Modes of failure in Socialism

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I've taken a step back from the traditional views of Liberal/Conservative, to objectively examine an anomaly.

What is the mode(s) of failure for communism/liberalism/stalinism/marxism, whatever name you use for it.

In spite of all the talk, protest, war, etc, the only thing that ever seems to beat it, is a collapse under it's own weight. It defeats itself, eventually. The more protracted it is, the more suffering and poverty affect one generation after another.

So, I ask, how is the traditional conservative role of "working your ass off," as admirable as it is, and I do agree on the idea of earning one's own; how does this help? Or does it harm the cause?

The more you work, the more you earn, the more you are taxed to feed a system destined to failure. Your sweat and labor fuels the protraction of a concept that might otherwise collapse under it's own weight much faster. Good work ethic is turned against itself.

Would not the more patriotic thing be, to accelerate the collapse of it, by assisting the burden, instead of fueling it? Let the Nanny State do what it strives to, and thusly fail sooner. Be the burden, not the source of it's continued existence.

Since socialism has only ever been defeated by allowing it to come full circle into failure, a nation of takers that contribute nothing, I present that, adding to the burden of that system is the best way to defeat it.

What do you think?

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That was about as off-base as it gets. I'd do a little more research if I were you.

Communism and socialism are very different things, first off. You have to understand the difference to: #1 sound intelligent, and #2 talk about them correctly.

All out communism is great in theory, but fails for the same reason that EVERYTHING in this world eventually failseople. Nothing in this world lasts forever, so you have to keep that in mind and not use it as a measure of success or not.

Want an example of successful communism?Watch China over the next 10-20 years. Want examples of successful socialism? Look all over Europe. Want an example of failed capitalism? Look at the entire world today. There is no capitalism.

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With allowance for the fact that none of the things you mention (including capitalism) actually exist in pure form, and that all of the things you have mentioned are actually very different things. All of the things you mentioned, are basically "Ponzi schemes", and they fail because they reach a point where people are taking out more than is being put in and/or the system requires more from the participants than they have to give.

Regan entered a spending race with the USSR and basically out spent them because they could not support their massive military machine AND their social network within the GNP they could create. It cost the US a lot of money and it put us in debt, but it worked.

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Hawkflyer wrote:

With allowance for the fact that none of the things you mention (including capitalism) actually exist in pure form, and that all of the things you have mentioned are actually very different things. All of the things you mentioned, are basically "Ponzi schemes", and they fail because they reach a point where people are taking out more than is being put in and/or the system requires more from the participants than they have to give.

Regan entered a spending race with the USSR and basically out spent them because they could not support their massive military machine AND their social network within the GNP they could create. It cost the US a lot of money and it put us in debt, but it worked.

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During the entire time that we were out spending the Soviets, our military expenditures never reached 6% of our GNP. The Soviets frequently exceeded 30% of their GNP. As for putting us in debt, that was congress that did that one. They saw a good thing and continued to add riders to bills that Reagan wanted passed. He either had to sign them off to get what he wanted or bite the bullet and not sign at all. That is why he kept begging for the line item veto. He saw communism as the greater threat and the evil that it was and went ahead with what he could to end it.

Communism in any form, as well as socialism is evil. Both systems are diametrically opposed to fundamental human nature. And in order for them to work, a certain amount of force and coercion must be exerted. Unfortunately, all other forms of government are also inherently evil.. it's just a game of degrees. They too must exert force and coercion as well in order to maintain and advance their place. Governments, all governments, only really know one thing, and that is to grow. And if left unchecked, they will grow to the point of swallowing up the governed. This is why those who are served by their governments must always try to maintain power over those who they have put in such positions of power and authority lest they because the servants of their governmental masters. And this is precisely what happens and has happened throughout history.

Were the creation and continuance of government not part of the human condition, it would have died out long ago.

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SouthernBoy wrote:

Communism in any form, as well as socialism is evil. Both systems are diametrically opposed to fundamental human nature.

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I beg to differ. Study the animal kingdom a little harder.


There are very few, if any, species that place even the slightest bit of importance on the individual. Everything pack or colony creatures do is self-sacrifice for the good of the community.

The problem with communism is the constant battle with selfish people. Not many people care about the good of the community or the world, hence the repeated failure of communism. It's this attitude that will lead to mankind's self-destruction.

Capitalism, on the other hand, nurtures and encourages selfishness. This is why capitalist governments have, in general, out lasted communist governments. However, as time goes on people increasingly realize that if they don't start giving a @#$% about something other than themselves and think further ahead than the here and now you're going to see less and less capitalistic ideals and more and more communistic ideals.


Now, the correct thing to do is go and get a real understanding of communism as Marx intended it, not as everyone else perverted and abused it. And again I'd call you to look at much of highly socialist Europe, much of which has a better standard of living than the United States.

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true colors.

socialism and communism are the most violent forms of government. they must take at the barrel of a gun to give to another.

we are humans, if you want to believe that you are on the same level as a gopher go ahead, i am not.

besides, there are many animals that don't live in packs. lmao....

standard of living is irrelevant. in any country where people are allow to be free there will be people who fail, and/or don't want to work to live well. WHO CARES. i don't. I don't care if our so called "standard of living" is the worst in the world, as long as i am free to keep the rewards of my work my standard of living will not be bad.

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ocman1991A1 wrote:

true colors.

socialism and communism are the most violent forms of government.

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Prove it.

Fascist German was pretty violent, last I recall. So was the republic of Rome. The democratic republic of the United States is probably the most violent, rogue nation on earth right now.

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AWDstylez wrote:

ocman1991A1 wrote:

true colors.

socialism and communism are the most violent forms of government.

Click to expand...

Prove it.

Fascist German was pretty violent, last I recall. So was the republic of Rome. The democratic republic of the United States is probably the most violent, rogue nation on earth right now.

Click to expand...

we're talking about forms of government as a basic level.

would you agree that if our federal government followed the constitution that our country would not be a "violent" one as government is concerned.

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ocman1991A1 wrote:

AWDstylez wrote:

ocman1991A1 wrote:

true colors.

socialism and communism are the most violent forms of government.

Click to expand...

Prove it.

Fascist German was pretty violent, last I recall. So was the republic of Rome. The democratic republic of the United States is probably the most violent, rogue nation on earth right now.

Click to expand...

we're talking about forms of government as a basic level.

would you agree that if our federal government followed the constitution that our country would not be a "violent" one as government is concerned.

Click to expand...

Now you're talking in hypotheticals and those are irrelevant to what I'm saying. It was inevitable that our government would, at some point, fail to follow the constitution. That was exactly my point. People corrupt everything with their selfishness. Communism is a pie in the sky society in which all people work together for the common good and everyone is happy. That is simply never going to happen because people are too selfish. Capitalism is a pie in the sky society in which the rising tide raises all boats. That too will never happen, also because people are too selfish.

There is nothing inherently evil about communism. It's simply another method of attempting to get people to coexist inthe best way possible. The evil is in the abuse of power, which can, does, and WILL happen in any form of governent. That was my main point.

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AWDstylez wrote:

ocman1991A1 wrote:

AWDstylez wrote:

ocman1991A1 wrote:

true colors.

socialism and communism are the most violent forms of government.

Click to expand...

Prove it.

Fascist German was pretty violent, last I recall. So was the republic of Rome. The democratic republic of the United States is probably the most violent, rogue nation on earth right now.

Click to expand...

we're talking about forms of government as a basic level.

would you agree that if our federal government followed the constitution that our country would not be a "violent" one as government is concerned.

Click to expand...

Now you're talking in hypotheticals and those are irrelevant to what I'm saying. It was inevitable that our government would, at some point, fail to follow the constitution. That was exactly my point. People corrupt everything with their selfishness. Communism is a pie in the sky society in which all people work together for the common good and everyone is happy. That is simply never going to happen because people are too selfish. Capitalism is a pie in the sky society in which the rising tide raises all boats. That too will never happen, also because people are too selfish.

There is nothing inherently evil about communism. It's simply another method of attempting to get people to coexist inthe best way possible. The evil is in the abuse of power, which can, does, and WILL happen in any form of governent. That was my main point.

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no, you are wrong. it is evil to steal from one to give to another.

capitalism does not do this. free choice exists, you do not need anything from anyone else to survive. yes, its nice to have gasoline. but you do not need it and no one is forcing you to buy it. just like everything else in your life that you did not produce yourself

in communism and socialism, someone forces you to give your money or goods to someone else.

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Communism, marxism, socialism are actually forms of economics (although the theory of each contain other elements of social and governmental structure necessary for such economy), not government. Because each of those forms of economy on a national level require extreme interference and control by government eventually these terms were extended to colloquially refer to the governments that implemented those systems.

However, for the current economic direction of the US none of these really apply. The current economic policies are more closely related to the economics of fascism than any of the above or capitalism. The way to fight fascism is not to allow it to collapse of its own weight as ends up happening with the above systems eventually, but rather to refuse to become part of the collectivist movement and economic control necessary to implement fascism. Calling the current policies socialism is just skirting around the issue and trying to be nice in verbiage about the policies, both economic and social, really being postulated and even to some extent implemented.

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The democratic republic of the United States is probably the most violent, rogue nation on earth right now.

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Don't get out much, do you? I can name 10 countries off the tip of my tounge that are more violent...Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Mexico (border cities), Saudi Arabia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Iran. If you don't beleive me go to one and tell me about the wonderful time you had.

Back to the original question, for the past 80 years or so we've had a hybrid Socialist/Capitalist economy. The weight of socialism is squashing the capitalism...has for a long time. Look at the costs of Medicare, Social Security, etc. Now we're on some kind of strange suicide deficit spending that we can't support (which started with Bush and continues with Obama). The government is talking about going way more into debt for more socialist issues....free health care, inefficient energy production efforts, earmarks from both sides of the isle, and increased taxes (on the so called rich, which increases unemployment which increases social spending, reduces incentives to make more money, reduces incentives to hire more, which in turn decreases tax revenue).

Whatever economic model you care to adhere to, spending trillions and trillions above the GDP is not viable. This is the strategy Reagan used against the Soviets, except now we're doing it to ourselves in some kind of weird emo self destruction.

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AWDstyles wrote:

There is nothing inherently evil about communism. It's simply another method of attempting to get people to coexist inthe best way possible. The evil is in the abuse of power, which can, does, and WILL happen in any form of governent. That was my main point.

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In a world in which all people are equal in ambition and work ethic, with the same expectation of fairness, just about any form of society might work out fine. However, no such world exist. Humans are not equal in theforementioned sense. And that is what causes problems for any form of society.

Humans come in a variety of personalities, fromhighly motivatedworkers to total slackers and all flavors in between. Some of us are very creative while others are destructive. These variances of human nature and the inability to equalize said variances without force or cooercion is what causes the failures of social governance.

Now, you keep bringing up selfishness as a social ill, AWD. Are you saying that it selfish to want to enjoy the friuts of ones labor and not share the rewards of that labor with those that choose not to put forth the same effort?

There are very few, if any, species that place even the slightest bit of importance on the individual. Everything pack or colony creatures do is self-sacrifice for the good of the community.

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This is a really poor analogy, man. You apparently don't know allot about the animal kingdom. The only cases I can think of that come close to what you suggest would be ant, termite, and bee colonies. What you are suggesting is that there is no such thing as competition within animal herds or packs. On the contrary, there is. In every herd there is a "pecking order" within the members of the herd. In packs of wolves or lion prides, there is an ALPHA member that the rest of the members recognize. These ALPHA members maintain their position until another member challenges them and bumps them down. In the animal world the rule is, "survival of the strongest and smartest".

If you are suggesting that we humans adopt the law of survival that the animals go by, I'm all for it. The closest form of society to that would be capitalism. Let the slackers fall by the wayside and parish while the smartest and more ambitious of our species prosper. It's called natural culling of the herd. And we really need some serious culling.

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Task Force 16 wrote:

Now, you keep bringing up selfishness as a social ill, AWD. Are you saying that it selfish to want to enjoy the friuts of ones labor and not share the rewards of that labor with those that choose not to put forth the same effort?

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Selfishness comes in because people like yourself fail to see how the quality of society as a whole effects everyone. As much as you'd like to go move to a cabin in Montanna and live off the land, never to see another human again, we don't live in a world where that type of isolation is possible for everyone. You're failing to realize that how the lowest end of society lives directly effects you and I. You're all about the fruits of your labor because of where you stand in society right now. If you were born into the ghetto and went to work at the local 7/11 at age 14 just to support your family, with no hope of even graduating highschool, let alone college, no hope of a better job, no hope of advancement, you'd start to realize that theamount and qualityfruit your labor producesis very much out of your control. It has nothingto do with yourwork ethic, it's just the difficult situation you were born into. Capitalism does nothing to address this problem. Capitalism says tough @#$%, that's where you were born and someone has to run that 7/11 for minimum wage so the price on my slushies don't go up. Socialismsays everyone deserves an equal shot so we're going to take a little more from the guy with a $50,000,000 house in Beverly Hills and 14 private jets, because we think he can get by with 13 and a $40,000,000 house, and we're going to give to the kid in the ghetto and his family so that maybe he has a shot at college and a better life.



The key here is getting informed on how communism was intended to work, not on how it was perverted. Does communism work? Not so far, but keep an eye on China, they might have finally got it. Does pure capitalism work? Absolutely not, the industrial revolution, great depression,as well as the current crisisare evidence of this,and that's exactly why every developed country on earth is moving away from it, not towards it.

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deepdiver wrote:

Communism, marxism, socialism are actually forms of economics (although the theory of each contain other elements of social and governmental structure necessary for such economy), not government. Because each of those forms of economy on a national level require extreme interference and control by government eventually these terms were extended to colloquially refer to the governments that implemented those systems.

However, for the current economic direction of the US none of these really apply. The current economic policies are more closely related to the economics of fascism than any of the above or capitalism. The way to fight fascism is not to allow it to collapse of its own weight as ends up happening with the above systems eventually, but rather to refuse to become part of the collectivist movement and economic control necessary to implement fascism. Calling the current policies socialism is just skirting around the issue and trying to be nice in verbiage about the policies, both economic and social, really being postulated and even to some extent implemented.

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Hey! Look at that! Someone is paying attention to what's going on.

I said that way back in one of the economic crisis threads. Everyone is too busy running around crying "socialism!! socialism!!" when they really don't have a clue what it means or how vague it really is.

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AWDstylez wrote:

ocman1991A1 wrote:

true colors.

socialism and communism are the most violent forms of government.

Click to expand...

Prove it.

Fascist German was pretty violent, last I recall. So was the republic of Rome. The democratic republic of the United States is probably the most violent, rogue nation on earth right now.

Click to expand...

SORRY TO HEAR YOU FEEL THAT WAY. WHY IN HELL DON'T YOU MOVE?? NOBODY -LEAST OF ALL I - WILL TRY TO STOP YOU. YOUR PLANE AWAITS.:cuss:

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Oh shit, we've got a socialist marxist here...cannot hide from them anywhere nowadays can you? :cuss:

I can smell one from a mile away (i'm from Russia -Soviet school taughtmethat)- and this one stinks so much i can smell him all the way from CT...mixes with the stink of the other one going from the White House, but i can still tell the 2 apart... :banghead:

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AWDstylez wrote:

SouthernBoy wrote:

Communism in any form, as well as socialism is evil. Both systems are diametrically opposed to fundamental human nature.

Click to expand...

I beg to differ. Study the animal kingdom a little harder.


There are very few, if any, species that place even the slightest bit of importance on the individual. Everything pack or colony creatures do is self-sacrifice for the good of the community.

The problem with communism is the constant battle with selfish people. Not many people care about the good of the community or the world, hence the repeated failure of communism. It's this attitude that will lead to mankind's self-destruction.

Capitalism, on the other hand, nurtures and encourages selfishness. This is why capitalist governments have, in general, out lasted communist governments. However, as time goes on people increasingly realize that if they don't start giving a @#$% about something other than themselves and think further ahead than the here and now you're going to see less and less capitalistic ideals and more and more communistic ideals.


Now, the correct thing to do is go and get a real understanding of communism as Marx intended it, not as everyone else perverted and abused it. And again I'd call you to look at much of highly socialist Europe, much of which has a better standard of living than the United States.

Click to expand...

What a pile of hippie bullshit! Selfishness IS a natural thing to do. In fact, the only species in the animal kingdom that have complete disregard for individual (other than different kinds of bacreria)are certain insects - ants, termites, bees, wasps, etc. Even packs of wolves already have their structure where a stronger alpha-male can alsways replace the weaker one, it's very mobile. And if you look further up the evolution ladder, you will see more and more individualism. So, unless you are trying to make the case that humans take after insects and bacteria rather than large mammals, your point is senseless.

And by the way, standard of living in socialist Europe is LOWER than in the US. Salaries are a lot lower, taxes are pushing 50-60% and all you get in return is crappy free healthcare and subsidised education. That's why there are plenty ofpeople from developed west-european countries who immigrate to US, even now, with the recession going on. They come for the same people always came here - for opportunity. I had several successful professionals from Western Europe tell me "i miss my homecountry, but i work in the US because i get to keep most ofwhat i make and it motivates me. Back home i had no desire to advance my carreer, because government would take away 60% of my paycheck to make sure someone who never worked or paid taxes can buy a home just like mine."

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Chaingun81 wrote:

So, unless you are trying to make the case that humans take after insects and bacteria rather than large mammals, your point is senseless.

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LOL You know it's pretty ironic that you make a stupid statement like that becausemankind as a whole has a lot in common with a virus.



Let me ask you a question.

Would you rather make $10,000/year and pay 5% in taxes ($9,524 take home) or would you rather make $5,000,000/year and pay 40% in taxes ($4,807,692.30 take home)? Is the 35% tax break really that much of an incentive to choose the lower income?



If you're all about fair taxation and not having the rich pay more, then I have a proposal for you. A flat tax. No, not a flat percentage tax, because that has the rich paying more. From now on, we're all going to pay for the services we receive.

The current break-even point for paying for all the services youreceive in the USis an income of $150,000/year for an individual. Tax on that $150,000 is currently $35,978. This means each person receives approximately $36,000 in services from state and federal government each year. This is now your new tax. Every person in America will pay $36,000/year in taxes. Fairis fair. Wouldn't want the rich to have to pay more or the poor to get away without paying their fair share.

Are you happy with this new system? It's the fairest tax there is.



Obvouisly you're not happy because you're a broke ass making $30,000 a year so your income is now negative. So just think about this for a second. If you make UNDER $150,000 a year in this country then you're a NET LOSS to the tax system. While you cry about people on welfare your ass isn't even remotely close to breaking even either. The people in this country making over $150,000 are carrying you along. So before you point fingers in regards to entitlements and all these other socialist ideas, take a look in the financial mirror and ask yourself whether you really want to pay your fair share. If you do, I'm sure the IRS willwelcome the extra money with open wallet.

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I often wondered why it is, that those that think Communism or Socialism are such great systems don't just pack their dity bags and move to countries that already have such a system in place? Why do they feel they need to hang around and change the system to their liking here?

AWD, why don't you move to China or Europe, if you think their systems are so much better than what we have here? No body is making you stay here. All you have to do is liquidate your assets here, pack a bag, and get on a plane. Heck, I'd even chip in for your plane ticket. That way you can have what you want, and the rest of us can keep things the way they are, here. It's a win-win for everyone.