Modern day government cannot exist without socialism

That’s right folks, government cannot exist without some form of socialism and while fellow conservative ATSers may wholeheartedly disagree and carry the banner of "libertarianism”, government cannot exist and work if there are not some socialist policies working within it. It doesn’t take much to realize this fact, so while folks may flame and fume regarding the horrors of socialism, history and the present day will tell us a totally story about "socialism" and the need for it in modern society. Let’s just get to the definition of socialism firstly:

Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

www.thefreedictionary.com...

By the definition from conservatives exclusively, socialism is any social collective organization managed by the central government. In every excuse regarding liberals in government, we have conservatives always making accusations of socialism and "the dangers of communism". The problem with argument is that in the past and to this day the US government has always implemented socialist policies. In order for the US to survive as a nation, there needs to be some form of socialism in the government. Conservative presidents such as Reagan and Nixon cannot be accounted for having a socialist free administration. I really do not need to discuss Bush jr himself, we all know the man is a full blown hypocrite to the term "conservatism", but such iconic conservative administrations as the Reagan one still operated under socialist policies.. As did Nixon, as did Ford, as did Bush snr. Reagan lowered taxes and ultimately put to end most of the regulation in the market but ultimately the government still operated under socialist policies. In addition an increase of 61,000 Americans became dependent on welfare under Reagan, a socialist system to which he or any other conservative administration had not ended.

Taxes itself in any form is socialist regardless of whether it’s hidden or obvious. At the end of the day you are using a collective system of money which is managed by the government and distributed across the nation. Libertarians themselves have advocated the end to the income tax, there are plenty on here, however in place of that many here expect that tax to be added to products, goods taxes, or some even advocate a flat/fair tax. Nevertheless the system is still socialist.

The constant calls for a strong defence by conservatives, spending half the worlds military expenditure, in order for this to even have a chance of continuing there needs to be a collective system to pay for it off.

Whether folks choose to admit it or not, the services from the police and fireman are ultimately one of socialist structure. It would be real interesting to have a completely privatized police force, which just would not work out.

Here’s a reply I will probably find here:

"But the Dems and Republicans are the same, it’s a conspiracy! A socialist one! Ron Paul is the only who is above socialism!

Well no, even under a Ron Paul administration, socialism will still play an important part, so unless Paul intends for anarchy nation where its everyman for himself and its BC time period again socialism will not go away.

Paul may want to end the fed but that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of socialism, instead he actually wants to implement a new tax system (national sales tax) to replace the income tax. Regardless of whether this is seen as somehow "less socialist" he is still implementing a collective system of wealth distribution. At the same time he still advocates for a strong national defence at the cost it is now. Sure, the withdrawal from the parts of the world that has US bases and occupations would provide much needed funding, but even with reduced socialism defence would have to be cut in half. Of course I agree with withdrawing all bases and cutting defence expenditure in half, but for conservatives to continue to increase military defence, with minimal socialist policies, is unrealistic, even for half the expenditure of the current military.

It is true that during the early 19th and 18th centuries socialism was nearly non-existent, though the conditions of that time to now is self explanatory, although that’s and argument I will happily carry out for further discussion here. When we look back at the last 100 years, socialism, policies that distribute wealth have always existed, in every administration, whether it’s conservative or left wing. Both the trickle down system and the current system are ultimately still a distribution of wealth, and in that case a socialist policy. For folks to choose one they dont like and be anti-socialist doesnt make any sense at all.

This notion of a government virtually free of socialist policies is naive. Conservatives, libertarians, they have never had to be tested on their arguments, and if anything the last 100years showed us that even the most conservative individuals in power have never established a system of government not dependent of some form of socialist policy.

The argument can always be the dangers of the extremes of both left and right, but to argue and label one government of socialism, but then fail realize the inevitably strong presence of socialism in the US government over the last century, is well highly hypocritical.

Think any of those politicians are serious when they speak negatively about socialism? History tells us difference. This spite against all things socialist has no standing, because we depend on socialism ultimately for our nation to survive. Like it or not.

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Southern Guardian]

I would agree completely with your premise - but only in the context of the "definition" of socialism as you have presented it. In Europe, socialism has traditionally been the bedrock of left wing ideology, however, we also have to accept that there are varying degrees of socialism and that these are promoted by parties that exist along the whole spectrum of left to right wing politics.

The degree to which control is centralised is, perhaps, a good measure of socialism however we see high levels of such control promoted by both left and right wing politics. Certainly, in Europe, the concept of socialism as an idealogical framework associated with a particular political wing is now wholly ambiguous.

Specific examples or what could be deemed as a socialist policy, such as centralised taxation, mean different things when applied in a federated set of states as opposed to a sovereign state such as the UK.

Centralised provision and support of services that could arguably be considered part of the national infrastructure of a state could be seen to exemplify socialism politics, however, such traditions may be attributable to pragmatism rather than any particular ideology.

During the reign of the USSR, socialism could be empirically defined by the differences between "East" and "West", associated as it was with the ethos of the two superpowers then in existence. However, with the collapse of the USSR we have seen a new ambiguity in the definition of applied socialism such that it no longer represents a definitive label for the ideology of a politic will.

I am a socialist from the UK, unfortunately Tony Blair moved the Labour party so far to the centre, means we no longer have a party representing and protecting the working classes. this was formally the role of the Labour party. Unfortunately what we see in this vacuum, is a rise of far right parties promising to help the working man.

We need to re-nationalise our energy, water and railways and strngthen our trade unions. Its not fair the rich keep getting richer and poor getting poorer.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


I would agree to a point. A country of our size and population need some central gov't participation in certain areas, such as roads and bridges, to exist. But the line must be drawn at "owning the means of production". This is best left to private industry. To do otherwise fosters nepotism, cronyism, and corruption.

We need to evolve as we grow, but we must always be careful to remain true to the principles that encourage growth. Gov't ownership never encourages growth.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
I am a socialist from the UK, unfortunately Tony Blair moved the Labour party so far to the centre, means we no longer have a party representing and protecting the working classes. this was formally the role of the Labour party. Unfortunately what we see in this vacuum, is a rise of far right parties promising to help the working man.

We need to re-nationalise our energy, water and railways and strngthen our trade unions. Its not fair the rich keep getting richer and poor getting poorer.

I would disagree, and instead I would heed the warnings spoken by Daniel Hannon. He speaks of the dangers of socialism and what it has done to destroy your once proud, productive nation.

America already has many socialist things in it right now, look at our schools, and social security and welfare...they are socialist in nature. Medicine will be next, the so called National Health Care will be administered by government, but some are arguing that the States should administer health care. So we are already somewhat socialist. Many Americans suck at the breast of government, myself included.(social security) Without that check, I would probably starve, and be homeless, so basically I am at the mercy of government, right? All they need to is withhold one or two checks. What we need to do is stop calling America a Democracy, which it never was, and start calling it a Republic, a Confederation of States. And then act accordingly. I live in Ohio. My government is in Ohio. Not in Washington D.C. Get it?

Socialism is simply an ideology but the results of implementing socialism ideas is a tendency toward centralism. This "creeping centralism" is the true enemy of libertarians and true conservatives.

You mention fire men, police, and libraries as examples of "good socialism" and I agree and what makes these institutions "good" is that they are forms of socialism that are not centralist. There is no Federal Library Authority, National Fire Men Bureau, nor Central Police Agency.

Instead, those services represent a form of socialism that I think of as "distributism" wherein the local communities are able and encouraged to create mini-socialist systems that better represent the colour and character of the local people they are intended to serve.

The obvious example of a local system socialist system taken over by the fed is the educational system. Look at how well that has worked out. We have had constantly falling world standing and a population that is increasingly ignorant about the world. This happens because what the centralist government's idea of education should be is not very well aligned with the population's idea of education.

I wholly support "distributed socialism" or "For the local community; By the local community" kind of projects and funding. At the same time, I will violently oppose federal socialism, centralism, national socialism, or any of the other perverse forms of slavery that the pseudo-intellectual elite would like to implement.

Jon

Originally posted by autowrench
What we need to do is stop calling America a Democracy, which it never was, and start calling it a Republic, a Confederation of States. And then act accordingly. I live in Ohio. My government is in Ohio. Not in Washington D.C. Get it?

Hear, Hear! This is so simple a concept that is amazing that so few USians can even grok it!

I see the same destruction of local sovereignty happening right now in Europe with the EU doing its best impersonation of a central government. I have a feeling that Europe will descend into "civil war" in less than two decades time. The EU is acting like the federal government was acting around 1850 - grabbing for power using every minor economic and social issue as an excuse.

Speaking of civil wars, did you ever realize that America's first civil war - erm - wasn't? A civil war is when the government suppresses a revolt of the citizenry. Since the Confederate States had formally seceded, they were no longer subjects of the king in D.C. Thus it couldn't be a civil war anymore than the first Gulf War could be called a civil war.

Jon

reply to post by Voxel


An excellent post Voxel; one that underpins the ideals of a social policy without forcing the dogma of a political ideology. It is reasonable to consider those aspects of a society that may fall under the context of a National Infrastructure and attribute these to central funding. The armed forces constitute an obvious example for central funding.

Clearly there are areas of contention and these are further exacerbated by historical region-based politics. As I mentioned before, a large country like the US has more issues with the limits of centralisation than a smaller country such as the UK.

Also, we must consider the historical method of funding: in the UK we have a "National Health Service" which is effectively funded centrally, however, the US depends on private insurance.

The central theme of government should be the support and maintenance of the national infrastructure but the limits of this are hard to define; a sliding scale between wholly centralised against distributed is a matter of careful examination and empirical evidence for success.

The generation of wealth is most definitely the domain of the private sector, however, it requires the careful control of government to ensure that we do not have corporations more powerful than governments - something which we are faced with at the moment.

Effective government must be made up of the most capable individuals and reconciled with the findings of science rather than based on abstract idealism and egalitarianism. We cannot continue to suffuse our governments with ideological concepts that chop and change very few terms.

Just as we view "the law" as an abstract concept of rules that govern the behaviour of everybody, so we should be looking to governments to adhere to a principle of national good that is defined by humanity, evidence, good management and pragmatism, defined as objectives for any governing body to follow.

Should we really be leaving the governance of our countries to political parties that "think they know best"? Where is our social policy of the lessons gleaned from 2000 years of civilisation?

Yep look at my signature and you see what i think on this. Irans people do not know whats best for them, and thats the way it is. Its like the american election too, they gave you only one choice obama or nobody and you cannot have nobody.

These people really do think we are all stup1d, and profane, and maybe to a large extent they are right.

But having lived on the negative end of teh nanny state in uk, for 17 years, i know whats its like. Socialism is a cruel system, and probably we have too many people on this planet to ever have our own lifes again, true and sad.

Ask those in iran if they think they are wronged, and ask americans in 2000. Both may be right, but look at how the iranians are living upto there cause while americans did absolutely nothing.

There is no such thing as democracy there is only mob rule, in society and if you do not like it, they have ways to deal with you. Thats life and teh criminals will always win, because theya re the scum.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


You are absolutely right, government simply cannot exist without some socialist policies. I would also add that the free market cannot prosper without "Big Brother" watching over it's shoulder. The current financial crisis is proof of this. Had previous administrations not stripped away all of the regulations put in place following the crash of '29, the subprime bomb would never have been allowed to be built. Capitalism without boundries gets too greedy for it's own good. To truly prosper we need a mix of both socialism and capitalism. The trick is to decide what we want socialized and what we want capitalized. One of our current problems is the rise of the "Megacorporation". This severely cuts down on competion and drives costs up.

Originally posted by JaxonRoberts
To truly prosper we need a mix of both socialism and capitalism. The trick is to decide what we want socialized and what we want capitalized. One of our current problems is the rise of the "Megacorporation". This severely cuts down on competion and drives costs up.

You are so right, on all four counts. For almost three decades, especially in the last decade, we have seen megacorps forcing down supplier costs in magnitudes not witnessed before and as a result, the "food chain" effect has stripped the lower level suppliers and manufacturers in the west of capability to compete. This has led to a disastrous shift of large scale manufacturing to low-cost countries. Great for simply making profit by corporations, bad for society. The wealth injected into developing countries is far greater than the benefits to the west.

This process has also increased the dependency on "financial corporations", those specifically concerned with making money from money. Our society is built on shifting sands - we have no firm foundation. Politically, this can be seen as a long-term project, the concept of globalisation engages developing countries in consumerism, with the clear political benefit of normalising relationships between peoples - everybody ends up as a consumer and the demographic becomes diluted to a uniform weak soup.

This is not to say that globalisation is bad per se, it is the method of fulfilment that causes the problems - conquest by megacorps and the creation of wealth with no substance. It is not a bad idea to help the economies of developing countries, but not at the cost of stability for all nations.

We ponder the issues of our locale, our own western nations, yet we are simply p*ssing into the wind unless we get a grip on the effects of our de facto foreign policies and the destructive effects of megacorps globalisation.