Socialism will only work with a society of prisoners, slaves, and robots who can be controlled by the ruling elite (which will always exist in that type of system).
Do you not realize that our current system really is a form of slavery?
Look around and you'll see the prisoners, slaves, and robots you describe, that are not unique to socialism or any other term you want to use as the label for societal control.
We are all slaves to the debt that demands payment in various forms, but instead of physical slavery where the master houses, feeds and is responsible for the needs of his slaves, economic capitalism slavery, is designed to cut overhead by making the economic slaves in a capitalist society,
free to provide these things for themselves.
Using your rather global definition of slavery....
All men are slaves to something, the key to freedom lies within them
Promoting the development of Centralized Planning will lead to more of us being "enslaved" to the state.
Because property rights are fundamental to any liberal society, any governments’ attempts at redistributing property
invites the truncation of many other political rights." The problem with the promoters of Statism, the gov't just never stops.I'll take this "slavery" any day over socialist slavery in the Gulags
A Hidden History of Evil- Soviet
True, however we really are facing more limitations in being able to express this freedom that, as you say,
lies within. It has been, and currently still is being chipped away on a regular basis. This is the plan to stifle the coming protests and demands that will surely be forthcoming. You run the risk of being labeled a "terrorist" and accused of "treason" for simply wanting to restore sanity to the government.
It is important that
we don't allow the state to run amok, the American political model is supposed to provide an equal opportunity, and an equal say in matters. It is failing.
As it stands all consideration has shifted to the elite class, with the acquiescence and blessings of the political leaders we have entrusted to protect our rights and to keep a level playing field. The lower tier is being forced to make due with less, all the time. But who cares about us anyway, we're just slaves....
As I said before, physical slavery requires people to be housed and fed, economic slavery requires people to feed and house themselves.
Take your pick from whatever social control mechanism you wish, they all boil down to a form of slavery, so even though you may be more then willing to except the capitalistic model compared to others, going around saying you are not a slave to any model of governance is really false when you think about it.
Even the fear imposed on us, for example of going from the current capitalistic system to becoming more socialist, or worse, keeps us all desperately holding on to our current form of slavery, even though it too is not perfect, which by the way has been undergoing more and more of a Fascist shift to it.
Capitalism is a system where profit and loss are kept private. If you make money, you keep it., If you lose money, that is your tough luck (or incompetence).
Socialism is a system in which both profit and loss are socialized across the population. If you make money, it is taxed to help those who lose money.
Fascism is a system in which profit is kept private and only losses are socialized. If you make money you keep it, and if you lose money, the government forces the general population to repay it.
Which system does the United States live under now in this age of endless Wall Street bailouts? Does this seem like a level playing field? Not hardly.
The big lie about capitalism is that everyone can be rich. That's impossible. Capitalism works only if the vast majority of the population are kept poor enough to never quit working, are kept poor enough to accept distasteful jobs society cannot function without. If everyone were a millionaire, who would empty the trash or repair the sewers? It follows that the poorer the general population is made, the greater the worth of the money held by the wealthy, in terms of the lives which may be bought and sold with it.
Also, truly free people can say "no". Free people can refuse demands for their money, time, and children. Slaves cannot. There is no freedom without the freedom to say "no". If someone demands that you do something and you can say "no" and refuse to do it, then you are a free human being. If you can be forced to do something or surrender something that you do not wish to, then you are a slave. No other test need be applied.
Beyond that, human greed and the tool that is the Federal Reserve with their fractional reserve system of banking to acquire more and more wealth, is nothing but a massive ponzi scheme, that is the root cause of our problems.
Under the Federal Reserve system, money doesn't exist until someone agrees to borrow and repay it with interest. Then the money is simply created out of thin air by the bank. To keep the system afloat, more borrowers must be found to allow the creation of more money at the bottom of the pyramid. When they talk about consumer confidence and expansion of the economy, what they are really talking about is the luring of new borrowers into the system. When they can no longer find new borrowers, the system collapses.
Which is what is happening now, hence the demand for and buying spree of real tangible assets like precious metals.
