[TruePolitics]

There are a lot of people out there who constantly bash socialism as an inferior form of government and who want to push for more libertarian ways. I'd like to say why I feel that socialism is a positive form of government if done correctly and that non-governmental intervention can lead to much bigger problems than government rule.

First of all, socialism does not necessarily lead to an all powerful government-ruling dictatorship, such as China, Russia, or Cuba. Those are examples of socialism gone CORRUPTED, not true socialism. True socialism does not have a leader who is in power. China, Russia, or Cuba were NEVER true socialist countries, so let's get that out of the way straight up.

True socialism is the idea that each individual person looks out for the welfare and well-being of the ENTIRE community. True socialism does NOT have a leader who is pursuing selfish-interests. That would be a DICTATORSHIP, not a socialism.

Here's the problem with a free-market capitalism in which the government does not intervene: Selfish, greedy individual people eventually overrule and screw over 99% of the society by instilling unfair and unjust regulations. Thus, the society as a whole suffers. What we get from free-market capitalism is an OLIGOPOLY - a small number of rich individual firms dominating everyone else by hording ALL of the resources and not allowing any possible chance of competition. Thus, free-market capitalism isn't really free at all. It starts out free, but very soon after it leads to the very thing it was trying to displace from the beginning - a dictatorship.

The founding fathers of the United States clearly stated that the purpose of government was to be made BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Hence, government rule actually means society ruling together as 1, NOT dominated by a selfish, greedy individual.

[Daktoria]

In socialism, selfish bureaucrats define appropriate labor theory of value without considering they can't read other people's minds.

Utility preferences are particular and internal. Anyone who projects a utility preference upon someone else is being anti-social.

How that economic system is called "social"-ist beats me. It should be called conformist instead.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat

[TropicalK]

True socialism is the idea that each individual person looks out for the welfare and well-being of the ENTIRE community.

This is why socialism sucks. It is a system with a faulty unrealistic foundation.

[TruePolitics]

This is why socialism sucks. It is a system with a faulty unrealistic foundation.

The reason it sucks is because selfish people make it suck. In theory it is a perfect system. If only people could think of OTHER people rather than themselves, they'd understand.

[TropicalK]

People are selfish, that is a fact. Designing a theory around a falsehood that people love each-other equally and unconditionally makes meaningless results. The quality of a theory is measured in reality and results, not wishfulness and good intentions. Anyone can think of best case non-sequiter universal free unicorn-sodomy systems.

[TruePolitics]

People are selfish, that is a fact. Designing a theory around a falsehood that people love each-other equally and unconditionally makes meaningless results. The quality of a theory is measured in reality and results, not wishfulness and good intentions. Anyone can think of best case non-sequiter universal free unicorn-sodomy systems.

Which is why you need to learn how to love, and not how to hate.

[mikema63]

i love and dont hate, statist socialism will always get taken over by the worst type of people though.

[Rei Murasame]

True socialism does not have a leader who is in power.

Was Vietnam not 'true socialism' in your opinion then? Salvador Allende's Chile was also not 'true socialism'?

Surely you are not saying that anarcho-socialism is the 'only true socialism'?

[Eauz]

i love and dont hate, statist socialism will always get taken over by the worst type of people though.

If the 17, 18 and early 1900's gives me any clues, it seems that even limited government (libertarian) also attracts the worst type of people. Wait, I don't even have to look so far away. Somalia, today, is also a utopia for limited government.

[Rainbow Crow]

If people were perfect then there would be no need for government, as the saying goes. The question is who is in power and how you deal with them if they go wrong. The holy trinity is to keep those in power subject to restraints, elections and transparency. We are lacking 2/3 in the US, these days.

The only appropriate way to deal with bad people is a system that requires personal responsibility, the far right tends to have a better grasp of this than the left, but they also see no need for transparency, little need for restraints upon the powerful and sometimes no need for elections. Meanwhile the left hasn't come to accept that there will always be irresponsible people who shouldn't be coddled, but I think that they hold this stance as an over-reaction to the problems that the far right has historically produced.

[Eauz]

Meanwhile the left hasn't come to accept that there will always be irresponsible people who shouldn't be coddled

Point to me one article that socialist/communists have promoted the use of coddling or that we reject that some people are irresponsible. Many socialist republics have been built around the idea of taking responsibility for your actions and you are generally punished when you do not act responsible within the society. It seems that throughout history, the far-right has been more sensationalist and emotional than the far-left governments have ever been.

[Rainbow Crow]

Point to me one article that socialist/communists have promoted the use of coddling or that we reject that some people are irresponsible. Many socialist republics have been built around the idea of taking responsibility for your actions and you are generally punished when you do not act responsible within the society. It seems that throughout history, the far-right has been more sensationalist and emotional than the far-left governments have ever been.

I'm referring to the left in the US, who deny that intelligence can have a genetic factor to it, and base a lot of their policies and rhetoric off of the idea that the white man is keeping minorities down, because this may not be true anymore, but it's useful to mobilize voters. Once in office, they believe their own propoganda, and promote policies that coddle more than they push. For example, unemployment aid in many areas of Europe helps you find a new job, whereas in the US they just hand you some money and don't expect you to go looking for work, because surely the problem isn't that you weren't doing so already.

I think that Europe's left is more capable than America's left, largely because they don't seem to make the mistakes I'm referring to here.

[TruePolitics]

You didn't provide an article as you were asked.

[Rainbow Crow]

You didn't provide an article as you were asked.

I think he misinterpreted what I am saying, which is partially my fault, as I am talking about American left but there basically are no socialists in the US.

[Nunt]

Somalia, today, is also a utopia for limited government.

Its more an example of failed government and subsequent collapse in a poor country dominated by tribal strife.

[SecretSquirrel]

True socialism is a voluntary system. State socialism is contradictory because the state establishes a coercive foundation instead.

There is nothing wrong with voluntary socialism or voluntary communism, like in kibbutzes or communes

The problem begins with the establishment of the State

[Nunt]

True socialism is a voluntary system. State socialism is contradictory because the state establishes a coercive foundation instead.

I agree. I find it really strange that all socialists want to use the state to create socialism. While when you ask them what socialism is, it is a stateless society. To me it seems obvious that you cannot impose socialism top-down.

[SecretSquirrel]

it seems obvious because you have basic logic wired into your brain. This is a very uncommon trait to have and it gets rarer by the generation

[Soixante-Retard]

I agree. I find it really strange that all socialists want to use the state to create socialism. While when you ask them what socialism is, it is a stateless society. To me it seems obvious that you cannot impose socialism top-down.

I think Bakunin said it best when he was describing Marx's thought (on the dictatorship of the Proletariat):

For Bakunin, the fundamental contradiction is that for the Marxists, "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."

[Eran]

Which is why you need to learn how to love, and not how to hate.

But then if we all learned to love rather than hate, wouldn't laissez-faire capitalism work just as well?

But lack of incentives is not the only problem with Socialism. As Mises demonstrated conclusively, a purely Socialist economy is a logical impossibility. Without free markets in the means of production, there would be no prices for those resources. Without prices, rational economization is impossible.

So-called communist economies of the 20th century could and did use price signals from the rest of the world to help value means of production. Even so, those economies failed not just because workers worked as little as possible, but also because of intractable coordination problems.