Anyone here consider themselves socialists?

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Locut0s
A strong emphasis on public social programs such as welfare, universal health care, education, etc... This may or may not include free education for citizens up to or including university. High taxes to pay for said services. Redistribution of wealth from the top few percentage to the bottom 10 percent or so. A fairly liberal view of social values like gay marriage, drug laws, environmental protectionism, affirmative action and the like, but by no means necessarily all of these. All the above but still including a fully democratic legislature and other branches of government and a mostly open Market.

so you do mean the US....

Last time I checked the US still did not have universal health care, free education, or much in the way of high taxes despite what the right wing in the US think are high taxes.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A socialists is a Republican who supports Medicare and Social Security. I am not a Republican so I am not a socialist.

I don't think anyone would support cutting off either medicare or SS overnight. It would be totally and completely irresponsible to cut people off who are dependent on either/both. Same goes for a lot of government programs that people like myself oppose. This has been a huge problem for people like Ron Paul and Peter Schiff, people like yourself ignorantly assuming they would want to cut people off from government programs that they are currently dependent upon. Nothing could be further from the truth. But people hear what they want to hear, and are afraid of change.

The ironic thing is, others will keep supporting these kinds of programs, keeping the people dependent on gov't. And what happens when gov't fails to be able to afford to keep the faucet running, and decides to turn it off to avoid bankruptcy/hyperinflation? Then people who are dependent get fucked, royally.

 

[LunarRay]

All People are greedy... All greedy people are Capitalists... ergo, No Socialists are people em are Monkeys.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: LunarRay
All People are greedy

True. And capitalism regulates greed better than any other economic system.

 

[actuarial]

I agree with the government running essential services only. Health care, education, basic safety (police, fire, ambulance), utilities. I also agree with other socialist style programs such as EI and government sponsored pension plans. I would also prefer if the government allowed a private option to compete with public in many cases, which we do not usually allow.

I am pissed that my government deregulated power, but hope we do not socialize auto insurance. There is also a long way we can go in some areas, learning some lessons from Europe. Health care and education being two main ones.

I consider myself a socialist.

 

[LunarRay]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: LunarRay
All People are greedy

True. And capitalism regulates greed better than any other economic system.

Regulate and or contain whilst giving folks reasonably unlimited opportunity... Yes, I'd agree..

 

[Craig234]

I wrote an answer, but on second thought am not at all sure some of the members are ready for this discussion, and so I don't see much reason to post on it.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: Craig234
I wrote an answer, but on second thought am not at all sure some of the members are ready for this discussion, and so I don't see much reason to post on it.

You could pm it to me.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Locut0s
A strong emphasis on public social programs such as welfare, universal health care, education, etc... This may or may not include free education for citizens up to or including university. High taxes to pay for said services. Redistribution of wealth from the top few percentage to the bottom 10 percent or so. A fairly liberal view of social values like gay marriage, drug laws, environmental protectionism, affirmative action and the like, but by no means necessarily all of these. All the above but still including a fully democratic legislature and other branches of government and a mostly open Market.

i would be mostly in favor of such a program

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: irwincur
Nice response. I assume that you cannot come up with anything even remotely as insightful as that.

Like it or not, there is a natural progression to every government. And the progression of Socialism has been outlined as a complete failure in every single venue that it has been tested. Why is Europe reversing itself?

europe has been going back and forth for decades. So much for the linear expansion of government as outlined in your original post.

Why did China expand free market incentives while weakening government controls?

china has been weakening is 'free markets' quite a bit in the last decade.

Why is Cuba a total failure? What about Venezuela - huge employment success story there...

lack of rule of law is not conducive to a good economy in any system.

How can a country succeed when the very basis of its government is to remove incentive from producers and simply give the fruits of their labors away to those that choose not to produce? It must end in total control - as nobody who wants to produce and actually earn will stay in that nation as long as there is an alternative.

sweden is doing a pretty fine job. People live where they will enjoy their lives.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: rchiu
I think people are making mistake by all these labels like socialist and capitalist. There is no absolute socialist or capitalist, and I don't see how any absolute system can work.

There is only a degree of socialist/capitalist. I'd say I am 40/60 with 40 being socialist. There has to be safety net in a society, and there has to be some kind of government planning so income gap doesn't get out of control. But more importantly, the economy is more efficient if there are less regulation and there is more incentive to be productive if there are less give aways. A government need to meet the minimium reguirement to provide basic safety net and protect the poor, and let free market work out the rest.

almost every market needs some sort of regulation, the question is how much. Markets often enough don't work or don't even exist on their own, poorly structured markets can work inefficiently, other times the market outcome is simply not an outcome you would want.

 

[daveymark]

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: Craig234
I wrote an answer, but on second thought am not at all sure some of the members are ready for this discussion, and so I don't see much reason to post on it.

You could pm it to me.

who cares if some of the babies can't handle it? just post it already...

 

[totalnoob]

craig is just a tyrannical dingbat who hides his true nature under the guise of "compassion" like most lefties. I'm not surprised he doesn't want to admit it.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: stateofbeasley
Fuck no.

But I believe that the US could take a few lessons from the Europeans in terms of providing a better safety net for citizens, just as I think Europe could take a few lessons from the US when it comes to labor laws and encouraging business growth.

What business growth, sending jobs to China and India?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: irwincur

That seems to be the prevalent attitude in US Politics/Culture. One person can be speaking of Sweden and everyone hearing them is thinking of Stalin. Of course there's no comparison, but the word is so tainted it simply can't be used for anything other than scaring people shitless.

Could it be that one more often than not leads to the other, eventually. You can only pass so much power from the citizens to the government before there is an eventual runaway slide into total government control. A government with power, requires more power to grow (as they all must). Think of a government as a business entitiy, it is their job after all to collect money while providing service. The goal of any business entity is to grow their power year over year. The only thing in the way of government power is the people that surrendur it to them. The only way the government can guarantee to remain in power is to provide more and more services.

Problem being, once critical mass is reached, citizens at the bottom are recieving all they need to live while those at the top are either part of the government or part of a depressed business class. Once this hits say 60% or more, the government has little to fear as those on the dole will always vote for more goods from those that produce. Eventually industry collapses and the government must take over as there is no longer incentive for the individule to actually produce anything. This is where it gets violent. Those that have been on the dole soon find themselves working at gunpoint for the new government corporations - because well, they have to, there is no more private industry because taxation and government controls have ereased all incentive.

Sweeden is actually closer to the end than you would think. (1) 20% of people in Sweeden don't bother to work, some by choice (since you can actually hold a job and you cannot be fired for lack of work). 2.Further, a welfare recipeint recieves the same net income as a middle class worker at a private corporation, after tax and welfare adjustments are made. So, those that do not work, are essentially getting the same gain as someone that spends 40 hours a week working.

What is the point of working then? Furthermore, what is the point of actually owning a company when total tax rates are above 90% for those that the government deems to be too rich. Which is funny, because the government actually hand selects some top tax rates based on their 'feelings' about the actual individule.

Not quite Stalin, but slowly moving in that direction.

1.Would that be referring to Sweden's roughly 6% unemployment rate?
2.Welfare benefits are caped at 680 kroner per day which works out to about 11 bucks an hour. And these benefits are based on a falling scale 80% of sallary the first 200 days, 70% up to day 300 etc... You also have to be enrolled in a job seeking program.

What he's attempting to do is use a non-standard and dishonest representation of Sweden's unemployment rate by effectively counting pretty much every person of working age who isn't working as 'unemployed' and then comparing it to what we all consider the US unemployment rate which doesn't count those people either. He's probably using old figures for his 20%, (at which point the US by his standards was probably around 15% unemployment) but were you to apply the same standard to the US as he is attempting to do to Sweden the US would probably run somewhere between 20 and 25 percent unemployment currently.

What he should really be doing if he wants to make an honest assessment is compare the two by a common standard, like say... the world recognized OECD harmonized unemployment rate. Use the drop down tab to switch from 'level' to 'rate'. Were he do do that he would actually see that currently US unemployment is actually HIGHER than Sweden's. This is likely temporary, and due to our uniquely shitty position in this economic crisis, but it's still pretty telling.

In short, his figure is crap.

 

[Colt45]

I'm an advocate for social democracy, so I suppose that makes me a socialist huh.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: totalnoob
calling craig...calling craig. Don't try to pretend your a "progressive" or some nonsense.

too true

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I'd like to see a mixed economy that's between what we have now and european. Wouldn't really consider myself a socialist though unless I wanted to piss someone off by doing so.

 

[Ichigo]

There's a stigma associated with the word and it's lost its original meaning. At least in the US, you'd be a dumbass to refer to yourself as such, even if you believed it, because too many people would outright dismiss whatever you had to say. This is especially true in P&N.

 

[jonks]

There is an american socialist party. Guess what? They don't like obama's policies. shocking, i know.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...3/AR2009031301899.html

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: irwincur
Nice response. I assume that you cannot come up with anything even remotely as insightful as that.

Like it or not, there is a natural progression to every government. And the progression of Socialism has been outlined as a complete failure in every single venue that it has been tested. Why is Europe reversing itself? Why did China expand free market incentives while weakening government controls? Why is Cuba a total failure? What about Venezuela - huge employment success story there...

How can a country succeed when the very basis of its government is to remove incentive from producers and simply give the fruits of their labors away to those that choose not to produce? It must end in total control - as nobody who wants to produce and actually earn will stay in that nation as long as there is an alternative.

Slippery Slope Fallacy noted.

What is a slippery slope fallacy?

 

[n yusef]

Yes.

We all know that progressivism is a euphemism, and that liberalism, centrism really, doesn't describe many of the people and ideas identified with it. A few weeks ago I saw a kid wearing a white shirt with "SOCIALIST" written in red letters; we need to come out of the closet.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Ichigo
There's a stigma associated with the word and it's lost its original meaning. At least in the US, you'd be a dumbass to refer to yourself as such, even if you believed it, because too many people would outright dismiss whatever you had to say. This is especially true in P&N.

I was going to say this too. The terms socialism and fascism have been stigmatized to the point that they don't mean anything anymore.

 

[heyheybooboo]

These are pretty good, and I think far from 'socialist'

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Probably would have been one over a hundred years ago, but not today as capitalism has reformed drastically since then. Currently content being a Conservative Democrat.

Some pseudosocialist things I like and/or agree with, I do not consider them socialist, but I am sure some do:
*Coops
*Employee stock ownership programs
*Labor unions (when they do not get too powerful)
*Government regulation of food, water and drug safety standards with inspections (including false advertising)
*Government ownership and maintenance of major roads and canals
*Domestic monopoly busting
*Tariffs that prevent flooding and protection from foreign monopolies
*Medicare
*Food stamps (with limitations)
*FDIC, bankruptcy and the public / private Federal Reserve System
*Basic education for those that cannot afford private education (either state owned schools or vouchers)
*Grants for promising future college students (that have proven themselves in high school) that cannot afford it

I am also fine with city / state owned or subsidized mass transit systems like trolleys, buses, etc. Probably some other things that I did not think of off the bat.

I tend to think in more 'nationalist' terms as opposed to 'socialist' and don't think it is the problem some would make it out to be. I don't think we should be the police force for the planet, nor the nation-builder-in-chief (except for our own).

I tend to believe there are 'national' problems which are not constrained by state borders - clean water and clean air as an example - so the solution has to be 'national' or collective in nature.

Electricity generation and distribution is a national problem. I don't believe the gov't needs to be in the business (except to make a profit) but only the Fed has the resources and ability to address the problems.

The eastern and western grids have to be connected, and power distribution has to be much smarter. Deregulation will not make this easier (in spite of the claims of others). We have plenty of power - we just need to get it to the right places at the right times.

Deregulation will only make it easier for some people to profit at the expense of the end-user (which is not fair).

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: irwincur
Nice response. I assume that you cannot come up with anything even remotely as insightful as that.

Like it or not, there is a natural progression to every government. And the progression of Socialism has been outlined as a complete failure in every single venue that it has been tested. Why is Europe reversing itself? Why did China expand free market incentives while weakening government controls? Why is Cuba a total failure? What about Venezuela - huge employment success story there...

How can a country succeed when the very basis of its government is to remove incentive from producers and simply give the fruits of their labors away to those that choose not to produce? It must end in total control - as nobody who wants to produce and actually earn will stay in that nation as long as there is an alternative.

Slippery Slope Fallacy noted.

What is a slippery slope fallacy?

It's a claim that any movement in a certain direction will ultimately lead future actions in that direction. In this case making healthcare more socialized will result in the death of all capitalism in our country. As the brits would say, pure tosh.