Why Socialism Works

so long as there are victims to rob. It is a "looter" economic structure and when it cannot loot from other countries, it has no choice but to loot from its own population to sustain itself.

double post

Where? Actually I think we are dipping dangerously close to socialism here in America already. I was once married to a woman whose mothers family was Czech. They had relatives that still lived in "the old country". One cousin was here in the US in '68 when the soviets came down on the country. She stayed here and would not go back.The Czech government punished her family for this transgression. They lost the good university jobs and survived by being laborers. Nice. A couple of other cousins came over here before the wall fell, and cried when they were taken to a US supermarket. They had never seen anything like the abundance. And that was in what was the best of the east block countries. I had a lot of hours of discussion with cousin #1 about life behind the wall. It was NOT pleasant.

Here, they take half of every paycheck and "re distribute" it to the FED, Welfare, The local govt thieves, and so on. In my state (Maryland) they support CASA, an illegal immigrant support organization with tax money. They put up "speed" camersa (Revenue enhancement for the local govt) How about "Click It or Ticket"? The propaganda that is on every radio and TV station around here is un bearabile. I wear a seat belt, but in a FREE country, it would still be MY choice. Back in the 80's when Air Bags were mandated, the choice was airbags (explosive device in your cars dashboard) or mandatory seat belt laws. Since Congress lacked the balls to force seatbelt useage laws on us, we got airbags. Now it seems, we get the seatbelt laws too. Never mind that the airbags add thousands of dollars to each car sold. How quickly people forget.

Now I hear that John Warner( R Military Industrial Complex) wants to stuff the 55MPH speed limit down our throats again. Wonder how many tickets that"ll produce?? What ever became of the 10th amendment anyway.?

Yeah, Obama says that we all need to give back some more. Screw that!!! I give every time I get a paycheck. Let him and his millionaire wife give back if they want to. It is time to kill off the FED, and take our country back from the bloated Federal Government., and the pocket lining stooges that we re elect every year.Just think, in most places it is illegal for a cop to accept a free meal, because it might affect their ability to evenly enforce the law. Meanwhile, the congressmen, and senators raise MILLIONS of dollars in "gifts" to their campaigns. You know they are ALL BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN WE THE PEOPLE!!!!!! Plaese work hard AGAINST the incumbent unless their voting record stands up with Ron Pauls.You know it won't. so RE ELECT NOBODY< and get our country back!!!!!!!!

The Western European countries that you speak of as socialist, were able to maintain their lifestyles under socialism so long because they have or had colonies or investments in Africa, South America and other third world countries. Not one of them is or ever was self sufficient. Denmark for example also managed from the benefit of petroleum drilling in the North Sea. Now that this is coming to an end they will need to make necessary changes.
grant

for a more than a while, when the economy is very productive and produces enough surplus to be put in the welfare system. And you need a people who are willing "to give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporay safety". That's why "socialism" (in a very broad meaning) did work quite well in western European countries. On the long run Socialism leads inevitable to moral corruption. People lose the sense of responsibility for their own lives.

Dr. Paul cured my apathy

Means 50% communism and 50% socialism that we have in this country. I would consider the military a communist system, since it is collective, government owned, operated and military personal are property of the U.S. government. Am I wrong?

samples of failed socialism
http://www.dailymail.co.u...
http://freemarketcure.com...
http://www.lewrockwell.co...
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet...
John Stossel - Sick in America - Part 1 (of 6) http://youtube.com/watch?...

Remind them of our 50+ trillion with future entitlement debt, then remind them of the dollar sinking, and ask them if socialism honestly works.

Davy C Rockett

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY! - 2 Cor. 3:17

http://www.thelibertypost...
http://screamfreedom.blog...
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Well for one, Denmark and other small European countries do not have to spend for a defense. The USA is doing that for them collectively in the whole of Europe. In Western Europe the only major military power is Great Britain. The old Soviet block are no longer Communist/Socialist. Instead they have embraced Libertarian principles. I guess that was not surprising since the suppression they lived through was probably overwhelming.

It is truly good to see countries in that region like Estonia and Bulgaria are turning Libertarian with the only income tax on the people and businesses being a flat tax. I look to see Estonia and Bulgaria to be world leaders economically and the socialist countries in the area to take their example and return to Libertarian principles.

I would like to point out some things. Socialism by definition means public ownership of the means of production. Socialism and communism are really the same thing and don't let people confuse the two! Sweden, Finland and Denmark are all Social Democracies which have market economies and large welfare programs. To say that the US is socialist is a bit of a misunderstanding. All industry there(that's right I'm a foreigner... sue me :P) is still in private hands albeit heavily regulated. Also, the US Gov't is very militaristic and imperialistic. The word that describes a government which is imperialistic and uses a heavily regulated market economy is Fascism. If the state starts to take control of the means of production or starts to redistribute private property for the public good then I'd be worried about socialism(or just Obama :P). If the liberty movement does not gain sufficient momentum, I feel that America may end up actually being a socialist/fascist mix - which will be a sad day for mankind.

Means 50% communism and 50% socialism that we have in this country. I would consider the military a communist system, since it is collective, government owned, operated and military personal are property of the U.S. government. Am I wrong?

The problem is that if the state can tax it, you don't truely own it. So the truth is that the government controls everything already. There is still so called "private" ownership of businesses and homes in Denmark and so called socialist countries.

Anything will work... But for how long and at what price?

Try this article:

How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden
http://mises.org/story/21...

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europe4ronpaul.blogspot.com
Hasta la libertad, siempre ;-)

Socialism works because free markets aren't allow to exist. I constantly here that we have a mixed economy. That is the biggest shovel of bull I ever heard. The government owns over 50% of the property in this country, and is able to tax the rest, can tax our income, can tax our goods. The government even pays farmers not to produce, take milk for example. That is the definition of Socialism. Even private services are controlled by the government by regulations and permits. Sure it isn't as complete as some countries, but it will get bigger and bigger with time if the leadership doesn't change.
grant

Denmark and other Western European countries are more social-democratic than socialist. You cannot compare Denmark to Venezuela.
Denmark is a small country and did not had to deal in the past with lots of immigration form other countries, now that they have, the "central rightwing" parties come into power. There social walfare state is under a lot of strain now. There is indeed more economic freedom.

You can tell the supporter the US is quite socialistic, which is part of the problem. The Eastern European countries were the more socialistic, but they liberalized the most and in the most capitalistic North European countries, the economic growth is the strongest. Estonia is the most libertarian country in the world and also one of the fastest growing. The Scandinavian countries are technologically from the most advanced.
Corporate taxes in Slovakia has been reduced considerably and they are now growing very fast, faster than the richer Cheque Republic, which is more socialistic.

You can also tell the supporter Zimbabwe used to be one of the strongest economies in Africa, exporting a lot. SInce the past two decades with socialist policies, where there was a move to a radical socialism, the economy and inflation is in tatters.

France was quite socialistic, with the 35 hour law, but they are liberalizing economically slowly to the UK and USA and the country should benefit from it.

You can also mention Hong Kong and SIngapore in the East as rapid growing, very economically liberal, open with a high standard of living.
China and Vietnam especially have actually became economically very open and capitalistic, especially Shanghai, that grows with 10% annually since more than a decade now.

You can probably not change things overnight, as this will lead to a disruption, so we have to take it step by step, but radical changes are needed.

and they have been a whole lot smarter in the way they do it. In many instances they have greater economic freedom than we do and in some instances such as the education system in Finland they have used competition and free markets much more than we have, and it shows.
This economic freedom leads to the ability to support their socialism for quite a while but eventually time and compounding make it unsustainable just like it has done for us.

Free and Brave
or Cradle to Grave
You can't have both

"The whole" is the combination of love and freedom, wihich require each other.

An excerpt from a column on the topic, "Blinding by Paradigm":
http://www.strike-the-roo...

Marxists and other coercive socialists fail to see the dissonance between coercion and compassion. As with libertarianism, the Marxist/socialist paradigm denies the interconnections between compassion and freedom, but coercive socialism focuses on compassion and fairness (at least in theory) rather than on freedom. Extreme versions of the Marxist/socialist paradigm have largely blinded millions to the stunning mass-murder committed by every Communist government. The coercive-socialist paradigm ignores the criminal nature of coercion in general, as long as that coercion is being used by a government claiming to create a particular kind of utopian society. This same paradigm blinds coercive socialists to the reality that rewarding people for non-productivity while penalizing those who are productive must, without fail, reduce wealth in a society and eventually impoverish that society. (For the same reason, no poor nation has ever adopted coercive socialism and then become wealthier). Making it even harder to see outside this paradigm is that coercive socialism can appear to function well for a time – if the nation already has significant wealth to cannibalize, and as long as one focuses on those receiving the stolen wealth.

Also this:

Most libertarians use a paradigm in which the cohesive duality of love and freedom is – to one extent or another – denied. In this paradigm, freedom is the important thing and compassion (or love generally) is downplayed or ignored; many libertarians can be compassionate and loving, yet see those characteristics as existing in a different realm than freedom. Breaking the love and freedom link has done two things: first, it has made libertarianism unattractive to most people, who instinctively want love and compassion explicitly included in their own social/political framework. Second, by fostering a mechanistic view of society, where (for example) the market functions magically without a widespread sense of connection between people, the libertarian paradigm leads to a misunderstanding about how a free and healthy society functions and thus about what is needed to create such a society.

It takes a while for things to completely fall apart. The US is moving from being a *comparatively* free country to a more socialist one and it will take a while to run things down.

The UK have had a National Health System for 40 years, I believe, which used to be the biggest employer in Europe next to the Soviet Red Army and only in the last 15 years is it really starting to kill people , which is what it does.

I remember seeing a cartoon about English hospitals with a couple of bacteria talking to each other "I feel much better since i have been in hospital" - that's what you get - unless you are rich.

Updated - their Health Service is 60 years old not 40 - quite a long trial period imo.

At least that's the opinion of one of Dr. Paul's intellectual influences, Lugwig won Mises.

Check out www.mises.org - the literature/media sections have many good articles/videos/mp3s about the impossibility of a socialist system of government.

I will sum up(as far as I understand it) the argument: without a genuine market economy based on private property and sound money, rational prices cannot be attained. Socialism, by definition, means the so-called public ownership of the means of production. Since public ownership means state ownership, private property ceases to exist. A market cannot operate without private property holders buying and selling goods. Prices of goods are formed from this market activity. State ownership cannot produce rational prices, so when the state central planners try to allocate resources to meet demand they cannot use economic calculation(capital gain/loss) to determine an efficient means of production. Without the ability to know if one is running a capital profit or loss, there will always be shortages or waste of capital and consumer goods. Socialism means the end of monetary calculation. Real world socialist states have survived by crudely copying prices from international markets and by being mixed economies.

There is also no question that by far the most efficient form of government is a dictatorship. Obviously that also "works." Nazi Germany worked just fine too, for a time. When you say something "works," you have to ask yourself just what it is that you want it to do, don't you? Socialism DOES "work," just as nazism and dictatorships do. But they are all incompatible with liberty and personal freedoms.

www.paulforronpaul.com

Socialism does not work in a country with a large population, especially one where there is a lot of different representations of ethicities. All the blacks pushing obama in hopes of getting free govt handouts dont realize they are trying to make America into one big New Orleans. May sound good from minority point of view but general America will not accept it.

So do rat traps, arsenic, and a pulled trigger on a loaded Smith and Wesson at your temple.

The question shouldn't be, "Does it work?" The question should be, "Do we want the result if it works the way it's designed?"

Socialism works great for lazy people who don't want to be bothered with personal responsibility and have no problem with giving up their freedoms in exchange for a Sugar Daddy government.

But try to force that socialism on the rest of us, and you may get a nice, close-up encounter with the aforementioned Smith and Wesson.

socialism is evil, it steals property form the people,

I think I would concede that socialism could perhaps "work," depending upon what you mean by "work." There are large countries like France and Germany that are fundamentally much more socialistic than the U.S.. They also have far far fewer liberties than we do, and we have far fewer than envisioned by the founders. These countries also struggle with the inevitable consequences of lost incentive, a dependent (and docile and disarmed) populace, a corrupt, totalitarian and unmanageable bureaucracy (toward which we also have come a long way), and the attendant economic weakness. You can see what happens when "one goes all the way" by looking at Russia and China, where the former got into real trouble, and the latter hangs on by relaxing many of its restrictions and letting the people save themselves economically (while it hopes they stay docile politically from the years of being brutalized).

It's not so much that it can't "work," but what the founders had in mind, and what we want, and what we think the vast majority of Americans would still want if given a choice, is not socialism. It's true that some people would probably be in worse shape economically if our vision were realized. Mostly, those who are lazy, but also those who experience misfortune and have not constructed (or maintained) a government independent safety net through family or religious organization or something like that.

I think what we believe, however, is that the number of those people would be basically pretty small, and it would be worth it to allow them to exist for the benefit of the expansion of liberty and diversity of ideas and overall happiness that would result. Remember the overriding purpose of American government, as envisioned by the founders, was to "secure liberty and happiness" to the citizens. These things cannot, I think, be secured to all citizens perfectly, but the constitution indicates the manner in which they thought they could best be secured in the broadest terms. The key was limiting the government's involvement. An approach which basically rules out government enforced socialism. Whoever wants to voluntarily start a non-government socialist organization with a volunteer enrollment, is more than welcome to do so. The founders' U.S.A. is the perfect place for socialism to thrive, as long as it's a voluntary socialism and confiscation (resulting in the loss of liberty and happiness for the victims---potentially a very large number of people) is not involved.

I think that the socialists have simply chosen a different (and inferior) vision through some delusion about the importance of absolute equality and uniformity and security. These goals are really not part of the founders' vision.

So, I'd suggest you admit there are trade-offs to be made, but that historically, the United States has had a different idea of the path leading to the most freedom and happiness. To the extent we have followed that path, we have been (arguably) very successful, though we have departed from it (largely in the direction of socialist ambition) and most of the things we do not like in our country (loss of freedom and happiness) are the result.

Denmark

-population 5 million. The U.S. has cities bigger then Denmark...Denmark would qualify as a quaint little town in the U.S., hardly a state, never mind a country. Tell your friend to get back to us when Denmark hits 300 million, or a billion. Then we'll talk.

-it's a peninsula. Connected to, of all places, GERMANY, a Democratic Republic, with the third largest GDP in the world. Hint to your clueless friend. There aren't 100 million poor german's trying to cross a 1900 mile long border into Denmark. It's easy to maintain the illusion of successful socialist country, when your neighbor country is rich, and 16 times your population.

-Good Job Denmark!!! --- Between 1970 and 1990 the level of taxation and regulation increased dramatically as Denmark adopted the Nordic model welfare state. After falling sharply behind in prosperity, unemployment and other indicators, Denmark took steps in economic liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s, including abolishing almost all job market regulation. (wikipedia) Looks like they had to turn to the freemarket to save their asses to me.

-All in all, Denmark is laughable example of socialism. Show me a country, 200 million people strong or larger, that's SUCCESSFULLY MOVING TOWARDS true socialism or communism, and then you might have some interesting evidence.

-Denmark's economy is currently mirroring ours. So much for the great benefits of socialism. Countries will experience economic ups and downs, despite their government type. The difference between a truly free country and a socialist one, is that in hard times, the socialist countries are ready to turn to fascism to make the citizens comply.

I'd have to find a few links but long ago I read that socialism works there primarily because they have a homogeneous population; they don't "do" immigration and have no need to fund an enormous defense/military budget
(not too difficult to see the US doesn't fit that model)

Here's a couple links on Denamrk:

Per Henrik Hansen teaches economics at the Copenhagen Business School
www.freerepublic.com/focu...
Socialism Unraveling Denmark-A Case Study

Denmark-Immigration
www.opendemocracy.net/peo...

To be fair, socialism can work, in very small groups. What I mean is the "primitive communism" system that many hunter-gatherer tribes operate under. If you're a nomadic band of about 30 extended family members, as pre-agricultural humans were, egalitarian systems are actually the best. This is why it's so seductive for people, because they instinctively understand this and it sounds logical to them on paper. The problem is that it fails MISERABLY when you try to apply it to a large group of unrelated strangers who are expected to behave as though they are all siblings and cousins. It just doesn't work, no matter how much propaganda the state spews forth telling everyone to work hard for the collective good.

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Reasonable people cannot fight the power of "Shrugged". If she doesn't get it, you might want to find another topic to discuss or find a new friend.

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though socialism or capitalism?

Here are some great links...

Milton Friedman explaining why socialism (the government spending other people's money on other people) leads to inefficiency and waste.......

The 4 ways to spend money...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...

Milton making a case for capitalism...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...

Milton slamming a little commie puke...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...

http://video.google.com/v...
This explains why socialism ALWAYS leads to an oligarchy (a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution).

"In short, Denmark is a socialist hellhole, that you would have to be cortically challenged to want to live in, unless you are a spineless and unproductive welfare leech. Here is why:"

from:
"Why Denmark sucks!!!"
http://haxor.dk/articles/...

And other opinion:

"If you are interested in horrible places, I can recommend Denmark. No one starves. Everyone lives in small, pretty houses. But no one is rich, no one has a chance to a life in luxury, and everyone is depressed. Everyone lives in their small well-organized cells with their Danish furniture and their lovely lamps, without which they would go mad," V.S. Naipaul.