Socialism (Moved from Grapes of Wrath)

Democratic socialism gives people the choice and they can change their minds if it does not perform,communism does not give the people that choice.There are degrees of communism and socialism and each government would have different views.Do you agree with every other capitalist?

That's what we ask. What do you and communists disagree about; name something.
As for socialism giving a choice as opposed to communism, I don't see that as a great differentiating factor.

Well for me, free enterprise, the right to inheritence and land ownership.As a socialist i still believe in the monarchy, as a communist it would be impossible.
Land ownership has been very devisive in the socialists agenda,its splits opinion on its value as a national asset.The freedom to worship even though i detest organised religions.These are degrees of socialism that communism as a dogma would oppose.

Socialism covers such a broad spectrum of belief that it beggars simple labels. Some examples are very coercive, others are powerfully democratic. Most Western European states, particularly the Scandinavian countries, are considered truly socialist yet they are also fiercely democratic and, as such, can and do move along a political spectrum from left to right according to the public will.

Socialism often seeks to temper the worst excesses of market capitalism while retaining the core elements of that economic model. Meanwhile the example of China shows us that free market capitalism can, in fact, prefer totalitarian states over the sometimes messy and uncertain environment afforded by democratic nations.

Classical, revolutionary Communism is over. The single-party, strongman rule matched to an equally tyrannical "command economy" has collapsed. The political model and the economic model were simply incompatible for any number of reasons. Imagine, however, if it had dawned on a monster like Stalin that he could adapt his Soviet Union to market capitalism? The mind reels.

And therin lies the essential difference. Socialist nations can be every bit as democratic as less-socialist states such as the United States. They can and do embrace multi-party democracy and they do accommodate minority rights, as well if not better than nations not seen as particularly socialist. Communism is anti-democratic, coercive and totalitarian. It can be, however, more accommodating of free-market capitalism than many socialist states.

Extreme views encourages extreme leaders.Whatever your views we must secure democracy.

In a socialist democracy 60% of the voters will vote for getting more from the 40% that have to pay for it (and they also favor any program that sounds good as long as others have to pay for it), so a democracy will by definition always move further towards socialism.
Which is why I and the founding fathers of United States republicanism think that those who don't have an interest in the system should not vote.
There can't really be a move along a political spectrum from left to right because a majority will always favor getting more from the minority.
In the US 60% of the population pay virtually no income taxes. Why would they be against tax increases or having their health care paid by "the rich"?
I can only assume this number is even higher in even more socialist European countries.

Another thing, when we hear how "the rich" need to pay their fair share, that is always used as an excuse to tax the middle class.
As the real rich never actually get taxed.
Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary

Those who do not have interest in the system should not vote?could you explain?

Well those who don't pay into the system should not decide about it.
Once in America only landed white males could vote, and I favor something similar.
Of course expanding voting-rights to women and non-whites is good. But the person must have paid a minimum amount of income tax last year, be over 30 and pass a (very) easy civics test.
But those are only ideas, I merely want that not every breathing adult can vote.
Here in the US illegal aliens do vote because identity in not checked sufficiently when voting.
Also people can vote multiple times.

Disenfranchisement as you advocate EN seems to be a heavy-handed answer without a problem. What threats or disorder do those you would disenfranchise really represent to your or the workings of your state? If you have flaws in your voting processes, there are many Western nations where perfectly adequate systems are in place that you could copy.

As for your contention that those you designate as worthless should not be permitted to vote, does the state have any less say over them than anyone else? I'm sure you'll find that all citizens have a genuine "interest in the system." But don't proclaim a problem where none exists. Consult any of the many studies that prove that poor people, those with the least "interest in the system" as you would put it, tend to have negligible turnout at the polls.

You might find it more useful to have a far greater percentage of middle class voters actually turn out to vote.

In all honesty i cant begin to even believe anyone could have such an opinion,its beyond my comprehension.You are actually saying if your circumstances are such that you cant or not required to pay taxes,you wont be able to vote?
This is medieval England's when barons where the only fools who could bend the kings ear.Do you not realise without those lesser mortals the system would not be there for others to profit.A few of those you would not permit might have to lay down their lives without representation..No conscription without representation..no value added tax without representation....

You don't think government run redistribution can have the same problems on top of being coercive? You need a huge body of people running things. In the U.S. we have the IRS to monitor taxes and collect tons of records (which incidentally have been used for coercion in the past). Tons of money going to those people monitoring the income, then people writing and amending the tax code ect. Then you need people to monitor the spending after the collection has been reviewed and reviewed again. The more complicated the spending, the more people you need, the more people you have, the more complicated the spending procedure becomes. Beurocracy is far from efficient.

The tax code is so obscure and unwieldy that no one could possibly commit it to memory without becoming something analogous to a Vedic monk that practices law rather than Hinduism. What it comes down to is the fact at X percent of the population (I'm sure its in the double digits) have something that they could be called up on if they were really being a problem to somebody in power.

---------- Post added 07-21-2009 at 05:03 PM ----------



Wrong, if we are to be just; those who are affected by the system must be given a say. If bill X results in Y that negatively affects a person, then said person has a right to vote against it or have their voice heard. Since we have a representative system, this entails the right of everyone to vote for representatives. You might be able to disallow voting on certain propositions but the case would, in all practicality, be impossible to make.

On the other side of the coin, when a coercive law is passed such as one to raise taxes for effort X, if effort X negatively affects a percentage of the constituents, they cannot justly be made to comply. Those who agree to comply can pay into effort X, and it should be allowed that those who do not agree can abstain from both the cost and the payout.




That amounts to this: independently wealthy people and retirees can't vote. Adults who are smarter and more informed than you or myself would be restricted from voting because they are only 25.

The civics test is ultimately irrelevant. A person with Down's could pass a very easy test (since it would come down to memorizing a few facts). I have friends who are certainly plenty smart who voted for Obama, who I am sure you would disagree with.



Every citizen should be allowed to vote for the reasons expounded above.

So then children not being able to vote is horrible disenfranchisement?

Emperor, you really need to think these things through. Since when were children ever given the franchise? I'm unaware of any jurisdiction that doesn't have an age of majority stipulation. Children never having had the right to vote probably can't be disenfranchised.

I understand Xris that if you compared the rights of people living under Mao with those of people living in France in the 70's, there would be many differences. The French would be much more free and have much more effect on their government than their Chinese counterparts, e.g. My point is, wither goes your socialism? Does not socialism have within it the very notion that the majority makes law, that there are not artificial boundaries to what the laws can become, and that any societal form is temporary, and important only so long as it has support from the majority? In the U.S., socialists have the view that the constition is living document which evolves with the passing of time to meet new and previously unanticipated societal needs and preferences. These people are democrats, in the poly-sci sense of the word, not referring to a party. On the other hand are those who believe in a republic, in which, while public decisions are unquestionably made by the majority, the majority itself does not get to decide what constitutes a public issue. These bounds for the exercise of power by the collective are set formally, arbitrarily, in a document, called the constitution. It can of course be changed, but only very tediously. Again, my point is that your democratic socialism is not a static thing, unlike a limited constitutional republic. It is not appropriate to judge the quality of such a society by the state of affairs at any one period of time: e.g. by a comparison between Mao's China and 70's France. Democratic socialism is a progressive system, a constantly evolving system, and thus it should be judged not by any one static state, but by the direction in which it progresses, as best we can discern that direction. What is the direction?

What is sacrosanct under a socialist regime? At what point do individual rights become weightier than those of the collective? The very fact that we allow the one to be weighed against the other makes individual rights meaningless. A right is either absolute or nothing: a privilege. Thus, in my mind, there are only two basic forms of organization with regard to the relationship between the individual and the state; either the individual has fixed, absolute rights and the state is excluded from certain affairs, or the state de facto has the right to every problem and to infinite interference in the lives of everyone, whether that's declared openly or not, and whether that right is exercised or not. The freedom of speech, e.g., in a socialist society might remain an ability of the individual, but not because it is his absolute right, only because the state has not yet decided that there are weightier common goods that require the suspension of that right.

So again, I'll repeat my view. There are two forms of government. That which fixes absolutely the relationship between individual and state, and that which leaves that relationship to the discretion of the state. Yes, then in addition to this distinction there's monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy, democracy, etc. But it is far less important to me who makes the decisions, than which sort of decisions whatever government it is is allowed to make. I would rather live under a limited government ruled by bankers, pirates, kings, etc. than in a total government ruled by myself and my fellow citizens at the voting booth.

Well, BrightNoon, if you wish to submit to rule by bankers, pirates and kings over being governed by yourself and your fellow citizens, welcome to feudalism. Unfortunately the lord/serf relationship doesn't lend itself to "limited government." The day that you and your fellow citizens surrender your notional right to self-rule there'll be plenty of forces lining up to occupy that vacuum.

Those may have been rhetorical flourishes, or maybe I'm insane. Hmm...:whistling:

If they happen to be a Gregory Smith, then yes, to some degree. If not, I don't think so.

I think it likely that the slightly above average 15 year old could probably make a better decision than the average person on the street if he cares about the topic. He has unlimited time to research the issues and delve into the facts.

If it were to come down to it, I think that it is likley the case that should a fairly difficult (or at least thorough) test on current political issues be administered to those who choose to take it, you would find a good number of kids under 18 who are more informed than the average man on the street.

In general however, children don't have full rights or responsibilities as citizens, although they are citizens in name. I do not include them. Perhaps I should have been more careful in my wording: All Adult citizens should be allowed to vote.

You still have not addressed my question about retirees and the independently wealthy.

I would not trust a banker with my grannies piggy bank let alone the running of the country.The point im making is if we maintain democracy then systems can be dismantled.

I wouldn't trust bankers to rule a country either. That having banking oligarchs as rulers is anathema to me is demonstrated by the fact that I named them first in my list of nasty things by which one could be ruled, before swashbuckling pirates even! My point was simply that the relationship between the state and individual is at least, if not more, important than who controls the state. If one is at the mercy of an absolute monarch who has no responsibility to the people and who makes all decisions in the government, but whose government has authority only, e.g., over foreign affairs, indirect taxation, and road building, then one has more freedom than would one in a democratic state where the government, though duly elected by the people, can have theoretically unlimited powers of interference in the lives of everyone, in the interest of the common good, as defined by the government.

I think the idea that democracy equals freedom is a throwback to class warfare. I'm not nearly as concerned about being oppressed by dictators, oligarchs, or feudal lords as I am about being oppressed by the majority. From the perspective of an individual, one is as powerless against the latter as against the former, and the rule of the latter tends to be more invasive: or in any case, contains the theoretical basis for more invasive, totalitarian rule, utilitarianism.

Of course, this is all theoretical. If there an absolute monarch with the power only to x, y, and z, then he will likely use to unchecked executive power to simply state that he has a, b, and c as well. So, democracy is needed to ensure that the government maintains the proper relationship with the individual citizens. That's why I believe in limited, constitutional republics. But again, the most important aspect of that system is not the voting for leaders, as opposed to hereditary succession on some such thing, but rather the fact that its limited government. The people should be allowed to rule, but only in the areas where any social body should be allowed to rule, which is a limited space.

EDIT: re suffrage

I think an interesting alternative to universal suffrage over the age of x would be the following. Anyone over the age of x may vote, but in voting, one commits oneself to volunteer for the military in the event of war, and to pay taxes. Yes, if one doesn't want to pay taxes or serve in the military, that can be assured by not voting. In this way, only those with a direct stake in the nation, personally or financially, would be making the decisions effecting the nation. Of course I'm talking about the ideal limited constitutional republic: i.e. America as founded. So, the only issues to be voted upon would essentially be war and peace, foreign affairs, indirect taxes, and inter-state public works projects. If spending became too high, the people who were supporting the continual increases would be the people who had to bear an increasingly high tax rate, as their opponents (who wanted lower spending) likely stop voting. This self-correcting mechanism would work with war as well. The Red Party wants to fight a war with Mexico? Fine, when their opponents stop voting and leave the burden to members of the red party, we'll see how much they really want the war.

BrightNoon, what you really fear is mob rule. A democracy that doesn't accommodate the interests of the minority really isn't a democracy at all. To prevent this we incorporate into our constitutions a set of specific rights and freedoms that the government, in representing the majority will, must not infringe or impair.

Remember too that only in the most divided nations is there anything resembling a homogeneous majority. A lot of us will side with the majority of our fellow citizens on some issues but not on others, a fact the political class disregards at its peril. Likewise a lot of those in the majority on any particular issue will not abide oppression of the minority on that question. There are powerful bonds that unite us even on matters on which we disagree. One of those bonds is called mutual respect. It compels us to listen to the other side and will, in some instances, bring about gradual change in our attitudes and opinions. Happens all the time. We all seek consensus and we're often quite willing to compromise in order to achieve it. Any family that doesn't do that is dysfunctional. Any society that doesn't do it is no better and, ultimately, cannot hope to succeed.