Who is Going to Tell Them?

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Socialism is just Communism-Lite.

One inevitably leads to the other. The notion that Democratic Socialism is a sustainable state is just fantasy. About the only thing Karl Marx ever said that I agree with.

However, I don't necessarily disagree with your OP.

originally posted by: MiddleInsite
I've always found that it's only socialism if your hand isn't in the pot.

But if you benefit, well, the tune is changed.

I don't know anyone who returned their Trump check or their Biden check. NOT ONE.

Most people with half a brain know there is a difference in taking a governmental check for measly compensation after the government completely overreacted and shut down the economy to living off the government's teat for life. Hell this one year has weakened my trust in our government regardless of the party in control. Departments are riddled with partisan politics, and bloated bureaucratic corruption, and inefficiency. If this was indeed a test run for American socialism it failed miserably.

a reply to: projectvxn

Socialism is the ownership of the means of production by the state. There is no "workers". It's the state.

Nope. You're describing communism. Socialism has no ban on private property, privately owned companies, wealth or profits.

The oil industry is a prime example of capitalism. Domestic oil reserves still in the ground belong to the USA. Oil companies are private entities who extract and process the oil. The oil industry is government subsidized, regulated and taxed. But the government doesn't own the means of its production.

originally posted by: MiddleInsite

I don't know anyone who returned their Trump check or their Biden check. NOT ONE.

There is no mechanism to returning those checks.

My family gave their checks to charity.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The notion that Democratic Socialism is a sustainable state is just fantasy.

That's why we have capitalism to save the day!

However, I don't necessarily disagree with your OP.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

No I'm not
en.m.wikipedia.org...

Socialism is a system based upon de facto public or social ownership of the means of production, the abolition of a hierarchical division of labor in the enterprise, a consciously organized social division of labor. Under socialism, money, competitive pricing, and profit-loss accounting would be destroyed

"Peace is defined as the absence of opposition to socialism" -Karl Marx

a reply to: projectvxn

LOL
Is that they mean when they say "We're not doing socialism correctly".

In the USA, we use a blend of democracy, capitalism and socialism to achieve "a more perfect union".

Karl Marx supported communism, not socialism.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

That is a quote directly from Karl Marx.

You have a lot more reading to do Sookie. I'll let you get to it.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha

originally posted by: mamabeth
a reply to: Sookiechacha

In my opinion,extreme socialism leads to communism.I am not
an expert on socialism,but I am an outspoken mama on the net.

Pure socialism is when the people own everything, including private property. Pure communism is when the government owns everything, and there is no such thing as private property. One thing is NOT like the other.

"The people" as an entity cannot own a thing very effectively. Not as a mass society. There will always have to be a controlling body that decides how that thing will be used, for "the people" of course. And as soon as that happens, you have a government and at that point, the government owns the thing, not the people, and then, why then, you have communism.

The people at that point cannot access their thing without the approval and consent of the government. Medicare and Medicaid work that way even today. They also deny more claims than most private insurers too if you're looking into the numbers. But who's actually paying attention to stuff like that when all most people see is "free"?

a reply to: projectvxn

I don't see Karl Marx talk up or promoting socialism in that comment, do you?

Karl Marx promoted totalitarian communism through a violent revolution.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Holy crap Sookie. You have reading comprehension problems.

The quote is from Marx himself defending socialism, a necessary component to the realization of communism.

Read the communist manifesto and Das Kapital. You might learn something.

a reply to: ketsuko

And as soon as that happens, you have a government and at that point, the government owns the thing, not the people, and then, why then, you have communism.

It's all a matter of how a government is run. An authoritarian monarchy,and/or a totalitarian dictatorship type government, for example, probably will bypass the people's will, input and needs. The United States is a republic, created "by the people, for the people and of the people", that employs a blend democracy, capitalism and socialism.

a reply to: projectvxn

Karl Marx was the father of communism, which is the opposite of capitalisms. Karl Marx promoted communism, hated capitalism and promoted its abolishment through violent revolution.

This thread isn't about Karl Marx or Marxism or revolution. It's about how the USA is not purely capitalist, nor is it purely socialistic. The USA is a representative republic that employs a blend democracy, capitalism and socialism to achieve its goal of forming a more perfect union.

The OP highlights Americans who have failed to grasp that truth.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
a reply to: ketsuko

And as soon as that happens, you have a government and at that point, the government owns the thing, not the people, and then, why then, you have communism.

It's all a matter of how a government is run. An authoritarian monarchy,and/or a totalitarian dictatorship type government, for example, probably will bypass the people's will, input and needs. The United States is a republic, created "by the people, for the people and of the people", that employs a blend democracy, capitalism and socialism.

Not really.

In order to socialize anything, you cannot really have private property. Private implies that one person or small group of persons own it exclusively.

In a socialist system, all those assets must then be the property of "the people" by your own defining which excludes any ownership by any one person. However, since as you admit, "the people" must cede their free access of their property to a controlling body or government, "the people" can't really treat what is ostensibly theirs as if it is theirs either. Only the controlling body may do that.

Once the controlling body controls enough, then it really doesn't matter how it pretends to operate. It can do as it pleases.

Do you think any one of us sitting at home, locked inside our own houses, felt that we had any control over anything that was supposedly ours as "the people" this past year? I sure didn't. Supposedly, the local community center is a public, as in owned by "the people", space with fitness equipment and the like, but I was prevented from its use by the controlling body that administers it for "the people", so even though I technically am supposed to own it as a part of that body, I had no say in how I was allowed to use it for the duration of that time.

Contrast that with my home and yard which are mine. No one could tell me not to go into my yard or to wear a mask in my driveway if I chose to practice there. Nor could they tell me not to go into my driveway.

The difference between private ownership and being an owner as part of the mysterious entity called "the people" who allow "the government" to administer our things for us.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
Why do people on the right think socialism only encompasses "social programs?" Farm subsidies, for example, are a form of socialism that benefits huge corporations.

The right is not ignorant like the left as I also know these things too...lol Once again social programs is not "socialism"

Capitalisms doesn't address socialism and it isn't a form of government as much as it a type of economy. Capitalism doesn't initiate, manage, regulate or pay for government programs. The people's elected official and tax payer dollars do. Socialism and capitalism can co-exist. Capitalism and communism cannot.

We are in agreement, and as I said socialism controls more of what goes on around us and it takes a huge cut from our pay to function. I personally do not think the Goverment can do things better than the private sector as my example with my surgery. In Netherlands if you make more than 75k you are hit with a 50% tax on your wage, 40k to 75K it is still 38%.

Now how do you live on that? Have you ever spent time in the Netherlands? As a culture they live a very meager lifestyle, where Americans live a consumer lifestyle, and there is the big difference. A typical couple will live in a very small one bed appt, like 600 sq ft or less, may have one little car, but typically just bikes and they live near their work, wear simple functional clothing, have just enough for the job, eat simply, and most enjoyments is not money related, so on and so forth. They also don't have kids unless they can afford them and many times they have just one, or none...

Now we Americans do not live like that so your socialism would need a lot of cultural changes to even have a chance to work, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

I'm responding to your points.

You made this about socialism. You can't even identify what socialism is.

Further, you've read nothing on the subject. It's quite obvious you've never read the foundational documents of socialist economic theory that Karl Marx adhered to. Communism is, indeed, his brainchild but it is rooted as Karl Marx had always maintained, in fhe principles of socialist economic theory.

Go do that reading. Your ignorance is showing.

a reply to: ketsuko

In a socialist system

We don't live in a socialist system, here in the USA. We have a unique blend of government, established as a representative republic, using democracy and implementing socialism to supplement and support capitalism.

Our infrastructure, road, bridges and highways support capitalism. A healthy, well educated and mobile society with a social safety net supports a capitalistic society.

Once the controlling body controls enough, then it really doesn't matter how it pretends to operate. It can do as it pleases.

We have a constitution that institutes "checks and balances".

Look, nobody is saying that there isn't corruption, that festers in every corner of our government. But socialism isn't the cause of corruption, the human condition is.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: rickymouse
Socialized medicine is a good idea, taking the excessive profiting out of medicine is necessary.

Good idea on paper, but it doesn't work out super well in practice. Why do many Canadians have American health insurance too...lol

So why not meet halfway in this. There is about 20 million Americans who have a hard time getting medical insurance, lets make it easier for them while not touching the other 80%, deal? No need to go full blown Socialized medicine and put extra burden on everyone in the form of a HUGE tax increase, just focus on people who actually need it.

Where I think this would work the best is to have clinics outside of the insurance umbrella. You go in see a nurse practitioner with a doctor on call and pay a small co-pay in cost, and the Goverment subsidizes the clinic.

I remember back in the seventies, people stayed in the hospital for two to three days pretty often. Cancer did exist but not like it does these days and most people smoked cigarettes. Breast cancer wasn't nearly as common, but they taught people to go get checkups and the majority of woman got a lump, and the immune system killed the cancer cells after a while, no surgery or chemo needed. We do have immune systems that attack things that don't belong. But people are having their immune systems messed with. Too many unnatural things in the environment and our foods these days, rumors of food chemistries made bad which later was found to actually be the opposite. Pharmaceutical companies make pills and get them approved to use to block enzymes or alter gene expression based on correlations, not cause and effect.

Because of greed, lots of medicines were used because of evidence that was misapplied which resulted in speeding up the progression of diseases. Like in alzheimer disease, meds were designed to combat some chemicals in the brain which were not the cause...the brain produced these chemicals to protect the brain for further damage....same with another treatment regiment for Parkinson disease, the meds actually made it worse for a while. People were told to give up things like coffee which has now been discovered to help slow the progression of certain diseases that the doctors told them to quit coffee because of their condition

Why is it that so often....what the medical industry tells us turns out to be completely opposite of what should be done. It is not our doctors, it is improperly evaluated evidence that they were given by the people at the top who want prestige and will parrot improperly collected evidence.

I read lots of research every day and half of it broadly contradicts other evidence out there in medical and nutrition sciences. We have to stop the deceit in the medical industry, and I am speaking industry...it is big business not true medicine here in the USA. Giving subsidized medicine to the needy is not going to work if the industry is just causing more harm than good because they need money to run, I don't want to spend the last five years of my life in a nursing home with diapers on if I have alzheimer disease, I would rather die...but people who get that way don't remember how it was to think clearly.

I am on Medicare, being sixty five, we have a supplementary part D policy with maximum out of pocket of like seven fifty a year. BUT...it only covers medicare approved treatments...lots of people I know have this kind of thing and they get bills they pay of many thousands of dollars...because hospitals are doing not medicare approved services often and the vast majority of the time they are not necessary. Medicare does pay for necessary stuff...It does not pay for other stuff that is not approved for the diagnosis. We have had to call the hospital at least thirty times in my life to straighten out bills because the wrong code was put in with myself, my wife, and with my mother when I used to take care of her. Another thing is medicines, the pharmacy or doctors office says your deductible is not met and you have to pay the whole cost, but when you get the confirmation from the insurance or medicare they paid it...Happened to a lot of people I know and they spent months trying to get the money they paid back...this is very common and the hospital or doctor will not usually refund your payment without calling...where does that money end up? I have seen this happen here and with friends of mine...I tell them and after months they call and sometimes it was a wrong code entered and it is too late to reverse it sometimes. We have created a bad situation with all this technology, if we had socialized medicine people would not be paying for things that are not billed right.

Insurance companies are allowed to profit off of the money they pay out now, so they benefit off of more costs paid...that leads to expensive procedures being allowed with no benefit. That A1C test being positive does not mean you have diabetes, it could come from multiple causes including blood cells that live a long time and old cells are a little less efficient. Over half those tests on your poop they are saying we need have false positives which lead to colonoscopies that are not needed. I know a dozen people who flunked the poop test and had the colonoscopy and it was fine, I don't know anyone who actually had one of those poop tests...six hundred bucks...that found colon cancer but they all got the colonoscopy because of that poop test...waste of money...they did not have any symptoms at all of a disease.

I just hit two things here, there are lots more I know about. The colonoscopy does have risks, I know one person who died from a puncture and another one who went through three surgeries because the hole they created leaked poop into the cavity where the guts are from the colonoscopy they got as a precaution.

I am getting real life horror stories from people I know about supposedly rare problems yet it seems to me that if these things are happening to so many people I know it is NOT rare.

a reply to: projectvxn

You made this about socialism.

I made this thread about people who think that when they used food stamps and cashed welfare checks, they weren't relying on socialism. It's about a lawmaker celebrating Medicare and Medicaid and using their creation to ignorantly warn against the evils socialism. It's about people who think big corporation are too powerful and should be seized and turned over to the workers to ward off socialism.

Communism is, indeed, his brainchild but it is rooted as Karl Marx had always maintained, in fhe principles of socialist economic theory.

Karl Marx, the father of communism, not socialism, promoted the abolishment of capitalism. In the USA we embrace capitalism while we rely on socialism to fill in the gaps.

This thread is about highlighting how the United States employs a blend of democracy, capitalism and socialism. It has nothing to do with Karl Marx and his hatred for capitalism.

originally posted by: rickymouse

I just hit two things here, there are lots more I know about. The colonoscopy does have risks, I know one person who died from a puncture and another one who went through three surgeries because the hole they created leaked poop into the cavity where the guts are from the colonoscopy they got as a precaution.

I am getting real life horror stories from people I know about supposedly rare problems yet it seems to me that if these things are happening to so many people I know it is NOT rare.

I hate the insurance system. I got a bill for 1650 and I was like is this really the number I should pay? I see numbers all over the place and none match up. In the end after talking to billing at the surgery clinic they said disregard the bill, I owe nothing, so why did I get the bill in the first place...lol The system sucks, it is over inflated in cost, too many middlemen making money and it should be the medical staff. Look at doctors that do cosmetic surgery. My wife got her breasts done for 7k, straight up price, top doctor. The doctor makes over a millions a year... The doctor that did my shoulder surgery gets a lot less than that and that surgery was 25k.

We would need to tear down the whole system and start with a new baseline on everything, I don't see it happening.

BTW I would still get colonoscopy.... my friend went from healthy to dead in 4 months.

No matter how bad you think it all is now all you need to do is remember what a 60 year-old person looked like in the 70s, or even the 80s compared to today. Hell the guys who were like 45 in the 80s looked worst than I do today and I'm 61. I remember thinking boy I hope I'm not that bad off when I hit 45...lol

So a lot of it is perspective...