Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:Socialism stifles imagination and initiative and creates a mindset that says.......it's not my job to solve this problem........I will wait for the problem solver to do it.
This is where your logic
seriously breaks down.
Cycloptichorn
I seriously doubt you are the master of logic but if you are please enlighten me........I'm here to learn from you brilliant chit chatters.
rayban1 wrote:
Oh, I understand the differences but in reality the differences are so small they're only worth about .02 cents American
And why don't you show that you understand it?
On the other hand: according to this, Tony Blair is the leader of a communist party?
ehBeth wrote:Socialism is starting to sound kinda appealing. Gotta thank rayban for the wakeup call to the right side.
Well the title of the thread is......Go Socialism. Gee, I just can't believe I'm so persuasive.
Walter Hinteler wrote:rayban1 wrote:
Oh, I understand the differences but in reality the differences are so small they're only worth about .02 cents American
And why don't you show that you understand it?
On the other hand: according to this, Tony Blair is the leader of a communist party?
Walter, when I asked you to explain the difference between Socialism and Communism you hid behind dictionary definitions. If you want to have a serious discussion don't play such games. My objective in this little exercise is to show that the difference between the two is infinitesimal
rayban1 wrote:Walter Hinteler wrote:rayban1 wrote:
Oh, I understand the differences but in reality the differences are so small they're only worth about .02 cents American
And why don't you show that you understand it?
On the other hand: according to this, Tony Blair is the leader of a communist party?
Walter, when I asked you to explain the difference between Socialism and Communism you hid behind dictionary definitions. If you want to have a serious discussion don't play such games. My objective in this little exercise is to show that the difference between the two is infinitesimal
I'd say the difference between Republican neoconservatism and fascism is by FAR more infinitesimal than one could possibly imagine. Waddya you think, rayban1?
But I guess us intellectuals just can't hide behind those "dictionary definitions" anymore, and must rely more on hyperbole and narrowminded perspectives to make a worthless point.
Dookie
You seem to be loaded up on hyperbole and narrowminded perspectives.......atta boy... you sure showed me. Go back to the schoolyard.
rayban1 wrote:Dookie
You seem to be loaded up on hyperbole and narrowminded perspectives.......atta boy... you sure showed me. Go back to the schoolyard.
I just put a mirror up so you could eventually see for yourself...
We have yet to hear what your actual point is on this thread.
The opening essay in this thread presented a provocative topic and theme that could have stimulated an interesting dialogue. Unfortunately the thread has degenerated from a needless semantical stalemate to confusion and babble. Too bad,
The former Soviet Union decscribed itself as a Socialist state. Indeed it was one - in the classical sense of the word. The government owned virtually all of the means of production, and its central planning organs determined what would be produced, where, and directed the allocation of resources for it. One of its chief and ultimately fatal defects was that there was no reliable, objective means of setting the relative value of products or resources. As a consequence they ended up producing goods no one wanted and their economy was the victim of chronically low productivity and innovation ("We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us".)
There are political parties in virtually every country in Europe that label themselves as "socialist" in one form or another, and some lead their respective governments. However, none of the Euroopean countries is socialist in the sense that the USSR was socialist. All of them involve high levels of private ownnership of corporations and free movement of capital - they are capitalist economies. And yet most involve much more extensive social welfare systems, government support and protection for labor unions and government control or direction of major infrastructure systems such as rail systems, than occurs in the United States. Income distributions are more compact and less "unequal" than occurs in the U.S. - however the corresponding quartiles or quintiles of the populations of the U.S. and European countries involve higher incomes in the U.S. than the corresponding segments of the great majority of European countries (The Norwegians and the Swiss are more prosperous than we.)
So the European model of capitalism can be described as containing a much greater measure of socialist elements than does the one in the U.S.
What this difference might mean and how the two models may help or hurt the respective countries in the changes that lie ahead for all of us might well have been the subject of an interesting discussion.
Well said, Georgeob1.
(and I love Leigh Hunt)
I was waiting for an adult to return.........unfortunately George you're one that I mostly agree with. I take full responsibility for allowing this to degenerate into confusion and senseless babble.......what a waste of time.
Thanks, Letty.
Rayban- Doesn't look to me as though it was your fault. Petty quibbling and semantical games can derail anything.
Thanks for that little boost------I should have known that as soon as I identified myself as someone who wants to be optimistic about the future of the ME which has been largely the result of the current administration and our troops, that the America haters would come crawling out of the woodwork. I just need a good nights sleep and a reload. I might even figure out a way to revive this thread so we can have a decent discussion about Socialism. There are a great many folks on this forum who are in denial that Socialism is a FAILED EXPERIMENT.
rayban1 wrote:I was waiting for an adult to return.........unfortunately George you're one that I mostly agree with. I take full responsibility for allowing this to degenerate into confusion and senseless babble.......what a waste of time.
Yes, it would seem that this thread was nothing but a waste of time...
Quote:The "national socialists" caused the death of tens of millions of people. The communists in Russia, China, Cambodia and elsewhere caused the collective deaths of more than 100 million people and impoverished billions of others. (I happened to be at the Kremlin in Moscow in August 1992, when the Russia demographers announced they had determined there were 63 million "excess deaths" in the Soviet Union during Josef Stalin's reign -- 1923-53.)
Once again, what is the point of this thread? There was certainly a fundamental element of socialism within communism, but communism was the extreme. There were also elements of dictatorship, propoganda, slavery and murder within the fascist empires. Nazi Germany comes to mind.
And yet, there are many countries which practice some form of socialism around the world. Canada is one of them. Do we see them murdering thousands, if not millions, of their own people? No. Instead, they give out health insurance for FREE.
So, for the last time, WTF is the point of this thread?
rayban1 wrote:Thanks for that little boost------I should have known that as soon as I identified myself as someone who wants to be optimistic about the future of the ME which has been largely the result of the current administration and our troops, that the America haters would come crawling out of the woodwork. I just need a good nights sleep and a reload. I might even figure out a way to revive this thread so we can have a decent discussion about Socialism. There are a great many folks on this forum who are in denial that Socialism is a FAILED EXPERIMENT.
Gee, why is it you never mentioned the ME until now? I thought you insisted on a decent discussion about Socialism? Oh, wait. I guess that couldn't happen unless you somehow equated socialism with liberal American haters. Right. Now I get it...
Now it's all starting to make sense...
You must have held your breath alot when you were a child.
Okay, so I'm guilty of petty quibbling and semantical games.
I might, however, just add as my weak excuse that no-one here would consider communism as part of communism at all - neither those, who belong to a socialist party[and I know some pretty well, in the UK and Germany, from normal members up to cabinet respectively state government ministers] not others [on the conservative site I only know better some from the academic site].
Sorry again that this view doesn't fit tol your insights or the history as we see it from narrow European perspective.
Walter,
I don't understand your last statement. The Soviet Union considered itself to be a Socialist state - as it also considered the states of its Central European empire, the GDR included, to be socialist. The FRG was a capitalist country, even though for a time a socialist, Willy Brandt, was its Chancellor.
There are observable, somewhat lasting effects of these two very different political and social systems, and the German case offers a particularly interesting example of them among a people united by a common language, culture, and previous political affiliation. You have yourself noted that the low birth rates in Germany are heavily influenced by even lower rates among the 'Ossies'. This phenomenon is also visible in the statistics for the Czech Republic, Hungary, etc. I suspect there are other somewhat lasting behavior effects as well. These are potentially interesting discussions and it is a pity we missed the chance to do so and just degenerated into meaningless quibbling over semantics.
The nations of the EU, without major exception, operate capitalist economies and relatively democratic political systems. Most involve a good deal more government participation in the management of economic life and even the management of some industrial enterprises than occurs in the United States. Similarly, most operate more extensive social welfare programs than exists here. European systems incorporate more elements that could be called "socialist" than occur in the United States, but both are functioning capitalist democracies. Ours involves more competitive features and greater economic differentiation among people than those in Europe, but these are questions of degree, not kind. Again this might have led to an interesting discussion about the differences.
I truly don't know if you agree with any of this, or just what might be your views here. Do you consider your country to be socialist?
Soviet socialism is just another name a "developed" communism.
The Soviet Union was a union of 'socialist' republics.
Germany was run from 1933 until by members of the National Sosialistic Party.
Tge Libertarian National Socialist Green Party is an American ('pseudo') political party.
Due to what I've learnt at school and what was taught at university as well to my experiences, I consider none of the above to be 'socialistic'.
--------------
Obviously it is my fault that (again*) I'm stick to European labels and call something 'socialistic' what you call capitalistic. And that I divide strictly communism from socialism. [*Like: when we say "Christian", we mean Catholic and Protestants - the latter are members of the United Evangelical Church of Germ,any ...]
Conclusio: you are correct, and I was wrong.
A small PS perhaps: why do you think that the "nations of the EU, without major exception, operate ..." only "relatively democratic political systems"?
Um, did it ever occur to anyone (other than the author, rayban1) that the beginning of this thread by no means intended to promote an honest discussion of the different levels and influences of socialism, whether it be communism, or infused within Democracies around the world, as georgeob1 pointed out. Although, to be fair, we cannot just look at socialism as the sole reason for low birth rates, as the author of this thread seems to indicate, because there are myriad more factors that need to be part of the equation in explaining such things as low birth rates.
It was late in the game here, then, that the author suggested the Middle East, and how much liberals hate that. How utterly absurd and puerile must one get before rational minds call them on it.
Perhaps there is someone else (other than the author) who can establish a point regarding this thread, and maybe without the vitriol that rayban1 enjoys using.
I'm not trying to find fault. rather I am trying to stiimulate a discussion of some differences that I find very interesting and intriguing - and which I don't fully understand.
My description of the "relatively democratic" systems applies equally to the United States. None of us are perfect democracies, but we all operate representative governments with democratic legislatures and, in some cases federal organizations of equally representative local or state or lander governments.
Communism was an illusion and it certainly didn't exist in the USSR - even they diidn't claim that. They were socialist in that government was the principal owner of the means of production and government determined what would be produced, where it would be produyced, and by whom.
Although Brandt and Schroeder label their political affiliations as socialist, Germany is a capitalist democracy. It is different from that in the U.S. in certain characteristic ways that are more or less common to most European countries - more social welfare programs; higher taxes; more government involvement in the management of certain aspects of the economy. However these are all relatively minor compared to the profound difference between all of us and the totalitarian socialist states that have long since happily left the scene.
Still the differences between the U.S. and Europe in these areas do manifest themselves in different behaviors and attitudes on the psrt of their respective peoples, and that is a subject I find interessting. In particular the recent experience of Germany in absorbing the defunct economy of the GDR and dealing with the aftereffects of very serious socialism may be illustrative. That interests me as well.
