ES99...

Did you take the quiz? Lets just see how far away from Hitler you actually are.

I've done it before and I come out bottom left near Noam Chomsky.

If one is to The Right of Chomsky, one is close to Hitler?

Did take The Quiz. Believe I was somewhere around Gov. George Romney's thinking. Left of Center of certain issues, and Right of Center of other issues. Could you repost the link?

The mentioning of Hitler is very European/Canadian, who believe persons can be categorized within a Small Box, because they think within a small box.

I am a Cultural Liberal. Who believes in, among many things, Gay Rights/Marriage, Legalization of Marijuana, etc., and an Economic Conservative. A diverse mix, like many American's.

Many Europeans/Canadians do not understand The American Political Culture. They look at America, quite naturally, thru Their Political Culture.

The Democrat Party has many voter's who believe in certain Conservative Principle's.

The Republican Party have many voter's who believe in certain liberal principals.

The Majority of BOTH Party's are Centrist (Little Left of Center - Little Right of Center).

Every few generations, voter's change which party they vote for.

This is why it may be difficult for European's/Canadian's and American's to discuss this issue.

I bring up Hitler because you are the poster most likely to call someone a Nazi. Perhaps you will stop now that you realise that those you are most likely to call Nazis are in fact further away from him than you are on the political spectrum. :)

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Reality Internet Personality

I haven't read every single entry in this thread and I was a bit confused at the start regarding the where it was intended to go. My understanding of socialism is that it is supposed to be all about sharing and making sure even the people at the bottom of the pile have what is needed to live comfortably. That is what Christianity was supposed to be about but the mission got twisted over the centuries. Modern western governments try to enforce this concept by taxing the wealthy and distributing a small portion of that wealth to the people at the bottom. The problem is that governments are run by bureaucracies and even the best are somewhat corrupt so that most of the funds intended to help the poor never reach them.

Well said. Jesus was definitely one of the first socialists. Socialism is about making sure that those less able than others don't suffer. As far as I am aware there is nothing in socialism that says we must all be the same. Just that those with more than we need are willing to help those who have less than they need.

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Reality Internet Personality

Jesus was definitely one of the first socialists. Socialism is about making sure that those less able than others don't suffer.

Suffer. So is that the word we need to define? I suspect next we will be defining need versus want and pigeon holes.

As far as I am aware there is nothing in socialism that says we must all be the same. Just that those with more than we need are willing to help those who have less than they need.

So glad to know socialism is not incompatible with capitalism. Now the only question is who decides how much each has to give and to who? Is that an individual question, or enforced by a government firearm? I am led to believe Jesus thought it was an individual question.

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Suffer. So is that the word we need to define?

Sun Tzu have done it 2400 years ago.
But that is a long time ago.
So what is a enemy?
Why do we have to learn about our enemies?

I bring up Hitler because you are the poster most likely to call someone a Nazi. Perhaps you will stop now that you realise that those you are most likely to call Nazis are in fact further away from him than you are on the political spectrum. :)

Es99...

I call the Hitler Loving, and NAZI Loving Jihadists, NAZI's. You disagree?

I disagree with your definition of who is a Hitler loving Jihadist Nazi.

The Jihadists are "further away" from The NAZI's, than who?

Have you lost your mind?

Nope, thanks for asking. I am quite cogent thank you.

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Reality Internet Personality

Return to topic.
WWII Germany should only be discussed in connection to making clearer what socialism is and is not.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Learn how to be ‘Lagom’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/posts/The-Cold-Swedish-Winter
Favourite words are ‘grönsaker’, the word for vegetables, which translates literally as ‘green things’ and the word for spectacles, ‘glasögon’, which means ‘glass eyes’.

Hitler was Anti-Capitalism. Read Mien Kampf.

NAZI stands for: National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Are the NAZI's Theory's, as it relates to Economics', a form of Socialism?

Does being an Anti-Capitalist, like the NAZI's. Make you a Socialist?

The Nazis were as socialist as North Korea is democratic. Hitler was a social Darwinist, which is pretty much the polar opposite of what socialism stands for. His greatest ideological enemy were the communists, and he threw members of the socialist and communist parties in concentration camps.

Economically, the Nazis were pretty in the middle really. The whole free market business did suit their Social Darwinist world view, but at the same time, they were already convinced of German superiority, so they closed their market to as much foreign competition as possible, and once the war started, they started to get more and more involved in turning industry into producing weapons and equipment. But a total war economy is hardly socialist, more a pragmatic necessity in order to wage war.

Pointing out capitalism has problems does not make one anti-capitalist. Dropped any foreign substances into holes in the ground holding potable water lately?

Longer post responding to some other, rational previous posts by others, later tonight hopefully.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Part of my degree course included economics. None of the models we studied (or the way we were encouraged to study the models at least) were treated as anything other than economic systems.

For me therefore, capitalism is an economic system. It is not an idealogy. When looked at as an economic system then the areas in which it does not work adequately can be resolved by adjusting the model. A society which recognises that, will generally accept that socialist principles address a reality... the playing field is NOT level for everyone... and that that has nothing to do with the pejorative terms favoured by some in an attempt to justify their ideology and cloud the truth... but is instead, a necessity born out of the partial failure/inadequacy of the system and NOT of the individuals within it. I could be judgemental of course :) and say the true failure of capitalism is in the greed and excesses of the few but I won't :) The same can be said about other economic models too - because when they fail - it's more often than not for exactly the same reasons.

Speculation I know... but we may never have had the cold war, if the paranoia which resulted from a few nations trying out a radically different economic system had been seen as nothing more than an economic exercise rather an ideological attack.

But that's just my opinion :)

Part of my degree course included economics. None of the models we studied (or the way we were encouraged to study the models at least) were treated as anything other than economic systems.

For me therefore, capitalism is an economic system. It is not an idealogy. When looked at as an economic system then the areas in which it does not work adequately can be resolved by adjusting the model. A society which recognises that, will generally accept that socialist principles address a reality... the playing field is NOT level for everyone... and that that has nothing to do with the pejorative terms favoured by some in an attempt to justify their ideology and cloud the truth... but is instead, a necessity born out of the partial failure/inadequacy of the system and NOT of the individuals within it. I could be judgemental of course :) and say the true failure of capitalism is in the greed and excesses of the few but I won't :) The same can be said about other economic models too - because when they fail - it's more often than not for exactly the same reasons.

Speculation I know... but we may never have had the cold war, if the paranoia which resulted from a few nations trying out a radically different economic system had been seen as nothing more than an economic exercise rather an ideological attack.

But that's just my opinion :)

There are three scales of politics at right angles to each other.
1) How much government
2) Economic policy
3) Social policy
It was a failure to attempt to place people or governments on a single line from left to right.

There is no place on the planet I'm aware of that is 100% capitalism.
Some communes may come very close to 100% socialism, but no country.

Social policy is all over the place, usually a reflection of the religions of the country and how strongly they believe it.

How much government (including effectiveness) runs from not much to dictatorship.

As to the USA, it has a huge regressive tax, called inflation. What shocks me is to hear conservatives call for a balanced budget, as balancing the budget kills inflation. Perhaps the average conservative isn't actually against progressive taxes? Or could it be the average one isn't so rich that the regressive nature of inflation is eating them alive? Note the Uber's don't have that issue, they just move their capital outside the USA and escape that tax.

What really surprises me is that the alleged progressives fight against a balanced budget. Apparently they want even more regressive taxes and to milk the poor of even more money. I suppose that is job security for them. That or so few have a clue of how inflation works.

Now as to Communism, that was socialism mixed with near dictatorial levels of government control. I don't think there is anyone who disagrees with voluntary socialism, e.g. charitable giving. There better not be anyone on the board who does, because you are doing just that when you crunch! Many would disagree with a bureaucrat telling them what job to do, what your pay is, where to live, what you can buy and who you can associate with. I think that is the objection to the USSR form of government. If I might, USSR was command socialism, China is command capitalism and North Korea is perhaps closer to a monarchy.

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Speculation I know... but we may never have had the cold war, if the paranoia which resulted from a few nations trying out a radically different economic system had been seen as nothing more than an economic exercise rather an ideological attack.

Agree with all, but the last paragraph.

The Communistic System, well THEY called themselves THAT. Was not an Experiment or Exercise, to show the rest of the world, how is was BETTER. It failed very quickly, and was only kept in place by brute force. The problem was that they attempted to export their failed Economic System. Any Economic System which MUST build Walls and Fences, to keep their populations IN, is a failure.

When these 'Communists' attempted to Expand their failed Economic System: They had to be resisted. Therefore the 'Cold War' was started to protect The People, and Wealthy Capitalist's, from a worse Economic System than Capitalism.

Always remember: The Cure may be worse than the Disease.

Oh no no no. Thats not how history actually went down. Remember, Communism did not try to export its economic system by force for decades. It was only AFTER the second world war, when the allies divided the world in two that this happened. And even after that, the Russians at least, have never really tried to export their system to any country outside their designated sphere of influence. Stalin even specifically instructed other communist movements to immediately stop with agitating or trying to install communism through some kind of armed revolution. And Communist regimes in Eastern Europe were only really there to form a bufferzone between American controlled Western Europe and the Motherland. Any and all actual Russian repression in Eastern Europe was simply a response to a perceived threat that one of their buffer states would stop being a buffer state. Its realist politics and if you think the Russians were bad for doing it while America would never stoop so low, make no mistake because the Americans did the same thing in Italy and Greece.

Of course, that are the Russians. The Chinese were a little more enthusiastic in their attempts of spreading Communism (which is why Chinese-Russian relations soured eventually). But the conditions in South East Asia dictated the use of force. They were dealing with either colonial or otherwise authoritarian administrations who were quick to use brutal repression tactics to suppress any and all forms of opposition. And of course, a lot of those administrations were kept alive through Western support who didnt want Communism to spread. Communism didnt spread through the barrel of the gun because that is somehow the inherent nature of Communism, it happened because the conditions in the countries where it happened required force to unseat the government. Force was the only way to change things.

And then there are of course also the times where Capitalism spread through the use of repression and force. Those examples can all be found in South America, through some shady CIA operations unseating democratic governments and replacing them with military junta's who were willing to open up their markets to American business so long as America didn't mind them murdering the opposition.

No, the Cold War is pretty much caused because the Americans had some idiotic, completely irrational fear of Communism, while the Russians had a much more concrete fear that if they werent careful, their neurotic counterpart would nuke them from the face of the earth.

Since i'm a Liberal Progressive Social Democrat i'm more than eager to learn of your findings with regard to socialism being problematic.

I put experiment in "quotes", so please do not expect me to outline something quantitative. Rather, it is a brief qualitative observation from something long ago. I do not know how it "scales up" to the situation of countries or even smaller areas governed, but it is a thought I cannot move past.

When I was an undergrad, I DJd for the college's student run radio station.
My last year I was also on the executive board. I forget my title, but it was probably something to do with equipment, technical issues, etc. ... .
At the time, CDs were still fairly new. Until some point in my senior year, there were no CD players in the dj booth. (A few had successfully brought in their own and found a jack, and the controls related to that jack, to get their CDs to broadcast.)
So, at first, in my executive position, I was working on reclaiming the "lost art" of transferring music we had in other formats onto carts, which were essentially single song 8 tracks, re-usable. I was also showing some of my fellow DJs, so the knowledge would not be lost when I graduated within a year.

At some point that last year, our faculty advisor secured money for us to buy a CD player or 2. But then, the station did not have CDs! Those DJs that had their own could bring those in, of course. The rest were stuck with the older formats (carts and vinyl).

Even though I did not have a CD player (bought one for myself 1-2 years later), I bought about 20 or so to use for my shows. (I had a friend with a CD player copy them onto tape so I could listen to them on my own away from the station.)

Some people came to borrow a few of the CDs, as we played similar music.

After a short time, I decided to put them in the station saying "On loan to W*** from Sarge" (Sarge began there as my DJ handle-blame "Sid" [Sid Vicious] Ward, another DJ-and yes, there is a good reason for the nick, but not what a lot of the assumers here at S@H think).

I suppose this was essentially charity on my part. My plan was to leave them there all that year and, since I'd made tape copies, perhaps even leave them after my graduation.

That plan was changed when one of our freshman Djs thought it'd be fun to take old lp's at the station of music he didn't much care for (and maybe thought was not getting played much) and throw them around like frisbees just outside the DJ booth, breaking several.

I thought, if he's willing to do that, what's to stop him from breaking my CDs next?

As for connecting this to socialism, if "everyone in the public owns something" supposedly, isn't it really like no one owns it, there's no face ... no person ... to be responsible to for its destruction ... so how would we get everybody in a socialistic society to protect the property as they all have a stake in it? If you answer "security"/"police", aren't you really in a communist society, not socialist? (I realize several don't every accept that there's a difference. I think there is.)

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

One need only look at a "project" a/k/a section 8 apartment house to understand your experiment has been carried out many times and the results seem similar.

I think altruistic socialism is a nice theory, but it fails in practice with a large group, e.g. one where individuals can be anonymous to each other.

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The Capitalist's transfer money to these people, and the people buy the Capitalist's Goods and Service's, with The Capitalist's own money?

Clyde, if the people don't get enough goods and services they will take them and it won't be pretty for the capitalists.

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I see Dena is posting again, but I suspect with the change of thread name, she does not realize this is the same thread.

In any case, some interesting responses lately and I will respond (or bring more of my questions) as time and health allow.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

The Capitalist's transfer money to these people, and the people buy the Capitalist's Goods and Service's, with The Capitalist's own money?

Clyde, if the people don't get enough goods and services they will take them and it won't be pretty for the capitalists.

Nor The People. They will be fighting over The Scraps.

They will be building guillotines, Clyde. History tells us exactly what happens when the gap between rich and poor gets too big. It wass one of the concerns of your President Teddy Roosevelt, which is why he made such efforts to break up monopolies.

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Reality Internet Personality

The Capitalist's transfer money to these people, and the people buy the Capitalist's Goods and Service's, with The Capitalist's own money?

Clyde, if the people don't get enough goods and services they will take them and it won't be pretty for the capitalists.

Nor The People. They will be fighting over The Scraps.

They will be building guillotines, Clyde. History tells us exactly what happens when the gap between rich and poor gets too big. It wass one of the concerns of your President Teddy Roosevelt, which is why he made such efforts to break up monopolies.

Thats a good point ES. And that lesson applys to just about every country on the planet who has had such a divide between rich and poor. Past and or present.

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Old James

The Capitalist's transfer money to these people, and the people buy the Capitalist's Goods and Service's, with The Capitalist's own money?

Clyde, if the people don't get enough goods and services they will take them and it won't be pretty for the capitalists.

Nor The People. They will be fighting over The Scraps.

They will be building guillotines, Clyde. History tells us exactly what happens when the gap between rich and poor gets too big. It wass one of the concerns of your President Teddy Roosevelt, which is why he made such efforts to break up monopolies.

Thats a good point ES. And that lesson applys to just about every country on the planet who has had such a divide between rich and poor. Past and or present.

Always considered Teddy Roosevelt, to be among our top three President's. Just below Lincoln and his cousin FDR.

After The Guillotine, things get WORSE for The People. Just History and Human Nature.

Really? I take it you've never been to France. Lovely country.

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Reality Internet Personality

After The Guillotine, things get WORSE for The People. Just History and Human Nature.

Really? I take it you've never been to France. Lovely country.

Isn't this really off topic.
What have France with enemys to do?