Is Socialism a good thing?
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  Is Socialism a good thing?
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Question: Is Socialism a good thing?
#1
Yes it is.
 
#2
No it isn't.
 
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Total Voters: 128

Author Topic: Is Socialism a good thing?  (Read 10943 times)
538Electoral
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« on: September 12, 2019, 09:56:01 AM »

I'm particularly curious as to whether a majority here on the Atlas support socialism and all the negative consequences that will come with it.
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Vittorio
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« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2019, 10:03:51 AM »

Socialism isn't a political platform subject to anyone's 'support'.
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parochial boy
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« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2019, 10:09:53 AM »

I suspect that most people will form a definition of Socialism so as to conform to their pre-existing conception of whether it is a good thing or not.

Obviously, the policies I tend to be most supportive of usually fall into the wide umbrella of « things that could be called socialist » and as such I tend to see the definition of socialism through that prysm and therefore as a positive thing
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LAKISYLVANIA
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« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2019, 10:11:43 AM »

What is socialism?

It depends. Under my definition it definitely is.
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TML
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« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2019, 10:26:07 AM »

Let me give you some words of wisdom from a historical Democratic president:

Quote
Senator [Robert] Taft left that meeting and told the press what the General stands for. Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is "creeping socialism." Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
 Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.

 Socialism is what they called farm price supports.

 Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

 Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

 Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

 When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.

 What he really means is, "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That is what he means.

If today's Democrats heeded those words of wisdom, they would not be cowering and shriveling in the face of attacks on their policy proposals as "socialism" - they would instead be fighting back with words along the lines of "If that's what they call socialism, then we're proud to be socialists!"
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538Electoral
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« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2019, 10:34:08 AM »

What is socialism?

It depends. Under my definition it definitely is.

For me, Socialism represents higher taxes for everyone and other things I think would be undesirable.

You're allowed to say Socialism is a good thing and have a different understanding. But under my definition, Socialism should be the last thing anyone should want outside of outright communism. Just my opinion.
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dead0man
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« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2019, 10:36:12 AM »

like with most things....
-a little of it is fine
-a moderate amount can be fine or it can be not so fine, depends on what you want and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get it
-a lot of it is bad


you may now return to hacking at each other
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538Electoral
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« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2019, 10:37:43 AM »

like with most things....
-a little of it is fine
-a moderate amount can be fine or it can be not so fine, depends on what you want and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get it
-a lot of it is bad


you may now return to hacking at each other

You may be right. I guess a little socialism couldn't hurt. I just worry that becoming a socialist country could set the stage for us becoming outright communist.
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LAKISYLVANIA
Lakigigar
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« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2019, 10:40:06 AM »

What is socialism?

It depends. Under my definition it definitely is.

For me, Socialism represents higher taxes for everyone and other things I think would be undesirable.

You're allowed to say Socialism is a good thing and have a different understanding. But under my definition, Socialism should be the last thing anyone should want outside of outright communism. Just my opinion.

I understand and I respect your opinion. Smile I might change my opinion as well, but I see socialism as democratic socialism or the ideology of Sanders. There is also a change in culture, we are used to a socialist system. Maybe if i'd ever in America, i would have a different experience of how it works.

The ideal system is a progressive tax system with tax cuts for the working class and lower middle class and tax increases for the rich class (depending on where they stand now, because sometimes they're already good). If i would be in America, i would decrease military's expenditure and use that money to cut taxes or invest somewhere else in (health, infrastructure, education (lower tuition fees). Socialism is redistribution of wealth and the goods, and some balance is needed, and it has advantages and disadvantages, but I can understand people who say socialism is bad, and i've moderated my position recently on it.
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Vittorio
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« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2019, 10:42:05 AM »

What is socialism?

It depends. Under my definition it definitely is.

For me, Socialism represents higher taxes for everyone and other things I think would be undesirable.

You're allowed to say Socialism is a good thing and have a different understanding. But under my definition, Socialism should be the last thing anyone should want outside of outright communism. Just my opinion.

Socialism (which, properly understood, is synonymous with Communism and was used as such by Marx, Engels etc.) abolishes money. Taxation is a capitalist financing schema; and wealth redistribution is impossible upon the abolition of wealth.
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LAKISYLVANIA
Lakigigar
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« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2019, 10:43:00 AM »

like with most things....
-a little of it is fine
-a moderate amount can be fine or it can be not so fine, depends on what you want and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get it
-a lot of it is bad


you may now return to hacking at each other

You may be right. I guess a little socialism couldn't hurt. I just worry that becoming a socialist country could set the stage for us becoming outright communist.

There are a lot of social democrat countries in Europe where it never set the stage for outright communism. But I understand how controversial it in America is and for what reason. Also, America is a big country, and maybe it should be left up to the states to take care of healthcare, college and all. We in the EU are not united in our views as well, and the states differ a lot from each other.
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dead0man
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« Reply #11 on: September 12, 2019, 10:43:21 AM »

You may be right. I guess a little socialism couldn't hurt. I just worry that becoming a socialist country could set the stage for us becoming outright communist.
Only the very far left want to nationalize important industries....thankfully.  They are not in charge and probably never will be.  We don't want them to go away either, it's good to have people around to keep our arguments against them strong.  If they go away for generation, we may forget why it was such bad idea and try it again.  Plus it gives a place for the nutters to go.  If you take away the nutters home, they might move in with you.
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Goldwater
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« Reply #12 on: September 12, 2019, 11:41:14 AM »

My preferred economic system is fundamentally capitalistic. Now, obviously there should be some government regulations and public programs, but I wouldn't really call that "socialism".
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Santander
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« Reply #13 on: September 12, 2019, 11:42:32 AM »

Socialism requires that government becomes your God.
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PSOL
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« Reply #14 on: September 12, 2019, 12:12:35 PM »

Socialism requires that government becomes your God.
Your point is refuted with the existence of Anarchism.
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parochial boy
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« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2019, 12:21:18 PM »

What is socialism?

It depends. Under my definition it definitely is.

For me, Socialism represents higher taxes for everyone and other things I think would be undesirable.

You're allowed to say Socialism is a good thing and have a different understanding. But under my definition, Socialism should be the last thing anyone should want outside of outright communism. Just my opinion.

Socialism (which, properly understood, is synonymous with Communism and was used as such by Marx, Engels etc.) ...
Maybe in its original conception, but language is a negotatiation and words really only mean what we understand them as meaning in our communication with each other. So just as we have to accept that "will" is no longer a synonym of "want"; and that "literally" is becoming a synonym of "figuratively", we have to accept that "Socialism" has transformed from its original meaning into the ill-defined abstract term that it is now.
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Karpatsky
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« Reply #16 on: September 12, 2019, 03:00:23 PM »

It is a bad thing as a word, as it has become one of the most meaningless terms in modern political discourse and leads people to talk past each other endlessly without any actual communication taking place.
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lfromnj
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« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2019, 11:26:57 PM »

Socialism requires that government becomes your God.
Your point is refuted with the existence of Anarchism.

And how do you propose to prevent mutually consensual contracts called  a job using anarchism?
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Goldwater
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« Reply #18 on: September 13, 2019, 10:46:30 AM »

Socialism requires that government becomes your God.
Your point is refuted with the existence of Anarchism.

And how do you propose to prevent mutually consensual contracts called  a job using anarchism?

You see, that's a trick question, because it's impossible to do anything using anarchism.
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Yellowhammer
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« Reply #19 on: September 13, 2019, 01:06:01 PM »

There is not one thing good about it
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HillGoose
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« Reply #20 on: September 13, 2019, 03:43:09 PM »

no it is very bad. collectivism is a plague
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Velasco
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« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2019, 08:22:45 PM »

like with most things....
-a little of it is fine
-a moderate amount can be fine or it can be not so fine, depends on what you want and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get it
-a lot of it is bad


you may now return to hacking at each other

You may be right. I guess a little socialism couldn't hurt. I just worry that becoming a socialist country could set the stage for us becoming outright communist.

What's your idea of a "socialist country"? What do you mean with that? Is there any difference between a "socialist country" and a "communist country"? Do you think the USA will become a "socialist country" anytime soon?

no it is very bad. collectivism is a plague

What is "collectivism"?

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HillGoose
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« Reply #22 on: September 15, 2019, 11:19:42 AM »

like with most things....
-a little of it is fine
-a moderate amount can be fine or it can be not so fine, depends on what you want and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get it
-a lot of it is bad


you may now return to hacking at each other

You may be right. I guess a little socialism couldn't hurt. I just worry that becoming a socialist country could set the stage for us becoming outright communist.

What's your idea of a "socialist country"? What do you mean with that? Is there any difference between a "socialist country" and a "communist country"? Do you think the USA will become a "socialist country" anytime soon?

no it is very bad. collectivism is a plague

What is "collectivism"?



collectivism is when people think you should do stuff for them just because they exist even when they haven't done anything for you.

it's all a big scam so that the "community" grows so strong it will sacrifice you for a greater good that doesn't even exist.
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Vittorio
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« Reply #23 on: September 15, 2019, 11:32:11 AM »

like with most things....
-a little of it is fine
-a moderate amount can be fine or it can be not so fine, depends on what you want and how much you're willing to sacrifice to get it
-a lot of it is bad


you may now return to hacking at each other

You may be right. I guess a little socialism couldn't hurt. I just worry that becoming a socialist country could set the stage for us becoming outright communist.

What's your idea of a "socialist country"? What do you mean with that? Is there any difference between a "socialist country" and a "communist country"? Do you think the USA will become a "socialist country" anytime soon?

no it is very bad. collectivism is a plague

What is "collectivism"?



collectivism is when people think you should do stuff for them just because they exist even when they haven't done anything for you.

it's all a big scam so that the "community" grows so strong it will sacrifice you for a greater good that doesn't even exist.

Marxism is neither "collectivistic" (as its libertarian critics have it), nor radically individualistic (as its conservative critics condemn it for). It rather understands this dualistic opposition as the product of bourgeois society, predicated as it is rhetorically on individualism while producing 'collectivistic' forms of organizations (corporations, nations, races, classes) to preserve this 'individuality', and all the contradictions arising therefrom ("nation of individualists" etc.). It understands that contemporary 'individualism' is a marketing scheme, as with Hot Topic shirts produced for mass sale; it understands that contemporary 'collectivism' serves to defend its opposite, as with the institutions of the Church and their obsequience to capitalism.

Quote
Communism is quite incomprehensible to our saint (Max Stirner - ed.) because the communists do not oppose egoism to selflessness or selflessness to egoism, nor do they express this contradiction theoretically either in its sentimental or in its high-flown ideological form; they rather demonstrate its material source, with which it disappears of itself. The communists do not preach morality at all, as Stirner does so extensively. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as selflessness, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals.

Hence, the communists by no means want....  to do away with the “private individual” for the sake of the “general”, selfless man. That is a figment of the imagination concerning which both of them could already have found the necessary explanation in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Communist theoreticians, the only communists who have time to devote to the study of history, are distinguished precisely by the fact that they alone have discovered that throughout history the “general interest” is created by individuals who are defined as “private persons”. They know that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, what is called the “general interest”, is constantly being produced by the other side, private interest, and in relation to the latter it is by no means an independent force with an independent history — so that this contradiction is in practice constantly destroyed and reproduced. Hence it is not a question of the Hegelian “negative unity” of two sides of a contradiction, but of the materially determined destruction of the preceding materially determined mode of life of individuals, with the disappearance of which this contradiction together with its unity also disappears.

- The German Ideology, Chapter III, "The New Testament: Ego"
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Sirius_
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« Reply #24 on: September 16, 2019, 09:43:33 PM »

No, I ultimately believe that the social market system is best for us, at least for now. It does incorporate some "socialist" elements of regulations and welfare, which in these doses, as Dead0man said, are beneficial and necessary. Of course socialism is such a broad term that it can't really be defined in one way and thus can change some opinions. But if we consider socialism to be the hard/non-market form of government planning and ownership of resources and whatnot, it is obviously flawed as seen by previous examples. The system makes corruption much too easy when resources are in the hands of so few. Capitalism spreads resources across a greater number of people and organizations, and while unlimited capitalism can result in centralization as well, social market policies have been most effective in preventing corruption than either extreme. To whoever argues that money would be abolished, without debating the logistics of resource distribution without it abolishing money is unfeasible without a united Earth as international transactions would become impossible and self-sufficiency is simply not possible in this era.
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