but im not american, im from former East-block country as you are, so capitalism is not "buried deep in my mind"... and still I say, socialism sucked bigtime here and it was probably even worse in USSR. And yes, there is a lot of people here as well, who think it was better before ´89. But these people are just nostalgic, the lived big part of their lives in the socialism/communism and they miss it, especially the "insurances" it brought with it - you couldnt lose your job for example... and while it is nothing compared to the possibilities they have now, they cant really aprecciate these possibilities, because they are too old now. I can understand their nostalgy, but i do not understand young people (like i suppose you are), who want old times to return. When you can clearly see the difference between former East Block countries and Western Europe - where could we be by now, if not those 40 years of socialism (40 years here, 70 in USSR)

CocaColaAddict,

I'm sorry but this display of wussiness has gone on long enough, I'm going to have to confiscate your man card.

Communists/Socialists keep talking about greed in reference to capitalism. However they fail to realize that greed is a natural human tendency. You will always want more than less, its just given. Capitalism is a system that takes that instintual greed and uses it to create social benefit through the creation of sustainable business and the destruction of unsustainable business.

Greed is the desire to posses more than what you deserve. By this barometer socialists are also greedy because they want something for nothing. They want free healthcare, free education, more insurance, and they want someone else to pay for it. At least I work for what I own.

CocaColaAddict - you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, there are some products where reliability is not primary?

Yeah, people buy Xbox 360s. And they buy it knowing full well it's not reliable.

Why? Because reliability isn't always everything for all products.

The Xbox 360 is a gaming device, and gamers are notorious for wamting more power in their systems and are willing to pay extra for it and pay the penalty of reliability for it.

You're right - the Wii pushes to a different market. A market that doesn't want to push graphics to the limit, ans where more reliability makes sense.

Under your system, you would punish the gamers by not creating products that push graphics to the limits.

That's the problem with the system you want - it doesn't concern itself with individual tastes and wishes. It forces everybody to be the same, whether they like it or not.

Like I said, stop butchering the english language and stick to just lying about what socialism is.  Pretending that a public fire department means you're a socialist should be stupid enough, you don't need to call it a factory.

A road is not production, it is infrastructure.  Means of production and production itself are two entirely different things.  You're morons, accept it and move on. If you can do that, perhaps then you can stop the nonsense of calling people socialists for possessing minimal public services.  Socialism is public control of the means of production, only controlling the infrastructure doesn't cut it.

There's no need for a 'socialism vs capitalism' debate. Socialism can exist in a capitalist framework. Anyone who wants to live in a socialist society, can band together with other people who want to. Create group owned industries, housing projects, entire cities if you want. Share all the wealth of everyone who joins the socialist organization. Just interact with people who want to live by their own terms on their own terms. A collective run farm, for example, will just have to use the collective wealth of the workers to trade for equipment, from capitalist businesses. Or they can get it from a socialist manufacturer.

But then again, that's not what socialists want. What good will it be, if successful people are still free to live thier own lives? It's not so much 'we should all share together', it's more 'I want to have what the successful people have'. That's all socialism is.

a socialist/communist sistem must be on its own, with its own laws
its own trading sistems, education sistems, and technological advances...
for excample today in cuba there are Nuclear Physicians working as waitresses
mainly due the fact that they are not needed, as the countrys techological level is too low
and its too low because of the embargo and because USSR died and can no longer support them.
while back in USSR they could of find a great job, and do what they like for living.

In that case, I would categorize it into two major categories:

1. A voluntary socialism where you can voluntarilly give your money/talent/resources to a collective, or decide not to if for some reason you don't think the collective is headed in the right direction.
2. An involuntary socialism where you must give to the collecctive, whether you agree with the collective and its principles or not.
   

#2 is IMHO a very bad direction to go in, as it often becomes very corrupt due to no checks and balances. When there are no options, then it is easy to abuse. Despite your claim that "It is in no way, shape or form a tool for the purpose of taking from one person and giving to another," I would very much disagree. It often is such a tool. Sorry, but it's true. In the case of a government doing it, it is almost always involuntary. They don't give you the option to not pay for it - it's taken out of your taxes whether you want it taken out or not. So yes it often is a case of taking from one person and giving to another.

That's the purpose, yes, but I don't think it ends up working that way when actually implemented.

You can't get rid of greed simply by erasing class structure! It's an emotion; anybody can experience greed in any type of society. Socialism underestimates greed far worse than capitalism does.

Interestingly enough, the free market economy does much to erase class structure: It used to be you couldn't change classes - you had to be born into them. Now anybody can change "classes" and indeed the term has become rather meaningless.

So I'd propose that both systems are classless - the difference is that socialism tends to be a forced equality. Think about the Borg from Star Trek - that's the idea behind government enforced socialism. You're part of the socialist group, whether you like it or not.

Unfortunately, most people do not follow that philosophy. While I myself carry the philosophy of continual improvement, most people I have met do not - they think that because they not perfect, they will not even try. A socialist system with these types of people would not work.

. . . and it pretty much stops there. It accounts for needs, but does not account for wants. It's a bare minimum society type. There is no acknowledgement of differences between individuals, and there is not attempt to allow people any enjoyment.

I never once said someone was a socialist for for those things.

The whole point was that both capitalist and socialist theories are implemented in society right now. The evil socialism which you decry is being used to your benefit. As I said before, it isn't a dichotomy. It's not one or the other. Calling somone "a socialist"is really "more socialist and less capitalist than I am" (and again, they are not clear opposites by any stretch).

If you are still sticking to the "it's not a factory" defense then clearly you have a different definition of socialism than everybody else. It's not me butchering the english language here. And who ever said roads are production? I said there are means of production. It's self explanatory even. It's everything that facilitates a product being made. Do roads help move stuff (and people) around? Is moving stuff around important for producing goods? Then it's means of production.

What part of this simple concept of what socialism actually is don't you understand?

Go on, you just keep building that strawman there. It's easier to hate something when you can make it into whatever you want.

Privatize everything, and you'll end up with failure not success. For more reasons than you can predict;

- Profits would keep on being distributed within invisible corporation X'es.

- Ownership & decisional control would keep on trying to lower workforce salaries to generate more of it.

- The global economics would keep hi-jacking populations' standards of living until work is no longer valid or sufficient.

- Urban infrastructure would keep collapsing under immobilization waste of obsolete super-industrial (Toffler' Future Shock) capacities bound to incapacitate itself from lack of reasonable profits.

- Stock markets would keep climbing into a bubble so big, commercial war would ensue. As shown by state driven intervention aimed at creating corporate welfare.

- Rich vs Poor dynamics would middle up just enough to maintain greed and criminalization levels into cavern apes survival kits in wallets.

- 65% of the world's would be owned & operated by a single "entity", buy competition don't beat it. Fishes metaphor.

- The 35% remaining would raise its profits daily.

- The above percentages would either stabilize into fairness or keep disminishing revenues of ALL until famine kills the rest.

THAT is Capitalism. Not based on thesis, not even observed from current status.

A simple deduction of facts.

Standing corrected, find me a medium so that guessing can also prove me wrong. I prefer speculation to ongoing statusquo, not that anyone could alter it on purpose though.

Socialism is one in which the government maintains the means of production.

Psychoak, your answer, although showing wonderful imagination, is neithera model of clarity, nor vaguely related to the commonly accepted response. Either you're saying Infrastructure is not 'production', in which case we have another strawman since no one said socialism own production (as if the cars produced by a government owned factory were somehow permanently attached to the government), or you're stating that infrastructure is not a 'means of production', in which case you're doing another [citation required] thing, since the Wikipedia entry Means of Production has as it's second sentenc:

Your statement is literally contradicted by the actual definition of the term "Means of production". You really need to look these things up before typing.

Jonnan