Socialism. your thoughts?

[Anonymouse]

well we can argue here till its 900 pages long. the fact remains that i, as someone who knows his share on political ideals, im a socialist, not a communist or a facist.

and the other fact is i could put forward ANY sort of proof saying a socialist government can but u will still instist it is impossible.

end of arguement.

Talk about limited knowledge. You're lack of knowledge regarding history, or simple economics is telling. Before you can even engage in a discussion you must first have some knowledge to engage in a discussion, not merely stating "I'm a socialist and it can work" and running away. The end of argument as far as you are concerned is not even the issue. You never began one to begin.

[winoman]

Yes Mouse - perhaps all we need is another frontier to conquer and native peoples to push out.

The American West - in the period you describe had extremely low population densities and those who lived there pretty much lived off the land in one form or another (and mostly just stayed out of each others way - but when they didn't disputes were most often settled by bloodshed). There was no need for anyone to build roads per se - or upkeep them, (and so much more that underpins our society today that just were not facotrs then) and there was little need for (any complex) rule of law (civil/property or criminal etc etc) as people tended to be pretty much spaced out and on their own. None of this is the case now - our populations are way too dense (and varied) for this idea to have any merit. You love to put word in my mouth - say I am necissarily anti-gun (I've been a long term NRA member I'll have you know - though I'm not so at the moment I'm quite familiar with guns and the arguments for why groups outside of government should not be prevented from the means to rise against government if they deem it necessariy - and so on and so forth). You are the one who fails to appreciate the complexities of the world and how your fairy tale (at best) ideas cannot be enacted (again not that you've really proposed anything of substance). And your attributing what I am referring to as environmental stresses causing societal uphevals and such as a simple thing - well you obviously have no clue concerning what I am talking about. You like to reduce everythign to easy platitudes - well such really does no one any good - except to perhaps make you feel smug that you think you know understand things when you have no clue.

[winoman]

Politics is the study of government, economics is about production and consumption.

Perhaps this is true when speaking of how studies are diveded at university. But I am talking about the real world. Anyone who does not understand their extreme interdependency and that (study of) politics and economics is but a perspective to look at essentially the same thing is a fool. Political systems and process largely exist as a means of regulating the economics of societies. You understand this I know - even if you choose to portray ignorance of such.

So socialism - does it just refer to a political system? Can one view Communism strictly in terms of the politboro, party politics and how leaders are chosen? Does anyone really consider (applied...not just theoretical) economics in a vacum? ...ignoring the legal framework and the political environment for manipulation of capital, property and production?

[Anonymouse]

Yes Mouse - perhaps all we need is another frontier to conquer and native peoples to push out.

The Indian wars were exclusively the work of the U.S. Government that you so love, not by frontiersman. I suggest again you read those articles I linked.

The American West - in the period you describe had extremely low population densities and those who lived there pretty much lived off the land in one form or another (and mostly just stayed out of each others way - but when they didn't disputes were most often settled by bloodshed).

That is untrue. This is an unsubstantiated assertion. Have you bothered to read the articles? Many cases of disputes were settled by civil means or local law such as the sheriff. For example they had private enforcement agencies and Cattlemens' associations.

There was no need for anyone to build roads per se - or upkeep them, (and so much more that underpins our society today that just were not facotrs then) and there was little need for (any complex) rule of law (civil/property or criminal etc etc) as people tended to be pretty much spaced out and on their own.None of this is the case now - our populations are way too dense (and varied) for this idea to have any merit. You love to put word in my mouth - say I am necissarily anti-gun (I've been a long term NRA member I'll have you know - though I'm not so at the moment I'm quite familiar with guns and the arguments for why groups outside of government should not be prevented from the means to rise against government if they deem it necessariy - and so on and so forth). You are the one who fails to appreciate the complexities of the world and how your fairy tale (at best) ideas cannot be enacted (again not that you've really proposed anything of substance). And your attributing what I am referring to as environmental stresses causing societal uphevals and such as a simple thing - well you obviously have no clue concerning what I am talking about. You like to reduce everythign to easy platitudes - well such really does no one any good - except to perhaps make you feel smug that you think you know understand things when you have no clue.

The fact that you ignored the studies I posted about the West goes in a great deal of showing how you do understand the differences between the Hollywood versions of "violence" and "chaos" of the West versus the actuality.

As Ryan McMaken stated if you read:

"More recently, we find Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History, edited by Michael Bellesiles (the now infamous author of Arming America) which contains a number of essays by authors further examining the disappointing reality that the West was actually quite a bit more boring than the movies led us to believe. Indeed, taken together, this body of research leaves us with a West that hardly lives up to the reputation of the Wild West.

As with Dodge City, the excitement in the Old West in general has been much overstated. All the big cattle towns of Kansas combined saw a total of 45 murders during the period of 1870-1885. Dodge City alone saw 15 people die violently from 1876–1885—an average of 1.5 per year. Deadwood, South Dakota and Tombstone, Arizona (home of the O.K. Corral), during their worst years of violence saw four and five murders respectively. Vigilante violence appears to not have been much worse.

According to Dykstra and Richard M. Brown, while the Kansas code gave mayors the power to call a vigilante group from all the men in the town who ranged in ages from 18–50, it seems, at least in Kansas, that it was rarely done. In a span of 38 years, Kansas had only 19 vigilante movements that accounted for 18 deaths. In addition, between 1876 and 1886, no one was lynched or hanged illegally in Dodge City.

Given the money to be made by exploiting the exciting reputation of the Frontier, it should not surprise us that Dodge City was hardly alone in manufacturing tales of blazing guns to attract men seeking adventure. Towns like Tombstone, Abilene and Deadwood all played up their supposed histories of Frontier violence. On closer inspection, though, the records are not nearly as exciting. (For more, see "The Not So Wild Wild West" by Terry Anderson.)"


And he further elaborates:

The settling of the American Frontier represents some of the most undirected, spontaneous and free settling of land seen since the ancient world. All modern Frontier states (i.e., Australia, Canada, and the Latin American countries) were settled for largely economic reasons by courageous settlers willing to brave an unknown geography, but nowhere was the State less involved in this settlement than on the American Frontier.

The wagon train era which we so closely identify with the settlement of the West was started by the Mormons, who while also largely motivated by religious freedom considerations, quickly set up shop (literally) in their new environs and began trading with both the Americans in the east and with the Mexican settlers on the West Coast (as well as Indians). While many other Americans began to brave the plains to travel to the riches described in the guidebooks about Oregon and California, the trend only began to really accelerate after the discovery of gold in California in 1849. By 1850, there were literally thousands of wagon trains on the trail to California with one train rarely out of sight of another.

Entire industries grew up around getting people to their destinations, and serving them once they got there. Markets for scouts, guides, equipment, guidebooks, and teamsters were all readily supplied by enthusiastic entrepreneurs. While government surveyors like Charles Fremont promoted and helped map the West, the actual settling was always done by men and women looking to make a better living in a new land. In other words, civilization was brought to the West by private citizens, private entrepreneurs, and private law enforcement.

[Anonymouse]

Perhaps this is true when speaking of how studies are diveded at university. But I am talking about the real world. Anyone who does not understand their extreme interdependency and that (study of) politics and economics is but a perspective to look at essentially the same thing is a fool. Political systems and process largely exist as a means of regulating the economics of societies. You understand this I know - even if you choose to portray ignorance of such.

So socialism - does it just refer to a political system? Can one view Communism strictly in terms of the politboro, party politics and how leaders are chosen? Does anyone really consider (applied...not just theoretical) economics in a vacum? ...ignoring the legal framework and the political environment for manipulation of capital, property and production?

Socialism/Communism is a political system that tries to integrate economics into its political via central planning. Due to this all politicals are to a degree central planners and are socialistic, but precisely the failure of socialism, which Mises predicted in the 1920s illustrates that the two are different endeavors and to attempt to use to integrate the other is a failed effort. The two are not only different areas of study, but different areas of thought. "Political economy" for example is what you would need to refer to which attempts to explain political systems with economics. Political systems are concerned with governing, and coercing individuals, and the study of politics is a study of a variety of laws and theories in how better able to control populations. Economics is the science of human action in a world of scarcity.

[ArmenianKid]

Talk about limited knowledge. You're lack of knowledge regarding history, or simple economics is telling. Before you can even engage in a discussion you must first have some knowledge to engage in a discussion, not merely stating "I'm a socialist and it can work" and running away. The end of argument as far as you are concerned is not even the issue. You never began one to begin.

i asked what u thought of the socialistic ideal. but u thought that ment flame me for thinking it could work. in some cases socialism works, in others it didnt. just like any kind of governmental ideal.

in the end it ends up in the leaderships lap to secure the country, not just the type of government.

[Anonymouse]

i asked what u thought of the socialistic ideal. but u thought that ment flame me for thinking it could work. in some cases socialism works, in others it didnt. just like any kind of governmental ideal.

in the end it ends up in the leaderships lap to secure the country, not just the type of government.

Government is not an "ideal". It is an institution, that believes it can have ideals by using people in social experiments. That is what socialism is. It cannot work, it has never worked, and never will work, without debilitating effects to the liberty of individuals, property, and capital.

So what would your socialist ideal consist of? People voting for a government that would redistribute wealth? What if hypothetically I did not want your government to take my wealth from me, what will you do, forcibly take it?

[ArmoBarbi]

I have to say, as noble as Lenin's intentions may have been, it really is not a fair system. A person who has talent and works hard deserves to have more than a person who sits on his ass. If a person has nothing to offer then he is not a valuable member of society anyway, why take care of him? I would simply refuse to live in a country where a person like this gets as much wealth as I do for getting an education and working.

"From all by ability to all by need" (trying to remember the slogan...) is not a sensible system. People have no motivation to work and excell except their personal choice to do so, which is not enough for a whole country to excell or even survive since many people will not be strong enough to push themselves through without the extra motivation.

[Anonymouse]

I have to say, as noble as Lenin's intentions may have been, it really is not a fair system. A person who has talent and works hard deserves to have more than a person who sits on his ass. If a person has nothing to offer then he is not a valuable member of society anyway, why take care of him? I would simply refuse to live in a country where a person like this gets as much wealth as I do for getting an education and working.

"From all by ability to all by need" (trying to remember the slogan...) is not a sensible system. People have no motivation to work and excell except their personal choice to do so, which is not enough for a whole country to excell or even survive since many people will not be strong enough to push themselves through without the extra motivation.

Dude, could it be that we agree? Holy cow Batman!

[winoman]

Political systems are concerned with governing, and coercing individuals, and the study of politics is a study of a variety of laws and theories in how better able to control populations. Economics is the science of human action in a world of scarcity.

Of course these are your definitions - politics = bad, economics = good - but in fact they are very much part of the same thing. Can't you understand that Politics (laws/government/leaders) etc are - in large part institutionalisation of the means of manipulation of (alowable avenues for and restictions placed upon) avenues for influencing human (economic) action....you say "study of politics" - I can't help if others have limited there view as you have perhaps - i am talking about what political action/expression etc really is.

And I'm old - all that fine print is too small. But are you trying to tell me that population denisties in the west even begion to approach those we have in most urban/suburban and even most other areas of our nation today? No - they are no really comparable. I can just imagine if my homowners assocation was allowed to make its own laws and have its own (unregulated) army. I have a feeling that some normally OK people would be driven out (maybe all the black people eh? - or Jews - you'd like that eh?) - and a few folks would likely be killed by now. The conditions in the West are so different then what we face now in this country and in most of the world that it is laughable that you try to present stuff as an example of how we should (or could) live today...yeah cattlemens associations - you know these groups still exist - and we have Basque friends living out west who have sheep herds and you wouldn't believe the trouble they have with these cattlemen asssociations - and the violence that has been perpetuated against them/their flocks....yeah - and thats even with laws supposedly to prevent such.

So yeah - your "solution" to Democracy...Emperor of the Big Bear nation - self proclaimed Monarch - eh