Thread: Why Socialism Doesn't Work

How is the video imbecilic? It's a true story. A college professor actually tried equal distribution of grade points. The result was that the grade level of the class hit F level. How do you explain that?

Socialism is a pipe dream. You might as well be saying that we should use leaves for money so that everybody can be rich. It doesn't add up in reality. You say that everybody should get paid according to how hard they work. Who gets to decide how hard people are working? Who gets to decide how much money people get for what they do? How could you possibly make such as system happen on any level without stealing from people? If a ditch digger works as hard as a brain surgeon, does the ditch digger get as much money as the brain surgeon? According to your idea, yes. Do you see the problem with that? Why would people go to medical school to become brain surgeons if they can just dig ditches and get the same money? Do you know any doctors? I know tons of them. The truth is that they are driven by the money and the prestige that comes with the job. In your utopian pipe dream, people become doctors just because they love the work. In reality, they rarely do. Why would anybody in your ideal system ever start a business? Why would they care if it is well run? In the Soviet Union, they didn't. That is why it collapsed. In your system, a business owner, if there ever is such a thing, could just load a bunch of unnecessary stuff onto trucks and go, "Well, I worked hard today. Give me my money." And who the Hell would he be talking to?

The reason capitalism works is that people are naturally rewarded for pursuit of greatness. It gives people reasons to start businesses and make them kick ass. It gives people natural incentives to climb business ladders. That is the reason for the success of the United States. We are losing it, but that is how we got to where we got.

Private charities could take care of the money situation for private schools. If we would end our welfare state, we would stop funding and incentivizing the mass reproduction of the poor, and we wouldn't have such an issue with masses of poor people. People would tend to have kids only when they can afford to. It is absolutely insane for poor people to have kids. Also, if we would have a much more reasonable tax system, our economy would improve so much that people would have a lot more money to give to private charity. They would also feel more of a need to do it if there wasn't so much poverty rooted in laziness.

Let's go back to the grade point analogy. What do you think of a grading system in which kids are given points based only on how hard they work? If a kid works hard and makes what would be a C, he makes an A. If a supergenius studies for 5 minutes for a test and gets every answer right, he gets a D because he didn't work that hard. Would that be a good system? What would be wrong with it?

Do you believe in keeping scores in sports? Are winning teams greedy? Is it the case that the will to do well makes both teams do closer to their best than they would if they were just given points based on how hard people are trying, according to some person or people? Giving points based on effort is not even close to the incentive giving points based on accomplishment is. Rewarding accomplishment is the best of all possibilities, and it happens naturally if a government doesn't interfere with it.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Socialism is a pipe dream. You might as well be saying that we should use leaves for money so that everybody can be rich. It doesn't add up in reality. You say that everybody should get paid according to how hard they work. Who gets to decide how hard people are working? Who gets to decide how much money people get for what they do? How could you possibly make such as system happen on any level without stealing from people? If a ditch digger works as hard as a brain surgeon, does the ditch digger get as much money as the brain surgeon? According to your idea, yes. Do you see the problem with that? Why would people go to medical school to become brain surgeons if they can just dig ditches and get the same money? Do you know any doctors? I know tons of them. The truth is that they are driven by the money and the prestige that comes with the job. In your utopian pipe dream, people become doctors just because they love the work. In reality, they rarely do. Why would anybody in your ideal system ever start a business? Why would they care if it is well run? In the Soviet Union, they didn't. That is why it collapsed. In your system, a business owner, if there ever is such a thing, could just load a bunch of unnecessary stuff onto trucks and go, "Well, I worked hard today. Give me my money." And who the Hell would he be talking to?

Well good to know you read absolutely none of my post and just started spewing the same old story.
Here's a thought for you, stop thinking black and white. Socialism has many forms, take a minute to appreciate what I'm laying in front of you before you dismiss it with your "grade analogy".

I never discussed how the exact mechanics would run, neither did I say that people would earn the same amounts (you seemed to have missed pretty much my entire post in that respect). A doctor and ditch digger will not get payed the same, the doctor will certainly get more because he worked harder for it, ie he spent many years studying. Another point to be made is that you are still limited to your own abilities. Standards for jobs aren't lowered, someone who can't be a doctor must choose something else. The system is not without it's flaws as I said earlier but provides a system through which everyone has a similar chance and the population can be well educated.
You are mistaking my utopian form of socialism for communism, which it is certainly not. No one gets money for laying around doing nothing and no one is being pampered.

The funny thing is that my post explicitly mentions that the beauty of my form of socialism would be that money is placed second to human needs (happiness being one of them), and your reply focused almost entirely on how people would lose out money wise. That's the point, the value of money in people's lives goes down, they get can pursue their interests and live happy lives. It revolves entirely on removing the mindset that you must ascend a corporate ladder to attain happiness.

You seem to think it's terrible because it can't produce massive economic growth, because one cannot be competitive to another. Why are these things of importance to a human being, the happiest people in the world are those who care not for money or greed. If a human can live a western lifestyle and be happy isn't that wonderful. People can express their competitive side through sports and debates, not how much more wealth they can produce within a year.

As for what I think about the grading analogy. It's stupid, as with any good system there must be rewards and punishments. And there is certainly no reason why the education of a country should follow communist trends. I can think of many different education systems you could implement within a socialist economy. As I said earlier, it's not about pampering anyone, it's about giving fair chances. Everyone get's their shot at their dream. If they fail multiple times they can still sustain themselves of lower ranking jobs.

Lastly, the reason the united states was successful was because they managed to exploit half the world for their labour and resources, not because it was "land of the opportunity". The American lifestyle has always been unsustainable and relies entirely on a large number of people somewhere in the world being taken advantage of. Anyone who thinks it's a reasonable way of living is delusional.
That is what makes socialism attractive, people can be content with a sustainable life, unlike capitalism where grand materialistic lifestyles are endorsed.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

I never discussed how the exact mechanics would run, neither did I say that people would earn the same amounts (you seemed to have missed pretty much my entire post in that respect). A doctor and ditch digger will not get payed the same, the doctor will certainly get more because he worked harder for it, ie he spent many years studying. Another point to be made is that you are still limited to your own abilities. Standards for jobs aren't lowered, someone who can't be a doctor must choose something else. The system is not without it's flaws as I said earlier but provides a system through which everyone has a similar chance and the population can be well educated.
You are mistaking my utopian form of socialism for communism, which it is certainly not. No one gets money for laying around doing nothing and no one is being pampered.

I know you didn't discuss the exact mechanics of your idea. That is why I asked you about them. I did not say you said anything about people earning the same amounts. That is exactly why I presented a revised grade point analogy based on your idea. How much of my post did you read?

Okay, so you want the money to be based on work involved in necessary education for jobs also. You didn't say that earlier. It's a step better, but I still think it would be a disaster. Should somebody who starts a business that brings in billions get less money than his ditch diggers because he no longer has to work much to keep the business going? How do you accomplish that without stealing what belongs to him? Also, as I asked earlier, who determines who gets what amount of money? Who are these control freaks you want to entrust with such decisions?

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

The funny thing is that my post explicitly mentions that the beauty of my form of socialism would be that money is placed second to human needs (happiness being one of them), and your reply focused almost entirely on how people would lose out money wise. That's the point, the value of money in people's lives goes down, they get can pursue their interests and live happy lives. It revolves entirely on removing the mindset that you must ascend a corporate ladder to attain happiness.

I am all for doing more than working. Look at how many posts I have on this site. My concern with your system is that it would collapse or else be extremely stagnant.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

You seem to think it's terrible because it can't produce massive economic growth, because one cannot be competitive to another. Why are these things of importance to a human being, the happiest people in the world are those who care not for money or greed. If a human can live a western lifestyle and be happy isn't that wonderful. People can express their competitive side through sports and debates, not how much more wealth they can produce within a year.

But what will make businesses function? We need them for economies to function. Laziness doesn't do the trick. Do you want us to all go back to living in caves, tee pees, and huts?

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

As for what I think about the grading analogy. It's stupid, as with any good system there must be rewards and punishments. And there is certainly no reason why the education of a country should follow communist trends. I can think of many different education systems you could implement within a socialist economy. As I said earlier, it's not about pampering anyone, it's about giving fair chances. Everyone get's their shot at their dream. If they fail multiple times they can still sustain themselves of lower ranking jobs.

I revised my grade point analogy to fit your concept of socialism.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Let's go back to the grade point analogy. What do you think of a grading system in which kids are given points based only on how hard they work? If a kid works hard and makes what would be a C, he makes an A. If a supergenius studies for 5 minutes for a test and gets every answer right, he gets a D because he didn't work that hard. Would that be a good system? What would be wrong with it?

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Lastly, the reason the united states was successful was because they managed to exploit half the world for their labour and resources, not because it was "land of the opportunity". The American lifestyle has always been unsustainable and relies entirely on a large number of people somewhere in the world being taken advantage of. Anyone who thinks it's a reasonable way of living is delusional.
That is what makes socialism attractive, people can be content with a sustainable life, unlike capitalism where grand materialistic lifestyles are endorsed.

A lot of Americans have exploited people of other nations, but that is not the secret of our success. Extreme determination to succeed is what made the United States so successful. All of these greedy people you keep saying are misguided are the business owners and operators who made our society advance so much.

I ask you again who would decide the amounts of money people get. Although your idea is a bit different from other socialistic models, other models involve exactly that problem. Think about how it has been handled. What have North Korea, Cuba, the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and China done to regulate the distribution of money? Is it just a big coincidence that they were/are so oppressive? The laid back lifestyle of happiness you have been discussing has not existed where socialism has been tried. It has been a total nightmare every time.

Yay! USA! Enthusiastic hurrahs for my home land. We allow for a regulated capitalism. Something the "Republican" wants to shift towards pure capitalism. We do not have free health care. That means taxes are much lower, and each person keeps more money. However, if you go into a emergency room they must save your life. We enforce rules to protect an employees safety, and we enforce minimum wages.
However, if I am gifted and spend 12 years of childhood schooling and 8 more adult level years of education, I can earn 4-8 times as much money as someone who did not finish 9 years of childhood schooling. It is easy to say people will go through the hell of 8 years of brutal testing and constant stress just because it "interests them." No way! I think the allure of a life free from finance lack, is the carrot hanging in front of the horse (the incentive) for such hard work.

Originally Posted by sivason

Yay! USA! Enthusiastic hurrahs for my home land. We allow for a regulated capitalism. Something the "Republican" wants to shift towards pure capitalism. We do not have free health care. That means taxes are much lower, and each person keeps more money. However, if you go into a emergency room they must save your life. We enforce rules to protect an employees safety, and we enforce minimum wages.
However, if I am gifted and spend 12 years of childhood schooling and 8 more adult level years of education, I can earn 4-8 times as much money as someone who did not finish 9 years of childhood schooling. It is easy to say people will go through the hell of 8 years of brutal testing and constant stress just because it "interests them." No way! I think the allure of a life free from finance lack, is the carrot hanging in front of the horse (the incentive) for such hard work.

We don't have pure capitalism, but we have a relatively good system. It has a whole lot of room to improve.

hmm this is hard, you do present some good arguments. I'm going to have to go with the idea that a successful form of socialism would require a major revamp to society. You see, most forms of socialism or communism that have ever existed were either dictators ships, overly oppressive or just disguised to be purely socialist, but in reality were only socialist parasites on a fundamentally capitalist system.
Surely there can be a system which can regulate everything properly. Where people live with a completely different mindset.

Capitalism works, almost every time. However it also brings with it a slew of social and economic problems. Perhaps there is a utopian form of capitalism that could work flawlessly, as I said earlier, I believe the core concept to any successful society should be education.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Okay, so you want the money to be based on work involved in necessary education for jobs also. You didn't say that earlier. It's a step better, but I still think it would be a disaster. Should somebody who starts a business that brings in billions get less money than his ditch diggers because he no longer has to work much to keep the business going? How do you accomplish that without stealing what belongs to him? Also, as I asked earlier, who determines who gets what amount of money? Who are these control freaks you want to entrust with such decisions?

If I can make it one step better with a simple idea, than it could be another step better. I can keep adding ideas to enrich the system, there's no reason why a problem can't be solved.

I wouldn't say he would get less, he worked to get to that position. He would get the amount equal to the amount of work it took to set up his business in that fashion, which is a lot more work than a ditch-digger does. Also how do we define what "belongs" to him. He created the concept but he is not making the product, the ones who are manufacturing it own just as much of the product as he does. That is not a problem in a society where people recognize that you cannot own something purely because you thought of it first. The manager is still rewarded with a higher income and less work to do in his later life.

I'm not sure how that would pan out, it seems like you're asking for failure by distributing money in such a fashion, but maybe the problem lies on our current mode of thinking. The belief that such a tolerant system is possible.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I am all for doing more than working. Look at how many posts I have on this site. My concern with your system is that it would collapse or else be extremely stagnant.

I wouldn't say stagnant, there is a clear reward for working hard, money will still flow, food and other produce will still be bought. It will just run at a slower rate.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

But what will make businesses function? We need them for economies to function. Laziness doesn't do the trick. Do you want us to all go back to living in caves, tee pees, and huts?

No, as outlined above there is incentive to set up a business, laziness will not earn you the money needed to survive. Though you bring up a nice point there about caves and tee pees. I actually think bringing our lifestyle down a notch would work wonders. Within in boundaries of course, the flamboyant life we live nowadays is unsustainable and relies entirely on the rest of the world providing the materials we need to continue our lives of ignorance. If a country could sustain itself without outside influence then it would inevitably have a simpler way of life, not fueled by consumerism. Exotic foods and a new iPhone every year probably wouldn't exist, though with the technology of today I do believe we could manufacture a large number of fancy products for ourselves, just not at the same rate as capitalism would allow for.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

A lot of Americans have exploited people of other nations, but that is not the secret of our success. Extreme determination to succeed is what made the United States so successful. All of these greedy people you keep saying are misguided are the business owners and operators who made our society advance so much.

Unlikely. Spain, England, the Netherlands, Portugal and France, pretty much every successful civilization ever managed to reach their position through exploitation. Slave labour and an excess of raw materials is what allowed nations to thrive, despite their broken social and economic systems. The same goes for America, it's massive and full of natural resources. It was essentially guaranteed success if it followed in the foot steps of its founders. America's size dwarfs that of all European countries and their early introduction and ample amounts of oil certainly helped them too. Extreme determination only played a minor role.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I ask you again who would decide the amounts of money people get. Although your idea is a bit different from other socialistic models, other models involve exactly that problem. Think about how it has been handled. What have North Korea, Cuba, the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and China done to regulate the distribution of money? Is it just a big coincidence that they were/are so oppressive? The laid back lifestyle of happiness you have been discussing has not existed where socialism has been tried. It has been a total nightmare every time.

Yes that is the hardest problem. I really have no idea how you would distribute wealth. I doubt it would be static, money incentives would change according to demand (a concept which goes against the grain of usual socialism but would have to exist to allow the economy to function).

The reason socialism failed in those countries is because they all originally functioned as dictatorships, and none of those countries ran true socialism. In all of those but Cuba, government leaders were paid much more than your average worker. Cuba does in fact have some very admirable aspects despite it being a failure, though the quality of life there is poor, overall human happiness is higher than in the USA. Even they have never used a true form of socialism, they earn their wealth through selling sugar, it's what 90% of Cuba produces. They where doomed to fail since they relied entirely on other countries providing them with food.

That laidback style exists in Sweden which is a partial socialist. Happiness is high, education is high, sure there are problems but I would pick that over the USA or the UK any time.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Essentially anarcho-capitalism exploits labor from an anarcho-syndicalist perspective. It's called wage-slavery because laborers have no choice but to be exploited if they want to make ends meet.

I think anarcho-syndicalists are adulterating the word "slavery" here. Slavery used to mean a system where people were captured like animals, and then kept as workers in a place under the threat of physical or psychological torture if they attempted escape, or did not perform the work.

Anybody working in a (at least somewhat) free country is not being threatened in a similar manner, nor are they being captured.

In a free country, a person who does not wish to "be exploited" as a worker, has several options available:

• Starve to death
• Rely on gifts from others
• Go into business for him/her self (in the case where capital is needed, the person may possibly obtain a loan).
• Move away to unclaimed land, and live off that land.

If a person, given all these options, still chooses to seek employment with an organisation, and accepts a contract stipulating the mutual conditions for the employment, then this person is, in my opinion, by no stretch of the imagination a slave in the traditional sense of the word.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

hmm this is hard, you do present some good arguments. I'm going to have to go with the idea that a successful form of socialism would require a major revamp to society. You see, most forms of socialism or communism that have ever existed were either dictators ships, overly oppressive or just disguised to be purely socialist, but in reality were only socialist parasites on a fundamentally capitalist system.
Surely there can be a system which can regulate everything properly. Where people live with a completely different mindset.

Capitalism works, almost every time. However it also brings with it a slew of social and economic problems. Perhaps there is a utopian form of capitalism that could work flawlessly, as I said earlier, I believe the core concept to any successful society should be education.

Thanks.

I think the attempts at real socialism fail every time because of the lack of incentive it creates but also because of the issue of who gets to distribute the money. No matter how much people in a society talk about how neat they think the idea of socialism is, the truth is that the masses don't want it. People don't like having their property taken from them. That is why the distributors have to be oppressive hard asses, to the point that the government becomes insane with rules and threats. Some levels of socialism exist in functional countries. Sweden and Denmark are examples. However, I think those countries would be better off if they went capitalistic all the way, though capitalism does have its problems. The United States has become way too socialistic, and I am concerned about where we are headed.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

If I can make it one step better with a simple idea, than it could be another step better. I can keep adding ideas to enrich the system, there's no reason why a problem can't be solved.

I wouldn't say he would get less, he worked to get to that position. He would get the amount equal to the amount of work it took to set up his business in that fashion, which is a lot more work than a ditch-digger does. Also how do we define what "belongs" to him. He created the concept but he is not making the product, the ones who are manufacturing it own just as much of the product as he does. That is not a problem in a society where people recognize that you cannot own something purely because you thought of it first. The manager is still rewarded with a higher income and less work to do in his later life.

I'm not sure how that would pan out, it seems like you're asking for failure by distributing money in such a fashion, but maybe the problem lies on our current mode of thinking. The belief that such a tolerant system is possible.

The problem is that either the doctor or his boss owns the business and is doing the trading. If somebody, who would have to be working for the government, makes decisions on how much of that money the doctor or his boss gets to keep, he is stealing from him. The person who made the trade should be the person who is in charge of the money because he is the one who made the deal with it using his business that he owns. Who is anybody else to take that money from him (reasonable taxation aside-- there is a legitimate range of charge for living in a country and using necessary government services)?

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

I wouldn't say stagnant, there is a clear reward for working hard, money will still flow, food and other produce will still be bought. It will just run at a slower rate.

That is what I meant by "stagnant."

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

No, as outlined above there is incentive to set up a business, laziness will not earn you the money needed to survive. Though you bring up a nice point there about caves and tee pees. I actually think bringing our lifestyle down a notch would work wonders. Within in boundaries of course, the flamboyant life we live nowadays is unsustainable and relies entirely on the rest of the world providing the materials we need to continue our lives of ignorance. If a country could sustain itself without outside influence then it would inevitably have a simpler way of life, not fueled by consumerism. Exotic foods and a new iPhone every year probably wouldn't exist, though with the technology of today I do believe we could manufacture a large number of fancy products for ourselves, just not at the same rate as capitalism would allow for.

What would be the incentive to set up a business?

You have made good points about happiness being more important than money and success. I just don't think we would be happier if our economies slowed down too much. Unemployment and lots of economic problems come with it and make life really stressful. That is partly because we are spoiled, but we would inevitably hate it. I'm part native American, so I have ancestors who were living off the land until really not that long ago. I'm sure their lives were not totally miserable, but I don't want to live like that. I like my computer, car, and air conditioning too much. I also like having job opportunities and knowing that everybody else who needs them has them.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Unlikely. Spain, England, the Netherlands, Portugal and France, pretty much every successful civilization ever managed to reach their position through exploitation. Slave labour and an excess of raw materials is what allowed nations to thrive, despite their broken social and economic systems. The same goes for America, it's massive and full of natural resources. It was essentially guaranteed success if it followed in the foot steps of its founders. America's size dwarfs that of all European countries and their early introduction and ample amounts of oil certainly helped them too. Extreme determination only played a minor role.

I think the success that has been created since slavery and colonialism ended in the Western world shows that exploitation is not necessary for success. Exploitation is just something convenient and self-serving for evil people.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Yes that is the hardest problem. I really have no idea how you would distribute wealth. I doubt it would be static, money incentives would change according to demand (a concept which goes against the grain of usual socialism but would have to exist to allow the economy to function).

The reason socialism failed in those countries is because they all originally functioned as dictatorships, and none of those countries ran true socialism. In all of those but Cuba, government leaders were paid much more than your average worker. Cuba does in fact have some very admirable aspects despite it being a failure, though the quality of life there is poor, overall human happiness is higher than in the USA. Even they have never used a true form of socialism, they earn their wealth through selling sugar, it's what 90% of Cuba produces. They where doomed to fail since they relied entirely on other countries providing them with food.

That's one of the key problems. Socialism involves giving the government way too much power. With mass power comes mass corruption.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

That laidback style exists in Sweden which is a partial socialist. Happiness is high, education is high, sure there are problems but I would pick that over the USA or the UK any time.

I would rather live where I live, but like I said, we have gotten way too socialistic ourselves. Our welfare state is a nightmare that has got to end. One of the biggest problems with it is that it takes away lazy womens' fear of not being able to take care of kids if they get pregnant. The result is that poor women who can't afford to have kids have them any way without hesitation because they know the government will take care of their kids financially. That also gives fathers less reason to stick around, so what we have is a large faction of society in which lazy, dysfunctional women are raising more kids than they can keep up with and not having the help of fathers. Kids who grow up in environments like that very often end up being dysfunctional and sociopathic. That problem is a major source of our crime problem, and we really have a bad one.

I live in one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, so I am extremely opinionated about our welfare state. I am also extremely opinionated about the war on drugs, partly because of how it has contributed so much to the crime problem. There is an underground world of dangerous gangs because that is what sells the drugs when the stores can't. The same thing happened in the U.S. with alcohol. What we have now is like alcohol prohibition on steroids.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I think anarcho-syndicalists are adulterating the word "slavery" here. Slavery used to mean a system where people were captured like animals, and then kept as workers in a place under the threat of physical or psychological torture if they attempted escape, or did not perform the work.

Anybody working in a (at least somewhat) free country is not being threatened in a similar manner, nor are they being captured.

In a free country, a person who does not wish to "be exploited" as a worker, has several options available:

• Starve to death
• Rely on gifts from others
• Go into business for him/her self (in the case where capital is needed, the person may possibly obtain a loan).
• Move away to unclaimed land, and live off that land.

If a person, given all these options, still chooses to seek employment with an organisation, and accepts a contract stipulating the mutual conditions for the employment, then this person is, in my opinion, by no stretch of the imagination a slave in the traditional sense of the word.

You're right that slavery is used hyperbolically, however only in the sense that the word rape is often used to define forms of sexual assault which do not necessarily result in penetration because the result is similar. If someone is sexually assaulted but not penetrated, there's still deep psychological damage, and simply because someone isn't shot for leaving the farm in today's society doesn't mean you've presented reasonable alternatives to wage-slavery.

The key to the claim is that workers are being exploited, and yes slavery is heavy handed rhetoric but our current system is only a couple steps down from full penetration slavery, and one of those steps, which people have died for, is currently being rolled back in pursuit of a capitalist nightmare called corporatism.

When workers fighting for their rights is equated to statism, when you read any single post UM has made in this thread, redefining things as he chooses, equating the type of exploitation we see today to slavery is a pretty miniscule hyperbole. Regardless of whether or not it's full penetration slavery, the system enables a parasitic class of people to control the media and control the language so that the label parasite is instead given to those that fight for their rights. Where class warfare is labeled to those who attempt to defend their class rather than the ones assaulting it, much like how Christians deem it an assault on Christianity when you protect your right to practice your own religion, I find myself perfectly comfortable using the word slavery.

The Nazis were socialists. Interestingly, their full name was the National Socialist Party.

A Little Secret About the Nazis (They were left-wing socialists like the modern left of today)

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

The Nazis were socialists. Interestingly, their full name was the National Socialist Party.

A Little Secret About the Nazis (They were left-wing socialists like the modern left of today)

That is actually Fascism: Here is a clip from Websters:

Full Definition of FASCISM


1

often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

They were both. Socialism has to be enforced by an oppressive regime. It could never happen naturally. The masses don't want socialism, so it has to be forced on them to exist.

Since the 19th century there have been the two opposing socialist groups: the internationalistic movement (marxists), and the nationalistic movement (various names, including fascists and nationalist socialists - i.e. nazi's). They tend to hate each others guts with a vengeance. Because they appeal to exactly the same voters!

They mainly differ in two respects: 1) the marxists want socialism to embrace the whole planet, so that there is only one country, whereas the fascists are perfectly happy to realise socialism in the country, where they are. And 2) the marxists don't just want de facto private ownership of the means of production erased, but also the nominal private ownership. The fascists can accept nominal private ownership, for as long as the actual control over the means of production is in the hands of the government.

Big differences, seen from their viewpoints. But pretty small to everybody else.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

the marxists want socialism to embrace the whole planet, so that there is only one country

That is something very terrifying about Marxism. It is the threat the Cold War was about, and it is a common agenda now. It has infiltrated the U.S. government, and it is what makes the "New World Order" conspiracy theory sound not so crazy. However, I don't accept the major theories about who all has been involved in it. Bush 41 made the term famous, and I am pretty sure he was one of the people who worked hard to take down the Soviet Union. He might even get runner up to the MVP award. He was president when the Soviet Union collapsed, and he was vice president when the MVP award winner, Rondald Reagan, was president. They knew that socialism makes economies extremely weak, and they knew how to exploit the weakness and give the Soviet Union the right push and make it fall apart completely. I also think Mikhail Gorbachev might have been working for the CIA.