Socialism

"Socialism, ..... not for-profit organizations." ...?

Are you describing Marx's supposedly inevitable socialism?

Who's work should I read?

Got a more specific suggestion as a starting point, overview?

http://www.conflictingviews.com/politics/economics/socialism-profitable-4221.html#post71649

As per the above post, socialism is all about decentralized, local and democratic rule. The gov't would actually be quite small as it would be localized. The central gov't would only be as large as needed to keep all the local gov'ts on the same page (in America this would mean the 3 branches of gov't and not much else).

As for your point on progress, what's the grater motivator, working to get someone else rich or working to get yourself rich and help your community at the same time?

It's all in how it's implemented.

Socialism alone demands huge centralized administrative abilities to gather the taxes and re-distribute. This is why our government has demanded more money and expanded to the point of creating incompetent pockets of waste.

We have world history to show how socialism breaks down democracy and leaves the poor worse off. Look at just the size of DMV and all the errors they make.

In socialism, the rich are no longer those who earned their wealth but those who are either part of the criminal element as in South America or head of state as evidenced by the bleak history of Communism.

Socialism =/= communism

I never said socialism and communism are the same. I said the money moves to those in political control as in Communism. However, Communism is also the next step from Socialism. I was addressing political functions and the flow of money.

Then how would anything exemplary of socialism be evidence by the bleak history of communism? You may have not said they were the same thing but you implied it with such a statement.

Echo-location is found in bats, dolphins and there are cases of blind people able to mimic these animal functions. While they are all very different from one another they do share this unique quality.

Communism contains the values of Socialism and goes further to restrict ownership. Socialism however, does not contain the values of Communism but is its subset.

Two entities do not have to be the "same" in order to share a quality. And while communism fails, today there are social countries still viable.

The topic was socialism communism and wealth distribution. That is what they have in common.

Libertarian Socialism or Social Anarchism....

You're confusing the welfare state (a Prussian invention to keep the masses that would fuel socialism happy and the capitalists in charge) with socialism (worker rule).

As for communism... Well I'm no communist. Really don't get them. :dunno: