socialism

[southeastastra]

what exactty is the problem with it

well claig the people could decide but the people are not an homogenous group.

The problem with real socialism is that it went hand in hand with dictatorship.

There is no ideal economic structure, imho. I am not fond of pure capitalism, it is unjust, a state shouldn't be run like a company.

The OP asked what is the problem with socialism.... which is a question about an ideology. Don't see why anyone's surprised that the answers might include ideological alternatives.....

@glasnost... yes, problems can begin when the competitive want more, but so can great success. Great Britain... small, chilly island with very few natural resources.... punches well above its weight internationally because we have a competitive, enterprising history, a rich legacy of innovators, explorers and inventors, and a fierce reputation in battle. Has often caused problems, especially in the war-waging department :) but has also provided enormous benefits as well.

Exactly. The people did decide, they voted the socialists out. They had had enough of their homogeneous, simplistic solutions. They voted for freedom. They preferred the freedom of the meritocratic market to the strictures of the socialist state.

Francagoestohollywood, I agree that pure capitalism is not what people want. They want a combination of state and capitalism. That is what we have.

Oh I agree with you Claig re. Blair et al being just as bad as the rest but that's because they were capitalists.

That's true witchwithallthetrimmings.

To give the people an even greater voice, we need proportional representation and referenda, so that the people can decide their future, not the planners.

I really don't agree that the Blair yrs were characterised by the strictures of a socialist system. Actually, to my foreigner eyes, Britain improved significantly in those yrs.

I don't like the way the US are organized either, not enough state to protect weak categories.

no country with a free market capitalist system ever had to put up walls/fences to stop its citizens escaping to the socialist country next door.

Not even its very poorest citiziens.

Francagoestohollywood, under those years, lots of freedoms were removed and civil liberties were curtailed. Within months of teh Coalition coming in, the so-called "nasty" party has in conjunction with the LibDems, scrapped hundreds of regulations and restored civil liberties. The LibDems are all about freedom and liberty, as too are the Conservatives.

"And Chil1234 the problems begin when those who are more competitive trample over everyone else in their urge to have more, more, more. Look at the mess we're in now due to a greedy few lording it over the rest of us."

And how do you propose we control the 'more competitive' amongst us?

You could argue that capitalism goes hand in hand with dictatorship too on various levels, Franca. The tyranny of consumerism. The disenfranchisement implicit in being poor, unemployed, judged on mere material wealth. Tricking people to believe that voting in X factor is an assertion of their rights as opposed to political engagement. Fooling people that by buying THAT brand they'll be happy. These are far more insidious and successful forms of control than the blatant Soviet style totalitarianism but much more far reaching as this system will quite probably destroy our civilisation.

Then there are the fascist dictatorships. Look at all the fascist dictatorships in particular those in South America financed by the US in their bid to impose their universal capitalism.

Why, jackstarb, stick 'em in gulags of course.......arf.

Blair (and the third way) is thought they could solve the problem by equality of opportunity, so make sure that everybody had the resources to make their own choices. Not pure capitalism as it tried to mitigate the effect of things like family background. Not pure socialism as allows market mechanisms to allocate resources
The problem with this was two-fold. First some people are just cleverer/more productive than others and the focus on opps misses the point that at some level you may have to tax those (til the pips squeak) lucky to be born very clever to help those at the bottom. Blair et al tried to ignore this (as Hattersley so often points out)
Second trying to remove family background effects and trying to help people living in problem estates actually led to some of the most authoritarian and repressive policies in recent history

oh and there was the illegal war of course!

Claig which civil liberties? Do you know that in 8 yrs I lived in the UK (I'm a EU citizen though) I've never had to prove anything, while English people who live here in Italy still need a visa? Do you know that here in Italy to have a GP you have to do all sorts of documents while in the UK I just turned up at my local surgery and gave them an electricity bill as a proof of residency. Etc etc.
I find the UK extremely liberal.

Glasnost, I agree.

The tyranny of consumerism is nothing compared to the tyranny of the gulags. As stubbornhubby said, capotalist countries don't prevent their people leaving the country, unlike East Germany, where people were shot climbing the wall that penned them in and separated them from their German relatives.

Of course the illegal war will always be unforgivable.

witch - good post. You just missed the part about the banks being used to pay for it (so as not to trouble the middle classes).

Exactly claig. WERE shot to prevent them leaving. Don't know whether you've noticed but Soviet communism no longer exists whereas ferocious capitalism is sending us all (that's you, too) to hell on a handcart.

Socialism is a great THEORY. But until humans are all perfect and can act for the common good then it will never work.

Socialism removes incentives from people. So why would I bust a gut and take the risk to start my own company and be the next Google when I will get taxed to high heaven and end up with no more than my neighbour who will be sat in the garden reading his copy of "Socialist Worker" every day?

Socialism assumes the state knows best on how to distribute goods & money. Unfortunately our government can't find its own arse in the dark so thats a non-starter.

Socialism assumes that taxing the rich and giving it to the poor is the answer to our woes. But fails to realise that there are not enough rich people and never takes into account realities like emigration.

Socialism reduces/removes competition and thats what drives capitalism. Remember how great the old generation of Lada's & Skoda's were compared to say BMW/Mercedes? That was as a result of competition where consumers would buy the best car versus the only car available to them. No competition makes people lazy.

Franca, you are right, the UK always has been one of the most free countries in Europe. We are one of the few peoples of Europe who do not need to carry papers with us. ID cards would have changed all that. Even Ed Miliband has said that Labour was wrong on civil liberties. Here is Henry Porter of the Guardian outlining some of the civil liberties that the Coalition will restore

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/16/henry-porter-civil-liberties-coalition

glasnost - Only once we except that the 'free market' is the only viable economic basis for democracy (and democratic socialism) can we can adapt it. Fighting against it just seems to make it stronger.

Thanks for the link Claig.

To be completely honest, I have never really got all the fuss about ID cards. Mainly because we've always had them here and I've never really stopped to think the matter over. Call it false consciousness

I do think the tyranny of cunsumerism has done and will do more damage than the gulags ever did. The social and physical stress of living in an unequal capitalist society where you're valued on your material wealth alone and being made to feel guilty if you've not attained wealth has arguably killed more people than the gulags.

And before giving me a pasting think about it.

Compare US stats on quality of life, health etc to those of a fairer, less rabidly capitalist country such as Denmark.

We have a different system to the US. The US also takes millions of poor economic migrants, and this possibly has an impact on their statistics.

We are not valued on our material wealth alone. People value the police, fire services and nurses higher than politicians, even though politicians earn more. I don't feel guilty that I don't earn as much as Wayne Rooney does, and nor do most people. Some socialists may be envious of Wayne Rooney, but most people aren't, we don't think he has more value than us. We don't measure life by material value as Marxists do.