Socialism, Should we give it another try?

Some seem to think that bill clinton is a socialist.

Socialism is a killer of technological advancement. I can't think of any country that is heavy into socialism that has had a great product break through.

The first 2 countries that come to mind are Canada and France, and neither one of them are leaders in any type of advancement.

Hmm, do you know a lot about this stuff? Name five countries leading some sort of advancement. You have the US, which benefits from braindrain and Israel which has access to classified US research, can you think of threee others? Japan, but they are just as socialist as the French aren't they?

What about NASA and NIH. Both are "socialist" organizations. Both have made crucial contributions to science and technology.

And, I wasn't going to bring up Sputnik, but what the hell...

What about Sputnik?

Ironically, Frances system of government bears a grater resemblance to The U.S. than many European countries. A more appropriate example of Socialism would be Norway, in my opinion.

.

True, but because of the minute population, not many inventions would be expected from here anyway.

Oh, How do you define socialism? I have never met anyone who thought our form of government was socialist, just our poilicies.

I tend to think of socialist countries as having a large central government that has its hands in carefully controlling social/private interests and industries. All coutries are somewhat socialist by this definition, but its a matter of degree in my opinion. Restriciting foreign investment and government control of oil reserves are good examples.

Im curious as to what you think will happen to the Norwegian economy as your oil supplies begin to dwindle. Will they begin to allow more foreign investments, relax environmental regulation to stimulate industry?

I had thought i saw a special on discovery that said you guys were moving ahead by leaps and bounds in geothermal energy conversion methods.

Am I wrong?

Our government considers natural resources the property of the people, which is why we aucion off fish quotas, (unfortunately restricted to norwegian ships) and tax timber and oil industries. In order to stimulate drilling in the north sea taxes on oil was set so that drilling would be quite profitable, and in order to preserve most of the revenue for the people government decided to invest heavily in the oil industry. The industry is still run by private companies competing with each other, it's just that the state owns most of the stock.

Relating to industries not harvesting natural resources, we have strict environmental regulations as well as taxes on pollution, and crass demands on work environment. We still have industries though, so it can't be all bad. Apart from that government only acts when there appears to be some sort of monopoly or cartell forming, which your government does as well.

Restricting foreign investment is silly, but it doesn't have any practical cconsequences. There is enough domestic capital to account for our entire economy and much more. We are "net investors" if you will.

As for social interests, we have a well developed governmental welfare system covering all sorts of injuries as well as retirement and unemployment. Helthcare is free, and a lot more cost effective than its US counterpart. If lines are too long you can get treatment in another country at the governments expense, and there are off course no lines for urgent treatment. Construction is lagging slightly behind demand though, so you hospitals will sometimes resort to putting patients in thee corridor. This is the exeption rather than the rule though, only "especially dangerous" long winters with a lot slippery roads and sidewalks manage to make the hospitals flow over.

Some "moral policeing" like censorship of sexually explicit material still remains even though the population is generally against it because the issue doesn't sway any votes, (exept among the small moralistic crowd) and parties which support it exist on both sides of the political spectrum. We do not have as much of this as you do though.



Foreign investments are not needed, we have enough capital to float our own economy with more spilling over. Yes the discrimination is silly, but has no practical consequences. Smart people understand this, and do not let this irelevant issue sway their votes, therefore dumb people get their way. No harm done beyond making us look silly.

Strict environmental and work environment regulation does not kill or drive away industry on its own. Companies simply make up for lost revenues by paying lower wages, and remain equally compeditive. Still norwegian workers are among the most expensive in the world, and to this day we have industry.



Our budget as of today shows a surplus equal to 90% of oil revenue. We are not spending oil profits, but rather investing them, setting them aside in the so called oil fund. It counts around 20 000$ per head today, and is growing at an alarming rate. If oil ran out tomorrow we would still not have to raise taxes or reduce spending for several decades. Not counting oil exports, we still barely have a trade deficit, which we could easily deal with.

We have other natural resources, mainland Norway has been self suplied with power until recently while utilising only renewable powersources. 99% of this has been hydropower, as we are blessed with high steep mountains and enormous amounts of rain. We still have quite a bit of untapped potential, but the environnuts wont let us develop it. If the financial situation got bad this is one of the things I think would change first. Hydropower is extremely compeditive, a dam is cheaper to operate than a gasplant producing an equal amount of power even before expenses for gass is taken innto acount. If Norways oil supply ran out over night oil prices, and as a result power prices, would skyrocket, and dams would provide even more revenue. In this event we would likely build more.

We would still have fish, both in the north sea, and in the many fish farms along our coast. We would also still have timber. Furniture industries would still thrive, as would industries processing fish.

Norway has traditionally enjoyed low powerprices, as a result of hydropower, and as a result we have a lot of powerintensive industries. (lots of chemical industries)


I do think Norway should make some adjustments though, especially we should give up farming. We currently have huge tarrifs and massive subsidies of farming because the government wishes to keep us self suplied with food. This not only hurts taxpayers, who fund the subsidies, and consumers, who suffers high prices, it also hurts the fishindustry, which is our second largest export, because the EU treats all food as a single type of goods, and high tarrifs on food is met with high tarrifs on fish. This is why a lot of our fish exports go to Japan as opposed to the closer EU markets. I would like to see this change, Europe is a reliable source of farmproducts, and a large net exporter of such (whille a net importer of fish). Actually we would do well on many accounts by joining the EU, that trade barrier is hurting us. Some people are afraid the EU is going to steal our natural resources though.

In total, if Norwegian oilreserves ran dry over night, you and the EU would probably suffer far more than we do. We would only realy get in trouble when the recesion in the US and EU started affecting our other exports. Disapearing markets would be a problem.

If you want to know how Norway might have fared without oil and fish though, you have only to look across the border to Sweden.

We are at the cutting edge of Hydropower, working with the chinese on their dam now. Expertise on hydropower is one of our exports. We are not behind on geothermal energy, but the Islandic are the driving force, primarily due to their vulcanic activity providing ideal conditions for it. We have scientists working with them though. Government is spending quite a bit on all sorts of research related to renewable sources of energy and energy conservation. Environmentalists have blocked further construction of dams, and if we are to meet our kyoto requirements we can't increase CO2 emissions very much. People (Including said environmentalists) still like the idea of relying only on renewables, thus the research.

We are quite close to developing methods of "collecting" 80% or more of the CO2 from fossil fuel plants at reasonable prices. The CO2 would be exelent for increasing pressure in north sea oilwells, increasing production, so in the end CO2 harvesting might actually produce a surpluss.

We are at the, no, we are the cutting edge of oceanic tecknology and subsea oilproduction. Not many platforms are buildt without Norwegian innput.

We are also doing well in research related to chemical industries, especially various fibers and their use.


We haven't invented a lot of specific gadjets like vacum cleaners though.

I mean, I know that you don't like France at all.
Which obviously leads to the fact that you don't mind to know anything about.

France has got a conservative president and a conservative government - now since a couple of years, and before, quite often, too.

(The UK, on the opposite, is lead by one of the most socialists parties: The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. :wink: )

Capitalism means the complete separation of economy and state. Capitalism is the social system based upon private ownership of the means of production, which entails a completely uncontrolled and unregulated economy where all land is privately owned. But the separation of the state and the economy is not a primary, it is only an aspect of the premise that capitalism is based upon, which are individual rights. Capitalism is the only politico-economic system based on the doctrine of individual rights. This means that capitalism recognizes that each and every person is the owner of his own life, and has the right to live his life in any manner he chooses as long as he does not violate the rights of others

Supporters of Socialism believe that the ideal condition of mankind would be an equal distribution of all consumer goods available. "As the most practical method to achieve this end, they advocate the radical expropriation of all material factors of production and the conduct of all production activities by society, that is to say, by the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, commonly called government or state" . Socialists believe that the inequalities that exist in our society are unjust and that the minority of the population should not own the vast majority of the wealth.
socialism and fascism are essentially the same.
To know what socialism and fascism are, let us begin by examining some historical examples of each. Fascist states have included Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Tojo's Japan, Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile, and possibly Peron's Argentina. If we were to focus on each of these concretes, we would observe numerous differences. For instance, Hitler's Fascism was racist. Mussolini's was not. Mussolini's fascism involved belligerent nationalism. Franco's did not. What unites each of these concretes into a group of similars can be seen in a common definition of fascism: "A governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.)"

Socialist states have included the USSR, Communist China, socialist Sweden, socialist England, Cuba, North Korea, and a handful of lesser regimes in Eastern Europe, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. Once again, there is a prima facie difficulty in determining what factor these various states held in common. After all, some socialist regimes (like Sweden's and England's) were elected democratically. Others, like the USSR's and the PRC's, were the result of popular violent revolutions. Still others were the product of either military coup (Cuba, Ethiopia, Vietnam) or foreign invasion (the Eastern Bloc). The trait common to all of these is provided, once again by the definition of socialism: "a theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means or production, capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole"

True enough: We can put socialism and fascism on a table and stare at them all we like, and all we may see will be differences. What is required to go beyond this is to widen our context of knowledge. For instance, let's say we draw two geometrical figures on the chalkboard: a scalene and an isosceles. If we focus merely on these two concretes, without widening our context, we will see nothing but difference. The two triangles have different angles, different side lengths, different locations, different sizes. Now imagine that we introduce a foil: We draw a square on the board. The difference between the first two triangles is still there, but is made insignificant by the even greater difference between the triangles, on the one hand, and the square on the other. This process of differentiation allows us to see the triangles as similar. If we are able to isolate an essential characteristic of the group (a difference bewteen the triangles and squares which explains all or most of the other differences between them), we can then integrate this group of similars into a single mental unit, uniting it by a common definition, i.e., forming a concept.

We can treat social systems in the same way in which we treat geometical figures. As we observed before, there are probably innumerable differences between socialism and fascism. But what happens if we introduce a foil here, as well? Let's imagine that we introduce a third type of social system. Rather than having society control all property, and rather than having dictatorship in one form or another, we introduce a system in which individuals are free to follow the dictates of their own mind. Rather than having a system in which the choice is between the abridgment of political freedom or the abridgment of economic freedom, we introduce one in which no one's freedom is to be abridged. In short, we introduce capitalism : the social system in which all property is privately owned, and the government's function is restricted to the protection of individual rights.

Once we remember the possibility of the existence of such a system, the differences between socialism and fascism become trivial, superficial and, above all, non-essential. Differentiation of socialism and fascism from capitalism permits the recognition of their similarity. They do differ from each other, but only in the way in which the scalene and the isosceles differ from each other: in degree, but not in kind. Socialism and fascism are each forms of statism, forms of government in which the government is given complete or extensive control over the lives of its citizens.


In the Clinton years, the rich were defined as $30,000 workers who have equity in realastate (own homes) and liquid assets (and probably material goods) while telling the public through the media that the rich were those over $100,000 and owned businesses. The supporters of socialism have brainwashed the public into thinking that "the rich" are not paying into the system, when in fact they are paying the majority.

The ones who do not contribute are those griping the most. Most low income workers, or those who are on welfare whine that others aren't taking their burden. Most of those people will look for the politicians who "feels their pain." The politician will work the system to gain their vote by taking from other classes of workers who are striving.

The tax write-offs are legal means defined by the government to balance out profits and revenue to a taxable income after expenses to run the business. It just so happens, business owners have the most taxes to pay, even having to match individual workers' taxes.

Despite the claim, the rich are paying into the system. But to the naive, it appears as though they are not.

As an example, consider four entities:

Say Business 1 grosses $200,000, but with write-offs for expenses has a taxable income of $100,000 at 39%, paying about $39,000.

Business 2 grosses $80,000, but with write-offs for expenses has a taxable income of $40,000 at 25%, paying about $10,000.

A worker that grosses $30,000 and owns a home has put $1200 into taxes during the year, having a taxable income of 12,000 after the deductions, but receives a $3000 return this year.

A low-income worker that grosses $20,000 has put $800 into taxes during the year, taking the standard deduction claiming two children, having a zero taxable income, receives a $2500 return.

Should the worker who grosses $30,000 and receives a $3000 return say the business is not paying its fair share? Should the low-income worker who is exempt and actually receives a return complain? The two businesses put money into the system for the low-income worker to receive money without having to contribute to the system. The businesses only got to write-off expenses to ooperate the business --- and paid some of the taxes of the workers if they were employees of the business. Then Who's not paying a fair share? "The rich" (the business) is stuck paying most of the tax burden. But they are still paying, and more than the others. So the conditioned phrase, "the rich aren't paying their fare share," just isn't true.

Communism's Theoretical Failures: Communism strives for the complete equality of all incomes, and therefore, everything. As income approaches complete equality, productivity disappears. For example: people work so they can make money to support themselves. They work driven by the incentive of making more money and succeeding. In capitalist systems, he who chooses not to work suffers the consequences while he who works receives the incentives, money, which he is working for. Human nature includes a desire to "do better" and, therefore, make more money or advance in a job. In an attempt to make more money, people are driven naturally work harder and longer, seek further education for themselves, and develop skills which distinguish them as rare talents among that labor which is available as supply. Under true communism, income is completely equal. When there is nothing to achieve by working harder or longer, people begin to become idle. People begin to work less or not work at all because there is no longer the incentive of making more money or advancing in job. When there are no workers, production drops to nothing. It will then be true that all incomes are equal but this equal income will be zero

Every attempt at Communism has either failed or is failing:
Failed Communist and Socialist Societies: Went down with the Berlin Wall, failed due to overthrow by other forces, abandoned by inhabitants.
-Brook Farm and other Utopian Communities
-Soviet Union
-Eastern Bloc
-Yugoslavia
-Sandinista's Nicaragua
-Cambodia

Failing Communist and Socialist Societies: Forced to abandon their theories for moderation, pushed to the brink of failure.
-Cuba: all but abandoned socialism due to poverty, has become a dictatorship
-China: seeking capitalist-like reform with an expanded free trade ever since Mao's failures
-North Korea: on the brink of starvation due to disastrous failure

The road to hell is paved with good intention.Communisim, has proven this old addage true time and again.I truly beleave that the avarage communist has nothing but good will in his hart and mind.there theorys all stem from ,Utopia (tomas Moore),a beautifull concept.However, the social and economic eqations just don't add up , and when the free will of a nation is restricted to that great of an extent an economic down turn allways takes place.when the centrolised government no longer has the means for whitch it has promised to provide for it's people desaster moves in, At whitch poite that government backs away from it's own ideas, and begians to participate in capitalist free trade with other nations in order to bounce back to the bare minamum of income needed , and scrapes by cowering to thoses in power in the world, or worse.Genocide , purge , ehnic cleansing , deportation ,anarci ,induced starvation , mass murder, war.some examples of this includ but are not limeted to,

hostages and " political prisoners " from industral and farmworkers that rebelled ,20,000,000 dead (1918-1922)

the great fammin , 5,000,000 (1922)

etermanation and deportation of the Don Cossacks (1920) 100's of thousands dead or dissplased ( which often ment death in a matter of time)

10's of thousands dead in consentration camps (1918-1930) , (not the WWII 6 million)

" liquadation " of 690,000 during the great purge of stalins Russia

deportation of 2,000,000 Kulaks (1930-1932)

4,000,000 Ukranians and 2,000,000 others dead from the indused fammin of 1932-1933

Peoples Republic of China 65,000,000 dead , Volga Germans , Crimean Tatars , chechen deportation , Ingush , 1,000,000 Vietnam , 1,700,000 africa , cambodia 2,000,000 , eastern europe 1,000,000 , 150,000 latin america , 1.5 afganastan , 10,000 plus in the national comunist movement by parties not even in power. the list gose on so long i can't begian to name them all. this list dose not include deaths from other socialist off shoots such as hitler and mussaleini , nor the statistics of war cashalties frome WWI and WWII .

serfice to say , there is no freedom without free trade , at least not in the long run , but if you only care about what happens during your liftime and don't mind handing down a miserable exsistance to future genarations then hey , join the comunist party.


"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." - Winston Churchill

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin

"What was wrong with communism wasn't aberrant leadership, it was communism" - William F. Buckley, Jr.

"Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute" - Ayn Rand

i know i got a bit long winded , sorry

good post. hope it sinks into some of our resident Socialists

Re: Socialism, Should we give it another try?


Unfortunately, humans are not so smart to manage socialism as they intend.
(I believe that the market is the God's will.)

thank you for your complements .
I would also like to point out that i say this as a woman that has grown up in poor family , a single mother, and a member of the yonger genaration. most people in minoritie positions in this country don't realise the ones hurt most by socialism are the poor . it's like giving a shot of moraphien for a broken leg, you may feel better for a while , but with out hope our futures are lost .capitolism gives us the chance to move up to a better life .

by the way , i'm also one of the "stupid southeners" so many in this country look down on.

Yeah, sorry for never posting this whole thread. I just wanted to see peoples opinions. What about free-enterprise socialism, that seems to work well. To answer someones question, the concept of Socialism originated in Classical Greece(Athens society although never called as such. Sparta could of been considered socialist, well communist really, technically there is a difference. Communism = Dictator, Socialism = Democratic means. Isn't all of Scandinavia free-enterprise socialist, they're rated at the top for technological advances, standard of living and best places in the world to live.

comunisim , fashism , marxism , and demorcracy , all stem from the socilist movement , as an alternative to the system of monarcies found throughout Europe , the difference between the first 3 and democracy is the peoples abilities to control the government. if your only system of control is the free election prosses you leave the nation open to the corrupt members of society, and once the have all the money they have the means to control those voting . What is then left to stop them from turning your democracy into a dictatorship, revolution ? All forms of socialism started from a noble idea , but to ignore the out come of the different attemts at achieving it is nieve .

It's really not that i have anything against the socilist/utopian idea. The question is , can mankind live up to it? A perfect world requires perfect people . Maybe in 9 or 10 generations humanity will have evolved far enough that all greed , sloth , and malice will dissipate . but we must wait for the culture of people to change the government , not the government to change the people .

socilisim some day ? vs socilism now?