Is Socialism a good idea?

That all depends on how you define socialism, and there are too many definitions to begin to deal with. Some degree of socialism is a great idea. Things like welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, and universal single payer health care are great ideas. Telling each and every person what they can make, how much of it to make, and what they will be compensated for it is a bad idea. Holding corporations to different standards than individuals is a fantastic idea.

Undoubtedly socialism has its benefits. I am of the mind, however, that the cons outweigh the pros. Government bureaucracy means a lot of money down the drain, whereas for the most part the private sector does it much better since it is subject to competition. Also call me a conspiracy theorist whack-job but I hate the Idea of giving the government, particularly the federal government, any more power over any more areas of my life.

Elements of socialism are vital to a modern developed society. Basically in the areas that @Snarp covered.

Some interpretations can certainly look well on paper, and I would daresay they are good ideas, but their are other ideas that lend far more to personal freedom, and in those ideas I personally subscribe.

Socialism is a good idea only in cases where profit motive is counterproductive to a beneficial result. Examples include fire and police departments, the construction of highways and other infrastructure, public utilities, and government regulation of various industries (for example, air traffic controls, telecommunications access, etc).

Health care is also a good example of the profit motive being counterproductive to beneficial results, which is countries with decent health care are either highly regulated or government-controlled.

@jaketheripper “the private sector does it much better” is basically a bumper sticker slogan, there’s no fact to back it up. There are many areas in which the private sector does it much worse. I’m quite happy with my socialized snow plowing, garbage collection, roads, clean air and water, and parks to name a few. Bureaucracy is not a facet of government, it is a facet of large organizations. There is more bureaucracy in American health insurance than in a government single payer system.

@jaketheripper :: “Government bureaucracy means a lot of money down the drain”

The government doesn’t make a profit. I would rather the waste start at the bottom then assume it will trickle-down.

@jaketheripper, why do you hate the idea of a government you elect having power over your life, but not private powerful corporations who you don’t elect? (And who now basically have the power to buy elections—thanks, Bush’s Supreme fucking Court!)

It works for Sweden and a bunch of other european countries pretty well. So it must be a good idea. I guess this question is dependent on what you judge a government by. Do you judge it purely on principals and ideas that you hold, or does it get the job done, or are there other factors involved. If you judge it by getting the job done it does fine. but the other factors are completely dependent on the individual judging.

“Is socialism a good idea” is not a well-defined question. Socialism has so many meanings and definitions that it does not makes sense to discuss this further without fixing a definition, at least tentatively.

If Finnish system counts as “socialism”, I’d say we are doing pretty well. Not perfect, but quite ok.

@w2pow2 what do you think of when you imagine socialism? I think there is a wide difference between either side of the Atlantic. Some things which are viewed as “socialist” in the US are expected as part of a “civilised” society on this side of the pond. It manifests itself in the use/abuse of the word liberal in the US. In my mind I believe that everybody should receive free healthcare at the point of need. To some this is socialism and I would agree in as much us everybody is being treated in the same way.

It’s a great idea. Trouble is, it’s incompatible with most humans.

@Nullo +1

Transparency and participation! For any type of government and its citizens to truly prosper there needs to be transparency from the government and participation from its citizens. My 2 cents…

Socialism is NOT a good idea. A government (Corrupt at that) having all the power?
Without Democracy this country would go down fast. Let’s say the people don’t like that the government is controlling their lives and they act out against the government. Well then the government just send in it’s army to deal with the situation. Only hope of returning to Democracy would be to gain back the military’s support somehow. (which would be well corrupt with power)

@Middle_Class_American – Democracy is a system of government. Socialism is an economic system. As such, they are 100% compatible. In fact, most Socialist countries are Democratically run.

The previous response from me was admittedly ignorant. I guess what I was getting at is I would not want a country run 100% by the government. The people need to have a say in what goes on and who they put in a position of power. After all it is the peoples country.

Who runs a country if not the government? I mean, I don’t know any other group running things in the U.S., although some groups (like businesses) often think they do.

Also, the people here do have a say as to who they put in power. That’s what voting is for.

As for living in a country that’s not run 100% by the government, then you’re getting into places like Somalia where there is very little governmental control, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to live there at all. (Somalia is also the closest situation to a completely free-market economy that I know of.)

I was talking about communism

@laureth The economy can be entirely run by the people if they’re allowed the freedom to vote with their dollar.

So here’s my take on socialism:
You have a lot of people like Michael Moore claiming that socialism is a great system. I saw him giving a speech on how people in Cuba look at their socialist health care system as “We either swim together or sink together.”
Well it turns out that Michael was dead wrong about the health care system in Cuba. I don’t think he was lying, I think he was just mistaken.
A Cuban-American film maker, Luis Moro, who lived in Cuba for a while, AND supports socialized health care had this to say:
http://www.guba.com/watch/3000051845/Michael-Moore-gets-slammed-by-filmmaker-Luis-Moro
So I don’t think there’s any doubt that Michael got it wrong.
More info at therealcuba.com
So anyways, this is my take on socialism: Probably the majority of those people in Cuba that are living under that crime-to-humanity health care system are against it. Wouldn’t surprise me. But socialism says that it does not matter what they think. It does not matter what they oppose. Socialism says that they have to be a part of the system whether they like it or not. Socialism says that if they refuse to be a part of the system and pay up, the government can take that money by force.
Now I know that this really ticks off most people here on Fluther, but let’s try to have a good clean bout, agreed? No personal attacks please.

The Smurfs are a good example of a functional communist society. Note that the Smurf community is small, and fictional.

@w2pow2 the socialist health care system we have here in the UK seems to work okay, I think the problems with the Cuban healthcare system are more down to funding than the system itself and if Cuba’s largest neighbour would lift it’s ridiculous embargo maybe a whole host of their economic problems would begin to be resolved.

Americans, by and large, don’t understand what socialism is and assume it is the antithesis of democracy and freedom. They have been conditioned by decades of fear-mongering to fear socialism without understanding what it is.

@Anon_Jihad – the Americans can vote with their dollar, which is why Wal*Mart is so successful – Americans like cheap and don’t necessarily care what it takes to make that happen, even if it means that their own jobs get sent overseas.

@Middle_Class_American – so you do prefer that the government run the country, just with a very light hand? That would make more sense.

I’ll just leave it at im all for Democracy. The concept of socialism does not appeal to me nor do I think it would work In America.

Well overall democracy is a highly flawed notion, a system that champions the 51% who can run rampant on the rights of the other 49%. However Capitalism does make up for those faults with a system that allows absolutely anybody to prevail if they try and work hard enough, America is full of true rags to riches stories. Socialism closes that world off a bit. It’s not horrid but I’ll never choose to live under it.

Government bureaucracies that go under the title of communism/socialism have killed:
1.5 million under the Khmer Rouge.
6 million in the holocaust.
50— 100 million in communist China under Mao.
And people are still getting killed in concentration camps in Communist North Korea.
So you can understand my prejudice towards Communism/ Socialism, right?
Question: If Germany became a Capitalist country, with zero gun control, how many people would have been murdered?
Apply the same question to North Korea, China, Cambodia, etc.

@w2pow2 I’m not sure I understand your question. Germany is a social democracy with extensive gun control, and they’ve killed a lot less people than the U.S. in the last 65 years.

Also, the Nazi’s used the word socialist, but they were not socialists. Also, you left out the millions of people killed by Stalin, but the truth is that none of those countries were models of socialism or communism, they used the name, but enacted the ideas poorly. In most cases it wasn’t bureaucracy or communism or socialism that killed people, it was power mad dictators, a phenomenon entirely separate from socialism.

@Snarp well said and in fact you could even argue that the Nazi were the antithesis of socialist

I expect we’ll soon see a defense of the Nazis as Socialists meme that’s become so popular in certain circles lately. Here’s a preemptive strike: Under the Nazis German corporations made huge amounts of money using slave labor and traded happily with companies in the very capitalist United States. That is definitely the antithesis of socialism, certainly of the kind of socialism one associates with the Soviet Union or China before Nixon.

You’re trying to seperate the two. Power-hungary dictators and socialism want nothing to do with each other?
Socialism is a system that hands production, pure power, over to the government. To say that socialism and dictatorships are completely unrelated would be foolish.
Countries forming dictatorships under the communist banner- I might possibly understand if it happened only once- a one time deal. But I just listed 4 countries off the top of my head. Once = understandable. Multiple times = what the hell is going on there?
And it’s obvious that the Nazi’s were not the antithesis of socialism. They owned production. They owned power. If it were a capitalist nation, on the other hand, those evil evil kkkorporations would have had a thing or two to say about Hitler’s dictatorship. And with no gun control? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that rounding up heavily armed Jews would be much more trouble than its worth.
And how can you deny that the Nazi’s were socialist? Government owns production- socialism. I learned that in my high school economics class for Pete’s sake.

@w2pow2 You learned something in high school economics, but sadly not in history. The government in Nazi Germany did not own production. They did enjoy cozy relationships with the big corporations, giving subsidies and contracts to those that helped in the war effort and abolishing trade unions, which is pretty antithetical to socialism of any kind. Here are a few of Hitler’s comments on the subject:

“Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether… What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism.”

“I absolutely insist on protecting private property… we must encourage private initiative”. (That is pretty much the opposite of Communism).

“The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all.”

You can just as easily find quotes that support your contention as well, but the number of private companies in Germany making money hand over fist shows which view was true. Germany was in shambles economically and politically when the Nazis took power and various Socialist and Communist factions were popular and vied for control of government. Hitler talked about what was popular and used it in the name of the party, but when push came to shove he cared not a whit about economics at all, as long as there were companies to sell weapons to the government to continue the war effort.

But once again we are stuck discussing socialism as if it is the same thing as communism and as if any of those episodes you’ve described represent those things. They do not. The core element of Communism is that the workers control the means of production, and that need not have anything to do with the government, and in a system like the Soviet Union in which workers are treated just as badly under government ownership as under private ownership, you’re no where near Communism. The reason the state you mentioned behaved in a similar fashion is not because they were socialist or communist, but because they were inspired by and followed the model of the Soviet Union. (I leave out Germany, because they were not in the least socialist or communist).

@w2pow2 The Nazis were fascists – That is extreme right – Even more to the right of the Christian right and the extreme right Republicans. That’s why they allied themselves with Mussolini’s Fascists. The used the label socialist but were nothing like socialists – They could have called themselves bananas – it would not have made them bananas – just fruity!
Even the Soviet Union was not an implementation of socialism. Take a course in political science from a reputable university or do extensive reading to better inform yourself.

Socialism does not mean or require a totalitarian state or state ownership of all property.
Sweden is an excellent example. Canada is democratic but employs aspects of socialism in the delivery of some social services, including welfare and medical services. More Canadians vote in elections than do Americans. We also don’t fear seeing the doctor for fear of bankrupting our families. Some of us pay nothing for our medications. The rest of us pay far less for prescriptions that more Americans. We own our homes, cars, businesses.
Governments that fail to fulfill their promises can and do get thrown out of office before their terms are up. Now, that is real democracy!!

Power hungry bloodthirsty despots kill populations because they’re power hungry, bloodthirsty, and despotic – not because they’re socialistic. That’s like saying all Christian people are bloodthirsty zealous Crusaders, or all Atheists are going to be like Stalin.

The U.S. is about as socialistic as some European countries, or Canada, in its own way. Witness programs like public schools, medicare, medicaid, social security, hot lunch programs, farm price supports, corporate welfare, etc. This is already with us. And yet, somehow, we’re not all of us running psycho in the streets, decapitating our neighbors willy-nilly.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. Socialism as a theory would be fairly good because it would promote fairness and equality. But as true democracy or true communism humans will always muck up the works. There has been no form of any government no matter what you call it because people are involved, and when you have people involved greed, egotism, vanity, self-preservation etc, always enters the mix and muddies up the water until the real and true objective is lost.

Socialism really would not work in America here because everyone is suspicious that everyone else is playing them, trying to use them for a chump or stooge. So no one really wants to share everything equal because they believe they will be busting their hump to carry a bunch of lazy SOBs who would be getting way more than they earned. We can’t have that, can we?