[mike777]

Socialism...

Does it work in your country..if so how and how do you define it?

[helene_t]

Lol, it worked ok in the Kibbutz I stayed in in 1984, AFAIK it hasn't worked anywhere else.

[P_Marlowe]

mike777, on Jan 26 2009, 03:07 AM, said:

Socialism...

<snip> how do you define it?

That is the crucial part.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: I was born and raised in the GDR, which claimed to be
a socialist country.
Define socialism, and we may be able to check, if the claim
was valid.

[kenberg]

While in grad school I had a friend who ran for governor on the Socialist ticket. He claimed that
1. There had never been a war between two socialist countries
2. No country in the world is truly socialist.


I pointed out that 2. might explain 1. He regarded this as unpleasantly argumentative.

[Aberlour10]

kenberg, on Jan 26 2009, 08:09 AM, said:

1. There had never been a war between two socialist countries

f. ex.

In 1979, China invaded Vietnam, this war is known as Third Indochina War.


Robert

[Fluffy]

the "socialist laboreur spannish party" is in command of Spain nowadays, but I don't think they have much relation with what you would expect with their name.

[Fluffy]

oh BTW, it doesn't work in my country.

[PassedOut]

Neither pure socialism nor pure capitalism seems to work successfully anywhere. Socialism focuses on an equitable division of the goods and services produced by society, but undervalues the role of incentives in creating sufficient goods and services for distribution. Capitalism focuses on maximizing production, but undervalues the benefits of filling the basic needs of all individuals and of conserving resources for future generations.

It seems that most industrialized countries, the US included, blend both socialism and capitalism in ways that reflect the priorities of their most influential groups.

[blackshoe]

Pure socialism (and pure capitalism) can work quite well in the small (as in Helene's kibbutz). At the national or international level, both have problems.

[jdonn]

I agree with the last couple posts. No one will ever agree on the best combination or the specifics, but I think the best system would definitely be some combination.

[P_Marlowe]

Aberlour10, on Jan 26 2009, 08:33 AM, said:

kenberg, on Jan 26 2009, 08:09 AM, said:

1. There had never been a war between two socialist countries

f. ex.

In 1979, China invaded Vietnam, this war is known as Third Indochina War.


Robert

Well, I was surprised to read about a "war" between China and Vietnam,
... but I thought also, that Vietnam could be mentioned as going to war
against Cambodia. So I looked it up.

Vietnam stopped the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia.
The Khmer claimed to be Socialst / Maoist, being backed by China, so
the war between China and Vietnam was part of the war between
Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge (Cambodia).

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: On a side note - Vietnam got a lot of bad press in the western world,
because of the invasion into Cambodia, the Khmer partially being pictured
as victims, although Vietnam stopped the mass murder organised by the
Khmer.

[helene_t]

I once met a guy from Algeria who mentioned in some discussion that his country was "socialist". I asked him what that meant. He said in all seriousness that they import their fighter jets from the USSR. During the cold war it makes sense to divide the World into countries that import fighter jets from a Warsaw pact country and those which import them from a NATO country. The former were called "socialist" and the latter "capitalist"

[Al_U_Card]

helene_t, on Jan 26 2009, 12:56 PM, said:

I once met a guy from Algeria who mentioned in some discussion that his country was "socialist". I asked him what that meant. He said in all seriousness that they import their fighter jets from the USSR. During the cold war it makes sense to divide the World into countries that import fighter jets from a Warsaw pact country and those which import them from a NATO country. The former were called "socialist" and the latter "capitalist"

Or "debtors" and "payers", you figure out which is which...

[hotShot]

If it's enough to worship Marx ideas, that almost every country is socialistic.

Most people forget that Marx was economist and "invented" the VA, so every county that collects VAT is following (some of) Marx ideas.

[DrTodd13]

Whether a system works or not is dependent on the results it produces and whether humans judge those results to be good or bad. So, this question is effectively, "do you think the results socialism produces are good or bad." Given that people in general have no coherent system of good or bad but some hodge-podge of superficial instinctual feelings about it, it seems to me people should first figure out what is good and bad and only then ask if a certain system produces that result.

The problem is that if your starting point for good and bad is rated in terms of human happiness then you wind up with the impossible task of trying to quantify how happy people are when they get stuff from government they didn't earn versus how unhappy people are when stuff they did earn (or their freedoms) is forcibly taken from them. In a world where people get enjoyment from merely have more than others (keeping up with the Jones') or get upset at having less than others even though they have adequate food, clothing and shelter you will never get agreement on some mythical ideal distribution of wealth.

[PassedOut]

DrTodd13, on Jan 26 2009, 05:11 PM, said:

Whether a system works or not is dependent on the results it produces and whether humans judge those results to be good or bad. So, this question is effectively, "do you think the results socialism produces are good or bad." Given that people in general have no coherent system of good or bad but some hodge-podge of superficial instinctual feelings about it, it seems to me people should first figure out what is good and bad and only then ask if a certain system produces that result.

The problem is that if your starting point for good and bad is rated in terms of human happiness then you wind up with the impossible task of trying to quantify how happy people are when they get stuff from government they didn't earn versus how unhappy people are when stuff they did earn (or their freedoms) is forcibly taken from them. In a world where people get enjoyment from merely have more than others (keeping up with the Jones') or get upset at having less than others even though they have adequate food, clothing and shelter you will never get agreement on some mythical ideal distribution of wealth.

True. That's why no one tries to use happiness to measure the relative effectiveness of different economic systems.

To quantify the differences among systems (all of them hybrids these days), you need to compare things such as infant mortality, life span, literacy percentage, crime rates, prison populations, and so on.

[P_Marlowe]

PassedOut, on Jan 26 2009, 05:54 PM, said:

DrTodd13, on Jan 26 2009, 05:11 PM, said:

Whether a system works or not is dependent on the results it produces and whether humans judge those results to be good or bad.  So, this question is effectively, "do you think the results socialism produces are good or bad."  Given that people in general have no coherent system of good or bad but some hodge-podge of superficial instinctual feelings about it, it seems to me people should first figure out what is good and bad and only then ask if a certain system produces that result.

The problem is that if your starting point for good and bad is rated in terms of human happiness then you wind up with the impossible task of trying to quantify how happy people are when they get stuff from government they didn't earn versus how unhappy people are when stuff they did earn (or their freedoms) is forcibly taken from them.  In a world where people get enjoyment from merely have more than others (keeping up with the Jones') or get upset at having less than others even though they have adequate food, clothing and shelter you will never get agreement on some mythical ideal distribution of wealth.

True. That's why no one tries to use happiness to measure the relative effectiveness of different economic systems.

To quantify the differences among systems (all of them hybrids these days), you need to compare things such as infant mortality, life span, literacy percentage, crime rates, prison populations, and so on.

Well, I would guess that the GDR would be brilliant,
if it comes to those measuring those points, and
Cuba would also not be too bad, maybe need to
exclude prison population, which are in prison due to
political reasons.

Volker Braun (a writer and human rights activist) once
said, that the GDR valued the social human rights higer,
than the polictical human rights.
At least I believe it was Volker Braun.

The points you listed are basically social human rights.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[PassedOut]

My comments referred to economic systems freely chosen. Many other quantifiable comparisons can be made as well: I only listed a few of the most common.

[Trinidad]

Of course, the capitalism-socialism scale in the real world goes from light grey to dark grey. Pure capitalism and pure socialism are unlikely to work.

Having said that, I think that the Nordic countries are very far to the socialist side of the scale. And it works. It isn't perfect, but it works.

The USA, on the other hand, is clearly on the capitalist side of the scale. That works too and it isn't perfect either.

I have lived in both the USA (5 years) and Sweden (7 years) with a background from the Netherlands. I think that am capable of comparing the two. The result is that both countries chose the economic model that fits the character of the country best. I am sure that the Swedish model wouldn't work in the USA and I am sure that the American model wouldn't work in Sweden.

I can even understand some Americans who say that the Swedish model cannot possibly work at all. They cannot comprehend that CEO's are willing to earn a much, no: MUCH lower salary than their American counterparts while they are equally qualified. And all that these Swedish CEO's get back for it is free health care, free libraries, free education (, free etcetera...) that they have to share with all the Swedish people. They would be perfectly able to pay for any private doctor, any book they would ever want to read and a Harvard education for each of their children if they would live and work in the USA. And for some reason, these Swedish CEO's don't do that. They stay in Sweden. The reason is in their Swedish culture.

On the other side, some Europeans cannot understand why American employees aren't moving to Sweden. Don't they want good health care? Don't they want unemployment benefits? Don't they want (virtually) free daycare for their children when they are working? Don't they want more vacation days? Of course they do. But still, for some reason, they stay in the USA. The reason is that they are American.

Rik

[Aberlour10]

Trinidad, on Jan 29 2009, 09:54 AM, said:

Having said that, I think that the Nordic countries are very far to the socialist side of the scale. And it works. It isn't perfect, but it works.

It still works, but there is a strong downward trend in Germany for example.
The costs for the health care, unenployment benefits, pensions etc. are exploded, the german goverment started to cut massively all these services at the end of the century, giving always the same reason for it : forced by Globalisation.

Robert