America socialist?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.