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That could certainly work. But I think we'll choose extinction over equitable plans for the future. The way things look, the choice isn't really capitalist vs socialist...
it's socialist vs survival. At this point the entire population of the world is struggling to support the lifestyles of the rich and famous. We do without what we need so that they can have more than they will ever need.
it's socialist vs survival. At this point the entire population of the world is struggling to support the lifestyles of the rich and famous. We do without what we need so that they can have more than they will ever need.
I've always been on the side of socialism. But I believe in evolution not revolution. Given enough time and enough democracy we will eventually get there. A bit of a snag has arisen though with the threat of global warming...we may achieve extinction before we achieve a socialist Utopia.
I wonder, all these claims of socialism, is the discussion is really about socialism or social responsibility, ie. stuff like police, firemen, libraries, public schools, health care, etc. (stuff that necessity and responsibility defines for gov to function in a modern world).
Real socialism, as defined all over the place, is when gov owns all means of production. This would mean, for instance, that stuff like rare earths, oil, coal, wind farms, construction, farms, etc. would be owned by the government and not individual or corporate entities. This 'socialism' has been tried several times and has failed everytime. So, I expect, you are not really claiming to be socialist but something entirely different?
That version of "real" socialism has always failed because the central planning of all economic activity is too complex. The management of all those details breaks down and you end up with queues for food, waits for services (or non-existence for some services), black markets, gangsters, corruption, etc. The invisible hand of the free market is a real thing, and it handles that complexity by itself automatically. Planning is distributed to every producer of goods or services, and every consumer.
It's actually a classical math problem: The number of economic interactions goes up exponentially as you add actors. Beyond a family or a tiny village it just gets out of hand. There is no escaping reality. Even our supercomputers are not up to managing all the economic activity of a US or USSR. So to avoid the horrors of raw capitalism, we end up with a mixed system. Capitalism drives most economic activity and government keeps capitalism from killing us to make soylent green. It isn't that we like the mixed system: Neither capitalism nor socialism work on their own.
socialism, as I understand it, is about democratizing capitalism. Instead of a very small minority of boards of directors (often criminals) making all the decisions for War, water and all things necessary for a quality of life you open it up for everyone to decide.
"The invisible hand is real..." -you've topped yourself PIA!
I wonder, all these claims of socialism, is the discussion is really about socialism or social responsibility, ie. stuff like police, firemen, libraries, public schools, health care, etc. (stuff that necessity and responsibility defines for gov to function in a modern world).
Real socialism, as defined all over the place, is when gov owns all means of production. This would mean, for instance, that stuff like rare earths, oil, coal, wind farms, construction, farms, etc. would be owned by the government and not individual or corporate entities. This 'socialism' has been tried several times and has failed everytime. So, I expect, you are not really claiming to be socialist but something entirely different?
Just wondering.................
"Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.[11] Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms."- Wikipedia
I have never run across anyone who would prefer to exchange their electric co-op (if they are lucky enough to have one) for a privately owned utility.
I sprung that one on a Regressive blog a few days ago, from the point of reference of the private utility having a regulation on the books prohibiting neighborhood microgrids, and a few of the more ideologically rigid bragged and crowed all over the place about how they belonged to a co-op.
I didn't actually have the heart to tell them that their co-op is a classic socialist construct, even down to the "government" (the people) owning the means of production. They would have just denied it, anyway.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
"The invisible hand is real..." -you've topped yourself PIA!
Implying that something invisible can't be real? Electricity is both invisible and real. Gravity is both invisible and real. Socialism is both invisible and real.
And I think letting everyone decide how to spend a corporation's or a nation's money with no thought to them being qualified to make those decisions, means instant bankruptcy or mass starvation respectively. You and I (to a lesser extent) might be qualified, but for every positive deviation from the mean IQ, there is an equal deviation in the other direction.
That might be the hole in my birthright ownership idea: Simply owning shares in trust probably should not include "corporate board-like" control of corporations. Each shareholder gets rights like petitioning a board to place a measure on the ballot but no corporation has to give up more than 10% of it's shares to birthright ownership unless the government funded their startup.
The 'invisible hand' theory has been misappropriated by conservative and Neoliberals for decades now. The former to get rid of regulatory rules on Capitol while the latter has embraced it in order to be more attractive to donations in their quest to win elections. The end result has been Ma nature applying a very visible hand of reaction to the environmental external costs of that economic thinking of what appears to be a very suicidal death cult. Like Christianity, a supernatural ingredient seems to be required and certain political/economic ideologies have made one for themsrlves in 'the invisible hand'. Like a phrophet rising from the dead and ascending to heaven, it gives a stamp of proof in the heavenly origens of the phrophet or theory and thus needs to be obeyed and administered by the priest of knowledge.
Not that Adam Smith was going there but it sure seems like it's been packaged and sold that way to generations of voters for decades now.
As Gregor pointed out, the visible hand of nature is getting ready to slap us back to reality. The invisible hand is a mental construct that has no similarities to natural phenomonom such as electromagnetic waves or subatomic particles.
