This is pretty terrible. I really like Pandora, even though it's introduced me to absolutely no new music
It's terrible any time that someone's hard work and bright ideas are hamstrung by some *******...
There is no such thing as a "fully socialist" society; there has never been a single incidence of "ideal socialism." China is not a dictatorship so much as it is an oligarchy claiming to be a people's socialist government. Same with Korea. Most, if not all, of their "capitalist" enterprises are government-owned, controlled and funded. That's not capitalism.
And, as you just explained, it's not socialism either. It's people in positions of power screwing over the people without power -- without forethought, without dialogue, without remorse. The illusory divide of economic freedom matters very little. Anarchism FTW
Socialism doesn't work. It never has and it never will because, ideally, it strives to make sure everyone gets an equal share of everything without taking into account how hard one person works relative to another. People don't work that way. Some want to work harder to get ahead, some want to grab power, some want to be spoon-fed.
I think you misunderstand or misread socialism, because this is a common argument that I've seen no evidence for. I hear Marx quoted as saying "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" -- but this doesn't mean the absence of meritocracy, merely that the requirements of modern life be distributed equally in some way. I personally take it to mean public education, public healthcare, and some method of insuring that children (at least) are fed.
I don't see those as bad things. It is, at least, an attempt to level an unlevel playing field; as any kid going through a sociology course can tell you, the single greatest determiner of future wealth is childhood affluence.
Not to mention that many in our relatively stable society tend to misunderstand why they pay more taxes for more social programs. It is to
prevent revolution. Accusations of idealism are leveled (with some justification) against each political ideology by those of the others; one oversight that seems to be made by libertarians and paleoconservatives is that the maintenance of any class structure of any significant assymetry requires substantial force.
We tend not to even imagine the possibility of revolution in this country -- the prospect is too goddamned horrifying (no matter what "side" you're on). Responsible social programs ("socialism," as you call it) are, in my opinion, the only way to build a better society without the inevitable and catastrophic failure of revolution.
And that is what we're all about, right? Not necessarily more products, not necessarily more luxury, not necessarily more obese children or complacent and idiotic adults... but a better society, with a more educated, more thoughtful, and more free population?
Socialism, despite its good intentions, always breaks down into totalitarianism followed by revolution.
A good quotation is "All revolutions fail." An adjunct is "Power corrupts." The French Revolution had some pretty wonderful ideals, and we all saw what happened to Robespierre, and shortly thereafter we met Napoleon.
Some might say that the American Revolution didn't fail -- it certainly, in my opinion, betrayed its principles before the ink on the Declaration of Independence was dry. Women didn't vote for well over a century. Black people -- well, we all know about that.
Asinine. Nowhere did I say I was unwilling to pay for things. I simply pointed out that the increasingly socialist federal government in this country is once again putting it's giant beak where it doesn't belong, hurting business and consumers in the end.
It's simply not socialist if it's acting on the behalf of company executives. Follow the money -- it's not going to enrich the proletariat
It's going to sustain a dying industry's flawed business model.
It tends more toward fascism than socialism, but what it really is good old-fashioned corruption. The reason we're arguing about what it "is" is that corruption doesn't really adhere to any ideology.
(For what it's worth, I'm not a socialist or a communist, although I do respect the ideals of communism insofar as they are compatible with anarchism and other cute -isms that I can write on my iPod with my glitter pen, lolololol)
