Can you IMAGINE a socialist society, as John Lennon did? Will you work for it?

[Avatar4321]

Look, the USSR, Cuba, China, Venezuela, Sweden, etc. are not true socialist economies and the governments were hardly what Marxism or more recent socialist philosophies encompass.

And you want to know why? It's because true socialist economies are impossible. Socialism ignores human nature. You will never see it because it can't exist.

Why the heck is that so difficult to understand??? All you will end up is more carbon copies resulting in murder and death.

Under a truly socialist system you'd still have to work. Its just that you would own part of the company where you worked. You'd have a stake in it.

No you wouldnt because a true socialist system, one like Lennon was suggestion requires that no one owns anything.

You wouldn't be homeless and you wouldn't starve or die due to lack of medical care if you didn't work, but you wouldn't have much more than a place to live, food, and medical care.

And why the hell would anyone work if they can get the basics of life for free?

If you wanted a nice place to live, furniture, to eat out, to travel, to own a computer or cellphone, to access the internet from home, to own books or gear or anything beyond the necesseties you'd have to work. Not to mention that your community might not take very friendly to you if you didn't contribute, which working would contribute directly TO your community.

Then that's not socialism! You cant have socialism and private property.

You wouldn't be working for a paycheck, you'd be working to better your community; you wouldn't be working for wealthy people who pay you as little as they can get away with, you'd be working for you and your community, you'd work because you wanted a better life and a meaningful one instead of clinging to an unrealistic dream that you'll one day be wealthy and own lots of stuff. Life wouldn't be focused on the material but on the experiential.

Working for vague notions is not going to happen. No one would be motivated to produce wealth.

It wouldn't be that you graduate high school and go to college to get a job, then get a job and work until your an elderly person and then retire for a little while before you die; it would be that you graduate school and go to college to learn, then you work because you want to be a part of your community and contribute and benefit from living in an organized society (because why live in one otherwise?) and when you got older you'd retire and not worry about paying the bills or dying because medicare won't cover your healthcare, but instead you get to take a different role in contributing to your community and enjoy your golden years.

No it would be that you get old and society decides that theyd rather you were dead than pay for your medical bills. You see the problem with "free" medical coverage is those who are paying are going to avoid paying for those who they judge to be dying anyway.

However, you pose an interesting question. Why live in an organized society when they take away all liberty? Why live in a society that takes your spirit to live? Why live in a society that determines to kill you if you outlive your usefulness to them?

You see this ideal world where people labor without pay for others. Personally, I am against slavery.

And throughout your life, instead of work being your focus, you're able to spend more time with your wife or husband and with your kids as they grow up instead of working all the time until they grow up and move away

So when exactly are you going to work if you are spending so much time with your family? What's going to happen when people starve because they are spending time with their family instead of working?

It would be a wonderful world if we could avoid working and spend time with those we love all the time. But we'd have to ignore that we need to work to eat in order for that to be possible. The World would have to be physically changed to provide for our needs.

You won't worry about being fired because you want a raise but only because you don't do your job well.

Im sure thats going to motivate people to do their best! We can see how wel it's been working in France.

Do you people ever think of the consequences of your idealogical policies?

And you won't have to worry that you make so little compared to the cost of living that in order to maintain a quality of life and own a home you have to indebt yourself for 30 years or more.

You're right. Youd be dead within a few years unless this socialist utopia of you collapsed.

It isn't perfect, but its not about money. Its about life, community, freedom, and experience. Research it. Stop assuming you know what socialism is because you don't. It hasn't yet existed in the world.

I've researched it. You know how much blood has been spilt trying to force people to live your so called dream. Your dream is a nightmare to any thinking person.

If you only realized what the benefits of socialism truly are and give up your materialistic and unrealistic dreams of wealth and instead lived each day as a meaningful member of your community without undue worry about financial disaster because you lose your job and/or your house loses its value or you or someone in your family gets really sick. Let go of this idea that there is no competition in a socialist economy or that you don't have to work at all and can just leach of the system.

But there isnt competition in a socialist economy. Who exactly are you competing against if you are are giving everything you can possibly need? Why would you have to work if you are given food, shelter, medical care, etc just for being part of the society?

Seriously, who are you kidding?

People do that now in any system, both the very poor and the very wealthy. But if we got rid of the wealthy, you leach far more than the poor ever could, at least your tax dollars wouldn't go to already wealthy and would only go to the poor and the needy.

I get it, make everyone equally miserable. The reason capitalism works is because capitalism is the natural law of economics. It studies human nature and is successful because it goes with human nature instead of against it.

Socialism will never work because its completely contrary to human nature. Unless you can change human nature and the world itself, you will never get socialism to work.

Some great society. The government has totalitarian power, provides for the needs of everyone at the cost of the few honest people who work. There is a reason socialism is the bloodiest idealogy that ever existed.

 

[Avatar4321]

People simply dont have the faith to do it without God. You honestly think any sane person is going to put their faith in government? It's utterly insane.

Well, I have not figured out what kind of fanatic you are. Most of your post supports wealth, then you throw in a little religion in at the end. Do you know what a Christian Socialist is? Well, you are about to find out.

Christian socialism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel. The term "Christian Socialism" is used in this sense by organizations such as the Christian Socialist Movement.

Educate yourself if you are going to talk religion. This is your wake-up call!

Why would I have to educate myself on Christian socialism? I know what Christian socialism is. Im against it.

Christianity is completely contrary to socialism. Socialism is the imitation theology of the adversary. See, it mimicks true gospel principles to fool those who pride themselves on their intelligence.

 

[Avatar4321]

Now let's see who has more credibility to talk, John Lennon who dedicated his life to peace and other people, or Bauch...Baruch??? Mendelson...Menachem. Munchkin Bucket! That's it Munchkin Bucket or John Lennon? Ummm. I pick;

Anyone can claim to dedicate their life to peace.

Name anyone John Lennon has actually brought peace to.

How does it bring peace to steal the possessions of others from them?

How does it bring peace to give governments totalitarian power?

I can say I dedicate my life to peace. In fact, I do work for peace. But Im not arrogant and/or stupid enough to claim that makes me an expert on peace or that my actions have seriously changed anyones else.

Ironic how those who seek "peace" like John Lennon end up being the bloodiest idealogy in the history of the world isnt it?

 

[Avatar4321]

Coloradomtnman needs to move closer to sea level. Socialism may sound lovely in a song but it sucks in reality. Have you ever been in any socialist countries? If so, I don't think you'd really want that for America.

Ha ha. Big Black Dog needs to stop drinking out of the toilet and eating cat turds out of the litterbox!

Like I've said, true socialism has never existed. When people say things like "Socialism! Just look at Russia or China!", its like JBeukema saying "Christianity! Just look at the Spanish Inquisition or the witch trials of puritan New England!" Stalin was to socialism what Jim Jones was to Christianity. Does that help put some perspective on it? I mean, where is there true capitalism? And would you want to live somewhere that practices true, laissez-faire, unregulated capitalism?

Jim Jones was a socialist. So was Stalin. What a huge surprise that both their movements ended up in death.

 

[Agnapostate]

Still not any rightists capable of making informed comments about socialism? Why did I expect any differently?

 

[Baruch Menachem]

We can't make informed comments on moonbeans and opium dreams. We don't really know what you think socialism is. All kinds of places have promoted their new order as some variety of socialism. You have the socialism of Burma, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea, Hitler's Germany, Cuba, Russia, China.... take your pick. The reality of socialism as it winds up in real life rather than in fantasy is variations on an abattoir. Your fantasy is all nice and pretty and fully of rainbows and flowers, but the reality as the world has experienced it has been very different.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

Im against it.

This has got to be a record. I started to read your four posts, and quickly realized you were repeating yourself over, and over, and over. So, I got our a ruler. It looks like you wasted about 50" of thread.

It reminded me of something my dad would say when we saw a car with lots of bumper stickers. "There is a guy who doesn't know what he wants." And we would all laugh. My advice is sell your keyboard and take a class in editing. Nobody's going to spend an evening reading all your crap. You are angry, confused, and from what I saw, you have no idea what you are talking about.​

 

[Agnapostate]

We can't make informed comments on moonbeans and opium dreams. We don't really know what you think socialism is. All kinds of places have promoted their new order as some variety of socialism. You have the socialism of Burma, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea, Hitler's Germany, Cuba, Russia, China.... take your pick. The reality of socialism as it winds up in real life rather than in fantasy is variations on an abattoir. Your fantasy is all nice and pretty and fully of rainbows and flowers, but the reality as the world has experienced it has been very different.

That's a neat bundle of several moronic rightist fallacies about socialism wrapped in one package. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Avatar4321]

Im against it.

This has got to be a record. I started to read your four posts, and quickly realized you were repeating yourself over, and over, and over. So, I got our a ruler. It looks like you wasted about 50" of thread.​

What a surprise. You dont like what you are hearing so rather than show where it's wrong you stop reading. No wonder you fall for socialist nonsense.

It reminded me of something my dad would say when we saw a car with lots of bumper stickers. "There is a guy who doesn't know what he wants." And we would all laugh. My advice is sell your keyboard and take a class in editing. Nobody's going to spend an evening reading all your crap. You are angry, confused, and from what I saw, you have no idea what you are talking about.​

You dont have a clue what I said. You admitted you never read it. Why the hell should I care what someone who is too lazy to read thinks of what i wrote?​

 

[Derek_Plumber]

The reality of socialism as it winds up in real life rather than in fantasy is variations on an abattoir. Your fantasy is all nice and pretty and fully of rainbows and flowers, but the reality as the world has experienced it has been very different.

You're the only one talking about fantasy here.
Deal with this aspect of the American system as it now stands.

For God sakes keep them away from my yard.
We just spent $12,000 on a new sprinkler system.

We don't want these....these....whatever they are...they might break the lawn sprinklers!

Oh my wonderful lawn sprinklers.

How could I ever keep my lawn better than the neighbors without my beloved lawn sprinklers!​

 

[Derek_Plumber]

You dont have a clue what I said. You admitted you never read it. Why the hell should I care what someone who is too lazy to read thinks of what i wrote?

OK. You are right, but for the wrong reason. We get tough in these posts, but there are certain lines I do not like to cross. Semi-polite did not work with you. Frankly, your "documents" read like a 7th grade term paper. You lack the depth of understanding to write on the subject of socialism. So, I blew you off. Are you happy now?

Please stop wasting everyone's time. Your "documents" are there to read if someone wishes. Strange how no one, except you, is even talking about them. It is too long and lacks depth of understanding, nobody is reading it.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

We can't make informed comments on moonbeans and opium dreams. We don't really know what you think socialism is. All kinds of places have promoted their new order as some variety of socialism. You have the socialism of Burma, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea, Hitler's Germany, Cuba, Russia, China.... take your pick. The reality of socialism as it winds up in real life rather than in fantasy is variations on an abattoir. Your fantasy is all nice and pretty and fully of rainbows and flowers, but the reality as the world has experienced it has been very different.

That's a neat bundle of several moronic rightist fallacies about socialism wrapped in one package. Thanks for sharing.

You are quite welcome. But explain to me how your fantasies will differ? I can't imagine they started out from where they ended up. All you can offer is "It will be different." To which I, who look at the record each and every time can only say "Yeah... really."

 

[Derek_Plumber]

Imagine

 

[Baruch Menachem]

The reality of socialism as it winds up in real life rather than in fantasy is variations on an abattoir. Your fantasy is all nice and pretty and fully of rainbows and flowers, but the reality as the world has experienced it has been very different.

You're the only one talking about fantasy here.
Deal with this aspect of the American system as it now stands.

For God sakes keep them away from my yard.
We just spent $12,000 on a new sprinkler system.
​

<image deleted because it is silly>

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Capitalizm is bad because some folks can live well for whatever reason, and some folks live badly? If you are a druggy, an alky or whatever and you wind up homeless, that is your choice. Why should everyone suffer because a small minority can't keep their act together? You live your life and it is your choice. Some folks make very good choices. They will be an aristocracy in any system. Some folks make very bad choices. They are pretty much irrecoverable. A socialist system will not prevent the smart from living well, or the dumb from living badly, but because the dumb live badly, everyone else has to live a slave is a worse solution than the problem.

[/QUOTE]​

 

[Agnapostate]

You are quite welcome. But explain to me how your fantasies will differ? I can't imagine they started out from where they ended up. All you can offer is "It will be different." To which I, who look at the record each and every time can only say "Yeah... really."

What "record"? Your comment is based not on a sound analysis of socialist political economy, but is instead based on the popular misconception that the political/economic system of the USSR and related authoritarian states was in some manner "socialist" or "communist," when in fact its ideology of rule by a party elite was necessarily in conflict with the collective and participatory elements that legitimate socialism and communism necessitates. The political/economic system in question can thus best be described as state capitalist in nature, since it effectively replicated the social hierarchies present in capitalism, where the means of production are controlled by a tiny elite. The only distinction was that a corporate elite owns and manages the means of production in the capitalist economy, whereas a state elite owns and manages the means of production in a state capitalist (or coordinatorist) economy.

What you apparently miss is that this form of economic organization was universally condemned by anarchists and libertarian socialists. None of us would ever claim that the state capitalism of the USSR and the PRC represented a legitimate establishment of "socialism" or "communism," because that would be completely asinine. The anarchist Mikhail Bakunin prophetically predicted the authoritarian inclinations that excessive dependence on hierarchy in Marxist theory would bring out in 1871, almost 50 years prior to the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the state capitalist USSR. Aside from his observations that "if you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Czar himself" and "[w]hen the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick," he wrote this in his 1871 manuscript Statism and Anarchy:

Idealists of all kinds – metaphysicians, positivists, those who support the rule of science over life, doctrinaire revolutionists – all defend the idea of state and state power with equal eloquence, because they see in it, as a consequence of their own systems, the only salvation for society...This fiction of a pseudo-representative government serves to conceal the domination of the masses by a handful of privileged elite; an elite elected by hordes of people who are rounded up and do not know for whom or for what they vote. Upon this artificial and abstract expression of what they falsely imagine to be the will of the people and of which the real living people have not the least idea, they construct both the theory of statism as well as the theory of so-called revolutionary dictatorship.

The differences between revolutionary dictatorship and statism are superficial. Fundamentally they both represent the same principle of minority rule over the majority in the name of the alleged “stupidity” of the latter and the alleged “intelligence” of the former. Therefore they are both equally reactionary since both directly and inevitably must preserve and perpetuate the political and economic privileges of the ruling minority and the political and economic subjugation of the masses of the people.

Now it is clear why the dictatorial revolutionists, who aim to overthrow the existing powers and social structures in order to erect upon their ruins their own dictatorships, never were or will be the enemies of government, but, to the contrary, always will be the most ardent promoters of the government idea. They are the enemies only of contemporary governments, because they wish to replace them. They are the enemies of the present governmental structure, because it excludes the possibility of their dictatorship. At the same time they are the most devoted friends of governmental power. For if the revolution destroyed this power by actually freeing the masses, it would deprive this pseudo-revolutionary minority of any hope to harness the masses in order to make them the beneficiaries of their own government policy.

We have already expressed several times our deep aversion to the theory of Lassalle and Marx, which recommends to the workers, if not as a final ideal at least as the next immediate goal, the founding of a people’s state, which according to their interpretation will be nothing but “the proletariat elevated to the status of the governing class.”

More than that, the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin recognized the authoritarian, anti-socialist nature of the Bolshevik regime immediately after the Russian Revolution. In a 1920 letter to Lenin he writes this:

Russia has already become a Soviet Republic only in name. The influx and taking over of the people by the 'party,' that is, predominantly the newcomers (the ideological communists are more in the urban centers), has already destroyed the influence and constructive energy of this promising institution - the soviets. At present, it is the party committees, not the soviets, who rule in Russia. And their organization suffers from the defects of bureaucratic organization. To move away from the current disorder, Russia must return to the creative genius of local forces which, as I see it, can be a factor in the creation of a new life.And the sooner that the necessity of this way is understood, the better. People will then be all the more likely to accept [new] social forms of life. If the present situation continues, the very word 'socialism' will turn into a curse. That is what happened to the conception of equality in France for forty years after the rule of the Jacobins.

Though many now lament the consequences of establishing "socialism," it is and always has been anarchists who were quick to predict the inevitable failure of the establishment of authoritarian social doctrines masquerading as "socialism," and accordingly, it was anarchists who were the first to be eliminated after the establishment of the state capitalist dictatorship. It's thus rather absurd to lecture libertarian socialists about the alleged failure of their doctrine, as so many unfortunately do, and all in all, my belief is that the anti-socialists' desperation to cling to the falsity that the Soviet Union or its state capitalist ideology was socialist reveals the fact that they have no other arguments against socialism to provide.

Now...are you looking for an example of legitimate socialism? That's a relatively simple task; just examine the implementation of libertarian socialism and anarchism in Catalonia, Aragon, and elsewhere during the social revolution that occurred during the Spanish Civil War, which has come to be known as the Spanish Revolution. As noted by Gaston Leval:

In Spain, during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties . . . this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was very quickly collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high-salaried managers, or the authority of the state.

Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They co-ordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity . . .

This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other.

It's thus always seemed tremendously ironic that professed support of libertarian socialism is depicted as naive or utopian while professed support of laissez-faire capitalism is an acceptable mainstream position in many liberal democracies, considering that the former has been implemented whereas the latter has not.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

But explain to me how your fantasies will differ?

Look, we are talking hard-ball politics about socialism.
You are talking about fantasy.
You are in the wrong thread.
Go home Peter Pan.​

 

[Baruch Menachem]

I have to admit I am not interested in reading your screen dump. It is tedious and evasive and dishonest in the first sentence.

The fundamental problem is you start in one place, you follow a set path, and your destination is assured. There are random fluctuations here and there, but you follow that path, you will wind up in the same place.

Vegas loves people who think this way. They are called "system Betters." They try over and over to use their cool system to get past the reality that the table is set, and they will lose.

 

[Agnapostate]

I have to admit I am not interested in reading your screen dump.

Then shut your mouth and fuck off, idiot. I'm not interested in your stupid regurgitations if they're simply repeated after being rebutted.

 

[Political Junky]

Look, the USSR, Cuba, China, Venezuela, Sweden, etc. are not true socialist economies and the governments were hardly what Marxism or more recent socialist philosophies encompass.

And you want to know why? It's because true socialist economies are impossible. Socialism ignores human nature. You will never see it because it can't exist.

Why the heck is that so difficult to understand??? All you will end up is more carbon copies resulting in murder and death.

Under a truly socialist system you'd still have to work. Its just that you would own part of the company where you worked. You'd have a stake in it.

No you wouldnt because a true socialist system, one like Lennon was suggestion requires that no one owns anything.



And why the hell would anyone work if they can get the basics of life for free?




Then that's not socialism! You cant have socialism and private property.



Working for vague notions is not going to happen. No one would be motivated to produce wealth.



No it would be that you get old and society decides that theyd rather you were dead than pay for your medical bills. You see the problem with "free" medical coverage is those who are paying are going to avoid paying for those who they judge to be dying anyway.

However, you pose an interesting question. Why live in an organized society when they take away all liberty? Why live in a society that takes your spirit to live? Why live in a society that determines to kill you if you outlive your usefulness to them?

You see this ideal world where people labor without pay for others. Personally, I am against slavery.




So when exactly are you going to work if you are spending so much time with your family? What's going to happen when people starve because they are spending time with their family instead of working?

It would be a wonderful world if we could avoid working and spend time with those we love all the time. But we'd have to ignore that we need to work to eat in order for that to be possible. The World would have to be physically changed to provide for our needs.



Im sure thats going to motivate people to do their best! We can see how wel it's been working in France.

Do you people ever think of the consequences of your idealogical policies?




You're right. Youd be dead within a few years unless this socialist utopia of you collapsed.



I've researched it. You know how much blood has been spilt trying to force people to live your so called dream. Your dream is a nightmare to any thinking person.

If you only realized what the benefits of socialism truly are and give up your materialistic and unrealistic dreams of wealth and instead lived each day as a meaningful member of your community without undue worry about financial disaster because you lose your job and/or your house loses its value or you or someone in your family gets really sick. Let go of this idea that there is no competition in a socialist economy or that you don't have to work at all and can just leach of the system.

But there isnt competition in a socialist economy. Who exactly are you competing against if you are are giving everything you can possibly need? Why would you have to work if you are given food, shelter, medical care, etc just for being part of the society?

Seriously, who are you kidding?

People do that now in any system, both the very poor and the very wealthy. But if we got rid of the wealthy, you leach far more than the poor ever could, at least your tax dollars wouldn't go to already wealthy and would only go to the poor and the needy.

I get it, make everyone equally miserable. The reason capitalism works is because capitalism is the natural law of economics. It studies human nature and is successful because it goes with human nature instead of against it.

Socialism will never work because its completely contrary to human nature. Unless you can change human nature and the world itself, you will never get socialism to work.

Some great society. The government has totalitarian power, provides for the needs of everyone at the cost of the few honest people who work. There is a reason socialism is the bloodiest idealogy that ever existed.

I personally think selfishness is not part of human nature.
One would think those who claim to be Christian wouldn't either.

 

[SW2SILVERQUASI]

We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto. If say, John D. Rockefeller could have earned his chops singing instead, and was born in Liverpool in the mid twentieth century instead? Come on. Lennon made millions of dollars off of that socialist persona of his. Imagine that, he was a materialist wealthy neurotic phony. He knew it, and so did we. I like the guy, but I also realize how empty his lyrics were, none the less.