- Moderator
- #61
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.