[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
We will have National Socialism in this country, where everyone lives for the nation (hence the name). Our only hope is that it will incorporate Christianity, much as Muslims incorporate Islam into their countries. Otherwise we will get Soviet Socialism, which is way worse.[/quote]
That’s not true at all. Again, here we have ideaology being turned in to absolute truth. You are entitled to an opinion, but you are basically stating that an unfounded theory is proved fact. The idea that socialism is immoral and always leads to totalitarian rule is false. The Soviet Union style was totalitarian socialism, not real socialism. If you actually read Communist Manifesto rather than listen to propaganda about how it is evil you will see this. In it Marx talks about how the state is completely unnecessary and how it should be done away with, the exact opposite of “everyone lives for the nation.”
An real socialist country would have more things like employee-owned business and particapatory democracy. Socialism means people get control over how the country’s resources are used as opposed to our system where corporations decide or a system where a totalitarian state gets to decide.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
[/quote]
Wrong. If you look at countries like Sweden, Finland or Norway (granted Norway has a lot of oil, so we are kinda “cheating”) they are nothing close to “National Socialism” or “Soviet Socialism”, which by the way has nothing to do with true socialism.
[/quote]
[quote]John S. wrote:
So you guys believe that people rioting over the government cutting benefits is capitalism, that actually explains alot.[/quote]
They have to cut because of the financial crisis which everyone knows occured due to the deregulation of the financial markets.[/quote]
Ahh it couldnt have been those pesky central banks set up by the government and the fiat money that caused this?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
We will have National Socialism in this country, where everyone lives for the nation (hence the name). Our only hope is that it will incorporate Christianity, much as Muslims incorporate Islam into their countries. Otherwise we will get Soviet Socialism, which is way worse.[/quote]
That’s not true at all. Again, here we have ideaology being turned in to absolute truth. You are entitled to an opinion, but you are basically stating that an unfounded theory is proved fact. The idea that socialism is immoral and always leads to totalitarian rule is false. The Soviet Union style was totalitarian socialism, not real socialism. If you actually read Communist Manifesto rather than listen to propaganda about how it is evil you will see this. In it Marx talks about how the state is completely unnecessary and how it should be done away with, the exact opposite of “everyone lives for the nation.”
An real socialist country would have more things like employee-owned business and particapatory democracy. Socialism means people get control over how the country’s resources are used as opposed to our system where corporations decide or a system where a totalitarian state gets to decide.[/quote]
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
We will have National Socialism in this country, where everyone lives for the nation (hence the name). Our only hope is that it will incorporate Christianity, much as Muslims incorporate Islam into their countries. Otherwise we will get Soviet Socialism, which is way worse.[/quote]
That’s not true at all. Again, here we have ideaology being turned in to absolute truth. You are entitled to an opinion, but you are basically stating that an unfounded theory is proved fact. The idea that socialism is immoral and always leads to totalitarian rule is false. The Soviet Union style was totalitarian socialism, not real socialism. If you actually read Communist Manifesto rather than listen to propaganda about how it is evil you will see this. In it Marx talks about how the state is completely unnecessary and how it should be done away with, the exact opposite of “everyone lives for the nation.”
An real socialist country would have more things like employee-owned business and particapatory democracy. Socialism means people get control over how the country’s resources are used as opposed to our system where corporations decide or a system where a totalitarian state gets to decide.[/quote]
Doesn’t socialism mean everyone lives for everyone else? Society comes firsT?
Well, what if I and some others don’t WANT to contribute? The socialism you describe may be possible for a while, where the population is pretty homogenous. But what if I don’t want to pay for the education of illegal aliens in south Texas? What if I don’t want to fund a new hospital in a state I’ll never visit or care about?
Its at that point where society has to force me to cooperate. They take my desires for my wealth and life out of the equation and introduce force into human relationships. Then the race is on as to who is the most brutal. The pickpocket loses to the mugger. The mugger loses to the gang. The gang loses to the bigger more murderous gang. And they ALL lose to the ultimate gang of all – the government.
Humans are not bees or ants. They are mildly social like elephants or giraffes. Would you impose a society designed for ants on elephants or giraffes?
the term socialism derives from the latin word socius = friend in english. so a very lingvistic approach to socialistic society would have been “society of friends” or " a friendly society “. but this approach are not sufficient enough. a better definition would be " a society where the production/economy are owned and controled by the collectiv” in other words: a democratic economy as opposed to a market economy or a oligarcic economy.
The sovjet union doesnt fit this definition because it was not the the collectiv who controled the production/economy but rather it was a elite who controled the production/economy. a better definition of the sovjet union would be: an oligarcic economy. most countrys today do have a oligarcic economy ( a small % of the population owns and control the economy ), but the oligarcy is not directly linked to the state as in the sovjet. In the scandinavian countrys it does exist semi-socialist structures within the macroeconomic framework. In norway oil, gas an some other industry do have mixed ownership( state and privat capital chare it ). but the public does not have direct control over it, but it is more democratic or socialist if you will than sovjet or usa for that matter.
we can trough the democratic system influence how the profit are used and how the process of production are conducted. In a pure socialist society either the people and the workers in each production unit would have more influence than in norway today, the people would have had a more direct influence than it has today. Other aspects of the society, for instence civil rights, justice system etc is not given in socialism. there are some socialist who wants a similar political system as the one that exist in the west today. others wants a more desentralized system, as an example: the state are organized as an federation of communes and workerscouncils. others wants a stateless form of socialisme. So no there are no direct link beetwen socialisme and totalitarianism. The case of sovjet and the countrys that used as there rolemodell its importen to look at the material and historical circumstances in wich this systems where born.
[quote]florelius wrote:
the term socialism derives from the latin word socius = friend in english. so a very lingvistic approach to socialistic society would have been “society of friends” or " a friendly society “. but this approach are not sufficient enough. a better definition would be " a society where the production/economy are owned and controled by the collectiv” in other words: a democratic economy as opposed to a market economy or a oligarcic economy.
The sovjet union doesnt fit this definition because it was not the the collectiv who controled the production/economy but rather it was a elite who controled the production/economy. a better definition of the sovjet union would be: an oligarcic economy. most countrys today do have a oligarcic economy ( a small % of the population owns and control the economy ), but the oligarcy is not directly linked to the state as in the sovjet. In the scandinavian countrys it does exist semi-socialist structures within the macroeconomic framework. In norway oil, gas an some other industry do have mixed ownership( state and privat capital chare it ). but the public does not have direct control over it, but it is more democratic or socialist if you will than sovjet or usa for that matter.
we can trough the democratic system influence how the profit are used and how the process of production are conducted. In a pure socialist society either the people and the workers in each production unit would have more influence than in norway today, the people would have had a more direct influence than it has today. Other aspects of the society, for instence civil rights, justice system etc is not given in socialism. there are some socialist who wants a similar political system as the one that exist in the west today. others wants a more desentralized system, as an example: the state are organized as an federation of communes and workerscouncils. others wants a stateless form of socialisme. So no there are no direct link beetwen socialisme and totalitarianism. The case of sovjet and the countrys that used as there rolemodell its importen to look at the material and historical circumstances in wich this systems where born.
rant over.
[/quote]
Fine and dandy. But what if I don’t cooperate? What if I love my money and don’t want to share with those who didn’t earn it?
Will you shoot me? Or just confiscate my money? You can damn well bet I won’t create any more fortunes for you to loot in either case!!
So you eventually starve in your hopeless ineptitude…yup…
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
[/quote]
Wrong. If you look at countries like Sweden, Finland or Norway (granted Norway has a lot of oil, so we are kinda “cheating”) they are nothing close to “National Socialism” or “Soviet Socialism”, which by the way has nothing to do with true socialism.
[/quote]
Give it time, they will get there.
[/quote]
Do you seriously think so? I don’t think you have a good grasp of the political climate in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries are nowhere near National Socialism or Soviet Socialism, and they are not moving in either of those directions.
What is your basis for believing that this is where Scandinavia is headed?
Headhunter, you seem quite fixed in thinking that the name socialism by definition means that hard working people are always taken advantage of. This can happen under capitalism, socialism, or any other system. It is closed-minded to think that in all cases capitalism = good and socialism = bad.
Socialism-phobia resulted from the United States’ propaganda throughout the 20th century. Listen to a wise man explain why:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
[/quote]
Wrong. If you look at countries like Sweden, Finland or Norway (granted Norway has a lot of oil, so we are kinda “cheating”) they are nothing close to “National Socialism” or “Soviet Socialism”, which by the way has nothing to do with true socialism.
[/quote]
Give it time, they will get there.
[/quote]
Do you seriously think so? I don’t think you have a good grasp of the political climate in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries are nowhere near National Socialism or Soviet Socialism, and they are not moving in either of those directions.
What is your basis for believing that this is where Scandinavia is headed?[/quote]
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
Headhunter, you seem quite fixed in thinking that the name socialism by definition means that hard working people are always taken advantage of. This can happen under capitalism, socialism, or any other system. It is closed-minded to think that in all cases capitalism = good and socialism = bad.
Socialism-phobia resulted from the United States’ propaganda throughout the 20th century. Listen to a wise man explain why:
Socialism-phobia could not possibly be the result of the death, destruction and impoverishment that was the inevitable result whenever someone tried to implement it?
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If Americans want to know why people move so slow in Europe, why the customer service is fucking horseshit in Europe, it’s because there is no reason to work hard. What’s the point of working for a raise, when you’re taxed at maybe 60% (or more) depending the country?
[/quote]
Agree. They should outsource customer service just like the US.
What was the tax rate for the wealthy when the US economy was strongest, during the 50’s? You might be surprised. Tax rate and how hard someone is willing to work is just theory. All tax cuts do is increase the gap between rich and poor.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If Americans want to know why people move so slow in Europe, why the customer service is fucking horseshit in Europe, it’s because there is no reason to work hard. What’s the point of working for a raise, when you’re taxed at maybe 60% (or more) depending the country?
[/quote]
Agree. They should outsource customer service just like the US.
What was the tax rate for the wealthy when the US economy was strongest, during the 50’s? You might be surprised. Tax rate and how hard someone is willing to work is just theory. All tax cuts do is increase the gap between rich and poor. [/quote]
What is a fact however is that beyond a certain point tax increases lead to less revenue.
So, if your goal is to maximize the income of the state, though it is beyond me why anyone would wantg that, tax increases are very often counter productive.
Both Reagan and Bush II raised more income tax monies by lowering the tax rates.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
Headhunter, you seem quite fixed in thinking that the name socialism by definition means that hard working people are always taken advantage of. This can happen under capitalism, socialism, or any other system. It is closed-minded to think that in all cases capitalism = good and socialism = bad.
Socialism-phobia resulted from the United States’ propaganda throughout the 20th century. Listen to a wise man explain why:
Socialism-phobia could not possibly be the result of the death, destruction and impoverishment that was the inevitable result whenever someone tried to implement it?
Why cant we have Cockaynism?
[/quote]
Orion,
I’m not trolling you or anything, just want to know – The Nazis had a slogan, ‘Community before Self’. Could you give me translation? I’m not tricking or anything like that; genuine question.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
The period from the late 1940’s till the early 1970’s is actually refered to as “golden age of capitalim” it was so successful. This “golden age” included top tax rates of 91% though the 1950’s and then it stayed at around 70% after 1965 till Reagan. Regulation also played a big role in this “golden age” because it prevented the concentration of capital like we are seeing today. The “BIG companies” came after the “high-tax, high-regulation environment,” not the other way around.[/quote]
Yet most people here would probably claim that the problem today is too much regulation and taxes. If deregulation and less taxes doesn’t work, the answer of the right is even less taxes (especially for the really rich people) and even less regulation. That works out great for the top 1%, but really bad for everyone else.
[/quote]
yeah things were so good they worked despite the non capitalist agenda being pushed.
it had nothing to do with what you mentioned, people just used as an oportunity to push their agenda which is now crippling it.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
[/quote]
Wrong. If you look at countries like Sweden, Finland or Norway (granted Norway has a lot of oil, so we are kinda “cheating”) they are nothing close to “National Socialism” or “Soviet Socialism”, which by the way has nothing to do with true socialism.
[/quote]
Give it time, they will get there.
[/quote]
Do you seriously think so? I don’t think you have a good grasp of the political climate in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries are nowhere near National Socialism or Soviet Socialism, and they are not moving in either of those directions.
What is your basis for believing that this is where Scandinavia is headed?[/quote]
you seem to think you know so much about our society, but can’t take it if someone thinks they know something about your society.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
Headhunter, you seem quite fixed in thinking that the name socialism by definition means that hard working people are always taken advantage of. This can happen under capitalism, socialism, or any other system. It is closed-minded to think that in all cases capitalism = good and socialism = bad.
Socialism-phobia resulted from the United States’ propaganda throughout the 20th century. Listen to a wise man explain why:
[/quote]
All this “workers running production” BS looks good on paper.
In practice it leads to replacing of the business owners with bureaucrats who get their salaries paid no matter how the enterprise they are in charge of is doing thus destroying any kind of competitive drive.
On top of that, free market competition gets replaced by a humongous bureaucratic machine that attempts to “plan” every aspect of the economy which basically drives it into the ground.
As far as “socialism-phobia” being a result of US propaganda - you don’t think USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries didn’t have anti - capitalist propaganda do you ?
Somehow it didn’t work so well eh?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
[/quote]
Wrong. If you look at countries like Sweden, Finland or Norway (granted Norway has a lot of oil, so we are kinda “cheating”) they are nothing close to “National Socialism” or “Soviet Socialism”, which by the way has nothing to do with true socialism.
[/quote]
Give it time, they will get there.
[/quote]
Do you seriously think so? I don’t think you have a good grasp of the political climate in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries are nowhere near National Socialism or Soviet Socialism, and they are not moving in either of those directions.
What is your basis for believing that this is where Scandinavia is headed?[/quote]
you seem to think you know so much about our society, but can’t take it if someone thinks they know something about your society.
funny
[/quote]
I do not need to know anything about his country to know that certain ideas have certain consequences, just like O do not need the shape,size or color of an object to know that it will fall down when dropped.
[quote]florelius wrote:
the term socialism derives from the latin word socius = friend in english. so a very lingvistic approach to socialistic society would have been “society of friends” or " a friendly society “. but this approach are not sufficient enough. a better definition would be " a society where the production/economy are owned and controled by the collectiv” in other words: a democratic economy as opposed to a market economy or a oligarcic economy.
The sovjet union doesnt fit this definition because it was not the the collectiv who controled the production/economy but rather it was a elite who controled the production/economy. a better definition of the sovjet union would be: an oligarcic economy. most countrys today do have a oligarcic economy ( a small % of the population owns and control the economy ), but the oligarcy is not directly linked to the state as in the sovjet. In the scandinavian countrys it does exist semi-socialist structures within the macroeconomic framework. In norway oil, gas an some other industry do have mixed ownership( state and privat capital chare it ). but the public does not have direct control over it, but it is more democratic or socialist if you will than sovjet or usa for that matter.
we can trough the democratic system influence how the profit are used and how the process of production are conducted. In a pure socialist society either the people and the workers in each production unit would have more influence than in norway today, the people would have had a more direct influence than it has today. Other aspects of the society, for instence civil rights, justice system etc is not given in socialism. there are some socialist who wants a similar political system as the one that exist in the west today. others wants a more desentralized system, as an example: the state are organized as an federation of communes and workerscouncils. others wants a stateless form of socialisme. So no there are no direct link beetwen socialisme and totalitarianism. The case of sovjet and the countrys that used as there rolemodell its importen to look at the material and historical circumstances in wich this systems where born.
rant over.
[/quote]
Fine and dandy. But what if I don’t cooperate? What if I love my money and don’t want to share with those who didn’t earn it?
Will you shoot me? Or just confiscate my money? You can damn well bet I won’t create any more fortunes for you to loot in either case!!
So you eventually starve in your hopeless ineptitude…yup…
[/quote]
be a bit more specific HH. are you talking about not paying taxes. if you are talking about tax, the same thing would happen to you as it would today.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
If Americans want to know why people move so slow in Europe, why the customer service is fucking horseshit in Europe, it’s because there is no reason to work hard. What’s the point of working for a raise, when you’re taxed at maybe 60% (or more) depending the country?
[/quote]
Agree. They should outsource customer service just like the US.
What was the tax rate for the wealthy when the US economy was strongest, during the 50’s? You might be surprised. Tax rate and how hard someone is willing to work is just theory. All tax cuts do is increase the gap between rich and poor. [/quote]
What is a fact however is that beyond a certain point tax increases lead to less revenue.
So, if your goal is to maximize the income of the state, though it is beyond me why anyone would wantg that, tax increases are very often counter productive.
Both Reagan and Bush II raised more income tax monies by lowering the tax rates.
So there.
[/quote]
A. But they still increased the deficit by overspending.
B. How much of the extra revenue was due to the overspending? Spending more, with borrowed money, to increase revenue doesn’t make long term sense.
