America socialist?

[Holiday20310401]

I don't believe that humanity could ever reach an ethical society in which everyone is equal. Equality is too vague a concept, you could say financially, socially, knowledgeably, etc. The only way to have equality would be to eliminate the biases that cause balances to be thrown off, which like somebody said here, would be to eliminate emotion.

Thats hardly what we want though. Humanity would have to be brainwashed first before true communism would be possible. So as we are reaching socialism according to Marx, and Communism to me seems rather an asymptote, what comes after socialism?

I would say that as socialism gives the state more control and the corporate world as its advocate, centering influence away from the people directly, we could see it becoming impossible to have revolutions, or proletariat realisations. Totalitarianism would seem obvious as a resulting system after socialism. Perhaps not as unethical or dystopic as Orwell describes but a blatant reality. Anyone see that picture?

[Zetetic11235]

Yes, not to mention there is a growing trend of conservatism among the european countries. The socialist programme is not a lucrative one, its restricts new wealth. The result is a wealthy few who have old money and then a majority of lower-middle class citizens. There is an undermining of work ethic in the typical socialist model, look at the unemployment rates in much of western europe in recent history. When one has incentive to not work, then they do not work. This is not the case for everyone, of course, however there is a propagation of leeches in any system where unemployed citizens have little need to resume working. There is a propagation of the mentality that government is the mother of its citizens, and the citizens live as children.

Look at the success of LBJ's great society! All one must to is wander into an inner city housing project. The program undermined the black communities, and wellfare undermined the black family structure.

Collectivism is empirically less productive than the semi-free market model. The basic flaws in the marxist model have been known since the late 1800's, and for all communist leaders but perhaps lennin, communism was simply a vehicle to gain power as a totalitarian ruler. Faschism and communism are the same ends of deceptively disparate means.

[Holiday20310401]

And with the government looking to collect the potential hundreds of billions of dollars of the baby boomers or whatever they're called who are about to ..er... pass away. In which case the money will be given to corporations anyways and majority to the major share holders, being the select few with a lot of money like the CEO's. I'm assuming anyways.

[BrightNoon]

America is on the way to devouring itself, personally, I hope that, if said feast cannot be avoided, it chokes.

By devour itself, I mean that the United States, once extremely productive, is now employing its own wealth to maintain its people collectively. There is more socialism is every regard. Of course, this varies from administration to administration, but generally the trend is toward placing more responsibility, power and resources into the hands of the government. No doubt there si a great deal of corruption and commerical lobbying, but that is really a secondary concern. The cost to the private sector (individuals paying taxes, i.e.) of favours done by congress or the president for lobbying coprtations is trivial compared to the massive cost of the current social programs, and hardy visible at all when compared to the costs of some of the programs currently being considered: universal health care, e.g.

I'm not unsymathetic to the plight of people losing their jobs, feeling the pinch in the economy, etc., but I don't think people realize the ultimate result of turning inward with socialism; stagnation. In order ot regain some competitivement abroad, to create jobs in the U.S. and not in east asia, the U.S. needs more efficiency, which is exactly what socialism removes.

Of more immediate concern is the massive National debt, which grows exponentially. While a substantial debt is not in itself a problem, continualy increasing the debt, with no plans whatever for balancing budgets let alone reducing the debt, certainly is. america has got the wealth, many times over, to solve this problem; the issue is whether it will be solved before our government loses solvency. A time will come when the american dollar is so devalued and the debt load of the government so great, that interest rates on its bonds, by which alone the government is able to meet its enormous social and other obligations, will rise so high that there will be a crisis. The government will be forced either to borrow at these rates, merely postponing the crisis, massively and suddenyl raise taxes, halt its obligations, or simply print money. The middle two options are all but unthinkable in a democracy; which of our brave politicians would risk his seat? I would expect the government, like all others place in similiar straits historically, to employ some combinations of the first anf last option, which will ultimately result in hyperinflation and catastrophe.

Now, this does not need to happen. But, as the trend in the industrialized world is, not at all suprisingly, toward socialism I can't imagine the U.S. seriously reducing, or even not substantially increasing, their social obligations. If they are interested in self-preservation, they will then have to truly raise taxes and the face of america will be suddenly and irrevocabley changed. Gone the land of opportunity; come the land of red tape, and an allowance for existance amoung more red tape.