remember before we continue - socialism and freedom go hand in hand. anyway some questions to you all. morally speaking: who does the economy belong to? who does the roads belong to? who does the air and water belong to? who does the government belong to? who does the national currency belong to? the answer to all these things, is of course - everybody. all that collectively owned and used stuff - by right, belongs to all. we can agree on this - then we can start talking about freedom and how to enhance its place in society.
haha... your right it should work... but it doesnt. why? people are too damn greedy, and it doesnt seem that any argument, will sway them from the comfort they are alloted. people dont like the idea of having to give up alot of what they have... doesnt matter if they've worked for it or not, it just seems pointless for people to own so much shit... especially when our society (in the US) is built upon alienating absolutely everyone into these little groups, where the only thing that matters is how much money, or pointless shit you have. the public doesnt care, as long as they get what they want... and in mass amounts. reality television, movies with lot's of special effects, drama, the current music industry... it actively kills individualism, and most artistic outlets, and nobody cares, because they've found what it is peoples basic senses lust for, and they just pump it out like fast food, so everyone can indulge in the gluttony. people will never recognise why tv is bad for society, they will never recognise that the people running the show, know that they have such a tight hold on the public, and if they do, they will never contest it, because the machine produces everything that satisfies that imidiate desire. the base of capitalism, is rich people scratching other rich peoples backs... and if your not one of them, you are the peeon of them all, and will never escape the fate of working for them. 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, in a job with no chance of advancement, hating yourself, and everything about the life you dont remember chosing to be a part of...
How can a system of exchange belong to anyone? The roads belong to the county, the state, the federal government ...in that order. But they sure don't belong to everyone! Air and water? I don't know how anyone can own air?? As to water, that depends on state and federal laws ....but water does NOT belong to everyone! Government? How can, say, the government of Romania belong, even in part, to people in, say, the USA? And if it belongs to everyone as you say, then....? The national currency, by virtue of it's very existence, belongs NOT to everyone, but to the holder of it! But sure as hell not to everyone (at the same time!). I think you should rethink your position and maybe repost it in a more understandable method. As it is, your post makes little or no sense. Baron Max
do you think by over looking what he was trying to say with those questions or by analysing the immidiate litterate value of what he was asking that your point actively answers the question as to why socialism is such a bad idea?
Well, perhaps that's a major problem around here, dr. ski wampas, people seem to be NOT reading the words, but trying to impose their own thoughts onto another's post. ...as if they can devine what the typist is really saying/thinking. How can you do that? I read the words ....I can't read the typist's thoughts .....like you and others seem so able to do. How? Baron Max
has nothing to do with reading thoughts. i understand what socialism is, and in that understanding, i see what the author of the thread was asking. for example, i understand that a system of exchange cannot belong to anyone, as it is not a physical thing, but it's own entity... but i dont think that was the argument... when someone says to me "it belongs to everyone", i would think they meant, in the sense that it belongs to no one person, or group, in specific. meaning, they have no right to decide judgement over any field therein, that they claim domain. wether it be government, or corperate, physical, or figurative. the main statement, was that only when we agree on this, will we see what freedom is in a sense... or atleast thats what i got from it... so now i want to ask you why you think socialism would be such a bad idea?
Well, you can read into someone else's words if you'd like, Dr. Wampus, but I try not to do that. First, it ain't nice and second, if you mis-read his thoughts, it might cause more trouble than simply asking what the hell he meant. Would you have everyone try to read your thoughts instead of your words? Or do you think that you can adequately communicate your thoughts with words? Baron Max
Words confound things. I preffer to communicate within the context of them. Thought can actively be displayed in your words, if you choose them carefully enough. I try to best represent my thoughts through my words. people can take what I say, anyway they please, but hopefully they dont stray to far, from what i'm trying to put out there... I like to think questions are fairly strait-forward though.
Privately owned toll roads have been around for a long time. Your thesis is flawed. The problem with socialism has always been and always will be that it only works if the subjects feel a sense of community with one another. Our neolithic ancestors were able to maintain that in groups of one or two hundred, where everyone actually knew everyone else at least in passing and everyone was a blood relative, with the ceremonial exceptions of gene-swapping with other tribes. Today we have advanced to the impressive level where we can pull it off in cities of about 20,000. People don't lock their doors, feel free to discipline each other's children, rag on those who don't pull their weight but still feed them, and pitch in to help in event of hard luck without waiting for the cumbersome, inefficient, unfeeling government to figure it out. That's great, but that's about the limit. Socialism BARELY works in small nations with highly homogeneous populations like Sweden and Bulgaria. Everybody is of the same ethnic stock, practices the same religion, and thinks the same way. It does NOT work in large countries with a lot of ethnic and cultural diversity. It's just too easy to be lazy and figure that some person a thousand miles away who is nothing more than an abstraction to you won't notice and will take up the slack. Not that all or even most people would think that way but enough would to be a real drag on the system and the marginally committed would just give up, leaving more work for fewer people. The other problem with socialism in large "communities" is that by definition it requires central planning and no matter how many times we try that, we always learn the hard way that a free market works better. I don't mean the kind of faux free market we have here today, with individuals trying to hold their own against corporations with more power and money than Burkina Faso, but the real Adam Smith kind of free market with producers and consumers of relatively equal power. Fortunately the huge accumulations of capital that only corporations can provide will prove to be less necessary in the post-industrial era so we will probably see the decline of the corporation and the return of truly free markets that remove the temptation of socialism.
If socialism and freedom go hand in hand, why are people in socialist countries always the most oppressed? You should stop looking at what should work and focus on what actually works.
If socialism works, what happened to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics?
Freedom has a meaning, but must be respected and is therefore arbitrary. I do not see what you are arriving at.
When the idea is each to their ability and each to their need, there is no standard by which you evaluate either. Can any of you truly decide what "need" is and who "needs" it? A businessman will say he needs a van for the sake of his business, without it his business would crash. And his neighbor will say he needs a new coffepot, beuause witout it he'll oversleep and miss work in the morning. Who "needs' between both of them? On what standards should judgement decide between both of them and still call it 'justice' if its the collective and not goverrnmentt responsible for guessing that need? What justice or standard is there in guesswork? When a man knows that his livelhood willl be granted unearned to him by his simple testimomy of need, he will ensnare you all with deceptions of needing more than his neighbor. Blacks on welfare do it all the time. If a man knows he does not have to achieve but receive, he'll close his mind and cease to be the productive man that he could be and turn parasite. You will end up with a collective of poeple trying to best each other not with their best but their worst because they all know that whoever needs more than his neighbor has a better chance at eating that day than his neighbor does. When people get to this point, they huddle together and leave a vaccum crying to be filled. They will end up too busy spying on each other trying to best need with need, hating their fellow men and their own existence without the power of their mind or the power of human desire to be anything more than an animal. They will be too distracted to notice that the vaccum is being filled by a tyrant that could only rule men that no longer care to exist. You call this freedom? Socialism would tie a healthy man to the wall for the sake of a cripple and let him rot there hanging just watching that cripple eat all his food. This is freedom? To know you have strength enough for 10 men but cannot use it for fear of your government. This is freedom?
