Is socialism really that bad?

[_Scottie]

For several months now, the words "Obama" and "socialism" have been used together as much as bacon and eggs.

Now, I am no economist by any means, but, would socialism really be that bad? It seems as though capitalism has not been the end-all be-all that we dreamed it would be. There is a growing gap between the different status of income levels in the US. Greed and corruption seem to be dominating every aspect of our economy and our government. Our "American way" is excessive to the extreme. Will socialism make this worse, or does it have potential to make it better?

Other than socialism, what can we do to fix the greed and corruption in our government?

[_The Dude]

Other than socialism, what can we do to fix the greed and corruption in our government?

It might fix a lot of social inequality, but greed and corruption would still exist in our government.

[_asbestosman]

Other than socialism, what can we do to fix the greed and corruption in our government?

Socialism doesn't fix governmental greed and corruption. Neither, obviously, does capitalism.

Socialism tends to decrease the efficiency of an economy--at least if what I learned in Econ 110 is right. That said, there may be reasons to do some somewhat socialistic things. It may make society more stable (which, while not necessarily a goal, could also increase economic efficiency).

for what it's worth, I still don't care about the gap between rich and poor. I just care about giving the poor a decent shot at life. I don't envy the rich even though I am not rich (by American standards anyhow) because I truly do have sufficient for myself. However, I also realize that not everyone is that lucky. Some people through no fault of their own end up with a stack of medical or other bills. I still think they should have a shot at life. Now, whether help should come through government or charity is a good question. Whether sufficient help would come through charity is a good question.

[_Thama]

We're already socialist. No, really, we are. We're also capitalist. These aren't mutually exclusive sets of policies which have to be adopted wholesale. We've mixed and matched elements of both, just as every other successful modern economy has. Our schools are quite socialistic. Our financial system is quite capitalistic. Our healthcare system is... *ugh*.

We fall more toward the capitalist side than most. England and Japan are slightly to our left, Continental Europe and Scandinavia a bit more, and China quite a bit more.

If there's anything we should have learned from the 20th century, it's that ideological purism and economics don't mix well at all. The best example of an ideologically pure socialistic economy occurred under Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, and the result was economic catastrophe and mass starvation. The closest the modern world has come to pure capitalism (to my knowledge) was during the 1920s, especially under Coolidge, and the result was the Great Depression.

Instead of debating whether a candidate is socialist or not, we should be arguing the specific merits of individual policies, without attaching labels of "socialistic" or "capitalistic", or trying to insinuate that the adoption of an individual policy that tends toward a particular ideology is akin to the installation of that ideology as the comprehensive national economic policy. The collapse of the USSR has virtually no bearing on the viability of a nationalized healthcare system, just as the recent economic collapse due to deregulation is similarly irrelevant to the viability of charter schools and competition in the educational system.

Ok. Sorry. Rant over.

[_beastie]

::::clapping for thama:::::::

[_Hally McIlrath]

The "socialism" charge was diversionary. John McCain has definitely shown himself to be a big government kind of guy, so his charge against Obama was just a late-in-the-campaign drama queen tactic.

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" guiding the market seems the best way to run an economic system; for some reason, things simply seem to balance out a lot better in a free market, than when you have government trying to consciously control trade. Think about it: would you want an Alberto Gonzales heading a committee that would decide what the going rate for bricks should be, and who should make them, and where they should be shipped? No....much better to have competitive private businesses and the market decide. Think of Soviet-era Russia, and you can see a working example of a Socialist economy. Bread lines? No thanks. Even China has embraced many principles of Capitalism.

However, the countries that have the highest standards of living on the planet are those with the most Socialist social programs -- universal health care, etc. The United States always scores well below its first-world counterparts in standard of living evaluations.

So probably a mix of the two is best. I lived in England for years; I've never had better health care, and I've never lived so well, before or since. Coming back to the U.S. was literally like stepping back in time, and not in a good way.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

We're already socialist. No, really, we are. We're also capitalist. These aren't mutually exclusive sets of policies which have to be adopted wholesale. We've mixed and matched elements of both, just as every other successful modern economy has. Our schools are quite socialistic. Our financial system is quite capitalistic. Our healthcare system is... *ugh*.

We fall more toward the capitalist side than most. England and Japan are slightly to our left, Continental Europe and Scandinavia a bit more, and China quite a bit more.

If there's anything we should have learned from the 20th century, it's that ideological purism and economics don't mix well at all. The best example of an ideologically pure socialistic economy occurred under Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, and the result was economic catastrophe and mass starvation. The closest the modern world has come to pure capitalism (to my knowledge) was during the 1920s, especially under Coolidge, and the result was the Great Depression.

Instead of debating whether a candidate is socialist or not, we should be arguing the specific merits of individual policies, without attaching labels of "socialistic" or "capitalistic", or trying to insinuate that the adoption of an individual policy that tends toward a particular ideology is akin to the installation of that ideology as the comprehensive national economic policy. The collapse of the USSR has virtually no bearing on the viability of a nationalized healthcare system, just as the recent economic collapse due to deregulation is similarly irrelevant to the viability of charter schools and competition in the educational system.

Ok. Sorry. Rant over.

Well put.

Kevin Graham will have to run this puppy through newsbusters, though.

[_antishock8]

I don't think any of the McCain supporters didn't know or understand that we're a Socialist nation. I think most of them disagree to the degree that we've become Socialized, and wanted to prevent further Socialization of our everyday lives. In fact, most of the people that I know who voted for McCain did NOT agree with the bailout. They thought we should just go ahead and suck up the pain that a non-bailout would have caused, and that the market would have self-corrected over time. They realized that McCain was the LESSER of two evils, and that Obama will take us to a solidly Socialized society, of which, they don't want. They want the free market to continue to operate as freely as it can, under the Socialist paradigm in which it finds itself.

In other words, they didn't want further feckuppery, because it was SOCIALISM that caused the feckuppery in the first place by mandating "social justice" loans to people who should not have qualified for mortgages in the first place.

But... The plan came to fruition, didn't it? The government had to bail out the industry, thus taking it over, and becoming the Social program that Democrats wanted it to be in the first place.

We'll see how it works out... Personally, I think it's a band-aid over a serious wound, ie, People not being qualified to own property in the first place. Feck social justice. It's a rubric toward the total control by the State over everything that we, as people, do with ourselves. We are, in fact, on a very slippery slope. We'll see how it plays out...

[_dblagent007]

The closest the modern world has come to pure capitalism (to my knowledge) was during the 1920s, especially under Coolidge, and the result was the Great Depression.

That is not right. The great depression was not the result of "pure capitalism." In fact, it was the result of the U.S. government interfering with the economy in ways it didn't understand at the time. I had a Massachussets school of economics professor (read: keynesian economics believer) who taught me this (just for the record, I am a Chicago school of economics believer myself).

The U.S. government caused the great depression, pure and simple. I can even remember my keynesian economics professor explaining the great depression then concluding that it should have had a big fat sticker slapped on it that said "Made in the U.S.A.!"

[_bcspace]

Will socialism make this worse, or does it have potential to make it better?

Socialism has a worse problem. It enslaves by removing agency and personal responsibility. Yet another sign of apostasy for those LDS who support it.