yeah, i have been thinking bout this. all of the democratic republics in the west are slowly falling into socialism. just wonder what all of you people think of this bleak prospect, as the next step from socialism is communism
does democracy lead to socialism?
yeah, i have been thinking bout this. all of the democratic republics in the west are slowly falling into socialism. just wonder what all of you people think of this bleak prospect, as the next step from socialism is communism
member 3519
Originally Posted by Poltemly
Odd. I'm under the impression that social democratic parties these days has to move ever further to the right to have any chance of winning an election. There's hardly one around that could seriously call itself "socialist" anymore. For one thing they all seem to have fully embraced the free market doctrin.
Muizer
in america, if you do anything to any of the socialist programs that we have running, ie welfare, medicare, medicaid; you commit political suicide. the world is slowing falling into socialism thanks to the bleeding hearts thinking that the government should take care of everybody and wipe their asses
RTW Modder 2004-2015
Here's a couple of links that may be useful on the matter...
Defining 'social democracy'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/652043/posts
(read the reader comments too!)
Democracy vs. Freedom
http://www.free-market.net/resources...s-freedom.html
It's also interesting to note that when the Communist Regime "fell" back in the USSR a few years ago, the commisars controlling the various former soviet states did not disappear off the scene but merely changed their labels from communists to "social democracts".
"One of the most sophisticated Total War mods ever developed..."
The Fourth Age: Total War - The Dominion of Men
member 3519
From that article: " To have a free and peaceful world, we must create societies in which the inalienable rights of the individual are again respected, and the powers of government are strictly limited."
No right is de facto inalienable if one does not have the power to enforce them. That is what democratic government is all about. It is what stands between a relatively free society and feudalism.
Muizer
Comes Rei Militaris
I would say that in Britain, despite 8 years of Labour, we are drifting to the right...
Dux Limitis
I think wealth leads to socialism.
The most wealthy countries (Swedem, Denmark etc.) are the most socialistic.
And socialism often does best when the economy is on the right track, but as soon as things go bad people start thinking about themselves again. (Ironic because that's the time when we need to be social the most).
I don't beleive socialism leads to communism.
I haven't seen any examples of countries who slowly went from socialism to communism.
I do know countries who went from extreme capitalism to communism (Cuba for example).
If anything I think socialism prevents people from revolting and wanting communism (or any other exterme form of government).
Actually, The USA has a higher per-capita income than the Swedes or the Danish do....
All men are CREATED equal. Doesn't mean they end up equal. And all men do certainly have the opportunity to become rich, its just incredibly hard if you decide to indebt yourself to the governemnt by going on welfare.
We Americans don't WANT to be on welfare. You will never force it on us. If we want it, we will do it ourselves. But we do not. Don't say our government is evil, when its the average American who doesn't want to be paid to not work.
WE GO PLAY SOME HOOP
correction, the christian and muslim religions teach charity, the giving of money from the people to the people who are less fortunate, not the government
the mission of the government is to provide security- military; and to provide infastructure- ie, roads and such
taxes are paid so that the government can protect the people and provide them with infasturcture, no to hand them a check and say "See how Uncle Sam wipes your ass with other people's hard earned money"
Dux Limitis
Per-capita income is a flawed measure of wealth.
But I think the US is a special case, and I don't know why that is.
Europeans hate being on welfare just as much, why do you think they are different?We Americans don't WANT to be on welfare. You will never force it on us. If we want it, we will do it ourselves. But we do not. Don't say our government is evil, when its the average American who doesn't want to be paid to not work.
But socialism isn't about putting people on welfare at all.
It's mainly aimed at education and the creation of jobs.
Welfare is always viewed as the last resort when all other measures have failed.
In a democracy it's the people who get to say what government role is.taxes are paid so that the government can protect the people and provide them with infasturcture, no to hand them a check and say "See how Uncle Sam wipes your ass with other people's hard earned money"
If you beleive the government should restrict itself to the military that's a political choice, but others can choose to let their governent do more than that.
If the hard working people like their money to be spend on "whiping the asses of the poor" (like giving them a good education so they don't HAVE to resort to a life of crime) they should be allowed to make this choice.
Last edited by Erik; October 17, 2005 at 06:49 AM.
yeah, but the people arent well represented. the ones you mainly hear about the opinions are the bleeding hearts, the artist, and the hippies, the ones who think we should live in an idealistical world. if the welfare programs of the depression era had been repealed like they were ment to be, than america would be a hell of a lot better off as people wouldnt have a crutch anymore
Civitate
Society in general tends to moving to the left and away from the Friedmanism values that were dominate in the 80s, but I don't think that those trends are really a product of modern political democracy, but rather it's a product of the failure of Friedmanism (especially in South America) and the corruptive nature of Keynesian and Mercantilism economics.
As for the original question of "does democracy lead to socialism?", I must full-heartedly agree, as the two are one of the same in my usage of the words. Assuming that socialism can be describe simply as any ideology that promotes the public ownership or control of resouces and capital goods, what is socialism but economic democracy (I'm assuming that public ownership entails democractic action)? The more democratic you make any institution, the most "socialist" it becomes.
1) The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2) The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3) The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4) The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5) Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6) Therefore, God does not exist.
Garbarsardar's love child, and the only child he loves. ^-^
It appears to me that terms like capitalism and socialism, used as polarizing/opposed ideas do more harm then good. One may argue that we don't know what socialism IS or capitalism IS, because even if some believe to have theorized them properly, neither of those ideas has ever been applied in a pure, asseptic, environment. Capitalism, at best, is an attempt to describe the dinamics of markets. That hardly constitutes an ideology by itself or a civilizational project. Socialism is constructed as a way of protecting the people from the inequity of distribution of wealth and power, inherent to unchecked capitalism. A construct fighting another.
It's hard, and one of the real challenges of todays thinkers, to come up with an alternative paradigm, but i think we do need new one.
As for the topic at hand, market fundamentalism has taken the world by storm, the last 20 years or so. I have no idea where you got the impression that the west is becomimg more "socialist". Almost all politicians (even those labelled socialists and social democrats) have bought into the neo-classic economics mantra "small (as in removed from the economic sphere) government; free market; free private iniciative". This is very right wing, if you ask me.
Civitate
Market fundamentalism has taken the world by storm, but market socialism has also become far more popular as well. If one compares any European country (excluding the Eastern Bloc countries) to what they were 50 years ago, you'll find a great increase in social programs and social spending.
1) The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2) The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3) The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4) The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5) Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6) Therefore, God does not exist.
Garbarsardar's love child, and the only child he loves. ^-^
The present (and suspended, as far as i know) European Constitution project and also the so called Lisbon Strategy point precisely to the decrease of social programs and social spending (maybe not directly, but by restricting government roles), in the name of "competitiveness" in a - in my opinion - suicidal struggle for world leadership.
Finland is as socialist Sweden and other countries. But we are not communist! In our election communist get 0 places but socialist get second most votes. We are not going to communist.
Mr Common Sense
Communism requires a revolution to be installed, whereas socialism is founded upon democracy; that is, socialism is a democratic revolution, whereas communism comes about from violent revolution. Democracy evolves to socialism sometimes, but only when is at least in equilibrium, while it returns to capitalism in problematic times.
primus pater cunobelin erat; sum in patronicium imb39, domi wilpuri; Saint-Germain, MasterAdnin, Pnutmaster, Scorch, Blau&Gruen,
Ferrets54, Honeohvovohaestse, et Pallida Mors in patronicum meum sunt
Miles
Why is socialism such a dirty word?
It's easy to say people should take care of themselves when you're in a position where that's easy to do. This system does not easily facilitate people rising above the mire. With this system, more often than not, people that are born into poverty -will- stay into poverty, if they don't get any help, luck, or take on a super-human amount of determination, the likes of which us priveliged middle- and upper-class men couldn't even concieve of.
It's just so easy for us suburbanites to say "Get a job!" or "Take care of yourself...why should we help you?". I posit this question. Could YOU break out from poverty, with an almost worthless education? Could you break out, when your family has to rely on illegal means just to bring food to the table, since the only jobs that you can land don't provide a living wage? Do you think you could get hired at a nice, respectable job when you have a criminal record, poor education, and your only job experience is as a high school janitor or McDonald's staff? You would fall into the same pit everyone else does.
How a society treats it's lower classes is a reflection of the society itself...and if we don't take care of our less fortunate brothers, it quite often affects us negatively. Can you name a few spots downtown you wouldn't be caught dead walking alone in? That right there is an effect of poor social justice. Crime increases, by necessity, as we don't properly facilitate proper living conditions, and give these people an equal chance.
Socialism shouldn't be a dirty word...call me a bleeding heart liberal, left-wing nutjob, whatever. I'll cry myself to sleep tonight over it.
Mr Common Sense
How about calling you comrade?
But seriously. Society is reflected in not its rich but its poor, and we come of awfully. We keep the poor down with the statements we think will help (like "Get a job"); and why do we do it? Because we, the not-poor, want to become them, the rich, and the easiest way to do that is exploitation of those worse off than us.
primus pater cunobelin erat; sum in patronicium imb39, domi wilpuri; Saint-Germain, MasterAdnin, Pnutmaster, Scorch, Blau&Gruen,
Ferrets54, Honeohvovohaestse, et Pallida Mors in patronicum meum sunt
I was going to say alot but I guess there is nothing to say after all that. Very well spoken comrades.But seriously. Society is reflected in not its rich but its poor, and we come of awfully. We keep the poor down with the statements we think will help (like "Get a job"); and why do we do it? Because we, the not-poor, want to become them, the rich, and the easiest way to do that is exploitation of those worse off than us.
"In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality." - Karl Marx on CapitalismUnder the patronage of the venerable Marshal Qin. Proud member of the house of Sybian.
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