Originally posted by gncnew
reply to post by ANOK
I thought he was Prussian... oh well.
Prussia was a state of the German empire.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born into a comfortable middle-class home in Trier on the river Moselle in Germany on May 5, 1818
www.historyguide.org...
Socialism leads to Communism because the economic theory needs the governmental backing. Remember - Communism is a "Democracy"... ROFL.
Socialism does not lead to communism, that was just Marx's idea of how to do it, ONE mans ideas. Socialism is a system all by itself and has nothing to do with communism. Marx just saw socialism as a way to have worker control while creating the money needed to finance a communists system whereby money would be abolished. Not all socialists want communism. Libertarian Socialism is what I want.
Neither need government btw and true communism and socialism are highly democratic. We have NOW what you all keep claiming socialism will bring, a bureaucratic establishment with no real input from the workers other than the token vote on mostly non-issues. Issues that wouldn't even be issues if this was a truly free system. Gay marriage for one, who has the right to say they can't marry in a FREE COUNTRY?
Or is it only freedom as long as it doesn't upset the twisted morality of a few self righteous idiots?
Lastly - the Spanish revolution showed an immediate increase in their production - but where are they now... Everyone works great when they're all happy about their revolutions... but when the honeymoon is over ..
Well, just take a look at their productivity ratios compared to other modernized nations - especially the U.S.
The failure was not due to the workers. Their cities were being bombed daily by Hitlers Luftwaffe. They were successful in increasing production by 20% while fighting a war against the fascists. WWII was why the revolution failed, TPTB sent the working men to war.
Trust me it was no honeymoon. Fighting off the fascist with one hand while making society better for themselves with the other. Quite an amazing feat if you ask me. Proof we can do it.
Essentially socialism is a great system to equalize out the benefits that people receive from their labor efforts...
Problem is that it makes good people work less and rewards unproductive.
Not true. When you work in a collective your labour is directly benefited because you earn from the profits made. The harder you work the more money you will make. Unlike capitalism where you can work as hard as you like, but you make no more money unless the 'boss' give you a pay raise. There is no motivation to produce high quality goods, and no motivation for workers to work to their max.
Workers would be paid equally but only within their work place, if Joe's collective up the road is making more profit then their workers will earn more than Freds collective. Companies will still compete.
Capitalism has many flaws but one thing it does is breed ingenuity and efficiency.
No it doesn't, it breeds a system where profit is more important than people. Products are produced as cheaply as possible, and sold at the most they can get, workers are paid the least they can get away with.
Cheap products that cost more than they should and workers being paid the minimum possible does not make a motivated population.
Labour being wasted producing crap just for you to consume to keep the circus going. We should be producing what we need, food, housing, infrastructure, health care etc...
All this really comes down to the question: why did China start incorporating capitalism into their economic model?
China was NEVER communist and if you are using them as an example of socialism then you are way off base. Communism is NOT socialism and China were/are neither. China is as capitalist as any country, they have a very distinct class system and state system and the means of production are privately owned.
Do you really think I want a system where workers are forced to work for next to nothing to produce crap to sell to western markets? That is not what socialists want, that is what capitalists want and have, cheaply made products they can make max profits from. There is no morality in capitalism.
BTW I know this is off topic but I am just replying to the poster who took the thread off topic to defend my position. I didn't say socialism was better than capitalism in my original post, just pointed out some facts.
[edit on 8/19/2010 by ANOK]
