Scientist declares “Earth is F**ked" --Discuss?!

[Davros]

gturner wrote:

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No, socialism is the end-stage of communism, which is just a transitionary period required for socialist-man to evolve.

History would not agree with you.

As one East Bloc joke went, "Mommy, will we still have money when we reach true socialism?" "No dear, we won't have any of that, either."

More likely a western joke told about the east.

If you limit the definition of socialism to government ownership of the means of production, you've pretty much narrowed it down to communist implementations,

Words have meanings and government ownership on the means of production is the meaning of the word Socialism. If you expand meanings of words to meet whatever definition you need it to in order to match your argument you are working against effective communication.

since Germany's national socialists and Mussolini never completely got to that point in their planned economic development.

Irrelevant. It isn't an all or nothing choice. A healthy modern economy would have both Capitalism and Socialism.

You could argue that nationalizing industrial firms should count,

And one would be right to do so.

but that's also common in right-wing juntas, monarchies, and other types of government, and it only encompasses a tiny part of the "means of production", usually the major revenue generators or critical infrastructure.

Socialism is an economic system not a political one.

[gturner]

Davros wrote:

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History would not agree with you.

But the communists would, and as you should recall, they considered themselves experts on implementing socialism.

More likely a western joke told about the east.

No, the Soviet bloc had tons of jokes, and most were hilarious.

How does every communist joke start? By looking over your shoulder.

They even had jokes about jokes.

Some Soviet judges were leaving the court buiding and one started laughing hysterically. Another judge asked him what was so funny, and the laughing judge said, "I just heard the funniest joke in my courtroom." "Well tell us, what was the joke?" "I can't repeat it. I sentenced the man to five years hard labor for telling it."

Just Google some up. It's great material.

[Crazy Eddie]

gturner wrote:

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But the communists would

No they would not, since in their view, communism was the end stage of socialism (NOT the other way around; you have that completely backwards). One of the key differences between a communist and a socialist is their starting assumption: the communist believes that socialism is just a means to an end, while the socialist believes in socialism for its own sake. Communism is generally the more extreme flavor of socialism in that it tends to implement socialism with a massive and pervasive bureaucracy whose ultimate goal (theoretically) is to promote communal participation in the means of production along a pattern carefully mapped out by the central government. Socialists, on the other hand, have the central government directly running the show and are generally less prone to delegate control to local councils and subcommittees.

In practice, Communism tends more towards autocracy mainly because the local party members tend not to be the types who think for themselves, nor do they always have a high tolerance for ambiguity, and degenerate into local thugs who push people around and harass their communities into striving towards some unreachable standard of ideological purity. Socialism, OTOH, is more conductive to centralized tyranny by a handful of strongmen or military/political juntas. As with many things, there's a bit of an overlap between the two systems, but they are not at all the same thing and are not implemented the same way either.

No, the Soviet bloc had tons of jokes, and most were hilarious.

Yakov Smirnoff was many things, but I wouldn't go as far as to call him "the Soviet Bloc."

[gturner]

No, not him. As I said, Google some up. There are some side splitters.

The Russians have a very good sense of humor, and a lot of their jokes were aimed at their system. Some of the jokes, though, are so specific to the particular, technical absurdities of communism that Westerns don't get them.

Here's a sampling. http://www.johndclare.net/Russ12_Jokes.htm

One of the most bizarre, which isn't a joke, was related by Gorbachev. He had the Soviet Bloc run a massive propaganda campaign claiming that Reagan's economics were forcing the American elderly to eat cat food, and they ran the campaign throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe before realizing the damage that had been done. The reaction on the streets was "In America, they make special food just for cats!"

Of couse, as the Chinese have shown, communism kind of works when it abandons socialism as an economic model.

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Ironically, it seems the Chinese have actually transcended socialism and have legitimately begun to implement legitimate communism -- e.g. communal ownership of resources and businesses -- in highly decentralized communes that are increasingly run on a businesslike, for-profit foundation.

Of course, that's probably an oversimplification. The only thing that's ever been certain about Chinese communism is that even the Chinese find it weird and confusing.

[Edit_XYZ]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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Actually, I HAVE read several books and articles written by these people (Paul Krugman, Lloyd Shapely and Elinor Ostrom are among the more prolific).

YOU, however, have not.

You seem to be under the recurring delusion that other people cannot read your previous posts.

The alternative being that you actually believe the dictum "I HAVE read several books and articles written by these people" to be credible, despite some of the positions you supported.

Davros wrote:

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Again it seems the biggest problem with those that worry about Socialism in this country is that they have no clue as to what Socialism is.

You seem to include me in the category that thinks socialism in certain sectors is not desirable.

If so, allow me to correct the misconception:
I think that in the sectors grouped together under the umbrella term 'social democracy', socialism is quite successful - far better than capitalism - as long as the money spent in these sectors comes from somewhere else.
Also, taxation should have 'socialist' undertones - specifically, the taxation system should be conceived so as to prevent the accumulation of too much wealth in too few hands - which will inevitably lead to the accumulation of political power to those few hands and to oligarchy (and the attendant generalized socialism and poverty for the majority of the population).

[Crazy Eddie]

Edit_XYZ wrote:

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...despite some of the positions you supported.

So are you ready to quote an article or essay written by a Nobel Laureate which has anything at all to do with any of the positions I supposedly supported? Or are you just going to keep dropping the names of people you assume would agree with you if only they were here?

You seem to include me in the category that thinks socialism in certain sectors is not desirable.

No, he's including you in the category that has no idea what socialism is.

Which you don't.

[Davros]

Edit_XYZ wrote:

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Actually, socialism is the state/ruling class' CONTROL of the means of production.

Without government ownership it isn't Socialism. If it was only control, then any government regulation would qualify as Socialism and that's just ridiculous.

And it's a very inclusive concept.
Gturner went on about these semantics at some length in his posts.

And he was wrong.

[Edit_XYZ]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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So are you ready to quote an article or essay written by a Nobel Laureate which has anything at all to do with any of the positions I supposedly supported? Or are you just going to keep dropping the names of people you assume would agree with you if only they were here?

Your obvious illiteracy in economics means you're barely qualified to read up on the basics, newtype. Here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Start with the introduction and try to work your way down from there, yes?

[Crazy Eddie]

Edit_XYZ wrote:

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Your obvious illiteracy in economics means you're barely qualified to read up on the basics, newtype. Here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Start with the introduction and try to work your way down from there, yes?

My "obvious illiteracy" explains why you didn't notice when I quoted this very same page a week ago? And I even posted an excerpt so you could see I wasn't just making things up: the entry states pretty clearly that socialism is defined by state OWNERSHIP of the means of production, not merely control.

You've said MANY times "Everyone here can read what you've posted." Maybe YOU should start doing that too, yes?

[gturner]

One of the common factors affecting all known attempts at implementing socialism is an incredibly high number of political murders over the definition and meaning of "socialism", often called "purges". Now you can see why.

[Davros]

gturner wrote:

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One of the common factors affecting all known attempts at implementing socialism is an incredibly high number of political murders over the definition and meaning of "socialism", often called "purges". Now you can see why.

[gturner]

Well, in contrast, if anyone has ever asked, "Is this true capitalism?", which is doubtful, the response was probably, "No idea, but it seems to be quite profitable!"

[Davros]

gturner wrote:

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Well, in contrast, if anyone has ever asked, "Is this true capitalism?", which is doubtful, the response was probably, "No idea, but it seems to be quite profitable!"

We know that Socialism and Capitalism are economic systems and not political ones. You can have Socialist Democracies and Capitalist Dictatorships.

[Edit_XYZ]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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My "obvious illiteracy" explains why you didn't notice when I quoted this very same page a week ago?

Your obvious illiteracy in economics explains how you, despite already having quoted the page - and, presumably, having read it -, proved unable to comprehend what is repeatedly made blatantly obvious there.