Hey guys, one thing before we start, please keep it civilI know many of you heard of such debates where one side gave his word on Socialismwhile the other side gave the word for Capitalism, so this is a place to share your oppinion.and sorry for any mistakes, as English is far not my main language
Anyways, 3 days ago we had 1st May Day, the day of the workersI wont say where i am from, but i can say that i am from a democratic capitalistic countryand there were a whole lot of people comming out with red flags waving and shouting for socialism.I know many people in here are from USA, and USA education have a tendancy to teach the youththat socialism is in fact evil with no human rights or whatever...Sure both sides got thair ups and downs, but when it comes to "rights" socialism is just asgood as capitalism, just in a different way. So please avoid throwing in false facts.
Soon im planning on traveling to Cuba for like 5+ months, to live in thereto see how its like, to meet new people, to talk to them, to reserch about their lifei mean, one thing is what newspapers tell us, another thing is to interview true socialists.Both my parents are socialists by the way, and with time i find more and more interest in socialism myself.Mainly due the capitalist hostile world i see all around me, with the huge corporations that inslave workersand how my parents are scared as hell to loose thair job, and are rdy to do anything to keep it.Now i never was rich, in fact im more like middle class, but even today i see how my parentsfighting to survive, just so that we wont loose our house, just like many americans did.many blame the crisis but its a different topic, lets stay on this one.i spent some time today reserching the unknown world of socialismi say unknown because i find it difficult to trust media, yet its the only tool i havethrew which i can see the world around me, so i read international news, same news from diffrentpoints of view, and i found this page:http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/cuba0627.php
sure some may say its propoganda, others will shout blinldy against socialismbut i beliave that when people vote, they show the truth, and when i see 9 million cubansthat is out of 11 million cubans (remember there are undaraged childer who cant vote)when i see so many vote for socialism, i must admit, there must be a reason for it.some may say they vote so out of fear, yet if they were scared then they would of avoid voting at all.
I must admit, i think its better to live in a country where i dont have to be scared like shit to end up on the streetjust because my boss dont like my haircut, so he throw me out, i loose my home, and with it everything ales...I also admit that i prefare free health care, so that i know that when the time comes and i will end up with somereally nasty crap going on with me, i can trust my goverment to take care of me without it checking my insurace first.and in case i dont have it, to kick me out of the same door i came in, and to forget about me.
And i must admit, that equality starts with education, and when education is totaly freei know that i dont have to have rich father so that ill be able to register to Harward-like univercity.
Do i prefare to surcifice all the things above just so that ill have a sport car with LCD screens and 3 housesand a super computer? no, i prefare to live a simple life, where i can date a girl without worreing thati dont have a BMW to show her, or without worreing that i cant take her to some expancive restoraunt.a simple life where brands are not the focus of my life and my money, where all people are equal, even if somewhat poor!Thats me, please guys dont attack me because of my views on things, i went threw a lot in my lifeand i can trully say that i dont like capitalism at all.
Open your mind, and share
I am gonna go out on a limb here. I am from the States, am pretty conservative, even for living in the so called Bible Belt. So now that you have some idea of who you is invading your space...here goes.
I have made a lot of friends from basically everywhere on the planet. I've had pretty vigorous debates about the underlying of philosophy of capitalism vs socialism with some of my best friends in college that were from Europe, from places like Bulgaria, Sweden, Spain, Germany and England off the top of my head.
Here is the one thought that I came upon. Socialism is viable when common goals are more easily defined. Capitalism is more suited where there is a greater diversity of goals. For example, in larger cities or in smaller countries centered around a few major population centers, social services like busses, trains, subways, etc are of great consequence because it is totally impractical for everyone to always be using their own mode of transportation. Streets would be at a stand still, not just slow as molasses.
In other areas like where I live, you can get anywhere you need in 30-45 minutes, but you have to drive 30-45 miles to get there. It would take me several hours if it were even possible at all to use public transportation. It is not economically viable to have all the same services here. It also makes cheaper energy prices even more important in some ways than in a big city.
When you have to deal with people even more spread out than in the States, or with several times the amount of people here, it is really a complicated situation. Without a stronger centralization of authority, goals will totally diverge and the central government may collapse under the weight of having to deal with so many different voices from all segments of society. On the other hand, the central authority will likely collapse on itself due to amount of power they actually hold. It is really hard for me to say what is really the best route for the peoples of these societies.
I would like to reccomend to watch "Battlestar Galactica"we can see a good excample of how socialism/communism can work (with democracy) in there.
It is quiet a good series overall, with lots of focus on many different aspects of the reallity we fact todayeven though the movie is a Sci-Fi movie, it shows an alternative way of life, and really makes you rethinkmany approaches towards many things, including what is freedom is really all about.
Yeah, that sounds about right. In fiction, socialism/communism can work.
If you cant say something smart, just dont say anything
Did he say something wrong? I agree with him and history proved that socialism/communism doesnt really work. Sadly, you obviously refuse to accept it.
why dosnt it work? you base this fact on what excactly?...
The failure of every socialist regime to ever come into existence within the lifespan of a single generation? You keep talking about how great it is in places like Cuba, but you're missing relevant information. Places like Cuba are worse now than they were when they went socialist. Cubans were starving fifteen years ago. Cubans aren't communist anymore. Cubans are a relatively mild form of socialist now, with farmers independantly selling their own produce. Cubans already learned that the communist utopia doesn't exist and, while still a rutheless dictatorship that crushes any opposition, are doing the same damn thing the Chinese are, moving towards free market capitalism.
Every regime that hasn't moved, is either starving, or already fell.
So if cuba "failed" because... (why?)and USSR failed because... some dude with too much power used the army against it own goverment.
then it all means that it failed? that there cant be such thing as communism/socialism?well if you think that people dont learn from mistakes, then you are quiet ignorant.It failed once, it failed twise, third time it will gain everything.while capitalism failed once (great depression), failed twise (todays crisis), and you all keep on supporting it?well thats just SO SMART!
go on, inslave yourself to death for your hairy ass boss, keep playing the role of a sheep for the entireecenomy of whatever country you live at (which is probably capitalist)
Yup. Just like free markets...
Mind you, I'm surprised to see you hanging out in this zombie of a thread. I gave up careful reading a long while ago on account of finding 'my side' failing utterly on account of unwillingness to confront the authoritarian evils of Soviet 'communism' (those are fucking serious shudder quotes!).
Besides, I thought you demanded more of your bullshit online chewtoys. It's the Stalinists and Maoists who are truly over (along with the 'classical' fascists and hopefully their neo-con heirs), not the idea of putting the common good at least on par with individual well-being.
It's true, this dumb shit isn't even a chew toy. Perhaps it's pity, perhaps I like feeling smart, no clue. I'm a very petty individual, maybe I just enjoy having my views on humanity validated in such a stellar fashion.
Perhaps free market capitalism only works in fiction, but unless we actually give it a shot, instead of making monopoly after monopoly to prevent a monopoly from existing, and hamstringing one "unfair" practice after another in an attempt to turn a dog eat dog market into puppies and kittens, we'll never know. We can't even clean out bad companies now, they're protected from hostile take overs while they slip from productive to pointless, and "too big to fail" when they finally degrade to the point where they can't even survive. We'd never have gotten here if we'd been free market capitalists instead of wishy washy collectivists.
Coke, I know it's hard to read things that don't support your premise, but once again it wasn't capitalism that failed in the great depression. Fractional reserve banking and capitalism are unrelated. The banks failed because they were pretending money that never existed was really there, the country was just fine until shit tard presidents raised taxes and took away the labor force to go make trails in parks at twice the daily wage. Outside of the dustbowl, the agricultural industry would never have collapsed if they hadn't lost the work force to moron FDR's excercises in futility. You have to actually produce something for working to be of any use.
Capitalism wasn't even in play at the time, but you don't appear to have even a rudimentary education on the subject, so mentioning things like the NRA(not the National Rifle Association) would be an exercise in futility. If it weren't an excercise in futility, I'd point out that price controls and legalized extortion in the form of union laws had already stripped capitalism away. If you can't control your company, you don't actually own your company. No unionized industry is practicing capitalism. No price controlled industry has any relation to a free market. The US was just as Fascist as Europe in the 30's, still is too.
Also, I have a hairy ass. If you don't, I highly recommend puberty. If you do, judge not my boss on the girth of his posterior hair.
I expect I'll take flack for calling us fascist, blow me and go read an encyclopedia. Skip the hate speech and look at the economic policies. We've done it all before, and we're doing it again today. Bailing out the banks, telling them who to lend to, fascism 101. Bailing out the auto companies, telling them what to build, fascism 101. It's the carrot and stick approach to government control of industry. We'll subsidize your losses and you'll do what we tell you to.
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