basic meaning of a socialist state ?

[republican]

i am new to the idea of socialism/communism, so go easy. :lol:

just a few questions if you please...

does the idea of a socialist state mean that the 'government' would oppose people owning their own business, and reject the idea of professional leadership within a working environment, i.e. the abandonment of a higherarchy.?

another aspect which i wish to get the grasp of, is the distribution of wealth.... does profit get shared equally to ALL or just for who worked for it. ?

also, what would the stance be on current business owners and the current 'rich' people who have worked hard for their money and have bought properties and land... do they ALL get conviscated ? and what about those in a 'celebrity' status, who rake in the dosh, does it get taken off them ?

:confused: :lol:

i have recently ordered a few beginner books on the subject, but wish to get a few pointers from here too.

[Psy]

i am new to the idea of socialism/communism, so go easy. :lol:

just a few questions if you please...

does the idea of a socialist state mean that the 'government' would oppose people owning their own business, and reject the idea of professional leadership within a working environment, i.e. the abandonment of a higherarchy.?


By socialist state I gather you mean workers state,it means just that a state that looks after the interests of the working class.



another aspect which i wish to get the grasp of, is the distribution of wealth.... does profit get shared equally to ALL or just for who worked for it. ?

Profits are surplus value, surplus value comes from unequal exchange. The problem with sharing revenue just among those that worked for it is it doesn't solve the issue of lower necessary labor time (it requiring less man hours to produce the products of society) or the related devaluation of commodities. So why not share the products of society with society as a whole since industrialization continues to diminish the amount of effort required to produce them.




also, what would the stance be on current business owners and the current 'rich' people who have worked hard for their money and have bought properties and land... do they ALL get conviscated ? and what about those in a 'celebrity' status, who rake in the dosh, does it get taken off them ?

Worked hard for their money? You don't get rich by working hard, you get rich by getting other people to work hard for less money then their work is worth.

[More Fire for the People]

Socialism is a condition where (a) the means of productions--just an technical term for the factories, big farms, warehouses, and stuff like that--are owned by the workers; and (b) the government is made up entirely of the workers, the disabled, the working farmers, and other poor people.

[h0m0revolutionary]

the disabled... and other poor people.

i'm sorry.. what?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

does the idea of a socialist state mean that the 'government' would oppose people owning their own business, and reject the idea of professional leadership within a working environment, i.e. the abandonment of a higherarchy.?

As noted by Psy the term you're looking for is workers state. Socialism is not established until the working class has succeeded in taking control of all of the means of production. The fact that there is a workers state, which is the working class organized as the ruling class, indicates that there are still capitalists and other classes, meaning there are still businesses and such.



another aspect which i wish to get the grasp of, is the distribution of wealth.... does profit get shared equally to ALL or just for who worked for it. ?

Neither. If there are still capitalists that means there are people receiving wealth without working for it and also that wealth isn't divided equally.

[More Fire for the People]

i'm sorry.. what?
The lumpenproletariat and the poor peasants. I would've used the terms, but I doubt republican would've been familiar with them.

[Iuvo]

In a socialist state the general idea is :

From each according to ability (which means you are not forced to work beyond what you can possibly do)
To each according to contribution (which means you are paid according to how much you work).

The idea of 'according to how much you work' isn't based entirely on ability (or how difficult the task is), but also on what is needed to live a good life. The state decides what that is (like, what the minimum wage is, so we in the US do have socialist elements, and thank goodness we do). This also means the state has to provide people with basic necessities like health care and education, allowing everyone an equal chance to progress as well as for society to advance and develop further.

These things result in the higher taxing of all, but also a fairer system by which people are able to progress (from whatever walks of life you have a relatively equal chance to end up where you want as someone who is lucky enough to be born in a more wealthy family or with certain genes you don't have). This type of socialism is called democratic socialism, which is championed by most socialists today (the moral justification for it is formulated by many, most notably recently by John Rawls).

It might be good to add that we socialists also believe "he who doesn't work, neither shall he eat."

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

In a socialist state the general idea is :

From each according to ability (which means you are not forced to work beyond what you can possibly do)
To each according to labor worked (which means you are paid according to how much you work).

That's the basic idea of the lower phase of communism, which is generally called socialism, not the workers state. The two aren't the same.



The idea of 'according to how much you work' isn't based entirely on ability (or how difficult the task is), but also on what is needed to live a good life. The state decides what that is (like, what the minimum wage is, so we in the US do have socialist elements, and thank goodness we do). This also means the state has to provide people with basic necessities like health care and education, allowing everyone an equal chance to progress as well as for society to advance and develop further.Minimum wage? Socialist elements? There is no wage system in socialism.


These things result in the higher taxing of all, but also a fairer system by which people are able to progress (from whatever walks of life you have a relatively equal chance to end up where you want as someone who is lucky enough to be born in a more wealthy family or with certain genes you don't have). This type of socialism is called democratic socialism, which is championed by most socialists today (the moral justification for it is formulated by many, most notably recently by John Rawls).Uhm..wasn't he a liberal? "Democratic socialism" in the way you seem to be using it is not the kind of socialism we want to achieve.

[Iuvo]

If you read A Theory of Justice and his later works he names 5 systems and dissects them according to his moral philosophy, ending up with democratic socialism and democracy as the only two that are moral (capitalism, of course, is evil).

Justice as fairness is a socialist principle on top of being a moral principle (as well as a principle of the basis of society, or social contract) and it is indeed what I want to achieve. I'm being realistic here, we cannot yet do away with certain elements of the capitalist system (we are slowly working towards it, and I do not doubt that we will when we have progressed enough, hence I am considering this socialist ideal as the lower phase of communism the way Marx envisioned, but it still is a step nonetheless). Liberalism is also necessary and it is also a good and effect way to achieve freedom and equality.

I think a problem with lots of leftists is that they rush into things and this is where I think Marx got it wrong. Capitalism is evil, yes, but it has been necessary to lay the foundation for better things. We never needed a revolution, we needed more transitions, slow but sure.

[Hoxhaist]

I recommend reading Imperialism and Revolution by Enver Hoxha

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/toc.htm

and The Marxist-Leninist Movement and the World Crisis of Capitalism by Enver Hoxha

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/marxist-leninist.htm

[HoChiMilo]

A socialist state may be an opposing factor to business owners, but as we've seen with the soviet union, a "socialist state" means a bureaucracy -- more government, more bosses, more heirarchy.

When talking about socialism, I tend to think wealth distribution is given to "each according to his contribution", as iuvo said. Unfortunately, I fail to see the difference between that and capitalism. When talking of communism, it's always important to remember not thinking in terms of money at all.

"Celebrity status" people don't all own means of production. I doubt Britney Spears does. But Donald Trump, however, owns lots of stuff. The "confiscation" doesn't need to be done by any type of government -- in fact it would be much more effective if done by the masses themselves. This is what I see... there's probably a top 5 percent of the wealthiest people in America who have enough money to feed the 1 in 8 starving people on our streets and in our cities. 5 percent on 95 percent. It wouldn't necessarily even need an armed uprising. Civil disobedience would work fine!:)

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

When talking about socialism, I tend to think wealth distribution is given to "each according to his contribution", as iuvo said. Unfortunately, I fail to see the difference between that and capitalism. When talking of communism, it's always important to remember not thinking in terms of money at all.

In capitalism wealth distribution is not based on "to each according to his contribution." If it was, we wouldn't have millionaire capitalists that don't work. That maxim doesn't imply money.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

A socialist state is a hierarchical state that forgoes more direct democracy to ensure capitalist opposition is properly eliminated for communism can be implemented. Basically, the ideas communism and anarchism support, which are incredibly democratic, are difficult to implement immediately given there is no communist foundation that we simply plant in a day. Attempts to do this would supposedly cause mass confusions, et cetera.

Socialism has two notions contained in it. One is the idea that too much democracy is inefficient - this I don't think is Marx's view. The other is that it is simply too complicated to rush into a communism society overnight. Revolutions change things, but they set into motion changes rather than change everything at once.

I am sympathetic to some views on state socialism, as well as democratic socialist ideas, but I'm not entirely convinced these avenues will be effective at achieving a communist society.

Communism = justice. Black rights = justice. Gay rights = justice. When those two movements for rights started revolutionary action, they were told by their own comrades that they should wait. They couldn't have what they wanted now because it wasn't practical.

If a revolution occurs on notions of justice, individuals aren't going to agree that "justice has to wait of a little while." They want justice now because justice isn't something you delay. It's something you fight for nonstop until you achieve it.

Of course, this is where the conflicts can arise, sometimes. Even black and gay individuals recognized practical concerns in their movements. To achieve justice by direct resistance can simply be met with force. If you lack the sufficient political power and mechanisms of control, things become more difficult.

Anyway, I consider myself an anarchist because I am skeptical of state power, but I am trying to avoid fundamental claims, intuitive claims, and such. I am slowly reevaluating my views on various issues. My main problem lately is the distinction between minarchism and anarchism seems like a dispute around the use of terms rather than an actual criticism of the opposing viewpoint. I think anarchism entails some sort of collective authority rather than no authority.

[ZeroNowhere]

As SoB pointed out, socialism is a classless and stateless society, and therefore can't have a state. As for the rule of the proletariat, which seems to be what you're asking, it is basically the enforcement of the 'expropriation of the expropriators', and lasts only as long as the revolution. It is called such because said 'expropriation' means the subordination of the will of one class to another, but, when this expropriation is complete, the proletariat would have abolished its own rule, as it would have abolished its own nature as a class (and the ex-bourgeoisie are not a class).

[robbo203]

i am new to the idea of socialism/communism, so go easy. :lol:

just a few questions if you please...

does the idea of a socialist state mean that the 'government' would oppose people owning their own business, and reject the idea of professional leadership within a working environment, i.e. the abandonment of a higherarchy.?

another aspect which i wish to get the grasp of, is the distribution of wealth.... does profit get shared equally to ALL or just for who worked for it. ?

also, what would the stance be on current business owners and the current 'rich' people who have worked hard for their money and have bought properties and land... do they ALL get conviscated ? and what about those in a 'celebrity' status, who rake in the dosh, does it get taken off them ?
.


Socialism and communism traditionally meant the same thing. Its got nothing to do with the government owning or controlling the economy. In fact, the whole idea of a state in a socialist society is a contradiction in terms because a state implies the existence of a class based society (the state appeared on the scene at the beginning of so called civilisation several thousands years ago with the emergence of a ruling class)

Socialism means a society in which there is no state. It means a society in which the means of producing wealth - the factories, farms etc -are commonly owned and therefore there is no economic exchange such as buying and selling or barter. Goods are made freely available for people to take and people themselves freely cooperate in the making of these goods.

Obviously this implies 1) that people understand and support this arrangement and 2) that we have the technology to produce enough to our reasonable needs. We ve got the technology but we have not yeat got the mass understanding and support for socialism

[ZeroNowhere]

Goods are made freely available for people to take and people themselves freely cooperate in the making of these goods.
Just saying, but voluntary work and 'free access' are not part of the definition of socialism, so please don't imply that they are.

[robbo203]

Just saying, but voluntary work and 'free access' are not part of the definition of socialism, so please don't imply that they are.


I disagree. I think this is what is meant "from each according to ability to each according to need". However, I am willing to accept the distinction between a lower and higher phase of socialism/communism in which the lower phase is characterised by some form of rationing as per the labour voucher scheme but obviouly not wage labour which impluies capitalism. Nevertheless even advocates of labour vouchers must recognise that ultimately socialism means voluntary woirk and free access