Is "socialism" a scare word in America?

ananda said:

No, of course not. If you read my posts in this thread, you'd see that I am against that.

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And against making the rich give the money back, apparently,

Speedwell said:

And against making the rich give the money back, apparently,

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Where do you see that I suggested that?

If the rich steals from the poor, I am all for government remediating that wrong with justice.

ananda said:

I'm not arguing that "perfection is unattainable". I'm mainly pointing out the fact that relieving the suffering of one group necessarily means increasing distributing the suffering on to other groups, due to the fact that worldly resources are limited.

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This is an almost mercantilist view of relief of suffering (or discomfort). Is Rand mercantilist in her philosophy of self interest? (I never had the stomach for it.)

ananda said:

IMO the problem with socialism is that there is literally no end in this world to all the sufferings that people experience, but there is a limit to the amount of resources we have in this world to address those things.

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This is what happens when problems are made into an industry. They become self-generating and endless. This is evidenced by the thousands of named maladies that we suffer from, each with it's expensive medical remedy, whose side effects often lead to yet more maladies.

Albion said:

That's not what Marxism holds, and we are here talking about Socialism which is always promoted as the solution to all of society's ills.

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Is it?

Albion said:

Socialism is a form of government in which wealth production is controlled by government and wealth itself is redistributed by force according to whatever moral code appeals to the rulers.

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Then are we in agreement that by this definition to date the US has not been a socialist government?

Can we further agree that "Social programs" such as UHC and social security are not socialist by this definition?

ananda said:

I'm not arguing that "perfection is unattainable". I'm mainly pointing out the fact that relieving the suffering of one group necessarily means increasing distributing the suffering on to other groups (due to the fact that worldly resources are limited), and I'm speaking up for this latter group.

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I am not convinced that the amount of "suffering" is constant and cannot be lowered.

And even if it were, I would argue that it is more ethical for everyone to suffer a little than for all but one to not suffer at all and for that one person to suffer greatly.

ananda said:

They shouldn't be addressed by government because of the fact that sufferings are endless, and resources are limited. To select a few select sufferings to support is to disparage the other sufferings of others.

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So, according to you, since suffering is ENDLESS, and governments should NOT use any resources to alleviate ANY suffering (since resources are limited and it would require making choices as to who gets the resources, ergo NO BODY gets the resources), then you demand that EVERYONE suffer ALL THE TIME.

Wow. I'm glad I don't live in your world.

ananda said:

I am a libertarian, and have little love for Republicanism.

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Why? Are they too bleeding heart liberal for you?

Brightmoon said:

Without some form of socialism we wouldn’t have public schools, paved streets, garbage pick up, fire departments , highways, clean safe water, police , safe gas and electricity delivery, public transportation, public hospitals, building safety codes, weather services, etc etc etc.

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I think these examples are consistent with "social liberalism" rather than socialism.

Andrewn said:

I think these are consistent with "social liberalism" rather than socialism.

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Given that Americans generally don't know the difference, and can't differentiate between Sweden/Norway/Finland/Switzerland/Nederland/etc. and Soviet Union/Cuba/Venezuela, pointing out the political/economic realities will probably fall on deaf ears.

It will always be the Netherlands=bad/USA=good.

Albion said:

Socialism is a form of government in which wealth production is controlled by government and wealth itself is redistributed by force according to whatever moral code appeals to the rulers.

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Yes, and since no one advocates this sort of intervention (post #8), this scare-word should not be used in American politics.

I love libertarians. It’s an easy way to spot who read Ayn Rand in college and didn’t get invited to any of the good parties.

Vanellus said:

What about people who have little or no resources?

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Then we help them.

Socialism isn't about helping the needy. It's about providing for everyone, without their choice, and then charging them for it.

tturt said:

Not a scarce word but we should be fighting against it as much possible and in everyway possible. Those of us who voted Republican in the last Presidential election made a stand against it.

For those who are concerned about others - it's possible to do now - just give your money to a charity. It's easy

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Charity alone is not adequate.

World hunger could be stopped for the annual cost of what the U.S. spends on defence in two weeks, yet millions still die every year. Or people that don't have access to clean drinking water? Access to basic medical provisions?

There's not enough charity for that, much less the social security programmes relied on by many.

Nithavela said:

I am not convinced that the amount of "suffering" is constant and cannot be lowered.

And even if it were, I would argue that it is more ethical for everyone to suffer a little than for all but one to not suffer at all and for that one person to suffer greatly.

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How would you objectively measure those degrees of suffering?

MIDutch said:

So, according to you, since suffering is ENDLESS, and governments should NOT use any resources to alleviate ANY suffering (since resources are limited and it would require making choices as to who gets the resources, ergo NO BODY gets the resources), then you demand that EVERYONE suffer ALL THE TIME.

Wow. I'm glad I don't live in your world.

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No, I'm saying that government is not the appropriate sphere to address sufferings.

Brightmoon said:

It’s like communism used to be in the 50s and 60s . I remember being scared of Communists (insert scream here!) as a small child . Then in junior high (aka middle school) I looked it up and felt silly for being scared of a boogie man that didn’t exist .

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Tell that to the N Koreans.

Vanellus said:

“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance that people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labour organisations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people."
Harry S Truman, 1952

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I used to joke about socialism being the only term that gets regularly used by both sides and neither really know what it means. I don't think it's funny anymore.

Truman was correct is saying that socialism is incorrectly used to scare people away from policies.

Those aren't socialist policies he's talking about.

Let's start with a basic description of a socialist economy...

A socialist economy is a system of productionwhere goods and services are produced directly for use, in contrast to a capitalist economic system, where goods and services are produced to generate profit (and therefore indirectly for use). "Production under socialism would be directly and solely for use. With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs."[54] Goods and services would be produced for their usefulness, or for their use-value, eliminating the need for market-induced needs to ensure a sufficient amount of demand for products to be sold at a profit. Production in a socialist economy is therefore "planned" or "coordinated", and does not suffer from the business cycle inherent to capitalism.

So when the left describes things like a minimum wage or government regulation of an industry....they are wrong. When the right uses it to describe welfare programs....they are wrong.

Socialism is really just early stage communism. It's a planned economy...not just a regulated one.

Let's also be clear that every planned economy ever attempted on a large scale has been an disaster. It's almost certainly going to become a totalitarian system with a lot of state sponsored murder in short time.

If all the money in the world was divided equally to each person, by tomorrow there would be individuals who would not have theirs due to robbery, lending, investing, gambling, giving it, mismanagement, etc.