's another way to think of it.  Let's say Canada turned anarchist.  Do you think there would be much support for the US government to go invade them?  Think about what they had to do to invade Iraq and that is a country where, let's face it, few Iraqi's and Americans knew each other.   Do you think people would say, yeah that's OK, go get em or would they be outraged at their govt killing peaceful people, many of whom would probably have friends or relatives there, etc...?

[herzmeister]

I find it useful to use a definition of socialism based on political theory rather than just the right demonizing the left and vice versa. And the closest thing I've found is that socialism is the ownership by the people of the means of production. In practice that ends up meaning ownership by the government.

No, it doesn't. Think outside this typical US-AynRandian proprietarian filter bubble.

Or, better put, Libertarian Socialists would argue similarly about capitalism: The accumulation of property leads to concentration of power. And if there is no state to take over, it creates a state to protect itself. It's nothing else but the imperialist history of this planet.

If you call an island your property, what else are you than the state of this island, and a dictator even at that? Eventually the inhabitants of the island may start to rebel against you. So you invent religion to pacify them. When that no longer works, you give them "democracy" and laugh your ass off. Then there'll be a "libertarian movement" on this island and you'll laugh even more at all the people, as they seem to want to become just like yourself.

[dominicus]

I'm in favor of the sorts of things that support equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. I think those things do some good and while I'm willing to entertain the notion that eventually we'd be better off if everything were strictly voluntary, there is the question of how to get there from here and I think slower is better than faster and there is an order in which things ought to be changed. I think it would be a mistake to eliminate public schools or even welfare programs while we still have enormous portions of our crony economy being siphoned off into corporate bailouts and boondoggles. (Those things, while redistributive, are not socialism, though they certainly are not capitalism either)

Agreeing on what constitutes "equal opportunity" has proven to be quite difficult.  Beyond the most basic human rights, no one seem to agree on a minimum level of "opportunity" every citizen should be afforded, or at which point should "opportunity" funding be stopped, and self-funding begin or otherwise be considered a missed opportunity.

[smscotten]

Here's another way to think of it.  Let's say Canada turned anarchist.  Do you think there would be much support for the US government to go invade them?  Think about what they had to do to invade Iraq and that is a country where, let's face it, few Iraqi's and Americans knew each other.   Do you think people would say, yeah that's OK, go get em or would they be outraged at their govt killing peaceful people, many of whom would probably have friends or relatives there, etc...?

Yeah, if there were a very substantial (and threatening to the power structure here) change in Canada's political structure, I'd give it ten years tops before the entirety of Canada were annexed by the US, or "liberated" back to British rule, mostly using US troops.

Fox News and MSNBC would flood the airwaves with disinformation that appeared to contradict each other but really amounted to a question of whether Canada was now a threat or a menace. The border would be closed.

Hell, now that I'm thinking of it, I'd give it ten months (maybe ten days) before the US was lending "military aid" (in the form of boots on the ground) to something they at least claimed had been the peaceful leadership. We might build something that looked a lot like Canada's old government to "help."

If a Republican were President at the time there would probably be massive protest. If a Democrat were in the White House, the anti-war left would stay home and quiet, just as they have since 2009.

The problem with anarchy is the existence of sociopaths, who expand their behavior to profit them until stopped by some form of threat. In the absence of rule of law, we would be ruled by the bullies. Groups of people tend to lead their organizations toward behavior much like sociopathy. And nations are perhaps the worst sociopaths of all. That is why when Thomas Paine called government necessary, he called it a necessary evil. If you think the United States would not roll tanks across the northern border to combat an anarchist uprising, you are deluding yourself.