Socialism

Originally Posted by Ruffy

Socialism is fine in theory: Equality in everything.

Unfortunately, human nature is inherently selfish and some always want to be more equal than others!

Bingo!
Human greed out ways everything else including the lives of others.

Originally Posted by Law

Libertarian socialism sounds good.*

Give in to the libertarian in you..... you know you want to

Will socialism work? ? Well Labour's effort hasn't!

Originally Posted by Law

Maybe if we had a government that stayed for the foreseeable future then maybe that'll be better.

Sadly it wouldn't. As you've realised, the longer government actually stays in power, the more tyrannical they become.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Sadly it wouldn't. As you've realised, the longer government actually stays in power, the more tyrannical they become.

Case in point, "our" government.

[northwind]

Well, a capitalist-democratic model isn't incompatible with socialism... Only when allowed to run to extremes does the greed of the few become more important than the needs of many. Which is exactly what we have now.

The fact is, we're already in a potentially post-poverty world, we could supply the basic needs of the world right now- food, water, basic medicine. Yet we don't. Everyone's seen the stats like the fact that the richest 2% of people in the world control half of the world's wealth, while the 50% of the people who are in the poorer half of the world's population control 1% of the wealth. Personally, I can't see how anyone can possibly defend that, it's not even easy to comprehend let alone justify. And of course, a lot of the labour of the poorest 50% goes straight to the richest 2%.

Unrestricted capitalism is obviously a problem, it's a machine designed to condense the wealth of the world into the hands of the smallest possible minority. Unrestricted socialism I think is just as bad, since human beings just basically aren't very nice to each other a lot of the time, you can't build a system and not take into account human nature, it just won't work. So just like anything else, the best approach is probably somewhere in the middle.

Course, that's a long way from saying we should all be equal. I don't think we should personally... I don't think it's at all workable, so whether it's desirable or not doesn't matter in the slightest, but I don't think it's desirable either. But we could sustain a massive rebalancing of wealth without shorting ourselves. The best model is the famous "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"- the reason I say this is that it imposes a condition on support (to be part of the equation you have to give according to your ability), and it doesn't enforce equal division (because there is always a surplus after the satisfaction of the basic needs). It's a simple model that works. What's left over can be distributed in different ways once needs are met.

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Or you can leave it in the hands of the government, who unlike the private sector have no long term vested interests, only the next election.

CEOs are essentially in the same position, they're short-term stewards whose interests don't neccesarily mirror those of the company. We've seen all too clearly lately that the idea of big business and the financial markets as self-managing and self-protecting is just a fairytale, no more real than the idea of governments as the custodians of public interest. And every company is judged by its last year or its last quarter. Companies commit acts of financial insanity daily. And when enough of them do it, it can plunge you into a world recession. Sound familiar?

[Sid Squid]

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

Will socialism work? ? Well Labour's effort hasn't!

Labour?

Socialism?

Some mistake surely.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

Will socialism work? ? Well Labour's effort hasn't!

Not socialism.

<Damn, I got outrun by a squid again>

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

Give in to the libertarian in you..... you know you want to

Will socialism work? ? Well Labour's effort hasn't!

No thanks. I prefer being apathetic about everything.

Ooh, Utopian socialism sounds even better! It'll be just like Star Trek!

I know human nature means equality will never happen, but it'll be great if it did, and I have a very small glimmer of hope inside, wishing it could.

[yorkie_chris]

They seem to have taken russia in the 80's as a model though, a pointless and unwinnable war in afghanistan, going toward total control of the states subjects (we're not citizens, we're not armed.), massive bureaucracy, next ID cards, then it will be needing to show your papers to travel between counties.

Why would anybody WANT to be equal? What the hell would be the point in living? Guaranteed a long, pointless life, working for the same wage as every other bugger. The chance of a good job, being BETTER than the council estate scum, and the dead-enders is the only reason I get out of bed in a morning.

People aren't equal, get over it.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

.... being BETTER than the council estate scum,

Better than me then