Is socialism an inevitable future?

[tererun]

I ask this question due to the technological and industrial advancements of the human race.

Wold employment is based on things lie man hours which is a measurement of the needed work and time that is needed to accomplish the job by a worker. A century or so ago manual labor was the only way to complete task, and workers or slaves were required to do things. We are heading down a road of technology where less and less human workers are required to reach goals due to machines. in some cases machines are much more efficient and able to handle the tass of many workers.

There are still areas and reasons to use humans in manufacturing positions. Despite the advances of machines the human being is still able to perform multiple very different functions that make them versatile enough to be superior to machines in some cases. This is coming to an end in many areas as machines are becoming more and more versatile, and much less expensive.

As we advance our technology in machine versatility including robots and improved computing abilities due to better learning computers and networking we need less and less man hours to accomplish our tasks. This advancement is accelerating, and each year we have more and more people in the world and less work to do.

In my opinion we have already come to a point where the forty hour workweek is already obsolete. humans can accomplish much more than they used to in 40 hours due to our advancements, and we just simply need less manufacturing and farming labor to keep up with the needs of the human race even in this day where we have more things than ever. One of the reasons i see that the US is presently in a unemployment problem is that we simply do not need the labor here in the country to keep up with our needs.

of course, it is cheaper to hire a person from another country at a lower wage than it is to develop some of our technology further.

Even areas like customer service and call center work have seen a decrease in the need for workers. As we look in areas of things like customer service we are using automated machines to answer simple commonly asked questions that eliminate the need for phone operators. The movie rental business is all but wiped out by media streaming, and things like redbox.

The way I see it is as our technology advances we have to admit to needing less human work. This leads me to realize that a more socialist view becomes far more applicable to our society than capitalistic working for a paycheck. Right now capitalism and the old ideas of a full workweek are keeping unemployment up because the few people who get jobs can easily accomplish what is needed leaving the rest of the people out in the cold and fighting for work that just simply no longer exists. Efficiency has made our need for wor hours less, and we need to examine our future as a technological species and recognize that although hard work and doing a good job were great values that made people strong, that hard work simply is not as necessary as it was.

Socialism and communism failed in the past because they were not technically viable as they are becoming today. i think they are the way of the future if we are to continue the advancements in technology and efficiency we have always strived for.

 

[usmcstinger]

Socialism, Communism and European Socialism have failed. Why would you want to implement them?
They would only fail again.

 

[Indofred]

Socialism, Communism and European Socialism have failed. Why would you want to implement them?
They would only fail again.

There is one simple flaw with socialism and all similar ideals.
They're all a load of bollocks.
Someone always ends up on top.

 

[Swagger]

Socialism, Communism and European Socialism have failed. Why would you want to implement them?
They would only fail again.

Indeed. I reckon if you guys had re-instated your policy of isolationism immediately after WWII you wouldn't be in the mess you are now. The large majority of liberal ideology imported from Europe into America is about as sound as a chocolate teapot. It normally collapses under the weight of reality.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Socialism is an inevitable failure. It comes with a 100% Guaranteed Fail rate. It's so bad that almost without exception, the countries who adopt it have to build walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards to keep creative and talented people from fleeing.

 

[catzmeow]

Socialism is an inevitable failure. It comes with a 100% Guaranteed Fail rate. It's so bad that almost without exception, the countries who adopt it have to build walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards to keep creative and talented people from fleeing.

India, Korea, and Sri Lanka are all self-declared socialist states (though they do not follow Marxist communism).

India and Korea are currently kicking our asses economically in many regards.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Socialism is an inevitable failure. It comes with a 100% Guaranteed Fail rate. It's so bad that almost without exception, the countries who adopt it have to build walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards to keep creative and talented people from fleeing.

India, Korea, and Sri Lanka are all self-declared socialist states (though they do not follow Marxist communism).

India and Korea are currently kicking our asses economically in many regards.

North Korea is Socialist, right. The Socialism embraced by the "American" Left, seems to be the hard-core, centrally planned one where Free Enterprise has no role and is reviled as evil. That's the system that never ends well

 

[Swagger]

Socialism is an inevitable failure. It comes with a 100% Guaranteed Fail rate. It's so bad that almost without exception, the countries who adopt it have to build walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards to keep creative and talented people from fleeing.

India, Korea, and Sri Lanka are all self-declared socialist states (though they do not follow Marxist communism).

India and Korea are currently kicking our asses economically in many regards.

Yet the countries that you've listed haven't imposed the moral and legal obligations the west has on its employers. Try seeking workplace compensation from an employer in any of the countries you've listed after a losing a limb in a workplace accident. Not to mention that slavery is an option that's available to employers in those countries, too. Bearing that in mind, it's no surprise that India's economy is overtaking America's.

 

[Foxfyre]

Socialism is an inevitable failure. It comes with a 100% Guaranteed Fail rate. It's so bad that almost without exception, the countries who adopt it have to build walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards to keep creative and talented people from fleeing.

India, Korea, and Sri Lanka are all self-declared socialist states (though they do not follow Marxist communism).

India and Korea are currently kicking our asses economically in many regards.

Yet the countries that you've listed haven't imposed the moral and legal obligations the west has on its employers. Try seeking workplace compensation from an employer in any of the countries you've listed after a losing a limb in a workplace accident. Not to mention that slavery is an option that's available to employers in those countries, too. Bearing that in mind, it's no surprise that India's economy is overtaking America's.

Not to mention that both countries have millions of people living in abject poverty. With the government and a few favored bigwigs holding and controlling most of the wealth and all of the power, North Korea is one of the world's poorest and least developed countries in sharp contrast to its more democratic and free market neighbor South Korea, which has one of the largest economies in Asia. About 40% of India's population lives in abject poverty and would consider America's poorest to be relatively rich.

Now let's evaluate who is kicking whose butt again?

 

[ConzHateUSA]

No, socialism in any form is terrible.

I like capitalism, very much.

Sure, only 1% of the people in a capitalist society will ever have any money, any power, and they will use their existing money and power to fix all the rules so they always have the money and power and others wont.

But socialism is terrible, and I will agree with anything you guys say, I dont want what happened to those Sikh's to happen to me or my wife or my employees.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

No, socialism in any form is terrible.

I like capitalism, very much.

Sure, only 1% of the people in a capitalist society will ever have any money, any power, and they will use their existing money and power to fix all the rules so they always have the money and power and others wont.

But socialism is terrible, and I will agree with anything you guys say, I dont want what happened to those Sikh's to happen to me or my wife or my employees.

See what happens to people when they stay in their parent's basement too long?

 

[Some Guy]

Socialism and communism failed in the past because they were not technically viable as they are becoming today. i think they are the way of the future if we are to continue the advancements in technology and efficiency we have always strived for.

The rest of your post doesn't really jive with this. If i could sum up your post in two sentences, it would be this:

Sentence 1: Technology is pretty awesome, huh?
Sentence 2: Don't you think we can use it to do some socialism?

Yea, technology is pretty awesome but you're largely wrong. It does eliminate man hours but it only divides labor, doesn't destroy it. Let's use your example of movie rental stores being put out of business by NetFlix (and throw RedBox in there too). Someone needs to run NetFlix and employ a lot of people that handle the legal considerations, technical, business, etc. The bigger NetFlix gets, the more people it'll need to hire to keep up with the workload. Also, the bigger it gets and the more people use it, the more the infrastructure needs to be beefed up to handle it. That filters to the communication industry that needs to employ people to lay more wire, etc. But yea, it'll take a smarter, more specially trained person to work at NetFlix or create communication grids than to stock shelves in alphabetical order with BluRays.

So, what you're searching for but just didn't do a good job of articulating really was to correctly identify that the US economy in particular is becoming much more about information than it is manufacturing. As such, you're going to be hired more for what you know and less for what you can do physically.

However, none of this makes the theory of socialism any more viable. Everyone's worked with that one person who doesn't pull his/her weight as much as they should. Whether it be a work group in a class or at your job, whatever. Socialism only makes it easier for that person to get away with it, borderline encouraging them to do little to nothing, and reap even larger rewards for it. The people around that person go "why am i busting my ass for the same reward as that person?" and they stop busting their ass. Soon after, no one is busting their ass and nothing is getting done but people expect to get "what's owed to them." It simply doesn't work.

I would argue that a more technological society would only help expedite the failure.

 

[eflatminor]

India and Korea are currently kicking our asses economically in many regards.

In the race to see who has the most people in abject poverty, India is kicking our ass, no doubt.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Socialism is an inevitable failure. It comes with a 100% Guaranteed Fail rate. It's so bad that almost without exception, the countries who adopt it have to build walls topped with barbed wire and armed guards to keep creative and talented people from fleeing.

India, Korea, and Sri Lanka are all self-declared socialist states (though they do not follow Marxist communism).

India and Korea are currently kicking our asses economically in many regards.

SOCIALISM KILLS: THE COST OF DELAYED ECONOMIC REFORM IN INDIA
As the world approaches the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism, it is worth investigating the costs borne by countries like India that did not become communist but drew heavily on the Soviet model, says Swaminathan Aiyar, a research fellow with the Cato Institute.

For three decades after its independence in 1947, India strove for self-sufficiency instead of the gains of international trade, and gave the state an ever-increasing role in controlling the means of production, says Aiyar:
These policies yielded economic growth of 3.5 percent per year, which was half that of export-oriented Asian countries, and yielded slow progress in social indicators, too.
Growth per capita in India was even slower, at 1.49 percent per year.
It accelerated after reforms started tentatively in 1981, and shot up to 6.78 percent per year after reforms deepened in the current decade.


What would the impact on social indicators have been had India commenced economic reform one decade earlier, and enjoyed correspondingly faster economic growth and improvements in human development indicators? In "Socialism Kills: The Cost of Delayed Economic Reform In India," Aiyar seeks to estimate the number of "missing children," "missing literates" and "missing non-poor" resulting from delayed reform, slower economic growth, and hence, slower improvement of social indicators.

He finds that with earlier reform:
14.5 million more children would have survived.
261 million more Indians would have become literate.
109 million more people would have risen above the poverty line.
The delay in economic reform represents an enormous social tragedy, says Aiyar. It drives home the point that India's socialist era, which claimed it would deliver growth with social justice, delivered neither.
Source: Swaminathan Aiyar, "Socialism Kills: The Cost of Delayed Economic Reform in India," Cato Institute, October 21, 2009.

 

[Pho_King]

Socialism is the inevitable result of raising your kids to be complete pussies.

 

[Wiseacre]

The problem with any economic model is that people run it. Poor governance dooms whatever system you implement, you've gotta have effective management of your economy or the society does not flourish as well as it might. And as we've seen, it can be downright disastrous for everybody except the ruling class, no matter what economic model is in play.

 

[Steelplate]

I think a hybrid of Socialism and Capitalism is the best way to go.

If you go to a purely Capitalistic society, it is quite similar to what you would see in an aristocracy or Central American Banana Republics. A small group of people kicking ass economically, running the government behind the scenes to keep the money rolling in, and making policies that hurt any potential competition.

Socialism, if left unchecked.....inevitably degrades into tyranny and oppression by th government. and as has been said, makes it real easy to not work hard....because why should one work hard? you don't do any better than if you work at half speed.

But, the combination of the two ideologies? That provides a real efficient method of having checks and balances to prevent either one of those extremes from happening.

I happen to think that from Reagan up to the present, the Capitalists have been given too much control over our country and it's time to balance things out a little. Unfortunately, Obama hasn't been able to do that...partially because if Republican obstructionism, partially because he's not NEARLY the Socialist that the right makes him out to be.

 

[ConzHateUSA]

Socialism combined with capitalism is what we tried to do, did do, for decades, worked real well too, but the average CEO only made 20 times more than the average worker, this wasnt good enough for them, they want 200, 2000 times more, thus enters Ronald Raygunz

 

[eflatminor]

If you go to a purely Capitalistic society, it is quite similar to what you would see in an aristocracy or Central American Banana Republics. A small group of people kicking ass economically, running the government behind the scenes to keep the money rolling in, and making policies that hurt any potential competition.

That's called crony capitalism, which is quite a different thing than proper Capitalism.

 

[ConzHateUSA]

If you go to a purely Capitalistic society, it is quite similar to what you would see in an aristocracy or Central American Banana Republics. A small group of people kicking ass economically, running the government behind the scenes to keep the money rolling in, and making policies that hurt any potential competition.

That's called crony capitalism, which is quite a different thing than proper Capitalism.

or american capitalism

it is why Willard cant release his tax docs, when the average tea party moron finally understands they have been lied to all these years about who pays the taxes, shit might get ugly, koch and co cant afford that