[Nickel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ECM', 'M')any people are FORCED to trade their labor for pay that is below what they have earned.

[pana_burda]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his all goes back to kindergarden.

[Rubin_Flagg]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'I')t was my understanding that Russian consumer goods sucked. You cannot compare an AK 47 to a washing machine. The AK was born out of the memories of the German invasion. The washing machine was constructed by a worker who was paid by a system that did not connect to quality controls because there was no competition in the market for the machine it produced.

If communism is such a great system why does it devolve into a thugocracy?

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'I')f communism is such a great system why does it devolve into a thugocracy?

[Quinny]

Looking through my library the other day, I picked up a book I bought back in the early 80's. It's UK biased and parts of the arguments for Socialism series, called 'Take over the city".

It's main argument is that the easiest/most efficient way to change investment policy and the way industry works, would be to takeover/buy the top City institutions which had controlling interests in most of British Industry anyway. The nationalisation of 30 financial institutions would provide substantial control over the shares of the major industrial companies.

A couple of things struck me, one was the financial numbers we were talking about then were peanuts towards now.

The total bill for the purchase of these would have only come to about £8.5 billion, and due to mutaul shareholding, the compensation package would only need to be about £6.5 billion.

The merchant banks were cheap at around £500 million for all eleven. (Hill Samuel, Schroder Wagg, Robert Fleming,Rothschilds, Hambros, Morgan Grenfell, Barings, Klenwort Benson, Charterhouse, Lazards, S.G. Warburg). ( Is it any wonder the press are so keen on destroying socialism. )

The second thing that struck me was - we've done it. If only we'd done it then we could have driven a system to provide sensible funding to productive industry and provide jobs and wealth across the board.

Our tardiness in not acting then means we've had to pick up the pieces of failed capital (yet again) and ameliorate the conditions of the mother of all depressions.

Hopefully we can actually encourage investment in energy and food security and small scale enterprises that might survive future resource shortages. I think we're probably too late.

[eastbay]

http://www.marketrap.com/article/view_a ... -socialism

According to this article in Market Rap it's inevitable and there's nothing we can do to stop it. I tend to agree.

It's an interesting perspective mirroring in many ways what's already starting to occur.

And we now have a president and a congress that isn't the least bit shy about making it happen.

[Schmuto]

I'd say PO leads to fascism, which is, of course, a subset of socialism.

[SeaGypsy]

Would fixing up baseline social security in the USA qualify as socialism? It seems this is going to be essential to prevent absolute calamity in the next year or 2. Time limits on unemployment benefits are fine when jobs are available but evil when they are not.
How about bank re-regulation? Again, essential in the new paradigm and basic socialism.
Even conservatives will support these necessary lefty changes in the current environment.
So yes, Eastbay, I believe you are correct. Socialism is unavoidable.

[Bytesmiths]

I tend to disagree. Corporate socialism is just a point on the path. I think it will ultimately lead to feudalism, with those who control land able to find large numbers of people willing to work for food and a warm place to sleep.

[Schmuto]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bytesmiths', 'I') tend to disagree. Corporate socialism is just a point on the path. I think it will ultimately lead to feudalism, with those who control land able to find large numbers of people willing to work for food and a warm place to sleep.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bytesmiths', 'I') tend to disagree. Corporate socialism is just a point on the path. I think it will ultimately lead to feudalism, with those who control land able to find large numbers of people willing to work for food and a warm place to sleep.

[Bytesmiths]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bytesmiths', 'C')orporate socialism is just a point on the path. I think it will ultimately lead to feudalism...

[Schmuto]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bytesmiths', ' ')But I don't see socialism as the same as fascism.

Isn't socialism the care for people by the state, whereas fascism is control of the state by corporations?

[Bytesmiths]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schmuto', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bytesmiths', 'I')sn't socialism the care for people by the state, whereas fascism is control of the state by corporations?

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')itler was voted into power. He was no more of a dictator than is Bush the 3rd.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schmuto', 'I')'d say PO leads to fascism, which is, of course, a subset of socialism.

[Cloud9]

It matters not which ism we adopt. The end is always the same. The non believers find themselves on their knees in front of a ditch with a gun to the back of their head.

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is merely a statistic. Uncle Joe

[deMolay]

Not entirely a good sign. The extreme forms of socialism/communism have left graves full of over 100M innocent people in the last 100 years.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schmuto', '
')Socialism is ownership of the means of production by the state, which controls and plans the economy.

[kpeavey]

Socialism, totalitarianism, fascism...government in a form able to organize nations, in whatever form, all require energy to operate. In a world in which energy production is in terminal decline, all forms of government must simplify when it exceeds the ability of its resources to keep it propped up and functional. When the oil runs out, will armies run on coal? Is China going to overrun the US on horseback? The social upheaval created by reduced energy availability will open the door for polarized forms of government, but these governments will not endure. Toe the line in the meantime.