Socialism: What It Is -- What It Is Not

[SHRED]

I forgot where I found this website... http://www.workerscompass.org/index.html... but in a "free" society these views would be debated and understood.

Wow, think if "the media" really was "Liberal".
We would be debating and hashing over these types of political viewpoints also.

Socialism:
What It Is -- What It Is Not
By Ann Robertson
Originally published May 2001
in Socialist Viewpoint


"Socialism!"

The mere uttering of the word conjures up the most horrifying nightmare for a small, extremely rich minority who, because it monopolizes the productive forces of society-the factories and businesses that make up our economy - succeed in pursuing unlimited profit and unimaginable riches by allotting to the rest of humanity an increasingly smaller share of society's wealth. Having created an objectively unstable system because of the perilously lopsided distribution of wealth, these rich people are compelled to manufacture on a daily basis massive doses of propaganda to serve as their life-support system, with the earnest hope of convincing their victims that this is, after all, the best of all possible worlds. Socialism, a doctrine which threatens to pull the plug on their perverse system before it succeeds in destroying us, the environment, and the future of humanity, is deservedly the foremost target of this campaign of lies, deceit, and slander.

This small, capitalist, profit-addicted minority has consequently unleashed an unrelenting campaign intent upon tying socialism to totalitarianism, drawing the knot so tightly that the two concepts are pressed into one. One might note, by the way, that U.S. capitalists themselves have no particular aversion to totalitarianism - they have toppled countless democratically elected governments and replaced them with military dictatorships throughout the world. But they also know that ordinary, decent working people are repelled by any form of totalitarian rule and with hypocritical glee these capitalists eagerly exploit this human moral aversion in order to advance their own profit-pursuing interests.

http://www.workerscompass.org/sociallismwhatitis_robertson.html

And...

A Better World is Possible
With Socialism
By Ann Robertson
Originally published November 2002
in Socialist Viewpoint

When people in the United States are introduced to the concept of socialism - whether in the popular media or in a high school class - they are presented with a simple equation: socialism = a crippled economy that fails to meet people's basic needs + a totalitarian government. Stalinism, for example, is invoked as a model socialist government, one that brutally murdered anyone who dared oppose it, while the Soviet economy is repeatedly and incessantly visualized in terms of weary consumers standing in endless lines in order to purchase dull, defective products.

Consequently, if the question is raised concerning the relative merits of capitalism versus socialism, we discover that capitalism is the undisputed winner every time, provided that capitalism's version of socialism is the definition employed. And that is about as far as the investigation proceeds within the few venues for public discourse afforded by capitalist society today.

http://www.workerscompass.org/abetterworld_robertson.html

[keep_it_real]

1. We already have Socialism in America

Corporate socialism, socialized free education, socialized fire department, police, library department, socialized highway, department, socialized social security.

America is a mix of socialism and corporatism. The socialism supports the corporatism.

I don't think complete socialism would work, people need private ownership and people are not equal in abilities and skills so should be paid and different pay degrees.

But I don't think there can be any kind of capitalism with out socialized support systems. I think FDR realized this in the New Deal.

[patrice]

4. A permanent serfdom based on how "God" made you? "not equal in abilities and skills

so should be paid and different pay degrees."

Perhaps, so that we don't have to kill one another, we could agree on something called a Human Right, that by virtue of being human and alive, you are ENTITLED to a basic and substantial level of the necessities that the group provides: complete and appropriate education; comprehensive life-long health care; sane national security . . . . stuff like that, which when established and implemented would, then, be the basis upon which those with the "abilities and skills" to which you refer, could then operate to acquire whatever it is that THEIR abilities and skills EARN for them, as long as whatever that is does not destroy the SHARED foundations of the group.

[burnsei sensei]

5. Concerning different degrees:

Quote:
I don't think complete socialism would work, people need private ownership and people are not equal in abilities and skills so should be paid and different pay degrees. end quote.

And a living wage in your mind is what?
Essential?
An option?
A dream?
Something to be ridiculed?

As for needing private ownership, I already own something.
My poverty, my needs, my actions, my responsibilities and myself.
In my situation, that's quite enough.

[patrice]

6. Re "people are not equal in abilities" so pay them less, if Human Rights and/or entitlements are too

scary, please consider this:

If you say something like "It is okay that persons of ability/skill levels x, y, z should receive only 'pay degrees' p, q, r" you are introducing biases into the so-called "free market" and THUS weakening "free enterprise capitalism", it's not free enterprise because it now DEPENDS upon those limited "pay degrees" to function as it does. So that's the first thing wrong with what you propose for those who "are not equal in abilities and skills" and the second problem is:

In a genuinely open market place, without the biases that you suggest and with an equal foundation from which ALL ABILITIES AND SKILLS could proceed, those "lesser" skills and abilities, the ones to which you wish to assign lower "pay degrees", COULD find their own markets. So, if people decide that they want to pay someone a relatively high income for relatively "low" skill or ability, that can happen to the extent that there IS a market for it.

The slave market that we have now introduces dependencies into the system by selecting, through a variety of means, the abilities and skills that it chooses to reward and punishing ***ALL*** others, that situation further develops into emergent skills and abilities, such as the ability to construct Credit Default Swaps or the ability to ride heard on maybe 2 hours worth of automated work each day for the government for $80K-$100K a year, and then those "skills and abilities" introduce further and even MORE SELECTIVE "skills and abilities" into the system, which further kill off ANY others. Everything becomes more and more and more selectively specialized until it BREAKS of its own inherent traits.

In short, by not starting with the same foundation for all, an agreed upon set of entitlements*, you deny to the economic system the creative diversity that would make it truly healthy.

*My definition for entitlement is that which is guaranteed to me by my membership in a group and membership is that which I acquire by abiding by the consensually agreed upon traits, behaviors, and mores of the group AND BY THE GROUP ABIDING BY THOSE SAME agreed upon traits, behaviors, and mores.

[JoeyT]

7. Actually fire departments in a lot of places aren't socialized

they're entirely volunteer.
Underfunded, undertrained, underequipped volunteers. And when they get injured unless they have insurance through their "real" job, they're shit out of luck.

It's one of the reasons I love getting into fights with righties when they claim how much more awesome the system would be if the police and education were privatized and relied on volunteers. Because I *know* what happens when vital services aren't government run. You end up with guys running a bake sale because the pump on the truck went out and they can't put out fires until they buy a new one, and they can't afford to buy a new one with their own money because they had to buy too much of their other gear with money from their real job already.

[patrice]

8. !!! Just like American teachers AND very similar to a trend in Long-Term Care, i.e.

the folks who are taking care of those who can't take care of themselves.

:hi:

[patrice]

2. Until people rebel against the authoritarian assumption that semantics are purely objective, we will

have this struggle over the meaning of words like "Socialism".

Fundamentally, it is the individual who decides what a word does or does not mean relative to empirical reality. The more external that realization is, the more alienated from phenomenological experience it is, the more it is controlled by those with the power to do so.

[The Magistrate]

3. People Do, Sir, Need To Absorb The Actual Meanings Of the Term

[jimlup]

9. Thanks, these are useful links!

[ThomThom]

10. I think a lot of confusion comes in when people confuse socialism

with communism. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a totalitarian communist state, the government owned everything. It was not socialist in any way. If everything was owned by workers and not corporations that would be complete socialism. When we talk about democratic socialism the power is in the people because they decide through the vote. Government would be very cumbersome if the people had to vote on every piece of legislation so we have representative democracy. A society that does not take care of its people will not stand and run away capitalism will leave most people behind. I personally would like to see more employee owned business that brings the worker's voice to the work place instead of this totalitarian authoritarian situation we have now.

[Curmudgeoness]

11. If people as asked questions related to capitalism versus socialism,

they will side with capitalism because socialism has become a bad word. But if you ask people questions about particular socialist concepts without mentioning socialism, they are going to side with socialism. (Just ask a Tea Party attendee what they think of Social Security.) The conversation just has to be changed, or we have to educate people about what capitalism and socialism really are.

[Radical Activist]

12. The articles would be more useful

if they used real-world examples of socialist governments rather than theoretical writings. Socialism has been around for a long time and we've seen plenty of attempts. Talking about the original theory is about as useful as talking about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.