A VERY important question for socialists?

[bcroger2]

How would you respond to this?

Within a free economy, societal equality means everyone starts the same. Within socialism, societal equality means everyone finishes the same. Economics students at one well-known university learned the hard way why socialism doesn’t work.

The course was on comparative economic policies. The instructor asserted that finishing the same under the socialistic model would remove incentives to excel and the risk of failure and would ultimately lower the overall quality of life in a society. Some students asserted that without incentives to excel or the risk of failure, people would give their best effort and altruistically excel to advance the greater good. So, the professor proposed an experiment: on individual exams in the course, all students would receive a score equal to the average score of all students. Students would finish the same. The students agreed.

On the first exam, the average score was a B and all students received a B. On the second exam, the average score was a C and all students received a C. After successive exams in the course, the average score dropped to an F. At the end of the course, all students received a cumulative grade of F.

Why did this happen? The instructor learned from the lower performing students that they saw no reason to study at all. The top performing students related that their hard work was for naught, so they studied less.

And, then what happened? The students complained to the university’s administration that they each received an F and not a higher grade. After confirming that the students agreed to the grading methodology and that the students chose to apply themselves less, the university’s administration left their grades unchanged.

Government must not remove the ability of the individual to excel or fail. Similarly, government must not remove the ability of companies to excel or fail. A company that is “too big to fail” presents threats to an economy not dissimilar in magnitude than the threats posed at the individual level. In spite of all of the gnashing of teeth, nothing meaningful has been done about the corporate socialism that continues to exist in the United States. Dodd-Frank is an abysmal failure.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money. We find that Lady Thatcher’s wisdom has greater applicability than she first thought.




-Why Socialism Doesn't Work

[jookyle]

The first statement of everyone finishing the same is absurd and it insists that there's some inherit law to existence that you only at win at life when die owning the most stuff.

I don't see how that grade thing applies to socialism. In socialism everyone milks the cow, everyone shares the milk. That analogy has more to do with a welfare state than it does a socialist one. This statement is obviously made by a liberalist who would rather spout rhetoric than provide something of intellectual value.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Nothing in that entire post has any intellectual value at all.

[Positivist]

1. In a "free economy" (which I'm assuming means capitalism) everyone does not start out equal. Those in the "upper class" (I'd say bourgiose but I'm assuming you don't know what that is) have greater access to educational opportunities, greater funds to invest, and more connections to pre-existing businesses. The "lower classes" or "poor" as you probably call them, must cope with weak, or even non-existent education, no inherited money to invest, and absolutely no contacts with pre-existing business authority. There is no 'equal starting point."

2. If your "starting off equal" refers to the equality of producers at the beginning of capitalism then this again wrong. Merchants at the end of feudal times benefited from the mass expropriation of former serfs, as well as of indigenous populations in Africa and America. From here the dispossed former serfs and indigenous people were forced to sell their labor power to those merchants for less of a share than they produced because if they didn't, they would have died.

3. Everyone in socialism does not "finish equal." Socialists advocate a system based on compensation according to what one produces. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."- Karl Marx

4. Workers in capitalism today are not compensated based on what they produce as is insinuated in this article. Factory workers, nurses, mailmen,
construction workers, etc. are all payed either an hourly wage or a salary which is the same for every employee at the same position within the company. Compensation is not based on output, its based on what the company can get away with.

There is nothing in this article that is of any substance whatsoever, nor which makes any contribution to explaining "why socialism doesn't work." On the contrary of the top of my head I could fill a list longer than this entire article on why capitalism doesn't work.

[Comrades Unite!]

Within a free economy, societal equality means everyone starts the same. Within socialism, societal equality means everyone finishes the same.

Right so, The first problem we encounter is with the very beginning.
Within a Free Market system, Societal Equality is impossible.
Take for example and for the sake of simplicity two first generation families in a Capitalist system, One will do worse than the other as will the other do better, this means the second Generation of these two families will have less of any sort of equality through no fault of the offspring of the 1st generation family and so on so forth will lead to a complete Class division which leads me to another point.

There must be laborers or else the Capitalistic system grinds to a shuddering hault, The laborers in Capitalism ALWAYS live in lesser standards than the Capitalists meaning that their must be Class Division destroying any hope for a Equality under Capitalism. Under Socialism, The idea is not on making profits but developing for Economic demand and Use Value, This article looks at Socialism as if it were producing in the same way Production is in Capitalism.





The course was on comparative economic policies. The instructor asserted that finishing the same under the socialistic model would remove incentives to excel and the risk of failure and would ultimately lower the overall quality of life in a society. Some students asserted that without incentives to excel or the risk of failure, people would give their best effort and altruistically excel to advance the greater good. So, the professor proposed an experiment: on individual exams in the course, all students would receive a score equal to the average score of all students. Students would finish the same. The students agreed.

On the first exam, the average score was a B and all students received a B. On the second exam, the average score was a C and all students received a C. After successive exams in the course, the average score dropped to an F. At the end of the course, all students received a cumulative grade of F.

Why did this happen? The instructor learned from the lower performing students that they saw no reason to study at all. The top performing students related that their hard work was for naught, so they studied less.

And, then what happened? The students complained to the university’s administration that they each received an F and not a higher grade. After confirming that the students agreed to the grading methodology and that the students chose to apply themselves less, the university’s administration left their grades unchanged.


This sort of theory would occur under Socialism only if the people (Regardless of Class) still had Capitalistic mentality, Dialectics have shown us that we are constantly subject to change,transformation and development throughout the course of History, The Laborer throughout history provided the world with all its wealth(Alongside Nature of course, but for the sake of simplicity I will abstract from discussing Nature as it is irrelevant to the topic at hand)
Yet the laborer was constantly given F's by the Bourgeois,Constantly given the same treatment as other Laborers by the Bourgeois, of course things have changed, More Socialistic policies have been provided since then to make the life of the laborer under Capitalism less strainous.

Its not a good enough theory,It makes as if the Lazy workers strive when most likely their would be a Democratic election in the workhouse or whatever to fire that person.




Government must not remove the ability of the individual to excel or fail. Similarly, government must not remove the ability of companies to excel or fail. A company that is “too big to fail” presents threats to an economy not dissimilar in magnitude than the threats posed at the individual level. In spite of all of the gnashing of teeth, nothing meaningful has been done about the corporate socialism that continues to exist in the United States. Dodd-Frank is an abysmal failure.


The wording is poor here, Dodd Frank is irrelevant so we'll forget about him.
It doesn't really have anything to argue against purely because their is no arguement being made, Sure they are making statements I completely disagree with they are not making any formulative argument here, just free market biased crap.





Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money. We find that Lady Thatcher’s wisdom has greater applicability than she first thought.


Aside from the fact millions of Britons detest her and the fact unemployment under her was staggering,Socialism is not about stealing other peoples money its about the Worker taking political supremacy,Emplacing a Common Ownership system,Develop goods for Economic Demand and building the bridge to Communist.

Capitalism is great until you run out of other people's labor.

[Ostrinski]

I fail to see how this question is very important.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

I hate this argument. My dad showed it to me once.:rolleyes:.

For some reason people think that in socialism, you can do nothing. If you do nothing, you won't get anything. Completely ridiculous from the start.

[Leftsolidarity]

That this has absolutely nothing to do about class relations to the means of production or socialism at all.

[#FF0000]

How would you respond to this?

I would respond by saying that it's based on a baby's interpretation of socialism and has literally nothing to do with what we actually put forward.

[Prometeo liberado]

Pretty much everyone here just answered this very ridiculous question. I would just add that warm milk on a hot day is always a bad idea.

[mew]

whoa.....u know, i never thought about it like that before.

i always thought that was a really dumb story. like i'd be mad as hell if some professor pulled some half-cocked 'social experiment' with my grade in order to prove some stupid political opinion he had.

[RedAtheist]

The "experiment" contains such an absurd amount of abstraction and metaphor that it does not really tell us anything about either capitalism or socialism. This experiment would make some kind of sense if the following condtions were true.

1. All (or at least the majority of) production in both a capitalist and socialist society was a result of individual labour: In reality capitalism is a system in which production is mostly social (large companies, hiring thousands of workers, produce things instead of individual worker.) Production would continue to be social in a socialist society, since this form of labour has proven to be more efficient.

2. Everyone in a capitalist society has equal access to the means of production: This of course goes along with the first point about production supposedly being an individual activity in a capitalist society. This economics teacher is apparently under the impression that everyone is a peasant or small business owner. In reality most people in a capitalist society do not own means of production, distribution and exchange (or at least they do not own enough of such things in order to use them as part of the circuit of capital.) Only if everyone had equal access to the means of production would the amount of money someone earned be a direct result of how hard they worked.'

3. The productive capabilities of any society is not determined by anything other than how hard people work: "Lazy" workers who work in technologically advanced factories, produce more than workers who work hard in less technologically advanced factories. Technological innovation and other key factors which determine how productive a person's labour is (aside from how much effort they put in) are totally ignored in the scenario.

4. The previous performance of an individual or business in a capitalist society has no impact on the individual's or business' future ability to succeed: In the real world (which the example completely ignores) businesses that do well have more money to invest in production later on. Businesses that do badly are less likely to succeed to later on. Whereas students in a school or university start each new exam from scratch. A similar problem applies in the realm of employment. Those who get a job when they are young are more likely to get more jobs later on given their experience. If someone fails to get a job when they are young they are less likely to get hired in the future given their lack of experience.

5. Socialists/communists want everyone to be paid the same wages right away, without making any other changes to society: In reality socialists do not have a detailed model for how a socialist society will function. We simply believe that control over the economy should be given to the workers as a whole. Workers will have a say in determining the wages of different occuptions and the decisions regarding wages will be made by elected representatives of the working class. If productivity declines seriously, people will begin to notice and the elected representatives will either have to address the problem or be recalled by a referendum. At least that is how a socialist society should work. Unfortunately dictators throughout history have ceased control over the economy and ran it without any democratic imput from anyone, but this is not socialism, simply because the dictators have named it such.

In summary the whole idea behind the experiment makes no sense and the experiment itself is unscientific. It is conducted by a teacher who has a preconception that he/she calls socialism will fail. A teacher who expects everyone to fail is not a very good teacher. Not to mention the fact that if the scores of the all the individual students had been revealed (despite the students all recieving the same official grade) the 'bad' students (that were holding down the rest of the group's grade) could have been identified and steps could have been taken by the better students to improve the grades of the weaker students which improves everyone's grade. No such cooperation appears to have been encouraged.

[Zukunftsmusik]

It's "from each according to ability, to each according to need," not "from each according to ability, to each according to how many we share the final and total product with". Along many other problems with this argument that others have pointed out, it pictures socialism within the framework of capitalism, a "socialism of distribution", rather than a completely and radically different organisation of production.

[Peoples' War]

I hate this argument. My dad showed it to me once,:rolleyes:.

For some reason people think that in socialism, you can do nothing. If you do nothing, you won't get anything. Completely ridiculous from the start.
I noticed this stated twice, and it would be correct for the lower phase of communism, but not the higher in which "each according to his need" applies.

[hatzel]

Under socialism it won't make any difference what letter some grumpy old dude decides to write next to your name because all the universities will be on fire already...

[Jazzratt]

My response would be that people who form their political opinions on the basis of, what amounts to, a chain e-mail (http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp) are too fucking dense to be trusted with opinions.

[ВАЛТЕР]

I think all that needs to be said has been said.

Why was this such an important question to you OP?

[Comrades Unite!]

Yeah, It was fairly obvious what was wrong with it.

[Questionable]

It's wrong from the very start. I like this email better.


A liberal muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist

”Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!”

At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the United States stood up and held up a rock.

”How old is this rock, pinhead?”

The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied “4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian”

”Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real… then it should be an animal now”

The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Origin of the Species. He stormed out of the room crying those liberal crocodile tears. The same tears liberals cry for the “poor” (who today live in such luxury that most own refrigerators) when they jealously try to claw justly earned wealth from the deserving job creators. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, DeShawn Washington, wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than a sophist liberal professor. He wished so much that he had a gun to shoot himself from embarrassment, but he himself had petitioned against them!

The students applauded and all registered Republican that day and accepted Jesus as their lord and savior. An eagle named “Small Government” flew into the room and perched atop the American Flag and shed a tear on the chalk. The pledge of allegiance was read several times, and God himself showed up and enacted a flat tax rate across the country.

The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and was tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity.

[Kotze]

:closedeyes: Questionable, by posting this here you are stealing somebody's intellectual property for rep, and everybody knows piracy funds terrorism.

This one I made myself:

Students at a prestigious Korean university learned the hard way that capitalism doesn't work.

Some students told their sport teacher that rewarding well-doing athletes with influence over the outline of the program would lead to everybody giving their best and a flourishing of different talents.

So, the teacher proposed an experiment: Every student would receive an individual score based on the performance in several regular challenges, they would receive a vote multiplier in proportion to their score, they could then vote on which activities to do and how the challenges would be weighted for computing the next round of scoring, and so on. The students agreed.

After the first month, everybody was pretty excited over the new freedoms and even those who did not score well enjoyed seeing how the sucessful took initiative. After the second month, the scores grew far apart and many activities were cancelled (those where the overall top-ranked had stiff competition). At the end of the third month, the activities became even less varied, what was left of what had been (like team sports, remember, anyone?) was a few motions, repeated endlessly.

Many didn't bother doing much anymore, many were angry, the one with the highest score called everybody else a jealous loser. A kid who saw him shortly before his death described his appearance as a monster with some parts that looked like balloons under his skin about to explode and other small parts "just little thingies dangling around, like with the arms of a T-Rex."

The students asked the teacher to change the rules back. One of them said, "We created this as a tool for us, but then it came alive and we became its tools." The instructor said: "Juche. Juche, Juche, Juuuuu! Cheeeeeeee!" He flapped his arms really fast, so fast that he began to fly. And he was never seen again.

The moral of the story is to always check the expiration date of the stuff you snack on while writing on the internet.

[RedHammer]

I'll give this my two cents:


Within a free economy, societal equality means everyone starts the same. Within socialism, societal equality means everyone finishes the same. Economics students at one well-known university learned the hard way why socialism doesn’t work. What does "the same" mean? Socialism is about common ownership of the means of production. This makes the erroneous assumption that we are concerned with classes as they relate to income, and not as they relate to ownership of the means of production.


The course was on comparative economic policies. The instructor asserted that finishing the same under the socialistic model would remove incentives to excel and the risk of failure and would ultimately lower the overall quality of life in a society. Some students asserted that without incentives to excel or the risk of failure, people would give their best effort and altruistically excel to advance the greater good. So, the professor proposed an experiment: on individual exams in the course, all students would receive a score equal to the average score of all students. Students would finish the same. The students agreed.

Now this sounds like a Glenn Beck-esque definition of socialism.

Socialism is not strictly about the "redistribution of wealth". It's not about a welfare state (which is simply reformed capitalism). It's not about total equality, but common ownership of the means of production.

Private ownership of the means of production enables some individuals to have leverage over others. The "means of production" are the means to livelihood; they are the means to sustenance. When they are privately owned, one class controls the very livelihood of another class. Hence, exploitation: the laborer, who owns no property, must sell his labor and does so at a price beneath his productivity. The owner does no labor, but grows wealthier from the mere condition of his ownership.

What do grades have to do with anything? Your grade on an exam has nothing to do with the means of production. People will have different grades and will need to do their best in school, individually.


Why did this happen? The instructor learned from the lower performing students that they saw no reason to study at all. The top performing students related that their hard work was for naught, so they studied less.

Again, socialism is not about the "redistribution of wealth". This professor shouldn't be teaching economics.


Government must not remove the ability of the individual to excel or fail. Similarly, government must not remove the ability of companies to excel or fail. A company that is “too big to fail” presents threats to an economy not dissimilar in magnitude than the threats posed at the individual level. In spite of all of the gnashing of teeth, nothing meaningful has been done about the corporate socialism that continues to exist in the United States. Dodd-Frank is an abysmal failure.

Socialism is about co-operation.

There is no "corporate socialism"; you either have socialism or you don't. Socialism is not just "big government". It addresses the fundamental property relations between the people within society.

People may succeed or fail, to be sure, and they will have jobs that reflect their ability. To use the Soviet Union as an example (and by no means is it a perfect example), some students went on to university; others to the military; and others to trade schools; and still others to other avenues.


Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money. We find that Lady Thatcher’s wisdom has greater applicability than she first thought.

Nope. Socialism is not concerned about "money" or redistribution of money. It's about production; we don't want to just "take from the rich and give to the poor", but we assert that the working class should directly own the means of production, eliminating the need for "redistribution of wealth".

[Positivist]

Anyone else think its weird how the OP joined the cite, posted one thing which challenged that our entire ideology was wrong, and now hasn't been back on since he posted it? Kinda makes me think that he got the chain email, looked up "socialist websites", found revleft, registered and then made the post thinking that we would all just be overwhelmed by the logic of the argument and abandon socialism wholesale.

[Zeus the Moose]

Anyone else think its weird how the OP joined the cite, posted one thing which challenged that our entire ideology was wrong, and now hasn't been back on since he posted it? Kinda makes me think that he got the chain email, looked up "socialist websites", found revleft, registered and then made the post thinking that we would all just be overwhelmed by the logic of the argument and abandon socialism wholesale.

To his credit, he has made a couple of other posts elsewhere.

To his detriment, they were all one-liners which were also without substance.

[ВАЛТЕР]

I for one would really like a response from OP, as to why he/she thought this argument was at all credible. Also, I would like for them to acknowledge some of the points brought up. OR if he/she disagrees, please state why.

[Positivist]

I for one would really like a response from OP, as to why he/she thought this argument was at all credible. Also, I would like for them to acknowledge some of the points brought up. OR if he/she disagrees, please state why.

Yea the problem is that he hasn't been on.

[rti]

How would you respond to this?

Within a free economy, societal equality means everyone starts the same.



Then definitely it isn't capitalism.

Rich people have huge advantage in
* Education
* Business connections ( Probably the most important )
* Market position - they have they own capital to invest while poor people in order to start a business need credits and pay for interest for it or they need other rich people and pay them dividend -it just typical structural classicism it is just not obvious for most of the people.


How would you respond to this?
Within socialism, societal equality means everyone finishes the same.


There is not inherit natural law that say who ever dies while owning the most stuff wins at life.



The course was on comparative economic policies. The instructor asserted that finishing the same under the socialistic model would remove incentives to excel and the risk of failure and would ultimately lower the overall quality of life in a society. Some students asserted that without incentives to excel or the risk of failure, people would give their best effort and altruistically excel to advance the greater good. So, the professor proposed an experiment: on individual exams in the course, all students would receive a score equal to the average score of all students. Students would finish the same. The students agreed.

On the first exam, the average score was a B and all students received a B. On the second exam, the average score was a C and all students received a C. After successive exams in the course, the average score dropped to an F. At the end of the course, all students received a cumulative grade of F.

Why did this happen? The instructor learned from the lower performing students that they saw no reason to study at all. The top performing students related that their hard work was for naught, so they studied less.

And, then what happened? The students complained to the university’s administration that they each received an F and not a higher grade. After confirming that the students agreed to the grading methodology and that the students chose to apply themselves less, the university’s administration left their grades unchanged.


Current educational system is obsolete of kinda 150 years and it kinda sucks and should be scrapped so any data shown by you are useless anyway.

Beside i have hard time finding any credible source that such a test ever happened in real life.

[unitedanarchy]

The biggest issue I have with most out spoken socialists is the fact that they call America, "Free Market Capitalism". America is very far from actual Free Market Capitalism, So please, Don't use America as an argument. And if you are going to get mad at people who will use the Soviet Union to dismiss all communism and socialism, Then don't do it with America. With America you all are really starting to seem like you are just saying Capitalism is bad because of the current climate in America, Which is insane, Also, Importantly, Being it isn't really capitalism. America has always really been a Mixed Economy, But now it is far closer to Socialism, Like it or not, That is the reality. You used to have private currencies, Now people who make the liberty dollar are arrested. You used to have Schools without government regulation so Children weren't total morons, And that is gone with the beginning of state schools. I used to be a socialist too, Outspoken as many of you are, And less so later on as more of a liberal. And also, Don't call me a capitalist, I am not exactly a capitalist. I am just seeing the fallacies in your arguments, I have my own critisms of capitalism. For example, I am not entirely sure if it is immoral to hire workers being that you pay them less than you make off of them other wise there would be no profit. I also think of the fact that people raise their prices above what they took to make it and acquire the parts to make a profit. It seems like fraud to me. Both can be solved, People can chose to have their prices be only exactly what they need, And if they want a profit they can survive of other means such as donations, Or infinite resources such as providing electricity from solar power plants, Or prostitution. And for the worker thing, They could create robots. But remember something, If it is voluntary, It is okay. If you agree with informed constant to be killed and eaten by someone else, It is okay. My morality is voluntary based, If they don't agree, Then it is immoral. So immoral isn't the best word being that workers agree to it, Prices are a little different though, But you still aren't forced to buy from that guy.

[Leftsolidarity]

The biggest issue I have with most out spoken socialists is the fact that they call America, "Free Market Capitalism". America is very far from actual Free Market Capitalism, So please, Don't use America as an argument. And if you are going to get mad at people who will use the Soviet Union to dismiss all communism and socialism, Then don't do it with America. With America you all are really starting to seem like you are just saying Capitalism is bad because of the current climate in America, Which is insane, Also, Importantly, Being it isn't really capitalism. America has always really been a Mixed Economy, But now it is far closer to Socialism, Like it or not, That is the reality. You used to have private currencies, Now people who make the liberty dollar are arrested. You used to have Schools without government regulation so Children weren't total morons, And that is gone with the beginning of state schools. I used to be a socialist too, Outspoken as many of you are, And less so later on as more of a liberal. And also, Don't call me a capitalist, I am not exactly a capitalist. I am just seeing the fallacies in your arguments, I have my own critisms of capitalism. For example, I am not entirely sure if it is immoral to hire workers being that you pay them less than you make off of them other wise there would be no profit. I also think of the fact that people raise their prices above what they took to make it and acquire the parts to make a profit. It seems like fraud to me. Both can be solved, People can chose to have their prices be only exactly what they need, And if they want a profit they can survive of other means such as donations, Or infinite resources such as providing electricity from solar power plants, Or prostitution. And for the worker thing, They could create robots. But remember something, If it is voluntary, It is okay. If you agree with informed constant to be killed and eaten by someone else, It is okay. My morality is voluntary based, If they don't agree, Then it is immoral. So immoral isn't the best word being that workers agree to it, Prices are a little different though, But you still aren't forced to buy from that guy.

Lol wut?

First off, I couldn't get through your massive wall of text that was just painful to read.

Second, you're wrong.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

The biggest issue I have with most out spoken socialists is the fact that they call America, "Free Market Capitalism". America is very far from actual Free Market Capitalism, So please, Don't use America as an argument. And if you are going to get mad at people who will use the Soviet Union to dismiss all communism and socialism, Then don't do it with America. With America you all are really starting to seem like you are just saying Capitalism is bad because of the current climate in America, Which is insane, Also, Importantly, Being it isn't really capitalism. America has always really been a Mixed Economy, But now it is far closer to Socialism

Stopped reading there.

What a load of bollocks. You can't have a capitalist economy that's controlled by the workers. It's in itself paradoxical, and the incredibly misinformed 'mixed economy' nonsense you are spouting is prime evidence that you obviously do not understand the basics of socialism in the first place.

Keynesianism does not equate to socialism, and even with that said, America is most definitely not keynesian right now. It's your perfect example of a semi-plutocratic, bourgiouis powerhouse.

[unitedanarchy]

Stopped reading there.

What a load of bollocks. You can't have a capitalist economy that's controlled by the workers. It's in itself paradoxical, and the incredibly misinformed 'mixed economy' nonsense you are spouting is prime evidence that you obviously do not understand the basics of socialism in the first place.

Keynesianism does not equate to socialism, and even with that said, America is most definitely not keynesian right now. It's your perfect example of a semi-plutocratic, bourgiouis powerhouse.

Ehhh, I use socialism to define government ownership, Not worker ownership, I use communism to define that. (commune) And if I don't understand the basics, Explain it to me instead of just telling me I don't understand. But seriously, Maturity check, If you are going to reply to me, Read the whole damn thing. America is far from Free Market Capitalism, I didn't say it was a socialist country, I said it was closer to socialism. Canada, And England are better examples of the socialism I am thinking of. But seriously, You guys here don't seem to understand what capitalism is entirely, At least you don't seem to get that America does not = free market capitalism. So seriously, Stop acting like a Police state with the largest government and military in the world with a million and one bans laws and regulations has anything to do with capitalism. America sucks because America sucks, Not because of capitalism, America and Capitalism are like that estranged cousin you see at Christmas every year you just kind of acknowledge and then look away for the rest of the night.

[Leftsolidarity]

Ehhh, I use socialism to define government ownership, Not worker ownership, I use communism to define that. (commune) And if I don't understand the basics, Explain it to me instead of just telling me I don't understand. But seriously, Maturity check, If you are going to reply to me, Read the whole damn thing. America is far from Free Market Capitalism, I didn't say it was a socialist country, I said it was closer to socialism. Canada, And England are better examples of the socialism I am thinking of. But seriously, You guys here don't seem to understand what capitalism is entirely, At least you don't seem to get that America does not = free market capitalism. So seriously, Stop acting like a Police state with the largest government and military in the world with a million and one bans laws and regulations has anything to do with capitalism. America sucks because America sucks, Not because of capitalism, America and Capitalism are like that estranged cousin you see at Christmas every year you just kind of acknowledge and then look away for the rest of the night.

You're still wrong.

Why don't you go to the FAQ's if you want answers to those questions or start a thread where you clearly lay out your questions without jumping around to random shit so that if you actually want answers, people can actually respond.

Also, break up your massive walls of text. It's impossible to read if you don't.

[unitedanarchy]

You're still wrong.

Why don't you go to the FAQ's if you want answers to those questions or start a thread where you clearly lay out your questions without jumping around to random shit so that if you actually want answers, people can actually respond.

Also, break up your massive walls of text. It's impossible to read if you don't.

XD Oh my god, Seriously? Are you people all like five? YOu all have responded to me, And you all can fucking read a paragraph. I don't have any questions, The fact of the matter is, You are wrong in assuming America is some fucking example of god damn capitalism. It isn't, It is no where near Free Market Capitalism, So stop acting like it is. If you do that, Then I might as well act like the Soviet Union is an example of all socialism/communism.

[Revoltorb]

XD Oh my god, Seriously? Are you people all like five? YOu all have responded to me, And you all can fucking read a paragraph. I don't have any questions, The fact of the matter is, You are wrong in assuming America is some fucking example of god damn capitalism. It isn't, It is no where near Free Market Capitalism, So stop acting like it is. If you do that, Then I might as well act like the Soviet Union is an example of all socialism/communism.

A paragraph is a coherent and flowing system of clauses that uses conventional grammatical rules. A wall of text, on the other hand, is something you'd find in works by Faulkner, Kant, or yourself.

And no one is (or should be) saying that America is "Free Market Capitalism" because such an entity cannot exist. Capitalism necessitates a state and subordinates the state to its own existence.

[GodWasHere]

when i told one of my teachers i was a communist he told me this story. at the time i was not prepared but i have thought on it since, and have come to the conclusion that it depends on the rigidity of the Socialism/communism. in extremely strict cases, i could see this happening. but the main way i see of avoiding this problem for communists is like this.
lets say you have a factory full of relatively hard working workers. if they are all paid the same with no fear of firing or pay docking, this scenario could occur. i would then change the scale, so that they earned a percentage of what the factory made. therefore, the harder they worked, the more they would make, but still not make more than their comrades. that way everyone would make what they were worth. but you may ask, that seems like the grade scenario but in a factory. well maybe so but the truth is that i think you'll find even in communism, people have a little capitalist, and money is a good motivator. that was the basis for Lenin's new economy. also, if there are people who just don't want to work, then pay them in only food stamps so they ave no disposable income until they shape up. we have to feed people, but we don't have to get them a cellphone if they wont work for it.:closedeyes:

[unitedanarchy]

Yeah, Everyone I have seen here in all of the many threads I have visted seems to follow the Capitalist Pig yelling sterotype.

[rti]

XD Oh my god, Seriously? Are you people all like five? YOu all have responded to me, And you all can fucking read a paragraph. I don't have any questions, The fact of the matter is, You are wrong in assuming America is some fucking example of god damn capitalism. It isn't, It is no where near Free Market Capitalism, So stop acting like it is. If you do that, Then I might as well act like the Soviet Union is an example of all socialism/communism.

First of all : There is no such a thing as free market and can never happen.

* Market is a place of exchanging goods and services.
* Rules of engagement on the market are design by its participants that has the most resources to force the rules.
* The best you can hope is participants would act according to the ideology of the free market.
* Established class of bourgeois ( which is a direct result of accumulation of capital which cant be avoided ) doest not care of free market ideology and they have resources to set up the system as they see fit, it it is better to control then compete and everyone act according to his own interest thus they will control.

Current USA situation is a direct resultant of the capitalism ideology due to market mechanics described above and it is often but not always involves the state.

[GodWasHere]

when i told one of my teachers i was a communist he told me this story. at the time i was not prepared but i have thought on it since, and have come to the conclusion that it depends on the rigidity of the Socialism/communism. in extremely strict cases, i could see this happening. but the main way i see of avoiding this problem for communists is like this.
lets say you have a factory full of relatively hard working workers. if they are all paid the same with no fear of firing or pay docking, this scenario could occur. i would then change the scale, so that they earned a percentage of what the factory made. therefore, the harder they worked, the more they would make, but still not make more than their comrades. that way everyone would make what they were worth. but you may ask, that seems like the grade scenario but in a factory. well maybe so but the truth is that i think you'll find even in communism, people have a little capitalist, and money is a good motivator. that was the basis for Lenin's new economy. also, if there are people who just don't want to work, then pay them in only food stamps so they ave no disposable income until they shape up. we have to feed people, but we don't have to get them a cellphone if they wont work for it.:closedeyes:

actually i thought about this and i saw several flaws. if you did to, please ignore it.

[Positivist]

Yeah, Everyone I have seen here in all of the many threads I have visted seems to follow the Capitalist Pig yelling sterotype.

And you quite perfectly fit into the stereotype of anarcho-capitalists as uneducated.

- Socialism does not mean government ownership, it means worker ownership. In socialism the production and distribution of products is socialized, hence the term socialism.

-Communism means that production and distribution occur at a communal level. Hence communism.

-Even if socialism did mean state ownership, the modern American public sector is really quite negligible. There are not many government owned companies at all in the United States actually. And no the existence of welfare programs does not equate to socialism either, as the american welfare system has no semblance to free access and the services provided are subpar at best.

-Public education did not make everyone morons except for you maybe considering that the majority of the population could not (and still cannot) afford private education and were illiterate as a result.

-There are other important features of capitalism which are very much present within he American economy including generalized commodity production, the law of value, the exploitation of surplus, and the existence of the market as a self-adjustment mechanism. All of these features are incompatible with socialism.

- The sale of labor for less than its worth is not really voluntary considering that workers are cut off from the means of subsistence if they don't do it, which means they die. Wage labor is only as voluntary as breathing is.

-What you are writing are not paragraphs. Paragraphs end following the completion of an idea, or when necessary to make the body of text more comprehensible. Your just amalgating all of your ideas Ito an in cohesive wall of text.

There, be enlightened.

[campesino]

if there is money/markets there is capitalism, if there is no money/markets there is socialism.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

I would respond to it by reversing the story to be about capitalism.

Everyone said capitalism was great. The professor gave a test, and said whoever gets the highest score gets 100, and everyone else fails the class.

[Revoltorb]

if there is money/markets there is capitalism, if there is no money/markets there is socialism.

This seems off to me. A tribute society doesn't necessitate money and/or market mechanisms but still would be far from socialism as the aristocracy would be living fat off the work of the peasants without any monetary exchange.

[campesino]

This seems off to me. A tribute society doesn't necessitate money and/or market mechanisms but still would be far from socialism as the aristocracy would be living fat off the work of the peasants without any monetary exchange.

is there no trading? I guess it could have no trading. your post made me think. I guess it should be private property instead of money/market.

[Positivist]

How come everytime there's a good response to these idiots they just stop posting?

[Zukunftsmusik]

How come everytime there's a good response to these idiots they just stop posting?

I think the OP indeed is one of the persons "too dense to be trusted with opinions" (Jazzratt), at least him/her not responding in this thread shows signs of that