Socialism Is Always Doomed to Fail

[arkirk]

You mean...he doesn't care about...the forgotten man???

What do you think? Oil company executives in high places. Bolton running our foreign policy. Pruitt dismantling EPA. Attacks on immigrants. Homeless encampments in major cities and a crackpot in charge of HUD. I don't think he is very bright. He has a one track mind and it really does not think about any common man. It may just be beyond his mental capacity. Money...does not automatically make a person smart.

 

[BH]

I don't think socialism failed. it just did not work in such a way to be pleasing to certain subsegments of the population used to a whole lot more than socialism would have given them. To say socialism failed because the Soviet Union fell apart is like saying republicanism and democracy failed because it didn't provide the former aristocracy with welath and power it had under the old regime. Me? Who cares about them. You could argue too democracy and republicanism failed because the first French Republic devolved back into a monarchy. You try new things, find out what works, find out what to do better next time. France has been a stable democracy and republic since the end of World War Two.

 

[arkirk]

Abstract
Legal systems often rule that people own objects in their territory. We propose that an early-developing ability to make territory-based inferences of ownership helps children address informational demands presented by ownership. Across 6 experiments (N = 504), we show that these inferences develop between ages 3 and 5 and stem from two aspects of the psychology of ownership. First, we find that a basic ability to infer that people own objects in their territory is already present at age 3 (Experiment 1). Children even make these inferences when the territory owner unintentionally acquired the objects and was unaware of them (Experiments 2 and 3). Second, we find that between ages 3 and 5, children come to consider past events in these judgments. They move from solely considering the current location of an object in territory-based inferences, to also considering and possibly inferring where it originated (Experiments 4 to 6). Together, these findings suggest that territory-based inferences of ownership are unlikely to be constructions of the law. Instead, they may reflect basic intuitions about ownership that operate from early in development.

There is a natural instinct towards property ownership. This is probably why all hitherto experiments of collectivization or social ownership fail or do poorly. (Soviet Union; Venezuela; Maoist China.) Let's be mindful of our own human natural instincts to avoid calamity in the future.

This matter of ownership is actually a matter of custom and not innate. The truth is we are only borrowing even our own material being from nature. If we cannot learn to share, we shall perish. We will anyway. When so much is claimed to be owned by so few, they have to hire armies of bookkeepers to keep it straight and it always goes ass up in the end. Ancient cultures would have jubilees about every fifty years. What was the last time you took a breath? Whose air were you breathing? You seem to want us to live by some sort of law of the jungle. Maybe you should move to the jungle.

 

[BH]

Are there natural instincts to want to own other people like blacks and harem slaves?

And if there are should we be allowed to give in to them?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

What is it when the government owns the insurance plan, like Social Security, if it isn't socialism?

Yes. Also government owned utility companies.

The US has what is actually known as a "mixed economy." It has aspects of Laissez Faire, aspects of Keynesianism, aspects of Monetarism, aspects of Social Safety Net, aspects of Socialism, etc.

 

[untermensche]

What is it when the government owns the insurance plan, like Social Security, if it isn't socialism?

Yes. Also government owned utility companies.

The US has what is actually known as a "mixed economy." It has aspects of Laissez Faire, aspects of Keynesianism, aspects of Monetarism, aspects of Social Safety Net, aspects of Socialism, etc.

If you have a federal military you are a socialist, not capitalist, nation.

Capitalists use socialism to protect themselves.

Doing it themselves would be much more expensive.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

If you say so.

 

[untermensche]

If you say so.

What part of capitalism says you tax everybody to buy a product the government controls?

Capitalism is about private ownership. A privately owned army is capitalism.

Socialism is about a national defense paid for by taxes.

Capitalists uses socialism to protect themselves. Hypocrites the lot of them.

 

[coloradoatheist]

If you say so.

What part of capitalism says you tax everybody to buy a product the government controls?

Capitalism is about private ownership. A privately owned army is capitalism.

Socialism is about a national defense paid for by taxes.

Capitalists uses socialism to protect themselves. Hypocrites the lot of them.

No, that's approaching anarchy. Two basic tenets of govt, protect the community from outsiders, and being an impartial judge between internal parties.

 

[untermensche]

If you say so.

What part of capitalism says you tax everybody to buy a product the government controls?

Capitalism is about private ownership. A privately owned army is capitalism.

Socialism is about a national defense paid for by taxes.

Capitalists uses socialism to protect themselves. Hypocrites the lot of them.

No, that's approaching anarchy. Two basic tenets of govt, protect the community from outsiders, and being an impartial judge between internal parties.

Capitalists have no government. They are a bunch of Atlas shruggers.

They use governments.

They exploit governments. They exploit all things. That explains capitalism in a nutshell.

They use socialism when it comes to important things like defense.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I don't think socialism failed. it just did not work in such a way to be pleasing to certain subsegments of the population used to a whole lot more than socialism would have given them. To say socialism failed because the Soviet Union fell apart is like saying republicanism and democracy failed because it didn't provide the former aristocracy with welath and power it had under the old regime. Me? Who cares about them. You could argue too democracy and republicanism failed because the first French Republic devolved back into a monarchy. You try new things, find out what works, find out what to do better next time. France has been a stable democracy and republic since the end of World War Two.

I actually agree with you here. USSR didn't fail. It's just that it's standard of living was far far west that the west.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think socialism failed. it just did not work in such a way to be pleasing to certain subsegments of the population used to a whole lot more than socialism would have given them. To say socialism failed because the Soviet Union fell apart is like saying republicanism and democracy failed because it didn't provide the former aristocracy with welath and power it had under the old regime. Me? Who cares about them. You could argue too democracy and republicanism failed because the first French Republic devolved back into a monarchy. You try new things, find out what works, find out what to do better next time. France has been a stable democracy and republic since the end of World War Two.

Russia wasn't anything like socialist and thus it's failure says nothing about socialism.

Rather, look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela for the reality of socialism.

 

[BH]

If any of you know, is there a website I can read that discusses Oskar Lange's side/theories in the Great Calculation debate he had with Ludwig Von Mises?

 

[arkirk]

If any of you know, is there a website I can read that discusses Oskar Lange's side/theories in the Great Calculation debate he had with Ludwig Von Mises?

Or the system of justice studied and suggested by John Rawls? Socialism is not just the worst most attacked forms of itself. It can be democratic. It can work for long periods of time. It can solve many of the problems we deal with very poorly today because our leaders act like primitive tribal leaders with extremely narcissistic behavior on the international front. There are a lot of ways to approach socialism. It need not be a system that converts people into dogma driven robots. It need not be headed by a dictator. It need not be shot through with injustice. These claims are all bullshit based on systems that were attacked from the outside with the goal of destroying them. Do not listen to people allied with the destroyers...our military and our Covert Capitalist Empire Maintenance System. These people have an axe to grind...and once ground it could easily be used to chop off your head.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I don't think socialism failed. it just did not work in such a way to be pleasing to certain subsegments of the population used to a whole lot more than socialism would have given them. To say socialism failed because the Soviet Union fell apart is like saying republicanism and democracy failed because it didn't provide the former aristocracy with welath and power it had under the old regime. Me? Who cares about them. You could argue too democracy and republicanism failed because the first French Republic devolved back into a monarchy. You try new things, find out what works, find out what to do better next time. France has been a stable democracy and republic since the end of World War Two.

Russia wasn't anything like socialist and thus it's failure says nothing about socialism.

Rather, look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela for the reality of socialism.

Well, the means of production in the USSR were owned/controlled by the government. They had no private ownership. There was no stock market. And the original drafters of the country believed that the country would eventually be turned over to the collective. That is a pretty close definition of classical socialism.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The problem with that is not that the USSR didn't fit the classical definition of Socialism. It's that it failed. Therefore it wasn't real Socialism.

 

[arkirk]

The problem with that is not that the USSR didn't fit the classical definition of Socialism. It's that it failed. Therefore it wasn't real Socialism.

Jason you keep missing the point. A system of governance can be democratic. You seem to think there is no hope but to install a dictator and also concern yourself way too much about how the money and ownership gets distributed. Something akin to ownership needs to be in place in any system, but its primary purpose for existing is meeting the needs of its citizens with a minimum of injustice. There are people who have spent their lives investigating how to make this happen but so many of us are so brainwashed and think we know it all, when we are just scratching the surface of the knowledge needed for our society to survive this century.

Who owns what is nowhere near as important as what happens to what. Does it get blown up? Does it get chemically processed? Does it get stolen? Competition and cooperation are two different means of achieving some kind of results. The more we learn how to cooperate, the safer and more peaceful the world is. The more we escalate our competition and place the contest in the prime determining position in our thoughts, the more our world resembles the Middle east...especially that part of it most of the world calls Palestine. We have to drop the pretense that we are the good guys and those other people are crazed fanatics. You may believe they are fanatical and there are a number of fanatics in the world. We need to turn their heat down...not escalate our differences. I am sure that socialism could work if we could only modify our behavior and stop believing "dogs eating dogs" is the ONLY HUMAN STORY..

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think socialism failed. it just did not work in such a way to be pleasing to certain subsegments of the population used to a whole lot more than socialism would have given them. To say socialism failed because the Soviet Union fell apart is like saying republicanism and democracy failed because it didn't provide the former aristocracy with welath and power it had under the old regime. Me? Who cares about them. You could argue too democracy and republicanism failed because the first French Republic devolved back into a monarchy. You try new things, find out what works, find out what to do better next time. France has been a stable democracy and republic since the end of World War Two.

Russia wasn't anything like socialist and thus it's failure says nothing about socialism.

Rather, look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela for the reality of socialism.

Well, the means of production in the USSR were owned/controlled by the government. They had no private ownership. There was no stock market. And the original drafters of the country believed that the country would eventually be turned over to the collective. That is a pretty close definition of classical socialism.

There were noises made about turning it over to the people but it was obviously nothing like that would ever happen. It was a dictatorship masquerading as the prelude to socialism.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I don't think socialism failed. it just did not work in such a way to be pleasing to certain subsegments of the population used to a whole lot more than socialism would have given them. To say socialism failed because the Soviet Union fell apart is like saying republicanism and democracy failed because it didn't provide the former aristocracy with welath and power it had under the old regime. Me? Who cares about them. You could argue too democracy and republicanism failed because the first French Republic devolved back into a monarchy. You try new things, find out what works, find out what to do better next time. France has been a stable democracy and republic since the end of World War Two.

Russia wasn't anything like socialist and thus it's failure says nothing about socialism.

Rather, look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela for the reality of socialism.

We had the disaster in the USA of the Great Depression. And of course that hit hard in German and elsewhere. Do we then conclude capitalism is bad? We have the systems of the Scandinavian nations some call socialism that work rather well. So what represents socialism? Venezuela or Sweden? Zimbabwe was not socialism as per se. It was confiscation of white farms on the grounds that whites had dispossessed black farmers and that was theft being undone. whether that was correct or poorly handled is not really an issue of socialism. And we can point to the problems here in the USA with the poverty and incompetent systems of red Southern states, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas and Louisiana. Capitalism right wing style is not really that successful there is it? If it wasn't for large sums of money sent to these parasite states from the blue donor states we would have Venezuela happening there. Mismanagement isn't really about socialism vs capitalism.

 

[untermensche]

We had the disaster in the USA of the Great Depression. And of course that hit hard in German and elsewhere. Do we then conclude capitalism is bad?...

Do Christians ever conclude a god that allows little puppies to suffer at the hands of sadistic humans is bad?