Define Socialism... IN YOUR OWN WORDS.

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Wardaddy454
a reply to: ScepticScot

And the private sector made them available to all.

Almost like a mix of private and state is the best solution...

Sure, like an 80/20 mix.

originally posted by: Kharron
And if that happens, we are conscripts and we get nothing for it in exchange, no free education, nothing. In fact, unless the country gives you free health care, free education and free other basics of life it should be illegal to be drafted, no matter what law the legislators draw up, like ours have in the past.

I'm actually FOR mandatory military service. The benefits far outweigh the negatives in my opinion.

At the top of the list is that if all American children were required to serve, maybe their parents would be far more discerning in which conflicts or wars we decide to send them off to.

Also, if we really want to improve culturally diverse relations, rather than simply pay lip service to it, then the military environment seems like the best place to make that happen.

originally posted by: Wardaddy454

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Wardaddy454
a reply to: ScepticScot

And the private sector made them available to all.

Almost like a mix of private and state is the best solution...

Sure, like an 80/20 mix.

Nah 80% state is way too high...

a reply to: ScepticScot

How is the meme ban working out?

originally posted by: Wardaddy454
a reply to: ScepticScot

How is the meme ban working out?

What meme ban? Did I miss an ATS T&C update?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Isurrender73

Without any ownership their is no incentives for invention or increased production.

The original Jamestown colony was a socialist construct. Everyone held a share of everything in common. No one truly owned anything, so no one was incentivized to work. They all nearly starved. This was changed to no eating if you weren't working, but the colony failed to thrive.

Things didn't change until personal plots were assigned and colonists were allowed to hold some of the fruits of their own labors as their own. Why? They were then incentivized to succeed.

This is actually an example of Communism. Socialism as described by Marx was seen as a path to Communism but it doesn't have to be that way.

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation of mines, railways, steel, etc. in a capitalist class society is not socialism, nor does this constitutes “the socialist sector of a mixed economy”. Such nationalisation in a capitalist society is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. www.marxists.org...

Socialism would be like every major corperations employees being shareholders.

The employees could chose to pay the different levels of leadership whatever they deemed appropriate. Since the profits are theirs to distribute as they see fit. There is no demand in socialism itself to strip away wealth, but rather to distribute fairly amongst those who work to produce. And not concentrate all the wealth in the hands of the 1%.

Each industry would be responsible for itself. And no two industries would be required to pay the same as another industry. Thus Socialism is not a classless system. When Socialism become classless it has become Communism and no longer Socialism.

Incentive to inovate would remain as Socialism allows for new industries and competition amongst industries.

The differnce would be how ownership viewed the working class. In Capitalism the owner dictates pay and views the employee as expenditures. In Socialism the ownership would be forced to see their employees as business partners. Because the owner needs the employees to generate wealth they should have some say in the distribution of that wealth. This was supposed to be the purpose of unions, but poor leadership that doesn't really represnt the employees has lead to corruption and waste.

Agian. It is impossible to show an example of Socialism because it has never been tried. And I advocate for a mixed society not a pure socialist society. But I do Deny Ignorance.

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Wardaddy454
a reply to: ScepticScot

How is the meme ban working out?

What meme ban? Did I miss an ATS T&C update?

Just poking fun at Spain wanting to ban memes.
Surprised the UK isn't wanting to as well, considering its stance on social media posts.

a reply to: neo96

Is Kim Jong Un a socialist or dictator? I care not what a nations leaders label itself as, I am only interested in what the nation actually was.

What part of this is confusing?

originally posted by: Wardaddy454

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Wardaddy454
a reply to: ScepticScot

How is the meme ban working out?

What meme ban? Did I miss an ATS T&C update?

Just poking fun at Spain wanting to ban memes.
Surprised the UK isn't wanting to as well, considering its stance on social media posts.

That would the ban proposed by the right wing pro capaitalism party.

Looks like authoritarian anti free speech idiocy straddles the political spectrum.

a reply to: Isurrender73

Government Unitary one-party socialist republic[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: Isurrender73

Government Unitary one-party socialist republic[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

Your link says everything is state owned in North Korea.

Socialism is everything employee owned.

You really need to grab a hold of this concept if you wish to continue to debate.

North Korea functions as a highly centralized, one-party state.

According to its 2016 constitution, it is a self-described revolutionary and socialist state"guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea".[95]

In addition to the constitution, North Korea is governed by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System(also known as the "Ten Principles of the One-Ideology System") which establishes standards for governance and a guide for the behaviours of North Koreans.[96]

Can it get any clearer?

a reply to: neo96

It is self described socialism.

But it is state owned and not employee owned. Therefore it is not Socialism. You don't understand what you are debating.

Define Socialism...

a form of government that has never been successfully implemented

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: MrVancityeagle

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: MrVancityeagle

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: MrVancityeagle

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: MrVancityeagle

I dont know why it has become such a negative thing.

Probably because it has led to the deaths of millions.

It takes power and influence from the 99% as well. Some little farmer can’t eat from his own crops because it is owned by the “collective”.

this is the stock right wing response which is complete bull.

How many deaths has capitalism lead to ?

Got an answer ? It is far more than whatever you believe can be attritbuted to Socialism, if you want to play this game.

Stock, socialist piffle.

I’ll play that game. Collectivized farming under Stalin, for example. The cultural revolution under Mao, for example.

we can play this game. But since every war in history has been for resources and profit, and since capitalism is a system based on making profits, every single death from war in history is a result of Capitalism.

Every single war has been a capitalist war

That by far dwarfs any claims of deaths from Socialism

What? So all wars before Adam smith were capitalist?

Have you heard of the Cambodian killing fields? Kmer Rouge? Vietnam? the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan?

the wars in southeast Asia and Afghanistan were largely due to heroin. Golden Triangle and Golden Crescent

Drug wars are capitalist wars. Does that need to be spelled out for you ?

Where there is money to be made, there will be wars, and millions and millions of people will die.

Capitalism KILLS. Far more than Socialism. Deal with reality.

You can’t spell it out because it’s nonsense. When socialist countries go to war, usually with their own people, it’s capitalism. That’s the worst socialist lie I have ever heard.

The British empire (and its private capitalist forerunners) probably chalked up more deaths than the combined total of socialist regimes.

I think the broader point is that trying to compare different economic systems by counting deaths caused by dictatorships is pretty pointless.

But a body count directly related to governance isn’t pointless. If millions die due to famine as the result of a government policy, that is a direct effect of the system.

Pretty sure Capitalism wins in a straight famine body count.

For instance?

The Afghan famine in the 1960s - the US wanted to build a 'scientifically stable' society to withold Communism. Buckminster-fuller was largely in charge of the project which attempted to relocate nomadic tribes in Peshwar to Helmand province.

Prior to this Afghanistan had been a very Westerised country where women held the majority of economic power via Afghan rugs and the mini skirt was in high fashion and no one batted an eyelid somone wearing one. Under Buckminster Fullers plan a hydro electric power plant would provide the energy to grow US GM crops so the society would be self sufficient to withstand the allure of communism.

In reality what happened was the dam had been built on enormous salt marshes. The crops failed completely and caused one of the worst famines in history, the only thing that would grow in the destroyed soil and water supply was opium poppies. The entire country collapsed into Wahhabi/Taliban and the same dam was the first thing to be bombed in the 2001 Afghan war and foundations have been used as defensive cover by Taliban ever since.

The first law to be passed in Iraq post invasion had nothing to do with rights for Iraqis or international oil contracts. It was the Iraqi Seed and Grain Law which meant every crop grown had to come from an approved, US, patented seed - the farmers were banned from growing their own seeds.

Futures, stocks and hedges also cause a huge ammount of out pricing, false food shortages and increased spoilage as it's tradeable commodity.

Think it's impossible to say which contributed to more but both can cause major unnecessary famine when left to 'self regulate'.

a reply to: bastion

How does the capitalism factor into this?

a reply to: Isurrender73

Actually, it has.

Haven't you ever heard of employee ownership? Employees are shareholders. Things are that one share = one vote. Employees have about as much as you or I do toward who our individual representatives are, and many complain they have no say now.

Who decides what the voted on options for boss pay will be, for example?What if you don't like any of the options and think they are all too high? How long does the process of deciding these things take? Who works in the meantime? Who decides what the day to day operations will be while all of this deciding and voting by every employee is done?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

The Afghan programme was a CIA one designed to limit the Soviets in the Cold War, it wasn't inherently Capitalist but was a proxy Captilalism vs Communism Cold War front with the aim to prevent Soviet rule in Afghanistan (they did the same across the East of Russia but this is the only one to involve food). Forcing farmers to buy patented seeds instead of ones their own crops produce acts solely in the benefit of private companies not people - i.e capitalism.

Futures, stocks and shares are the markets, City and pure Capitalism. Foodstuffs being treated as commodities is capitalist in nature.

Having said that the Apollo program technology is responsible for modern agriculture/medicine and must have boosted production by at least 100% - all for the amount the US spends on ice cream per year.

Does America have welfare that payee by the tax dollars, or taxes that go into anything? Cause if it is, then you guys, or...u.s are socialists.

a reply to: bastion

Interesting stuff!

What you described is all about imperialism, not a specific political or economic system, though.