Lets Define "Socialism" - Once and For All!

[C_Clayton_Jones]

I think the idea is not people saying we live in a fully communist or socialist country but rather that many aspects of our society have shifted in that direction by way of actual law and policy. Some of the most damaging areas of our economy and society are due to the growth on Socialism and Communism like Governing.

Many of us understand that we have a mix, but we also understand that the more we have shifted in the direction of Socialism the worse things have become, as predicted. Socialism simply does not work, there is the idea and then there is reality, we are living the reality, just like any country that has or will ever try socialism.
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Nonsense.

What you might perceive to be ‘socialism’ in the United States is not.

 

[Flopper]

I don't think socialism correctly defines any economy today just as capitalism doesn't. It's a mixed bag.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

When a bank has to have an entire legal staff dedicated to making sure they're in compliance with CRA, Basel II and Dodd-Frank, you can safely say it's no longer a real private operation

 

[Contumacious]

The move towards hard right conservatism during the past 3 decades has done far more damage to this nation than all of the "socialism" programs combined. The failed dogma of deregulated free markets have caused massive economic turmoil and wiped out the life savings of millions of hard working Americans.

HUH?

Why do you associate right wing " conservatives with deregulation?

What/When did the "right wing " conservatives deregulate?

.

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Were you not paying attention when Gingrich was pushing his Contract On America and the subsequent Enron/Arthur Anderson corruption scandals? How about the deregulation of Glass-Steagall? How about the angry screams from the conservative right about "my money" when it come to the Bush era taxcuts? Are you blaming all of those on "liberals" instead?

Again why is Gingrich associated with DEREGULATION?

Enron was not created by the market place

It was created with BIPARTISAN SUPPORT by welfare/warfare state Bureaucrats

"One such project, a power plant in India, played a big part in Enron's demise. The company had trouble selling the power to local officials, adding to its huge $618 million loss for the third quarter of 2001. Former President Clinton worked hard to secure the India deal for Enron in the mid-90s; not surprisingly, his 1996 campaign received $100,000 from the company. Yet the media makes no mention of this favoritism. Clinton may claim he was "protecting" tax dollars, but those tax dollars should never have been sent to India in the first place"

Why is the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which separated commercial from investment banking, relevant?

Why do you mention Bush , a "compassionate conservative" , a war criminal , who thought that he could increase expenditures - Afghanistan / Iraq wars - while simultaneously reducing revenues - as deregulating the marketplace?

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[Contumacious]

Simple: Government control of the means of production.

Correct.

And that can be accomplished directly via socialism or indirectly via fascism.

Under fascism government controls the means of production via licensing and massive regulation.

They are able to disguise their control by allowing the entrepreneurs to retain "ownership".

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Fascism is quite different from Socialism.

Well duh, that 's what I said.

Socialism gives the government some power over private industry.

There is NO PRIVATE INDUSTRY UNDER SOCIALISM.

Fascism give the private industry power over the government.

Fascism/corporatism allows corrupt businessmen and bureaucrats to join forces.

 

[bripat9643]

What people?

Using your "definition", is Barack Obama a Socialist?

He certainly is.

I have never heard a Liberal or a Socialist say that he is.

Of course they don't. That's because socialists are weasels who know people stop listening the minute they hear the word "socialism."

Liberals understand reality and use the terms that are appropriate.

Yeah, right. Liberals are liars who use words to deceive.

 

[bripat9643]

According to Marx, it's the application of labor theory of value to the relations of production to achieve a dictatorship of the proletariat via permanent revolution.

That way, commodity fetishism doesn't create social alienation. Instead, people historically and dialectically materialize base with superstructure. This happens because use value is extracted from concrete labor instead of exchange value being extracted from abstract labor.

Those who are valuable in society are defined according to the contribution to species-being. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Marx's definition is a fantasy. The only definition that matters is the economic definition which is "government control of the means of production." Anything else is political propaganda.

 

[bripat9643]

Fascism is quite different from Socialism.

No, fascism is socialism

Socialism gives the government some power over private industry.

So does fascism

Fascism give the private industry power over the government.

ROFL! You are hysterical, Sallow. The idea that private corporations controlled Hitler, Mussolini or Franklin D. Roosevelt doesn't pass the laugh test.

Unless you are talking about Nazis. Then it's Christain private ownership over government.

Even dumber.

 

[bripat9643]

Were you not paying attention when Gingrich was pushing his Contract On America and the subsequent Enron/Arthur Anderson corruption scandals?

What "deregulation" bull led to the Enron bankruptcy? Whenever business debacle occurs, turds like you shout "deregulation" in knee-jerk fashion regardless of the actual facts.

How about the deregulation of Glass-Steagall?

That's one actual deregulation bill. Now consider all the thousands upon thousands of other regulations that have been passed since.

How about the angry screams from the conservative right about "my money" when it come to the Bush era taxcuts?

Even if such a thing did occur, what do tax cuts have to do with regulation?

Are you blaming all of those on "liberals" instead?

You're the forum king of non sequiturs.

 

[bripat9643]

Simple: Government control of the means of production.

Confirming that neither liberals nor democrats are ‘socialists.’

Precisely the opposite is the case. Democrats are socialists.

They are advocates of capitalism, free markets, private property, and legislation beneficial to corporate America.

Democrats?

 

[bripat9643]

Nonsense.

What you might perceive to be ‘socialism’ in the United States is not.

Is so!

 

[tooAlive]

Where did you get all that?

Fascism is quite different from Socialism.

Yes, in that Fascism would incorporate social doctrines into the mix, as it believes in promoting a "superior race" in addition to their economic policies. Which happen to be very socialist in nature. I'll explain more below -

Socialism gives the government some power over private industry.

There would be no private industries under socialism. They would all be state or "collectively" owned. Although historically, every socialist country has had state-controlled industries. It's never been collective.

Fascism give the private industry power over the government.

Not quite. Fascism supposedly promotes private property, but with very high levels of government regulations or control. Here's a snippet from Wiki -

Fascism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fascism borrowed theories and terminology from Marxist socialism but applied them to what it saw as the more significant conflict between nations and races rather than class conflict, and focuses on ending the divisions between classes within the nation and securing national solidarity.[10] It advocates a mixed economy; the principal economic goal of fascism is to achieve autarky to secure national self-sufficiency and independence, through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.[11] It promotes regulated private enterprise and private property contingent whenever beneficial to the nation and state enterprise and state property where private enterprise and private property is unable to meet the nation's needs.[11] Fascism promotes such economics as part of what is sometimes called a Third Position between capitalism and Marxist socialism.

See, they supposedly promote private enterprise and private property. But in fine print they imply that they can do with your private property whatever is best for the state. Simply put, exactly the same as socialism. Except socialists do it by default. Fascists do it when they feel like it.

Unless you are talking about Nazis. Then it's Christain private ownership over government.

Nazis were even more socialist than the textbook definition of Fascism would imply.

They nationalized all industries, took over all corporations, seized private property, ect. All while proclaiming the opposite.

 

[Contumacious]

Yes, in that Fascism would incorporate social doctrines into the mix, as it believes in promoting a "superior race" in addition to their economic policies. Which happen to be very socialist in nature. I'll explain more below -

That only applies to German Fascism. They were also racists and promoted ethnic cleansing

. But other members of the Axis ,ie, Italy and Japan were not.

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[KissMy]

Simple: Government control of the means of production.

What we have here in the USA is worse. Government controls business producers unless it is a big multi-national business, then they control the government. It is like an Oligarchy

 

[Derideo_Te]

HUH?

Why do you associate right wing " conservatives with deregulation?

What/When did the "right wing " conservatives deregulate?

.

.

Were you not paying attention when Gingrich was pushing his Contract On America and the subsequent Enron/Arthur Anderson corruption scandals? How about the deregulation of Glass-Steagall? How about the angry screams from the conservative right about "my money" when it come to the Bush era taxcuts? Are you blaming all of those on "liberals" instead?

Again why is Gingrich associated with DEREGULATION?

Enron was not created by the market place

It was created with BIPARTISAN SUPPORT by welfare/warfare state Bureaucrats

"One such project, a power plant in India, played a big part in Enron's demise. The company had trouble selling the power to local officials, adding to its huge $618 million loss for the third quarter of 2001. Former President Clinton worked hard to secure the India deal for Enron in the mid-90s; not surprisingly, his 1996 campaign received $100,000 from the company. Yet the media makes no mention of this favoritism. Clinton may claim he was "protecting" tax dollars, but those tax dollars should never have been sent to India in the first place"

Why is the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which separated commercial from investment banking, relevant?

Why do you mention Bush , a "compassionate conservative" , a war criminal , who thought that he could increase expenditures - Afghanistan / Iraq wars - while simultaneously reducing revenues - as deregulating the marketplace?

.

I am sorry to hear that you have a problem understanding how events relate to one another. Perhaps someone else will be kind enough to take the time to explain them to you. Have a nice day.

 

[Vast LWC]

This of course is contradicted by the fact that the Nazis confiscated private property at a whim. People were only allowed to own private property only if it "didn't interfere with the state.." So in reality, they didn't have private property either; again placing them in the category of socialism. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "Private property rights were conditional upon the economic mode of use; if it did not advance Nazi economic goals then the state could nationalize it." - Nazism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If "being able to confiscate private property on a whim" makes a state "socialist", then pretty much every type of government from the Babylonians, through Feudal Europe, to our government with its "Eminent Domain" laws would be categorized as "Socialist" and the word would become meaningless.

Nazi Germany was not a full-on socialist regime, but it did have a couple of socialist elements, at times.

It did indeed at points confiscate private property to help form cartels, but said cartels were then run by private individuals.

 

[g5000]

So let's say I want to buy health insurance and where I work does not offer it.

And let's say the only other way to buy insurnance is to go to a government controlled health insurance exchange, fill out a bunch of government forms, and then I am only able to buy my insurance from vendors the government tells me I must buy from.

And some, or most, or all of my premiums are paid by a government subsidy.


Socialism?


Naaaaaaaaaaaaah!

 

[KissMy]

Of course it is killing jobs. The healthcare tax has kicked in but not the coverage spending we have been paying for.

 

[tooAlive]

This of course is contradicted by the fact that the Nazis confiscated private property at a whim. People were only allowed to own private property only if it "didn't interfere with the state.." So in reality, they didn't have private property either; again placing them in the category of socialism. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "Private property rights were conditional upon the economic mode of use; if it did not advance Nazi economic goals then the state could nationalize it." - Nazism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If "being able to confiscate private property on a whim" makes a state "socialist", then pretty much every type of government from the Babylonians, through Feudal Europe, to our government with its "Eminent Domain" laws would be categorized as "Socialist" and the word would become meaningless.

Nazi Germany was not a full-on socialist regime, but it did have a couple of socialist elements, at times.

It did indeed at points confiscate private property to help form cartels, but said cartels were then run by private individuals.

In Nazi Germany, if you didn't subscribe to their regime or simply weren't liked very much, you had your private property confiscated and either killed immediately or thrown in a concentration camp.

I don't see that happening with Romney voters.

 

[Darkwind]

The move towards hard right conservatism during the past 3 decades has done far more damage to this nation than all of the "socialism" programs combined. The failed dogma of deregulated free markets have caused massive economic turmoil and wiped out the life savings of millions of hard working Americans.

HUH?

Why do you associate right wing " conservatives with deregulation?

What/When did the "right wing " conservatives deregulate?

.

.

Were you not paying attention when Gingrich was pushing his Contract On America and the subsequent Enron/Arthur Anderson corruption scandals? How about the deregulation of Glass-Steagall? How about the angry screams from the conservative right about "my money" when it come to the Bush era taxcuts? Are you blaming all of those on "liberals" instead?

You need to do some of your own research and stop listening to the information that people give you and taking it as gospel.

Do some research on the expansion of regulations in the United States and you will find that not once in over 100 years, has any administration reduced regulations on business or the people.

In fact, the shelf size of the current US regulation codes are over 19 feet in length and are added to on a daily basis.