POLL 49%+ of 'Millennials'choose Socialism over Captialism.

[Sand Dancer]

I love it!

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes the famine is Sweden is just terrible...

Sweden is capitalist......"social capitalism".

.....North Korea is communist by the way.

Communism is as different from socialism as
a Pontiac Vibe is different from a Toyota Matrix.
Same car....different badges.

 

[Lyndon]

You don't seem to know very much about socialism, yet you talk about it all the time!!

Sweden is capitalist......"social capitalism".

Communism is as different from socialism as
a Pontiac Vibe is different from a Toyota Matrix.
Same car....different badges.

 

[Revoltingest]

You don't seem to know very much about socialism, yet you talk about it all the time!!

I have a dictionary.
This is clearly a greater qualification than yours.
I'm better looking too.

I have a theory....
If fans of socialism actually knew what it was, & where it leads,
they'd no longer be fans of socialism.
This says something interesting about fans of socialism.

 

[Lyndon]

Dictionaries are notoriously inaccurate on stuff like this. Your source seems to be more like Fox news than the dictionary anyway.

 

[Revoltingest]

Dictionaries are notoriously inaccurate on stuff like this.

So you make up your own, eh.
Oddly, you are the one familiar with Fox News.
This makes you their audience.
I don't watch'm.

 

[Lyndon]

 

[Watchmen]

No. Capitalism is a vile toxin, contagion incarnate. It must not be allowed to stand, less it tempt the weak with its false promises.

Why don’t you leave and go live in a socialist country then?

 

[Watchmen]

But what is happening in Norway, Denmark, Sweden?

They are flourishing because of ... Capitalism!

 

[The Hammer]

They are flourishing because of ... Capitalism!

And very strong social programs. The kinds of social programs routine labeled as socialist.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Dictionaries are notoriously inaccurate on stuff like this. Your source seems to be more like Fox news than the dictionary anyway.

It makes me wonder what you use, if not the dictionary.

 

[Stevicus]

I suppose it depends upon what one considers success.
Socialism is a resounding success in N Korea for those
who value how it plays out there. But one objective
difference is that famine is a frequent flyer in socialist
countries, eg, PRC, NK, USSR. But capitalist economies
cope better with adversity to avoid famines....except for the
one case of those drunken potato eaters way back when.

Don't make me remind you of the 4 basic problems of
socialist agriculture, bub!

I wouldn't call it a "frequent flyer." Sure, they had to go through painful transitions, but their goal was industrialization and military parity with the West. Their previous governments put them in an unfavorable situation where they had been backward and decades behind the West, which made them vulnerable to invasion and foreign hegemony.

At least in terms of being able to withstand Axis invasion, the Soviet Union performed far better than most of the capitalist countries of Europe. So, there's an example of socialism performing better than capitalism.

And capitalist countries aren't as good as you think in terms of coping with adversity: 11 Facts About Hunger in the US

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-states/

In 2011, 14.9 percent of households – or 50.1 million Americans – were food insecure, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Blacks and Hispanics were two and a half times more likely to face food insecurity than whites.

At least the USSR had reasons for their difficulties - massive world war, revolution, civil war, foreign interference, invasion, upheavals. They were going through enormous struggles that would have broken most Americans, yet they still ended up on top.

We, on the other hand, have been in a land of peace and plenty, virtually untouched by war in over a century and a half (and we've never endured modern warfare on our soil). And yet, we still have millions of people going hungry.

 

[Stevicus]

Keynesianism actually doesn't have a record.
Instead, we have government misapplying it by having a
continuing & never ending but ever increasing deficit
spending policy, which wasn't what Keynes had in mind.

How would you explain America's economic turnaround during WW2 and in the post-war decades up until the 1970s? There was real, measurable economic growth - a period of great boom and prosperity the likes of which America has never seen before or since. There was some deficit spending, but nowhere near as bad as it got under Reagan and his successors.

That's a myth.
We don't profit from war.
It would be different if we kept what we conquered, but we don't.
Instead we dump money, materiel & lives overseas, bring back
only enmity, & the obligation to dump more of the same.
We go to war because voters like it....they tend to re-elect those
leaders to start & continue wars. Note in the last election that
Hillary, who voted to start & continue wars had the most votes.

We go to war because the voters are led into believing that we are being threatened by external enemies. Some would blame capitalists for this country's excessive paranoia over communism - which caused the Cold War. Only capitalists would have pushed for it, and only capitalists would have had the wherewithal to manipulate the masses and shift public opinion into being favorable towards war.

 

[Revoltingest]

"Socialism", to its fans, is a term of endearment. When they see
all those happy, moral, well behaved, clean cut Scandinavians with
their high taxes paid by businesses & workers to fuel social spending,
they praise.....
"Socialism! It is good. It makes the populace honest, good, & competent."
They use no standard definition of "socialism" other than....
They see it when they like it, & they like it when they see it.
In their paroxysms of adulation, they're unaware that socialism is
fundamentally the community's (ie, government's) ownership &
control of the means of production. But with all that evil capitalism
going on, it's not socialism. We who own dictionaries, & actually
read them know better.

Examples of mis-use of the word "socialist" by socialist fanboys.....
After sex....
"Was it socialist for you too?"
After a dining out...
"That was some very socialist futo maki roll."

When the socialist sees actual socialism, eg, N Korea, they dismiss
that as something else. They know this because they socialism is
what they like, ergo something they dislike cannot be socialism.

 

[Revoltingest]

I wouldn't call it a "frequent flyer."

How many socialist regimes have avoided large scale famine?
Not China.
Not USSR
Not N Korea
Not Cuba (it's "Special Period" when it lost USSR funding)
Not Cambodia.
And of course, the other frequent flyer of socialism is oppression.
See the above list for that too.

 

[Revoltingest]

How would you explain America's economic turnaround during WW2 and in the post-war decades up until the 1970s? There was real, measurable economic growth - a period of great boom and prosperity the likes of which America has never seen before or since. There was some deficit spending, but nowhere near as bad as it got under Reagan and his successors.

I've explained it before.
After WW2, other technologically advanced countries' economies were in a shambles.
We effectively had no competition from anyone, eg, Japan, Germany.
And our modern competitor, China, was still as backward as a dirt floor.
Oh, we also had a more lax legal system...few lawyers mucking up the works

We go to war because the voters are led into believing that we are being threatened by external enemies. Some would blame capitalists for this country's excessive paranoia over communism - which caused the Cold War. Only capitalists would have pushed for it, and only capitalists would have had the wherewithal to manipulate the masses and shift public opinion into being favorable towards war.

Blaming capitalism is the first resort of the liberal.
But I've asked for evidence of this cause, & no one has risen to the challenge.
Let's look for something causative....
Who sends us to war?
The President & Congress.
What would motivate them to do so?
They see that re-election & wars go hand in hand.

The voters are mostly not "capitalist" in the sense that they each raise capital
to start & run businesses. No, they're typically mere employees, who are paid
because they show up for work, perform their assigned tasks. They're insulated
from the business world & how it functions. Their employer takes care of them,
eg, providing health care, vacation time, tax calculation & collection. They don't
benefit directly from any wars. Nay, they even lose when drafted into military
service....low pay, loss of time in the workforce, injury, or even death.
Capitalism is to blame for these working schlubs voting for needless wars?
Nah.
People like attacking other countries out of not just defense, but also retribution
& to fix them....make them flowering democracies like us. This is war.
They only dislike war when it's blamed on the opposing party.
Did you notice how noisy protests against the wars ended when Obama took
the White House away from Dubya? It's because the wars were no longer
useful to attack a Republican.
Did you notice how the candidate with the most votes in the last presidential
election had voted to start & continue the wars? Her supporters were utterly
silent on her hawkish record of death & waste.

 

[Stevicus]

"Socialism", to its fans, is a term of endearment. When they see
all those happy, moral, well behaved, clean cut Scandinavians with
their high taxes paid by businesses & workers to fuel social spending,
they praise.....
"Socialism! It is good. It makes the populace honest, good, & competent."
They use no standard definition of "socialism" other than....
They see it when they like it, & they like it when they see it.
In their paroxysms of adulation, they're unaware that socialism is
fundamentally the community's (ie, government's) ownership &
control of the means of production. But with all that evil capitalism
going on, it's not socialism. We who own dictionaries, & actually
read them know better.

Examples of mis-use of the word "socialist" by socialist fanboys.....
After sex....
"Was it socialist for you too?"
After a dining out...
"That was some very socialist futo maki roll."

When the socialist sees actual socialism, eg, N Korea, they dismiss
that as something else. They know this because they socialism is
what they like, ergo something they dislike cannot be socialism.

Actually, I see far more misuse of the term "socialist" coming from the other side. They said Obama and Clinton were socialists, when nothing could have been further from the truth. This, coupled with excessive use of the word "pinko" and McCarthyite guilt-by-association tactics in seeking out communist conspiracies under every bush.

Historically, the Socialist Party in the U.S. made a point of being distinct and different from the Communist Party (which was more closely associated with the Soviet Bloc). So, when you associate socialism with NK, that doesn't seem quite accurate. Socialism has often been seen as moderate, peaceful, and evolutionary, while communism is seen as extreme, violent, and revolutionary.

When people refer to socialism in Scandinavia, I believe they're mainly referring to socialized medicine - which many see as more humane, more efficient, higher quality, and generally better than capitalist medicine which is practiced in the United States.

 

[Lyndon]

Hows is it that the Swedes with their Democratic Socialist government produced Volvos, 10 times more reliable than American cars, good for 500,000 miles on the original engine without a rebuild.

 

[Stevicus]

How many socialist regimes have avoided large scale famine?
Not China.
Not USSR
Not N Korea
Not Cuba (it's "Special Period" when it lost USSR funding)
Not Cambodia.
And of course, the other frequent flyer of socialism is oppression.
See the above list for that too.

Well, now you're moving the goalposts. Before you said "frequent flyer," but now you're saying the inability to avoid even a single famine makes it a "frequent" event?

Yes, famines did happen - as a result of world wars, civil wars, upheavals, outside interference (which was no small matter), internal sabotage. But once they got through the rough transitional period, things normalized and production improved.

 

[Stevicus]

I've explained it before.
After WW2, other technologically advanced countries' economies were in a shambles.
We effectively had no competition from anyone, eg, Japan, Germany.
And our modern competitor, China, was still as backward as a dirt floor.
Oh, we also had a more lax legal system...few lawyers mucking up the works

Yes, that was part of it, but we also had a system which took the needs of working people into consideration. That required government intervention, New Deal social programs, stronger support of labor unions and the overall cause of labor. Reagan and his cohorts railed against such programs, and his push for deregulation and more towards laissez-faire capitalism is what caused America's decline since then.

Blaming capitalism is the first resort of the liberal.
But I've asked for evidence of this cause, & no one has risen to the challenge.
Let's look for something causative....
Who sends us to war?
The President & Congress.
What would motivate them to do so?
They see that re-election & wars go hand in hand.

The voters are mostly not "capitalist" in the sense that they each raise capital
to start & run businesses. No, they're typically mere employees, who are paid
because they show up for work, perform their assigned tasks. They're insulated
from the business world & how it functions. Their employer takes care of them,
eg, providing health care, vacation time, tax calculation & collection. They don't
benefit directly from any wars. Nay, they even lose when drafted into military
service....low pay, loss of time in the workforce, injury, or even death.
Capitalism is to blame for these working schlubs voting for needless wars?
Nah.

I find that many of the stalwart supporters of capitalism are actually non-capitalists; many are even working stiffs who could even benefit from socialism. On the other hand, a lot of wealthy capitalists are also liberals. Strange irony.

Fact is, most people are insulated from wars, too. Wars are things that happen far away and to someone else. Sure, it's sad when a US service member dies in the line of duty; we feel compassion for their families and honor them for their sacrifice. But in terms of actual numbers, how many people are actually affected by any of what goes on? Not that many.

Most people go on with their lives, taking vacations, enjoying all the luxuries and benefits they can afford, spending leisure time, etc. Compared to situations where people have had to huddle in bombed-out buildings, foraging for food, enduring bombings and artillery barrages, rationing, shortages, etc. - there's really no visible indication that the US is involved in any kind of war at all.