America socialist?

[Aedes]

Cuba has a pretty good health system, though I think they're a bit too proud of themselves too. But they've done a better job than we have with infant mortality and literacy.

[Holiday20310401]

I stil have a hard time accepting socialism. I just don't like the idea of giving the state that extra control. I'd rather go straight to pure communism in that sense. I can't help but feel that communism is a less vivid, deprived of creativity system.

Perhaps the government just needs to create some laws to stop corporations from cheating society in so many ways, like the healthcare system. Maybe CEO assets, how much a CEO can be worth. I mean, who needs to be a billionaire, spread the wealth!!
That's a nice touch to socialism, the government could plan for the market to not have super corporations and monopolies, right?

[Didymos Thomas]

I'd rather go straight to pure communism in that sense. I can't help but feel that communism is a less vivid, deprived of creativity system.

Have you read the Communist Manifesto? It can be found online for free. Marx is, if nothing else, creative. If you ask me, a survey of Max and Proudhon, the French socialist, is well worth the time.

[TheRedMenace]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

I stil have a hard time accepting socialism. I just don't like the idea of giving the state that extra control. I'd rather go straight to pure communism in that sense. I can't help but feel that communism is a less vivid, deprived of creativity system.

Perhaps the government just needs to create some laws to stop corporations from cheating society in so many ways, like the healthcare system. Maybe CEO assets, how much a CEO can be worth. I mean, who needs to be a billionaire, spread the wealth!!
That's a nice touch to socialism, the government could plan for the market to not have super corporations and monopolies, right?

Right. Communism and socialism is a response to monopolies and big corporations and corporations having control in the government.

Communism can exist as a government only in the book "Utopia" by Sir Thomas More. This is my opinion about communism verse socialism. In my belief communism is an ideal where socialism is a government in which the ideal behind the government is communism and Karl Marx hinted towards that in his writings. Like the quote "Democracy is the stepping stone towards socialism." as opposed to communism. Rarely actually when Karl Marx talked about government did he say communism was the government. When he did, in my opinion, he said communism could be the root of the government not the government itself. The completion of the development would have communism. I saw the manifesto as a guide to man. It did indeed have economic guidelines, it had society hopes and had dreams that when man reached the end of their development the oppression of the proletariat will seize and they will rise. It predicted that judging by the current state of their nation that the proletariat will demand that change and "break their chains." Because men make up the government so once there is change in man with a revolutionary idea, not necessarily government, there is bound to be change in government and he predicted that. He saw that man with this idea would have the utopia in More's book of no private property and a classless system but he knew man as a whole was not ready for it and so socialism he felt was it. Socialism is a government to him because he does not yet believe in man for good reason. When he gave the four stages of the development of man (Slavery, feudalism, capitalism, communism) it was the development of man not government. Socialism is about as close to the end of our development as I see us getting as a whole. Communism requires that utopia while socialism acknowledges man's necessity to succeed. Socialism is a compromise that satisfies the greed of man giving them personal incentives while keeping a communist ideal and having many advantages including making poverty less of an issue.

This is a theory more so than a fact. It is how I interpreted Marx's writings. You may interpret them anyway you please. I will believe it until proven false to me.

[Theaetetus]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Then what do you call China? Because I think true communism is the aftermath of totalitarian communisms, not corporate booms and capitalism. Has history ever presented true communism?

China is not communist because of its economy. I wouldn't call it a free market but it is far from commune style. True communism is the aftermath of decisions to give everyone equal power. So no history has never presented true communism. There have been many examples of authoritarian socialism, but never communism.

[Theaetetus]

Socialism is a realization of the utilitarian ethics and the harm principle. It is an attempt to make the most amount of people happy. While corruption screws this ideal that does not mean that everything done in the name of socialism is an unnecessary evil or burden.

Democracy is the stepping stone to communism because communism is the ideal form of democracy. Everyone has equal power and contributes what they can to the system and in theory take what they need. Certain emotions cause problems to limit the possibility of this ideal ever being realized.

I think communism can work within small local communities, but on the scale highly populous nations it is impossible. Too many people with differing tastes. The logistics of the whole process would be impossible to carry out.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by Aedes

While the answers to our health care problems are hardly simple, there is one IMMENSE potential advantage to socialized medicine. That is, with a single payor, the "system" would negotiate down prices for hospitalizations, tests, drugs, etc until it was actually affordable. Of course medicine would change a lot -- we wouldn't see the ER ordering head CTs on every single person with a headache, or CT angiograms of the chest of every person with chest pain and shortness of breath, etc. Drug prices would fall precipitously, and there would be a bigger gatekeeper before people could get fancy shmancy new and expensive drugs that they often times just don't need. Of course I'd earn less money, but there isn't too much room to go down in my subspecialty -- it's the really lucrative specialties like cardiology that would take the biggest hit.

Point is, don't knock socialized medicine in principle until you get a good sense of how horribly diseased our health care system already is. There are rational ways to provide better and more affordable health care to more people without going all out with a British or German-style system.

I am not going to say that socialized health care would be worse than our present corrupt morass, and your final point is entirely reasonable. I don't, however, see any reason to believe that these benefits will occur from socializing medicine.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

I stil have a hard time accepting socialism. I just don't like the idea of giving the state that extra control. I'd rather go straight to pure communism in that sense. I can't help but feel that communism is a less vivid, deprived of creativity system.

Perhaps the government just needs to create some laws to stop corporations from cheating society in so many ways, like the healthcare system. Maybe CEO assets, how much a CEO can be worth. I mean, who needs to be a billionaire, spread the wealth!!
That's a nice touch to socialism, the government could plan for the market to not have super corporations and monopolies, right?

As an ardent capitalist (although not of your typical variety, I am not at all opposed to true communism), I must interject that these super-corporations and corporate cheating is more a result of government law than of market forces. Will there still be liars and cheaters in a free market? Of course. But I think we can wager that people will be more adept at dealing with these cheaters, and as such the risks of cheating will deter businesses much more.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Have you read the Communist Manifesto? It can be found online for free. Marx is, if nothing else, creative. If you ask me, a survey of Max and Proudhon, the French socialist, is well worth the time.

While I would suggest Marx for his importance, it should be known that all of his creativity was pretty bogus that he used to support his ideas that, in his arrogance, he considered to be foregone conclusions.

His historical insights are worthwhile, but he culls those from others and then throws in the dialetical ideas which have been completely unpredictive to this point. His economics were largely taken from Ricardo and Smith (strangely enough, two proto-capitalists), and these ideas are almost universally disagreed with by modern economists. For those economic ideas that he added, like socially-necessary labor time, he could not actually work out the economics behind the idea, nor could anyone since.

Marx should be remembered for his importance, his excellent rhetoric, and even much of his social insight, but I wouldn't read his work looking for great or novel ideas.

As far as early socialists/communists go I would recommend Proudhon (and his American idealogical mate Benjamin Tucker) and Bakunin, both of whom were at odds with Marx in both person and ideas.

[Zetetic11235]

A few thoughts I've had:
"Freedom is a coin of two sides, freedom from and freedom to, the lack of one implies an abundance of the other.

The ultimate challenge in building a successful society lies in the problem of the balancing of these two sides so as to set equal the constituents in their power and freedom. Both sides are necessary to human life just as are food and water.

Without freedom to do anything, life becomes more and more predictable making taking the journey towards the conclusion meaningless and propagation of life absurd. It also ignores the basic human urge to self actualization. Without the freedom from certain things such as oppression and other individually insurmountable obstacles imposed upon the will of the constituent peoples then life is also unbearable.

A balance must be found such that individual responsibility and governmental controls and limits are both present in order to achieve a successful society. The correct balance of these two constituent parts forms the ideal social contract. A signing over of minimal control to an entity so as to preserve the general rights of the citizens is called for.

The anarcho-capitolist model is inherently flawed. It is quite easy to predict the outcome of such a model: Plutocracy. Those who hold the money hold the power, without any checks on these people, what is to stop them from forming their own system, taking their money and buying the police force, buying the prisons, buying the courts and subjecting the populace to their will? Without a method by which they can be checked, the wealthy shall gain the world, and feudalism and despotism shall once again take hold as the dominant form of government.

The collectivist model is inherently flawed. Its greatest flaw is economic. Government in a collectivist model, becomes a hulking behemoth, whose sluggish movements fail to keep up with the rapid fluidity of public need and want. Bureaucracy cannot serve the public, it is its nature to self propagate, and become inefficient. Further, once a committee becomes obsolete, its members will find any way possible to keep it intact, as it is in their self interest to do so. Governmental bodies, due to their size, are inefficient.

Just as a company hits a critical mass at which it begins losing money and must downsize, government too hits a critical mass at which it is no longer sensitive to the will of its people to the degree that is necessary. This is the main argument for decentralization of government.

No business which supplies goods or services to the general population shall bar anyone desiring to give their business on the basis of race, gender, sexual or religious preference nor any persons exhibiting idiosyncrasies which are not prohibited by law. By the same token, no law shall be made giving preference to any of the above in regards to any position gained through application e.g. affirmative action. It is up to the interviewer/business owner who is best suited to the job/position. If there is clear evidence of bias, such as an overall more impressive resume in the case of the person rejected, then there may be a basis for legal intervention, however, if the employer can provide a single reasonable explanation, the intervention shall be discontinued.

Only by voluntary contribution is redistribution of wealth just. It is not the place of the of the government to intervene on matters of social welfare, but rather the domain of private organizations, which are much more efficient in their methods, depending entirely on volunteer work rather than a paid committee. If one so chooses to spend a portion of his money on those who that person deems to be in need of it more than him/herself, it is by the free will of the person that aid is to be given."

As you might guess I don't much care for collectivism, or Anarcho-Capitolism. I do rather like the libertarian ideal. I am somewhat conflicted when it comes to health care, but I lean towards total privatization.