Private property rights are the foundations of liberty. How free is a progressive man, if he can't own a house, land, capital, a business, ect.?
Well that may be true. But when your gov't wants to hand everything out for free who the heck wants to better themselves? Just let the gov't take care of it. Thats what it has come to and continueing.
Good job Don, that's why it will never exist, it is oxymoron as well as socialism with proper libertarian society....
We are socialist. You live in a socialist country. This is what you geniuses don't get. We've been socialist and a social democracy for a very long time. You pay taxes in exchange for services. That's socialism. Anytime you pay taxes for roads instead of using a toll booth, it's socialism. Socialism isn't an old commune in New Harmony, Indiana any longer. It's you paying taxes for an FBI. It's you paying taxes for the U.S. Forest Service. It's you paying for food inspectors, air traffic controllers. You even have local socialism in that you don't pay out of pocket for a police officer and you don't pay out of pocket when you need the fire department. You couldn't live without it.
There is not ONE slightest bit of even rumor , much less ANY evidence, that "Ubama" has "stashed away" even a penny of taxpayer money, which makes your attempted smear one of the most pathetic little impotent smears ever uttered on PF. The losers known as the Right have become so incredibly small!
Well dude we know Ubama is very dumb in the head but we are sure if this has any truth to it he would be wise enough to keep it to himself. Even the big criminals of today do so. And Im sure its not something they would put on his teleprompter if they knew. His followers would just applause him.
We don't live in a theoretical world, SP. The accumulation of wealth by the political elite has always been a feature of socialist governments.
Can I match his education to yours? Please oh please. If that's what dumb is, I want more of it. I don't get to create new posts... I'm stuck correcting the misinformation already embedded here,
I honestly couldn't agree more. My husband a few months ago got told stop working so hard because if he didn't then they would have to force the other workers to work just as hard. Btw this is in Sweden. This place is completely alien to me and I more or less said that to him when he told me this.
The problem with Socialism is right there in your statement "moving the means of production"....In that one phrase you are relinquishing control to a central authority. Communes may be good for those with little or no impetus to succeed.
It CAN'T BE; he is of HUMBLE ORIGIN...gee...where did he get all of that MONEY??? Oh yeah, THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE, that's where. As with ALL Leftists/socialists/communists/STATEISTS: Everyone is "equal" in the nightmare world; some are just "more equal" than others, such as the currently room-temperature Chavez. He ROBBED the Venezuelan people BLIND, enriching himself while they suffered (and CONTINUE TO SUFFER) food shortages, lawlessness, near civil war. And had the GALL to rip on the US, like WE ripped off Venezuela. What a "hero of the people", huh?
Well so sad. Its sounds like a typical lefty. Just can't think on your own anymore. So shameful. Ubango just has you so BRAINWASHED you lefties have just lost it. Go get your advice from him and then see if you can do some real correcting.
I think we would both agree that poverty is the issue here. So tell me, what has the federal government done to quinch poverty in the US since LBJ declared a war on poverty back in the 1960's?
Quoting Mac-7: "Socialism at its best is good for lazy people but bad for the most productive." You will have to look at the country (Sweden) as a whole. Is one job, your husband's, indicative of general working operations of all work in Sweden? Of course not. You admit to Sweden being alien to you. How then can you make a general statement when you make a claim that you do not understand it? I get email reports from Sweden weekly on business, the economy, and education. Sweden ranks #1 in economic competitiveness within Europe according to The Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Network's Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013... with Finland #2, Denmark #3 and so on. There are 144 countries measured. Just request sources and I will provide. Sweden dropped in Global Competitiveness (world-wide) to #4. Switzerland remains #1 followed by Singapore #2 and Finland #3. Netherlands #5, The U.S. checks in at #7. This rating is based on these points: Infrastructure: Institutional environment for a functioning govt. Macroeconomic environment: Stable macroeconomic environment for business. Health and Primary Education: Addresses working places for good health of workers. Basic education increases the efficiency of each individual worker. Higher education and training: Quality higher education and training, crucial for economies that want to move up the value chain beyond simple production processes and products. Good market efficiency. Labor market efficiency and flexibility. It appears, Mac-7, that you make blind, uneducated statements in hopes of dragging some poor fool in with your line of thinking.
Really? Why are 5 European Social Democracies leading 139 other countries in economic competitiveness and business success? Now, do you want to stick with your little thought? Where are the communes?
I don't disagree with you mate (except the part about immigrants). Not necessarily. The private property rights would still technically exist, people would just voluntarily agree to give them up. I guess it depends on perspective, but either way - I see now problem with that. No it's not. Barrack Obama has mainly served to offer a pseudo-Fabian authoritarian alternative to the previous model of the center left youth appealing Democratic party. It's a trend going on in all left wing parties in major developed nations. Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the UK Labour Party moved to further toward social totalitarianism to appeal to "all", same has occurred under Julia Gillard in my country. Mainstream left parties are staying relatively stable on economics but moving drastically towards authoritarianism. It's a semantics game. Socialism traditionally meant having the means of production in the hands of the proletariat. Social Democracy is a completely different thing, although it often claims the term "socialism" also. I have no problem with this, but to equate the two is misleading. They are different meanings of the same phrase. Technically a society purely based on liberty has never existed either. Authoritarian bull(*)(*)(*)(*) always clogs it up. Does this mean one cannot exist and we should stop advocating for one? Of course not. I might even consider their cause more practical. Nobody cares about liberty these days, it's all coercion, coercion, coercion. I cannot see a liberty based society existing in my lifetime except through things like seasteading. Not necessarily. It can be voluntarily done, but then it's not so much a political theory as a voluntary choice by individuals in a private system. Other than that I agree. The vast majority of socialist "anarchists" (although I don't mind them using the term), do infact want a centralized state. I disagree that this is a good point, sorry. Political systems should be based around the inherent morality of their principle, not the consequentialist analysis of its outcomes. That's what has led to all this BS totalitarian stuff in the first place. Thanks for all the replies guys
No way is anyone going to volunteer sharing their profit with others. You have to have some kind of central authority to force it and that is a recipe for tyranny. Where is the morality in forcing people to live communally and confiscate a large percentage of their profit to distribute to others? "Inherent morality" is for freedom and liberty and the ability to pursue one's own happiness. Land ownership is a necessary component of a prosperous people.
This is not socialism in a nutshell this is champagne socialism in a nutshell, like trade unionists living it large on our money. You forget this is not the majority of socialists - this is just a minute number of people. They are part of the problem, taking money from the poor and living off it. They are no real socialists. The real ones give it back.
Yeah I know all about government. I've got a degree in it.. find out at my website. Do you know of any socialist countries? I don't. It's only a concept in books. I'm being brief as I have little time for this forum... which you can tell by posts I've made. It's not realistic to attempt pure liberty in any country where upward mobility is difficult or nearly impossible. True. Strive for it anyway. As long as the acquisition of capital is the driving force, and not the mix of capitalism and socialism. I promote social democracy as the last stop in the evolution of political systems. It's as good as things can get for all concerned whether capitalists or socialists in the humanitarian sense. All others have been tried and fail for various reasons. It makes perfect sense to have representative government heavily involved in the economy.
Competiveness has nothing to do with what I was talking about. Here in America you can succeed by working hard and moving up the latter. Here it actually gets discouraged. Cool that as a country they can compete, but I tell you if people were actually encouraged to work hard in Sweden they would easily take the number 1 slot. That is socialism we all must be equal and we all must work the same. This might be a foreign concept to me but it doesn't mean I don't understand it. Try living here, you would see what I mean.
Well dude if you really see it that way then fine. Just stay in your country and enjoy it. We really don't need your kind here. We have enough jerks in the WH who think that way now. Its a shame their * * * backwards and taking many of the empty heads that believe them with them. Since you go for them so much you can have them. Free of charge.
I'm extremely familiar with Sweden. I understand what you mean and I think it's all cultural not unlike Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, etc. It's not a dog-eat-dog society. People tend to be happy and wealth acquisition isn't their priority. Their priority is people, the citizens. Upward mobility is far easier if one desires. People come before profit whereas in the U.S., acquisition of capital in vast amounts is important to many people, individualistic, and care for fellow humans is often secondary. The U.S. has had a history with capital acquisition that required a more vigorous approach by everyday people to survive. Basically many fought to survive. In company towns of the late 1800s-early 1900s, people did not have upward mobility. That did not happen largely until the 1950s. Also, corporations had a heavy hand in those days and the going was tough for those without. Most of Europe, especially northern Europe, just doesn't engage in capital acquisition like we do. It's almost stress society v. non-stress society.
