What is your definition of socialism?

Tell me exactly how you go about abolishing the working class.

 

How is it that one can hate an ideology with such a passion, yet know so little about it.

A social class is based on a common relation to the means of production of different groups of people. The working class' relation to the means of production is that of having to sell their labour-power to the owner of the means of production--the capitalist.
If the members of the working class were to socialise the means of production, expropriate them, convert it to common ownership, then there wouldn't be any disparity in regards of a common relation to the means of production. That is to say, all people would have the same common relation to the means of production: ownership and controller thereof. Hence, social classes cease to exist.

 

Don't sweat it. Cool walker is just reposting an old urban legend that conservatives love to regurgitate to try to "prove" that socialism is a bankrupt ideology. It never happened. Just another feverish scenario dreamed up by desperate ideologues. Please continue your informative thread...

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

 

It's an urban legend. COMPLTETLY MADE UP. If you just bought it without bothering to vette it, well...I guess that puts you right up there with the John McCain running mate exploratory comittee.

 

What are you rambling on about here? It was you that said you would advocate abolishing the working class. Somehow you managed to use your own words to accuse me of not knowing about a particular ideology. You're talking hogwash here; we live in a class oriented, i.e. a capitalist society where it would be impossible to have common ownership of production. All you're doing here is telling us of your want to develop a socialist society. You, as well as other libs have this troubling desire to punish wealth, to punish the movers & shakers, to punish the entrepreneurs, i.e. to punish the very entities that keep our capitalistic society moving forward. Socialistic Europe is dying before your very eyes, yet you still insist that socialism is the path forward for America. Sorry but you have nothing we Americans want anything to do with.

 

Socialism is a situation where society (usually in the form of Government) controls all ownership of the means of production and all trades and exchanges.
Capitalism is a situation where individuals control all ownership of the means of production and all trades and exchanges.

How socialist or capitalist an economy is depends on how close it is to either end of the scale. Some countries are mostly capitalist with only limited government intervention in exchanges and virtually no nationalization of any industry. Other countries have the government owning whole industries and regulating most exchanges. Thus some countries are more socialist or capitalist than others.

 

Technically now due to Chief Justice John Roberts we could have a tax on those that are fat and do not buy a health club membership, or a tax on those that do not join a Union, or a tax on those that won't reform on something. So shooting is no longer needed, we just vote to tax them for not reforming and paying for their own reeducation camp visits.

 

We live in very different words and are talking about very different things, I'm afraid.

 

You revile socialism, correct? You asked me a question about the very basic principles and fundamentals of socialisms, hence I pointed this out.

You're talking hogwash here; we live in a class oriented, i.e. a feudal society where it would be impossible to have private ownership of production. You would have said living in feudalism.

I'm not a liberal.

Europe is not socialist. It has private ownership of the means of production and wage-labour. And yes, you are right enterprenreurs are necessary for capitalism.... But I don't want capitalism. Again, a petitio principii.

Argumentum ad populum fallacy.

You are only capable of spouting fallacies it seems.

 

so·cial·ism (ssh-lzm)
n.
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved


com·mu·nism (kmy-nzm)
n.
1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
2. Communism
a. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
b. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.

BOTH consistent, constant failures and can only be promoted by the blatantly and incurably, stupid.

 

Redistribution of the wealth is the polar opposite of capitalism. Redistribution of the wealth is pure Socialism/Communism and CANNOT co-exist with capitalism.

 

Pure peasant illiteracy. Governments are the central committee of the boss class. When we get shot of them, we'll have no government. Do you believe what everyone tells you? It must be very tiring.

 

No, I have a brain that functions in reality. That would be a novel experience for any socialist/communist fool.

 

The mods get cross with me for calling anyone a fool, but I forgive you, since fools only believe what is established by their masters. As you doubtless know, everyone believes in socialism/communism unless enlightened by their brilliant masters. Aren't you a sozzled mug!

 

Communism is by its very definition stateless. The definitions you gave all contained references to a central government or state, which has no basis in communist theory.

 

"everyone believes in socialism/communism" What completely nonsensical tripe!

And I did not call YOU a fool. I said ALL socialist/communists are fools. If you are including yourself with that group, that's your choice.

 

That is of course true, most socialists do advocate for a minimal state, but the impositions of reality cause problems. The ownership of the means of production cannot be transferred from the hands of capitalists to the hands of workers, without violence. The capitalist class will fight to maintain its ownership, and it will lead to extreme violence. In war, centralization of power is necessary and inevitable. There will be a command group, who organizes the war commands the troops, etc. That centralized power does not disappear once the war is over. It is there, and it is nearly impossible to imagine a scenario under which it will be given up. Then the violence is continued under the guise "the defense of the revolution." And the people who call for reform and a limitation on the state are categorized among the numbers who are attacking the revolution, and are persecuted.

PS. Are you an advocate of planned economies?

Once again I am going to have to impose reality on your utopian fantasies. In every attempt at socialism which has ever existed, there HAVE been social classes. Instead of being defined by access to capital, classes became defined by access to connections. People connected in the right places got the better jobs, goods, etc. There were also class distinctions between urban and rural classes which were significant and important. The idea that social classes can ever be eradicated is simply NOT supported by any evidence!!

 

Nice introduction to vanguardism but you know at the end of the day under the same theory each and every worker will be a revolutionary and the vanguard will no longer be needed.
Of course exterminating all capitalists and their children plus erasing their names and deeds from the history books will be an option (which i personally support) but this is class warfare , capitalists tolerate us because we are useful to them while we have no use for capitalists so eradicating them will end the war and bring peace. I guess you understand that you can not "fix" capitalism and you can only kill it.

Not supported so far because no socialist regime ever left the vanguard state , if you remember the Bolsheviks were so unsure of their victory that they had to kill the Romanovs , then anarchists , socialists and nazis appeared so to maintain the vanguard was crucial. I can go over several cases as in China , North Korea, Cambodia and so on but the spirit is the same , insecurity makes the presence of a vanguard important.
But in a case of a global socialism there will be no insecurity and no need to have social classification , given that the principle of equal pay applies there would be no purpose to maintain classes .

 

You have no use for capitalists? Then you have no use for life itself and for being a citizen of America where capitalism is what has made her great. If it weren't for capitalism you would probably be living in some banana republic picking crops.

 

It's called irony, kid. I used it because Americans are too brainwashed even to know it's happening. Think very hard, as you would about making money, and you'll understand that it is so obviously untrue that I must be laughing at you. People do laugh at American blatherers, often.

 

The capitalists are parasites not "life itself" .
By the way i am not American citizen but Greek citizen, now consider this : Greece's debt is ~$300 billions , Greece is also 30 times smaller than USA, do the math , $300x30 = $9trillions , your debt stands at $16 trillions yes indeed you are great LOL

 

How can capitalists...the very people who generate business and industry, hire employees, create wealth for its people and for our government to maintain the greatest military in the world be considered a parasite? You have the gall to mention a country (Greece) who is in the throes of total insolvency to compare that hellhole to America the beautiful? Wow, methinks you need an adjustment or at least a political tune-up before proceeding any further.

 

I just noted how huge your debt's greatness is even when compared to (*)(*)(*)(*)holes.

Now you say that the capitalists generate business and jobs, well you are wrong it is the working class that does , the working class creates the need for business , the opportunities and jobs or at least it uses to in real economies. Look the country i live , the working class has no money so business are closing down because none buys goods so the crucial link in the chain is the proletariat . If you remove capitalists at all and replace them with workers you will have a system where those who create commodities also consume them so the capis are obsolete and none is missing them.

If you consider fiat money of "financial products" real economy then yes the capitalists are everything but do you see where this is heading? 2008 and onwards crisis was not a crisis of the poor (working class) but a crisis that was caused and hit the capitalists more than any ; yet this was "bailed out" with working class (real economy) money . I know that it is wildly off topic but capitalism has reached it's final form which (for me , others with knowledge in the subject may disagree) is free market anarchism . Free market anarchism is a scheme where fictional economy acts like a black hole that sucks everything down to top , after the lower economic classes are depleted of any wealth it will start sucking upper ones (as it did to several big business in the US and elsewhere) until the creation of any real wealth will be simply not profitable... IMO what will happen next is socialist revolution .

 

Socialism is when we do for each other what we cannot do for ourselves.

Police, fire, ambulance, building roads, airports, and national defense are all socialist endeavors.

 

In other words, it does what capitalism is supposed to do but doesn't - organise the division of labour so that it makes some sense. In the long run, or course, we'll all help one another out automatically and have all we need without all this tedious greed which makes the capitalists destroy their own system sooner than loose a possible penny.