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The question, particularly with interested responses from US goons who strongly identify as liberal or conservative on the American linear political spectrum, is "How do you define Socialism and how do you feel about it?" Coming from a highly politicized career path in the defense contracting industry, many people have offered up their definition of socialism and it always seems to change based on the way they feel. Some say it's government redistribution of wealth, others say it's government tyranny by controlling its citizens' assets and others try to avoid the government argument completely by saying it's workers owning the means of production and nothing more. For example, many conservatives say socialism is bad. So a few examples of what they might say are "Venezuela is a prime example of socialism in action" or "Socialism kills any incentive to work and its supporters in the US like Bernie Sanders or AOC will hurt us" and "Socialist countries kill people's incentive to work and always go bankrupt". On the flip side, liberals who support it will say "Many other countries have higher standards of living and have socialist programs like Universal Health Care or National Health Systems" or "A social safety net will ensure people are happy and ready to contribute" or "Capitalism destroys people and resources at the expense of profit". The big conflict of course comes from arguing which policies are socialist and which aren't. For example, conservatives I know frequently said that the ACA (Obamacare) was socialist and didn't belong in this country. Trying to be skeptical of any claim by either side, my question to them was "Well, what about the defense industry that we work for that is paid off of taxpayer dollars?" The response was generally that national defense was something individuals couldn't coordinate so it had to be taken care of by the government and tax (or printed) money was necessary. This seemed to satisfy them for justifying their own positions as being government-based but not socialist. However, then when questioned further about "conservative" interference in the free market, such as the $12B bailout for farmers affected by Chinese tariffs, the general response was "That's not socialism, socialism just means workers control the means of production, nothing more", seemingly at odds with other common statements like Obamacare being socialist or the defense contracting agency being an exception to socialism since agriculture is something individuals determine in the market and not a government mandate. The ultimate culmination of these contradictions, and what prompted me to post this thread, was someone in the wonderful world of Facebook comments posting a link to Ben Shapiro's denial of Scandinavian socialism at https://www.dailywire.com/news/28102/wapo-columnist-who-advocated-socialism-no-i-really-ben-shapiro where it finally culminates in “. . . they’re capitalist countries with redistributionist tendencies.” Again, it seems anything that works is "capitalism with redistributionist tendencies" whereas a failed country like Venezuela is "pure Socialism". So Obamacare was really capitalism with redistribution tendencies and not socialism like so many people claimed? Liberals are more consistent, since they advocate for government spending, but still duck a few issues. The main one being, how would you classify Venezuela and make sure any attempt at socialism doesn't end up like Venezuela? Most say it was a dictator based on political ideology contrary to any progressive constitution that did in Venezuela rather than socialism, but again, some will push the "Workers own the means of production is all it means, Venezuela didn't have that and wasn't socialist". The main issue from the left seems to be how far to push it - should we have a national health system where the government controls healthcare, or a private healthcare system where the government controls pricing and coverage for all people? Should we go near a total welfare state or accept certain limits with our natural resources to keep from pillaging the environment to get everyone a big house? How do you deal with the inevitable group, no matter how small a percentage of the total, who says "I don't want to work but will take all I can from society?" Ultimately the liberals fail to address how to bring in someone who wants to live on their own in the wilderness or with a small group of likeminded people and have nothing to do with government. Certainly I can understand why everyone needs to contribute to constitutionally mandated requirements of most first world countries like basic defense and a court / criminal justice / police system, but have a hard time finding it convincing to say a man who wants to live on his own in Wyoming must pay taxes to support healthcare and schooling for kids in Maine, Mississippi or California if he doesn't want to claim any of these benefits himself. So, how do you define socialism and what are your thoughts on it?
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Jan 28, 2019 17:20
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:31 |
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Cicero posted:It would be cool if this debate got solved once and for all, because I've noticed that even socialists don't agree on what socialism is (e.g. just try asking whether the USSR counts as socialist or not), which can make it a difficult topic to discuss. In comparison, it seems like there's much less confusion and argumentation over what counts as capitalism, even when involving people with radically different political views. Good answer. I didn't want to dwell too much on my views in the OP outside of general observations, but I'm kind of bifurcated between social democrat and libertarian. I think people need to make strong left-wing communities in order to make scientific and social prosperity as well as have interaction with our leaders. On the other hand, if people want to live by themselves, then outside of bare constitutional requirements I don't think we should tax them and force them to participate in national health or education systems, but neither should they get any benefits. A good summary of this is Frank Herbert's interview where he discusses technopeasantry. http://libraryguides.fullerton.edu/ld.php?content_id=16184648 Currently I'm more anti-Republican because, in addition to the obvious mess going on now, I received far too much hypocrisy from them in the defense industry. You can claim "defense is necessary" all day, but unless you're actively trying to discourage needless projects, eliminate waste on useful projects or avoiding the general placing of the shareholders above the warfighter, then you're a hypocrite by decrying other forms of government spending. That plus man social issues like gay rights and their war on drugs is poison to me.
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Jan 28, 2019 18:37
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Thanks for all the responses so far.COMRADES posted:The other problem with this is that this is a fantasy that has no basis in reality. Where are they going to go? Mars? Some rural area that's still owned by the government anyway (then they demand payment for it and send men with guns?)? Then if you so happen to be sitting on something the capitalists want you're gonna get took for it. Say your independent and free cabin sits on a good deposit of rare earth minerals. Say a real estate developer decides that's his forest now and he has all the permits to show it. True, I probably got ahead of myself (although there are people who could live in the wild, they're few and far between in today's highly structured society and open land availability is a problem). Land rights, water rights, and general transportation and easement are a huge issue that a lot of pure libertarians don't have good answers for. Same with national defense (ie, legitimate defense against threats people can't take care of without large scale socialized defense contstruction projects such as ICBMs). I'm not really anti-government, insomuch as I think huge problems occur when trying to force societies of very different cultures together. The US is drastically different so that asking someone in Maine to pay more taxes to subsidize someone in Mississippi or Oregon is almost the same, on a personal level, as asking them to subsidize someone from a relatively obscure place like Mongolia. There's no real connection outside of landmass birthplace defined by people. I think if the national government all but dissolved, people in various isolated regions (rural and Urban) in the US would be crazy not to establish some sort of social contract (socialism?) with each other, but can't blame them for presently not wanting a big world, national or even state government. If the US started a national health system but gave individual townships or individual people the options to opt out, I'd probably opt in and shake my head as a lot of poorer rural communities who claim to be self-supporting opt out and subsequently collapse due to not having adequate healthcare available for their citizens. If on the other hand, things started becoming crooked and moved in the direction of Venezuela, I'd probably opt out and go with the best local options I could find and hope for the best. Edit: Another example that comes to mind was a tea party protest way back where they protested Obamacare but called for No Cuts to Medicare. They have no problem with the government subsidizing a subset of the population (based on age in this case) as long as it was "paid into" but vehemently oppose Medicare for All or even Obamacare, a fee-backed program. Yet the claim to be independent and, presumably, capitalist not socialist. Jolly Jumbuck fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 19:21
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Cicero posted:And I think it's even counterproductive to deny that, because many of these programs are quite popular. The GOP can't do poo poo about Medicare, because people like it too much, even within their own, nominally anti-government party. That seems like a success worth bragging about and rhetorically building upon. As an aside, it was quite clever of Bernie Sanders to label his idea "Medicare for All". He's taking an existing program (socialist or capitalist with redistribution tendencies) and trying to extend it to the whole population rather than a subset, the population over 65. Therefore, for someone to complain about Medicare for All and call it socialist while not advocating getting rid of it as it currently stands is showcasing people's selective desire for government that benefits them but nothing beyond that.
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Jan 28, 2019 20:30
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Helsing posted:OP, it's 2019, you're a functioning adult with a day job, you already know somewhere in the back of your mind that a stateless society is totally unworkable, and yet you're still wasting mental energy fantasizing about back to the land libertarian homesteading bullshit when the entire planet has maybe a decade left to pull out of its climate change death spiral. The whole point of this thread is to ascertain the permissible powers of the state, as there have been hundreds or more failed states in history. I'm simply identifying reasons why people might be afraid of Socialism (or capitalism with redistributionist tendencies). The American 'Right' is pulling hard away from 'Socialism' but with no clear direction. If you're a politically-aware American who doesn't think the earth is 6000 years old, I'm sure you could come up with a better system than anything being implemented now. If your system involves pulling right-wingers out of their comfort zone and forcing them to provide for the better good, you'll have riots on your hand and they'll try their hardest to force something in a completely opposite, and likely backward, direction.
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Jan 29, 2019 21:38
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Sodomy Hussein posted:At any given time in history there are multiple competing schools of thought on socialism within socialist groups, evolving over time into different groups. Lots of reading to do from various important figures on this exact topic throughout those time frames. There is disagreement on the true meaning of political philosophy for much narrower political groups, so attempting to define True Socialism is generally not possible in a non-political context. That's been my thought too. Bernie Sanders, while I agreed with a lot of his ideas and disagreed with a few, made a very clear picture of what he wanted, something no other politician in recent memory has done. If this is socialism, cool. His opponents tried to pass it off that his policies would have brought us close to a Venezuela-like situation, while his supporters pointed out it was in line with high standard-of-living Scandinavian countries. I picked Ben Shapiro as my criticizing punching bag since he is often viewed as being logical and well-spoken. He may be able to make good points that resonate with a lot of Americans, but these points are all in isolated soundbites. He can make an intelligent soundbite about how Obama's $500M Solyndra investment was an example of failed redistribution of wealth, or how Clinton's attack on coal was an assault on the free market. Great. But if he ignores the tariffs placed on solar panels or the $12B on agricultural bailouts pushed by Republicans for soybean trade deficits, then he's merely showing selective outrage at certain government spending items and not others. It almost seems that any of his criticisms can be countered by his laughable admission that Scandinavia is "Capitalist but has selective redistributionist tendencies" and the accusations of "socialism" from the right can be waved away on almost any idea of Bernie Sanders or the left in general and just relabeled.
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Jan 30, 2019 16:50
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:31 |
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Edit: Economic criticisms of his. Many of his social or religious arguments are completely stupid, but those are beside the point in regards to this.
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Jan 30, 2019 16:52
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