Where Socialism wins out

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Greb
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13 Sep 2012, 4:10 pm

Tequila wrote:

Greb wrote:

Christian democracy.

What is Christian democracy? Is it social democracy with a Christian ethos? Sounds like it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy

Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 4:11 pm

thomas81 wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

You're forgetting that the largest famine during the czar regime killed 400,000 people. The famine caused by the communist party during Lenin, killed 7.3 million people. This was because Lenin confiscated the grain, sold it to other countries and turned down foerign aid for three years.

The famine during the Great Leap Forward killed almost 20 millions; the world record as of 2012.

The current economic mode is killing 19 000 children a day through the same means.

19 000 x 365 = 6. 9 million a year and this has been going on since god knows when.

Thats not made up numbers on my part, thats official W.H.O. figures.

This further prooves my point: the socialist governments of Zimbabwe, North Korea, Burma, Angola, Eritrea, Sierra Leonne or Haiti aren't really kind to their people.

Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 4:16 pm

Oodain wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

SpiritBlooms wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Socialism is a better system for rationing scarce goods than market based capitalism. Market based capitalism is better for increasing the supply of goods and services.

Whenever rationing must be imposed socialism is a system that gives a sense of fairness. Everyone (in theory) is equally screwed so no one feels singled out.

Socialism is the perfect system for making squalor and want bearable.

It's also been found to be a way to make plenty more bearable. Look at Denmark, one of the happiest places on earth.

Denmark is far from being socialist.

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

If the government stopped taxing everyone and everything to death there, the country would probably be even higher on the list.

it isnt strictly socialist but it does have a lot of the things people claim is socialist in the us.

such as universal healthcare and education and an extensive social safety net.

None of which automatically means socialism. All in all, both New Zealand, Australia and Canada are more capitalistic than the US—yet they still provide free healthcare to their people. The same could be a reality in the US if American politicians actually bothered to clean up the mess that is the US healthcare budget.

thomas81
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13 Sep 2012, 4:17 pm

Kurgan wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

This further prooves my point: the socialist governments of Zimbabwe, North Korea, Burma, Angola, Eritrea, Sierra Leonne or Haiti aren't really kind to their people.

Wow, you can't see the woods for the trees, can you?

I said the current economic mode. You know, the one that is pertinent through the majority of the planet including the west.

No, this is happening in countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. Market economies who are by in large at the mercy of western countries and other economic institutions based mainly in the United States and Europe. All under the purpose of enabling the rich to become richer.

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13 Sep 2012, 4:19 pm

which in turn means that all you are talking about is hard core communism and not modern socialism in any of its forms,

as said i agree that denmark isnt implicitly socialist, i think any one ideology used on its own is out of balance, but there are most definately socialist ideologies behind many of those features.

it can be a huge asset.

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Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 4:24 pm

thomas81 wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

This further prooves my point: the socialist governments of Zimbabwe, North Korea, Burma, Angola, Eritrea, Sierra Leonne or Haiti aren't really kind to their people.

I am seeing the woods for the trees. Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were all very poor just 60 years ago. They have western standard today.

Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia are all socialist countries—and the economy prevents any form of industrial development. Smaller economies are always at the mercy of larger economies, regardless of the economic form. This was the case with the Soviet Union's puppet regimes, for instance.

Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 4:26 pm

Oodain wrote:

Small drops of socialism now and then are necessary (because no country is exclusively capitalist or exclusively socialist). There are small elements of socialism in the American economy as well—an small doses of capitalism in the Cuban economy.

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13 Sep 2012, 4:31 pm

then you cant really curse and scream at socialism as such can you?

only wrong or abusive implementations of it, of those there are plenty just as there is for capitalism, doesnt mean i dont enjoy the options a free market brings and value its existence.

the issue here probably has more to do with radicalization of concepts that by themselves dont deserve it.

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13 Sep 2012, 4:36 pm

Kurgan wrote:

Countries like the ones i mentioned are under the thumb of crippling economic conditions in the form of debt repayments imposed by western nations and banks. However you look at it what these institutions are doing is no better than how Chairman Mao co-ordinated the cultural revolution or how Stalin curtailed Ukraine from accessing food. Their domestic politics, if any play little or no part comparitively speaking in their plight. Moreover I doubt that considering their highly heirarchal and sometimes tribal social make up there can be little if any semblance of socialism to be found.

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13 Sep 2012, 4:41 pm

To crystallise the debate I will paraphrase Fidel Castro

"They [The West] are fast to criticise Socialism because of its failures in the Soviet Union and Cuba. Where are capitalism's successes in Africa, south east asia and Latin America?"

Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 4:56 pm

thomas81 wrote:

Capitalism's sucess in Latin America is the high living standard of Chile and Barbados today, allthough the fact that few Latin-American countries are capitalist, renders his point invalid.

The only capitalist country in Africa that I can think of is Botswana. The country has huge problems with AIDS, but the economy has grown over the last years. Botswana and Zimbabwe were on the same economic level in 1980. Today, the former has six times as much GDP as the latter.

Capitalism's sucesses in Asia is the explosive economic growth in Israel, Japan, and The Asian Tigers.

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13 Sep 2012, 4:58 pm

thomas81 wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

Actually, the capitalist countries are the ones who are most likely to erase their debt and to provide aid. Their [the socialists] domestic politics stalled the economic growth. This is because socialist economies are less Pareto efficient.

Kurgan
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13 Sep 2012, 5:01 pm

Oodain wrote:

then you cant really curse and scream at socialism as such can you?

depends on the ratio between capitalism and socialism.

Quote:

only wrong or abusive implementations of it, of those there are plenty just as there is for capitalism, doesnt mean i dont enjoy the options a free market brings and value its existence.

the issue here probably has more to do with radicalization of concepts that by themselves dont deserve it.

The problem with the US isn't capitalism.

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13 Sep 2012, 5:31 pm

Kurgan wrote:

Oodain wrote:

then you cant really curse and scream at socialism as such can you?

depends on the ratio between capitalism and socialism.

Quote:

The problem with the US isn't capitalism.

then you arent screaming about socialism but the ratio,

the sentence below is non sequitur, i never said it was, now the ratio and way it affects the rest of the world might.(though that has nothing to do with the point i was trying to make)

point is people shout and curse about concepts that in themselves do very little, it is the people and not the ideology that is the issue and that problem exists within any ideology, capitalism/socialism, doesnt really matter.

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thomas81
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13 Sep 2012, 5:34 pm

Kurgan wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

Really, what we're getting into here is semantics. Since we can't agree on what actually constitutes capitalism, then we are going around in circles. As far as I understand having a relatively free market and the precedence to privately own profit making infrastructure suffices to call a nation capitalist. However in your eyes (i think to say the libertarian, and in my view, incorrect standpoint) any semblance of government presence at all renders it socialist. This is ludricous and presents us with an impasse.

On his point about the 3 continents, Castro wasn't referring to Israel, Japan or (the then impoverished) asian tigers. He was referring specifically to the epicentres of epidemics of poverty rampant throughout the southern hemisphere. I don't think he was trying to imply that capitalism had been a failure in every instance, more what good was it doing specifically in these continents. Moreover there was a burden of proof on the chief critics of socialism to substantiate this considering it was their ideology causing so much tragedy.

On a less related note, in regards to my former paragraph it seems similar in my view to the way there is no clear consensus on what constitutes fascism, so any crazy right wing party can go as extreme to the right as they want and place the burden of proof on their detractors to substantiate why they are fascist.

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13 Sep 2012, 6:14 pm

thomas81 wrote:

The freer the market, the more capitalist it is. If the ratio between socialism and capitalism suggests a strong socialist leaning (i.e. the government pulls most of the strings in the economy and the laws are very restrictive), the country is socialist. If the opposite is true, the country is capitalist.

Quote:

On his point about the 3 continents, Castro wasn't referring to Israel, Japan or (the then impoverished) asian tigers. He was referring specifically to the epicentres of epidemics of poverty rampant throughout the southern hemisphere. I don't think he was trying to imply that capitalism had been a failure in every instance, more what good was it doing specifically in these continents. Moreover there was a burden of proof on the chief critics of socialism to substantiate this considering it was their ideology causing so much tragedy.

Capitalism can't really do much good for these countries unless they abandon socialism.

Quote:

On a less related note, in regards to my former paragraph it seems similar in my view to the way there is no clear consensus on what constitutes fascism, so any crazy right wing party can go as extreme to the right as they want and place the burden of proof on their detractors to substantiate why they are fascist.

Fascism was originally a radical-centre ideology. Rather than government ownerships, fascism embraces private cartells that are supervised by the government. It is in general both anti-capitalist and anti-socialist.

You're confusing true fascism with para-fascism; the latter is an informal term describing right-wing dictatorships (eg. Chile during Pinochet) with some similarities to Fascist Italy. :arrow:

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