Cocacolaaddict in essence what you have said is that you want socialism out of fear.A lot of people who came from the Soviet Union to the US went back for that very reason.The idea is not to live in fear no matter what happens.You choose to live in fear.Then you become a slave to the state.

In countries where the institutions allow for an individuals economic advancement through education,less stringent class identification, financial loans etc an individuals status is based upon drive,discipline and the ability to confront fears that comes with any new endeavor.The govt has no power to make an individual change these factors.

Socialism forcibly removes wealth for redistribution versus private giving through charities and such.Wealth given to the govt reduces money flow that could lead to greater prosperity.

Just meant for my coutry. Still leaving occupation forces on our territory, through NATO, and huge military bases are being key stones to illegal US interventions, also medical support for wounded and providing airspace make my county a US war slave.

I would like to see my country neutral and "block-free", but they did not want this... and as a bitter irony, our current chancellor in a captialist coutry was former actively in propaganda function for the communists... omg...

Probably a slow transformation, as in China, is much better, as changeing one evil to another?

If by "we," you mean idealists (reluctant, unrepentant, and otherwise), I agree with you, at least so far as our likely lifetimes go. The Greek roots of the word "utopia" translate more or less to "no place." But maybe the ideals are not also doomed to "no time." Despite how much my fellow humans can seriously frighten and confuse me, I still haven't been convinced that we're just bone-deep rotten. Too many people are good to each other when there's no direct self-interest involved, so maybe one day we can figure out how to build organizations with the same tendency.

K some very intersting points here...
Ill start with the guy that asked who will take controll of everything, well the point of communism is that
the people themselfs have controll over thair fate, sure its not ideal and as someone ales said, utopia
is something none of us or our kids and or thair kids will ever see.
but i think it is much better then democracy, mainly because of a 1 very intersting sentance:
"Democracy is where 2 wolves and a sheep are voting", got my point here?
So as far as i see it, if 2 thirds of the nation want something, they will get it, no matter that the last third need.
Its even worse with a system where money involved, a good example is russian and ukraine
where people PAY to citizens so that they will vote for them... (i guess there is same thing is other countrys as well)

Now about Cuba, yes, they are poor, BUT cuba got one of the highest ranks on life duration (whatever its called)
you know.. people live longer, i considre it as a very important factor.
Another very iportant factor is that even thoough they are poor, 98% (!!!) of the people vote to keep socialism!
where did you ever saw such namber? ever? 98%! even the most popular president in the world got only like what? 71%?

and MrKorx said it very well, liberty is all cool as long as you can afford it!
I come from a middle class fammily and we cant afford much, yet we can live quiet good.
now imagine that 80% of the worlds population is in fact, POOR, so poor that they cant afford food!
So cool, the rich guys enjoy democracy, they can open businesses, crash down opposing bussineses
they can buy cool cars and lexury appt's, but what do i get? and you, the reader?
all we get is to know that tommorow yet again we wake up to yet another day where we will spend
most of it on a job that eventualy give us just enough to pay for bills, food, and maybe with 200$ left (if we lucky)
i dont know maybe some of you live better, but as for me, i bearly make it threw the month!
and its not like im the only one, in fact i dont know anyone who lives better then me...

Some intersting qutes:

Exploitation

For Marx, a person is exploited if they perform more labour than is necessary to produce the goods they consume. A person is an exploiter if they perform less labour than is necessary to produce the goods they consume.^[7] Exploitation is thus a matter of surplus labour, the amount of labour one performs over and above what one receives in the form of goods. Exploitation has been a feature of all class societies, and is one of the main features that distinguish one class from another. One class's power and control of the means of production enable it to exploit another class. In capitalism, Marx held that a labour theory of value is operative. This theory is that the value of a commodity is equal to the total labour time required for its production. Under that condition, surplus value (the difference between value produced and value received by a labourer) is an equivalent term for surplus labour. Under capitalism, exploitation takes the form of the capitalist pumping surplus value out of the worker.

In precapitalist modes of production, exploitation was achieved by direct physical coercion or the threat of it. In the capitalist mode the same result is achieved more subtly. Since a worker does not own any means of production they must "voluntarily" enter into an exploitive work relationship with a capitalist in order to receive the necessities of life. Their entry into exploitation is voluntary in the sense that they can choose which capitalist to work for; but they must choose to work for some capitalist or starve. They cannot escape exploitation. The voluntarism of exploitation in capitalism is illusory.

Class

Marx believed that the identity of a social class is derived from its relationship to the means of production (as opposed to the notion that class is determined, for example, purely by income level).

Marx describes several social classes in capitalist societies, including primarily:

• Proletariat: "those individuals who sell their labour power, (and therefore add value to the products), and who, in the capitalist mode of production, do not own the means of production". According to Marx, the capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions that enable the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat due to the fact that the worker's labour power generates a surplus value greater than the worker's wages.
• Bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat. The bourgeoisie may be further subdivided into the very wealthy bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie.
  • Petit bourgeoisie are those who employ labour, but may also work themselves. These may be small proprietors, land-holding peasants, or trade workers. Marx predicted that the petit bourgeoisie would eventually be destroyed by the constant reinvention of the means of production and the result of this would be the forced movement of the vast majority of the petit bourgeoisie to the proletariat.

Marx also identified various other classes such as:

• Lumpenproletariat: criminals, vagabonds, beggars, etc. People that have no stake in the economic system and will sell themselves to the highest bidder.
• Landlords: a class of people that were historically important, of which some still retain some of their wealth and power.
• Peasantry and farmers: this class he saw as disorganized and incapable of carrying out change. He also believed that this class would disappear, with most becoming proletariat but some becoming landowners.

I pointed this because you can see that under capitalism, people are still not liberal even with democracy!
And as for me what i hate moustly about the second thing that i pointed out is that fact
that i am (based on this list) Proletariat, and if you read carefully, Proletariats are in fact, slaves.
"According to Marx, the capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions that enable the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat due to the fact that the worker's labour power generates a surplus value greater than the worker's wages."
and i bet all of you here are Proletariats as well.

http://www.marxists.org/ funnily enough this site is frequently DOSed by the chinese, according to the guest speaker my lecturer had in.

Also I would like to point out that:

nowhere ever in this world has there been a country under true Marxism Ideology

Capitalism is an economic model, not an Ideology

Full, free, unfettered multi-party secret ballot election (not) by an electorate totally dependent on the government and surprise, surprise the only choice on the ballot won!  Amazing.  What were the 2% thinking?  I can't believe it's taken us so long to get on that bandwagon.

anyways, please avoid spreading false facts

Meh, got headake with all this thinking... im off to bed, you know how its like when you late to work

Capitalism is indeed an economic model, but one that is incompatible with communist ideology, so they might as well be viewed as opposites.  Socialism is an ideology that tolerates capitalism while appropriating its bounty to fund communist objectives.

you keep bringing up how good the current order in cuba is, because so many people vote for it. but do you really think that is any kind of serious vote? any kind of real choice? come on, it's like a 'yes or yes' choice. in a country where news is severely controlled and free speech extremely limited, what value do those random numbers have? they are meaningless. in former eastern block countries there were also votes, but they mostly said 'we really love the communist party. we really do.' and we all know how much people there loved the system.

there is a saying most of you probably have heard: lie, damned lie, statistics. or: don't trust any statistics you have not manipulated yourself. bottom line: just because the local regime says something does not make it so.

What balance...? There is no fine line of balance, because we had it for over 66 years. Then, thanks to Bill Clinton before he walked out of course, when he removed one of the crucial regulations that was signed as a direct result of the market crash leading to the great depression; The glass-steagall act. Then bush pretty much gnawed away any other regulations. That doesn't sound like finding a balance. Its the job of the "a-holes" and "d-bags" to make as much money as humanly possible, even if they have to cut throats to do it. Unfortunately, half of congress has been bought, and it's already a chore fighting the banks on regulation. So the one factor that keeps them in line from throwing the balance of the economy out of whack is everything but gone.

Well actually, Bush was not much of a free market person. He, the Congress and the Fed cause the bubble in the housing market. They did it by printing money, telling the banks to give bad loans and having Freddie Mac and Fannie May buy the loans, (they are government corporations). This was the same as gov handed out pixi stick and pop to 5 olds and telling them to take it. What do think happens? I am not an against the government existing but its job is to protected my rights to Life, Liberty and property. I do not think what it is doing now fits that.

The fundamental problem with the socialism/capitalism debate is that many people completely neglect the fact that both systems are impractical extremes and therefore both bad.  In the purest form, capitalism is an economic system where all ownership is private and socialism is an economic system where all ownership is public(so presumably everyone will get whatever they need).  The endorsement of either system is a failure to see the big picture.  The economic system that we pick is a tool of society.  It is both a means of reasonably distributing our resources and a means of providing incentives for people to take positive actions in our society.  Socialism focuses only on making the former fair and neglects the latter.  Capitalism does the opposite.  Economic advantage is too powerful an incentive not to use if we want to advance our society.  It drives innovations.  At the same time there's a balance to be struck, the system should not give such an economic advantage to people that others are left in the gutter(this is because the reasonable distribution of resources is the other purpose of an economic system).  It should be quite obvious why neither socialism nor capitalism meet this balance.  What we need is a combination of the two systems that will maximize both our quality of life and our progress as a society.