Why socialism will always end up the same way

Socialism like capitalism like any ism is just a word, a concept and not a reality. America has many elements of socialism already, but for some reason concepts become sticks and not ways of managing society. It's what you do that matters as Stalin Hitler Mao demonstrated so clearly.

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." Mikhail Bakunin

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Ronald Wright

"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly." Norman Thomas

"Moreover, if we give the matter a moment's thought, we can see that the 20th century morality tale of 'socialism vs. freedom' or 'communism vs. capitalism' is misleading. Capitalism is not a political system; it is a form of economic life, compatible in practice with right wing dictatorships (Chile under Pinochet), left-wing dictatorships (contemporary China), social-democratic monarchies (Sweden), and plutocratic republics (the United States), whether capitalist economies thrive best under conditions of freedom is perhaps more of an open question than we like to think." Tony Judt 'Ill fares the Land'


Well said.....I tried to access the book through Amazon but the source is a european server exchange that does not ship to the US..... I will go to Barnes and Noble today.
Having said that there is much, much more wrong with the idea of pure socialism than I see in some of the quotes.....I look at it from the standpoint of an engineer....
It lacks the necessary elements to create a successful machine .... that simple. While it is true that many parts or our system are socialistic.... Social security for instance is a rather pure form of it....it is also true that any social elements we enjoy today are more or less totally dependent on the underlayment of the capitalist construct that is already there IMO.
Pure socialism? What in this world is pure other than BS?

Looking at world history, the reason why Left wing ideology is so popular today and in the past and why tyrants seems to be drawn to socialism and Marxism, which has murdered far more people than any other ideology in the last century, is not because they like the idea, rather, it is because to try and successfully implement it the state needs 100% control over every aspect of your life. Think of it, for the state to monitor every financial transaction and then redistribute the money exchange the way they see fit, it takes a tremendous amount of surveillance and man power to implement this for every citizen. That is the draw of socialism for despots. All they care about is power and control.. Outside of that, they really don't give a damn and, as a result, will never seek "pure" socialism. If they did care about economic justice, they would not all live like kings compared to the average citizen, but they do every single time and always will.

What is ironic is, as those who whine about the top 1% having life so much better and push socialism as an alternative, what they are really attempting to do is shrink the top 1% down even further to maybe the top 0,001%. Maybe then they will all be happy?

LOL.
Any time you see socialism attempted as the main economic system if you look at what happened before you'll never see a prosperous nation. You'll see a brutal monarchy or an entirely corrupt plutocracy of some kind that decided the poor can just rot. Socialism rises from poverty and hunger that went on too long.
You make a good point, and that is, people turn to socialism in desperation. Thus, socialism usually is sold to the populace as an alternative to bad economic times, and the only way to avoid them in the future. But as history proves, it is all based on a lie and once it is implemented, they are far worse off than before as what little freedoms they had before disappear forever.

There is no going back. That is the chilling aspect.

But in the US, we have an interesting phenomenon. We have a populace who are the wealthiest in the world, yet are being dragged towards socialism day by day. Is it then any wonder that the socialists being elected to government support policies that will help destroy the economy? Yes, they also believe that for people to fully embrace socialism as a nation, they must be so desperate as to feel as though they have no other choice.
American socialism has only one purpose. It is the minimum amount we can pay to maintain social order. We pretend it is for humanitarian purposes but it is a fact that a hungry man with hungry children and no options is already a soldier looking for a war.
 
Socialism rises from the failures of the market to serve some crucial need in society. There are some things you can't squeeze a profit from.
Oh I absolutely agree and once again I would never see capitalism as a perfect system only the most successful one. A wise man from Nazareth once said " You will always have the poor with you "......
Too many people think capitalism is the same thing as free enterprise. American capitalism is thing of big banks, billionaires and pet politicians while small businesses get to pretend they are part of the club. They are not.
Yet Bezos started in his garage and went bankrupt several times before he became who he is.
I daresay you can no longer call him one of the little guys.

JO
 
While all of us are taken with the happily ever after scenarios that make some fairy tales so popular we know that reality is not that way. No…reality is instead cruel, pragmatic and totally unaffected by preference. This is why socialism never works. The mainstream schools of thought that promote it are always depending upon the shame factor to help people ignore the harsh realities of proven existence. Whether you look to history or you simply look to your own neighborhood success in life depends on more than just a good feeling or the idea that everyone can succeed regardless of their abilities. It just isn’t true. There’s a reason why the top one percent is the top one percent….like it or not the numbers themselves bear witness to life’s realities. Anyone who doubts this has only to look at how effectively socialism creates a top one percent or even a top .1 percent more quickly and more profoundly than capitalism ever did or ever will.

Indeed the yearning for this mindless egalitarianism produces philosophy that borders on the ludicrous and élan moral that borders on extremism and the ultimate forms of societal intolerance. In effect you have humans taking to the street to protest reality…..the word retarded comes to mind but unfortunately it just doesn’t do the job. So each generation must have its Stalin or its Mao before it learns the lesson again and again and again. We cycle through each catastrophic morphing of the deadly philosophy before we bust back down to the inescapable reality that life is not necessarily fair, that not everyone can achieve levels of dominance like the top one percent does and that all of the reasons we offer to explain that sad collection of facts usually fall short of the simple truth that the pattern is inescapable and will never stop repeating.

JO
Capitalism died in 1929 in the US.
 
Socialism like capitalism like any ism is just a word, a concept and not a reality. America has many elements of socialism already, but for some reason concepts become sticks and not ways of managing society. It's what you do that matters as Stalin Hitler Mao demonstrated so clearly.

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." Mikhail Bakunin

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Ronald Wright

"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly." Norman Thomas

"Moreover, if we give the matter a moment's thought, we can see that the 20th century morality tale of 'socialism vs. freedom' or 'communism vs. capitalism' is misleading. Capitalism is not a political system; it is a form of economic life, compatible in practice with right wing dictatorships (Chile under Pinochet), left-wing dictatorships (contemporary China), social-democratic monarchies (Sweden), and plutocratic republics (the United States), whether capitalist economies thrive best under conditions of freedom is perhaps more of an open question than we like to think." Tony Judt 'Ill fares the Land'


Well said.....I tried to access the book through Amazon but the source is a european server exchange that does not ship to the US..... I will go to Barnes and Noble today.
Having said that there is much, much more wrong with the idea of pure socialism than I see in some of the quotes.....I look at it from the standpoint of an engineer....
It lacks the necessary elements to create a successful machine .... that simple. While it is true that many parts or our system are socialistic.... Social security for instance is a rather pure form of it....it is also true that any social elements we enjoy today are more or less totally dependent on the underlayment of the capitalist construct that is already there IMO.
Pure socialism? What in this world is pure other than BS?

Looking at world history, the reason why Left wing ideology is so popular today and in the past and why tyrants seems to be drawn to socialism and Marxism, which has murdered far more people than any other ideology in the last century, is not because they like the idea, rather, it is because to try and successfully implement it the state needs 100% control over every aspect of your life. Think of it, for the state to monitor every financial transaction and then redistribute the money exchange the way they see fit, it takes a tremendous amount of surveillance and man power to implement this for every citizen. That is the draw of socialism for despots. All they care about is power and control.. Outside of that, they really don't give a damn and, as a result, will never seek "pure" socialism. If they did care about economic justice, they would not all live like kings compared to the average citizen, but they do every single time and always will.

What is ironic is, as those who whine about the top 1% having life so much better and push socialism as an alternative, what they are really attempting to do is shrink the top 1% down even further to maybe the top 0,001%. Maybe then they will all be happy?

LOL.
Any time you see socialism attempted as the main economic system if you look at what happened before you'll never see a prosperous nation. You'll see a brutal monarchy or an entirely corrupt plutocracy of some kind that decided the poor can just rot. Socialism rises from poverty and hunger that went on too long.
Putting all tag names aside....we should properly ask the question why? Socialism wants to pretend that there are no real weaknesses and that weakness is not contagious. Unfortunately however that is pure hokum. If you give weakness the same platform you give strength....the end result will be weakness not strength....this holds true for anything in the mechanical world or the social world and is the short answer to the question why does socialism always end up with poverty? The answer is that poverty ruins prosperity and it spreads like a virus into prosperity.....ergo the system that does the best job of keeping them apart ...is well....you know.

JO
 
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While all of us are taken with the happily ever after scenarios that make some fairy tales so popular we know that reality is not that way. No…reality is instead cruel, pragmatic and totally unaffected by preference. This is why socialism never works. The mainstream schools of thought that promote it are always depending upon the shame factor to help people ignore the harsh realities of proven existence. Whether you look to history or you simply look to your own neighborhood success in life depends on more than just a good feeling or the idea that everyone can succeed regardless of their abilities. It just isn’t true. There’s a reason why the top one percent is the top one percent….like it or not the numbers themselves bear witness to life’s realities. Anyone who doubts this has only to look at how effectively socialism creates a top one percent or even a top .1 percent more quickly and more profoundly than capitalism ever did or ever will.

Indeed the yearning for this mindless egalitarianism produces philosophy that borders on the ludicrous and élan moral that borders on extremism and the ultimate forms of societal intolerance. In effect you have humans taking to the street to protest reality…..the word retarded comes to mind but unfortunately it just doesn’t do the job. So each generation must have its Stalin or its Mao before it learns the lesson again and again and again. We cycle through each catastrophic morphing of the deadly philosophy before we bust back down to the inescapable reality that life is not necessarily fair, that not everyone can achieve levels of dominance like the top one percent does and that all of the reasons we offer to explain that sad collection of facts usually fall short of the simple truth that the pattern is inescapable and will never stop repeating.

JO

The problem is very few countries have done Socialism (rather than socialism).

But China, Vietnam, Laos are all pushing ahead and have a sort of Socialism.
It will be interesting to see if China can cobble together an balance between the two great forces... no better place on earth to give it a try.

JO
 
While all of us are taken with the happily ever after scenarios that make some fairy tales so popular we know that reality is not that way. No…reality is instead cruel, pragmatic and totally unaffected by preference. This is why socialism never works. The mainstream schools of thought that promote it are always depending upon the shame factor to help people ignore the harsh realities of proven existence. Whether you look to history or you simply look to your own neighborhood success in life depends on more than just a good feeling or the idea that everyone can succeed regardless of their abilities. It just isn’t true. There’s a reason why the top one percent is the top one percent….like it or not the numbers themselves bear witness to life’s realities. Anyone who doubts this has only to look at how effectively socialism creates a top one percent or even a top .1 percent more quickly and more profoundly than capitalism ever did or ever will.

Indeed the yearning for this mindless egalitarianism produces philosophy that borders on the ludicrous and élan moral that borders on extremism and the ultimate forms of societal intolerance. In effect you have humans taking to the street to protest reality…..the word retarded comes to mind but unfortunately it just doesn’t do the job. So each generation must have its Stalin or its Mao before it learns the lesson again and again and again. We cycle through each catastrophic morphing of the deadly philosophy before we bust back down to the inescapable reality that life is not necessarily fair, that not everyone can achieve levels of dominance like the top one percent does and that all of the reasons we offer to explain that sad collection of facts usually fall short of the simple truth that the pattern is inescapable and will never stop repeating.

JO

The problem is very few countries have done Socialism (rather than socialism).

But China, Vietnam, Laos are all pushing ahead and have a sort of Socialism.
It will be interesting to see if China can cobble together an balance between the two great forces... no better place on earth to give it a try.

JO

Yes, what China is doing is unprecedented. Whether it succeeds or not, it'll be an interesting ride.
 
Unlike socialism Capitalism isn't a political movement ....

Government just gets in the way

It's why us Capitalist are always calling for less government intervention and interference
The politicians are the ones who were too stupid to make it in a capitalist structure.....they are more or less the waste product of business....and they are jealous to no end at the successes they see there. Trump wasn't the first rich guy to make it to the Oval office....as I recall Hoover was a multi millionaire businessman before running for office as with Trump both parties secretly hated him because he was a successful outsider.

JO
 
Socialism rises from the failures of the market to serve some crucial need in society. There are some things you can't squeeze a profit from.
Oh I absolutely agree and once again I would never see capitalism as a perfect system only the most successful one. A wise man from Nazareth once said " You will always have the poor with you "......
Too many people think capitalism is the same thing as free enterprise. American capitalism is thing of big banks, billionaires and pet politicians while small businesses get to pretend they are part of the club. They are not.
Yet Bezos started in his garage and went bankrupt several times before he became who he is.
I daresay you can no longer call him one of the little guys.

JO
Not sure what that has to do with my statement. The vast majority of Americans will never actually practice capitalism or be the primary beneficiary of it. Real capitalists already made or inherited their money and are using it to make more money off other people's work. Real capitalists can afford to hire lobbyists and their representative in congress will answer their phone calls. Real capitalists can go bankrupt and still be rich while the rest of us simply go broke.
 
Unlike socialism Capitalism isn't a political movement ....

Government just gets in the way

It's why us Capitalist are always calling for less government intervention and interference
The politicians are the ones who were too stupid to make it in a capitalist structure.....they are more or less the waste product of business....and they are jealous to no end at the successes they see there. Trump wasn't the first rich guy to make it to the Oval office....as I recall Hoover was a multi millionaire businessman before running for office as with Trump both parties secretly hated him because he was a successful outsider.

JO
He was hated because of his unethical rhetoric and activities..
 
Socialism rises from the failures of the market to serve some crucial need in society. There are some things you can't squeeze a profit from.
Oh I absolutely agree and once again I would never see capitalism as a perfect system only the most successful one. A wise man from Nazareth once said " You will always have the poor with you "......
Too many people think capitalism is the same thing as free enterprise. American capitalism is thing of big banks, billionaires and pet politicians while small businesses get to pretend they are part of the club. They are not.
Yet Bezos started in his garage and went bankrupt several times before he became who he is.
I daresay you can no longer call him one of the little guys.

JO
Not sure what that has to do with my statement. The vast majority of Americans will never actually practice capitalism or be the primary beneficiary of it. Real capitalists already made or inherited their money and are using it to make more money off other people's work. Real capitalists can afford to hire lobbyists and their representative in congress will answer their phone calls. Real capitalists can go bankrupt and still be rich while the rest of us simply go broke.
Think outside the box..... the Majority of Americans have whatever they have BECAUSE OF CAPITALISM.....dude....or dudette which ever it may be....
This reminds me of the age old complaint about billionaires not contributing taxes like the rest of us...an empty, stupid and functionally retarded statement.
So Bezos is responsible for absolutely billions of dollars in federal and state taxes from the paychecks of the Amazon employees....annnnnnd you wanna what? Cancel that?
It's one of those issues that is soooo easy to see that a child could understand it....no wonder liberals don't .... They see children as potential sexual preferences and not as real children.


JO
 
Unlike socialism Capitalism isn't a political movement ....

Government just gets in the way

It's why us Capitalist are always calling for less government intervention and interference
The politicians are the ones who were too stupid to make it in a capitalist structure.....they are more or less the waste product of business....and they are jealous to no end at the successes they see there. Trump wasn't the first rich guy to make it to the Oval office....as I recall Hoover was a multi millionaire businessman before running for office as with Trump both parties secretly hated him because he was a successful outsider.

JO
He was hated because of his unethical rhetoric and activities..
Which He are we talking about?
 
While all of us are taken with the happily ever after scenarios that make some fairy tales so popular we know that reality is not that way. No…reality is instead cruel, pragmatic and totally unaffected by preference. This is why socialism never works. The mainstream schools of thought that promote it are always depending upon the shame factor to help people ignore the harsh realities of proven existence. Whether you look to history or you simply look to your own neighborhood success in life depends on more than just a good feeling or the idea that everyone can succeed regardless of their abilities. It just isn’t true. There’s a reason why the top one percent is the top one percent….like it or not the numbers themselves bear witness to life’s realities. Anyone who doubts this has only to look at how effectively socialism creates a top one percent or even a top .1 percent more quickly and more profoundly than capitalism ever did or ever will.

Indeed the yearning for this mindless egalitarianism produces philosophy that borders on the ludicrous and élan moral that borders on extremism and the ultimate forms of societal intolerance. In effect you have humans taking to the street to protest reality…..the word retarded comes to mind but unfortunately it just doesn’t do the job. So each generation must have its Stalin or its Mao before it learns the lesson again and again and again. We cycle through each catastrophic morphing of the deadly philosophy before we bust back down to the inescapable reality that life is not necessarily fair, that not everyone can achieve levels of dominance like the top one percent does and that all of the reasons we offer to explain that sad collection of facts usually fall short of the simple truth that the pattern is inescapable and will never stop repeating.

JO
Born to Rule, Born to Ruin

Your shallow reality fails to distinguish between earned wealth and inherited wealth. Inherited wealth, property, position, and influence contradict and weaken Capitalism. To go even further, socialism originated in the Birth-Class Supremacy clique and was developed at the university, which is an obsolete aristocratic institution specifically designed for students with an independent income.

After the French Revolution, many of the surviving European aristocrats felt their class was doomed unless they took over the democratic movements and plotted to turn them into elitist oligarchies. Marx's own wife was a countess; that's all you need to know about Marxism. Engels, of course, was an HeirHead. QED.
 
While all of us are taken with the happily ever after scenarios that make some fairy tales so popular we know that reality is not that way. No…reality is instead cruel, pragmatic and totally unaffected by preference. This is why socialism never works. The mainstream schools of thought that promote it are always depending upon the shame factor to help people ignore the harsh realities of proven existence. Whether you look to history or you simply look to your own neighborhood success in life depends on more than just a good feeling or the idea that everyone can succeed regardless of their abilities. It just isn’t true. There’s a reason why the top one percent is the top one percent….like it or not the numbers themselves bear witness to life’s realities. Anyone who doubts this has only to look at how effectively socialism creates a top one percent or even a top .1 percent more quickly and more profoundly than capitalism ever did or ever will.

Indeed the yearning for this mindless egalitarianism produces philosophy that borders on the ludicrous and élan moral that borders on extremism and the ultimate forms of societal intolerance. In effect you have humans taking to the street to protest reality…..the word retarded comes to mind but unfortunately it just doesn’t do the job. So each generation must have its Stalin or its Mao before it learns the lesson again and again and again. We cycle through each catastrophic morphing of the deadly philosophy before we bust back down to the inescapable reality that life is not necessarily fair, that not everyone can achieve levels of dominance like the top one percent does and that all of the reasons we offer to explain that sad collection of facts usually fall short of the simple truth that the pattern is inescapable and will never stop repeating.

JO
Born to Rule, Born to Ruin

Your shallow reality fails to distinguish between earned wealth and inherited wealth. Inherited wealth, property, position, and influence contradict and weaken Capitalism. To go even further, socialism originated in the Birth-Class Supremacy clique and was developed at the university, which is an obsolete aristocratic institution specifically designed for students with an independent income.

After the French Revolution, many of the surviving European aristocrats felt their class was doomed unless they took over the democratic movements and plotted to turn them into elitist oligarchies. Marx's own wife was a countess; that's all you need to know about Marxism. Engels, of course, was an HeirHead. QED.
nope....I am fully aware of the Born-rich-brat class.....however don't let it be lost on you that some of them fall to poverty when their oversight is gone and that some of them learn the secrets of how to stay rich.... It's all part of the same system... So much in equals so much out. It boils down to individual determination.... " The swift do not always win the race nor do the Strongest always win the contest "
 
Socialism rises from the failures of the market to serve some crucial need in society. There are some things you can't squeeze a profit from.
Familyism Is Even Worse Than Tribalism

Even if you point to the most crucial need if America is to survive—to have the fittest succeed, and never the "fatherest"—the toxic tumor of hereditary "success" is not driven by the profit motive. It is driven by a primitive, irrational, and sociopathic instinct.
 
Socialism rises from the failures of the market to serve some crucial need in society. There are some things you can't squeeze a profit from.
Familyism Is Even Worse Than Tribalism

Even if you point to the most crucial need if America is to survive—to have the fittest succeed, and never the "fatherest"—the toxic tumor of hereditary "success" is not driven by the profit motive. It is driven by a primitive, irrational, and sociopathic instinct.

Yeah....no argument there...it's the reason why any system that depends on humanitarian motive ultimately gets destroyed.

JO
 
Socialism like capitalism like any ism is just a word, a concept and not a reality. America has many elements of socialism already, but for some reason concepts become sticks and not ways of managing society. It's what you do that matters as Stalin Hitler Mao demonstrated so clearly.

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." Mikhail Bakunin

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Ronald Wright

"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly." Norman Thomas

"Moreover, if we give the matter a moment's thought, we can see that the 20th century morality tale of 'socialism vs. freedom' or 'communism vs. capitalism' is misleading. Capitalism is not a political system; it is a form of economic life, compatible in practice with right wing dictatorships (Chile under Pinochet), left-wing dictatorships (contemporary China), social-democratic monarchies (Sweden), and plutocratic republics (the United States), whether capitalist economies thrive best under conditions of freedom is perhaps more of an open question than we like to think." Tony Judt 'Ill fares the Land'


Well said.....I tried to access the book through Amazon but the source is a european server exchange that does not ship to the US..... I will go to Barnes and Noble today.
Having said that there is much, much more wrong with the idea of pure socialism than I see in some of the quotes.....I look at it from the standpoint of an engineer....
It lacks the necessary elements to create a successful machine .... that simple. While it is true that many parts or our system are socialistic.... Social security for instance is a rather pure form of it....it is also true that any social elements we enjoy today are more or less totally dependent on the underlayment of the capitalist construct that is already there IMO.
Pure socialism? What in this world is pure other than BS?

Looking at world history, the reason why Left wing ideology is so popular today and in the past and why tyrants seems to be drawn to socialism and Marxism, which has murdered far more people than any other ideology in the last century, is not because they like the idea, rather, it is because to try and successfully implement it the state needs 100% control over every aspect of your life. Think of it, for the state to monitor every financial transaction and then redistribute the money exchange the way they see fit, it takes a tremendous amount of surveillance and man power to implement this for every citizen. That is the draw of socialism for despots. All they care about is power and control.. Outside of that, they really don't give a damn and, as a result, will never seek "pure" socialism. If they did care about economic justice, they would not all live like kings compared to the average citizen, but they do every single time and always will.

What is ironic is, as those who whine about the top 1% having life so much better and push socialism as an alternative, what they are really attempting to do is shrink the top 1% down even further to maybe the top 0,001%. Maybe then they will all be happy?

LOL.
Any time you see socialism attempted as the main economic system if you look at what happened before you'll never see a prosperous nation. You'll see a brutal monarchy or an entirely corrupt plutocracy of some kind that decided the poor can just rot. Socialism rises from poverty and hunger that went on too long.
You make a good point, and that is, people turn to socialism in desperation. Thus, socialism usually is sold to the populace as an alternative to bad economic times, and the only way to avoid them in the future. But as history proves, it is all based on a lie and once it is implemented, they are far worse off than before as what little freedoms they had before disappear forever.

There is no going back. That is the chilling aspect.

But in the US, we have an interesting phenomenon. We have a populace who are the wealthiest in the world, yet are being dragged towards socialism day by day. Is it then any wonder that the socialists being elected to government support policies that will help destroy the economy? Yes, they also believe that for people to fully embrace socialism as a nation, they must be so desperate as to feel as though they have no other choice.
American socialism has only one purpose. It is the minimum amount we can pay to maintain social order. We pretend it is for humanitarian purposes but it is a fact that a hungry man with hungry children and no options is already a soldier looking for a war.
Yep....pragmatism is a stubbornly present shitty fact of life.....but you can always rely on it to be there unfortunately.
 

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