Does Socialism lead us to tyranny, communism, or dictatorshi

Post Reply New Topic

I haven't misinterpretted at thing, if you had bothered to read what I said, you'd notice that I was basically disputing what you said.

Communism = Totalitarianism

Socialism ends up leading to Totalitarianism and could also be argued as equivalent. It's called giving Government too much power and control over people's lives.

The problem here in the US is that the right knows that it can't rely on social wedge issues to keep pro-capitalism / pro-corporate forces in power. Social wedge issues worked on the older generation but they aren't going to work on the under 30 crowd. In these economic conditions the right sees a real threat of left-populism. They know that the promotion of fear and anti-government hysteria is their best weapon against it. They know they can't win over the populace on more intellectual libertarian philosophical ideals. If the populace were not scared s**tless, they would wake up and start voting for their own interest over the interest of the pro-corporate elites. Therefore the right must keep the population scared s**tless through the use of conspiratorial right-wing media propaganda. People like Glenn Beck are tools bringing 1960s style JBS hysteria to a new audience. It's the same people who accused President Eisenhower of being a closet Communist in the 1950s who are now going after Obama.

You were also flat wrong. Communism != totalitarianism because in Communism, by definition, the state does not exist. How can you have totalitarian anarchy? There is no government to be given too much power. You are incorrectly conflating socialism and communism, because like all intellectually shallow Beckites you believe that every single group on the left is part of a completely monolithic bloc.

Your argument isn't even remotely grounded in reality for goodness sakes, the only way for a Communist style of living can be maintained is the Government controling everything hence totalitarianism. Humans do have a desire to be better, to compete which is entirely contrary to Communism. We have a pack mentality only up to a point and even in a herd or pack there is always a hierarchy that develops where some people have more power than others.

The Communist Utopia idea looks good on paper, but is not even remotely plausible in real life.

Hence why I said, in reference to Communism, "Of course, it is also completely imaginary and will always be such." As I said, you need to learn how to read. But it is important to draw the distinction. According to Marxist theory, a socialist state will form after a worker's revolt against the industrial elite, and once the necessary radical social changes have occurred, the state will outlive its usefulness and wither away, leaving a stateless Communist society. Now, Marxist theory can and should be criticized because so much of it is just utter crap, but it does not help anything to knock down straw men.

I always thought socialism meant that the society owns collectively the means of producing the necessities. So utilities and food production etc are publically owned. Whereas non essential items are privately owned. So music industry and car manufacturers would be private.

Communism I think of as everything is owned centrally whether its essential or non essential. So our government owns it and employs us to run it.

Capitalism I think is that everything is owned privately, the thinking being that special interests will develop in industry and make things better! And Yeah it is!! !

Socialism means the collective ownership of the means of production. The only thing people could own was their underwear and even that with the permission of society. The collective is superior over the individual. The needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the Few or the One.

ruveyn

That doesn't sound that much different from rights now. Individual rights don't trump the rights of our societies (except if you make s**t loads of money then you have big rights.)

This is why I keep thinking of the Borg as essentially socialists.

Canada has socialist policies, and we certainly aren't a dictatorship. In fact, I would count years under Conservative governments as much more stifling to us then social-leaning parties. Frankly I don't think socialism, communism, capitalism or fascism work. All of these are just a few steps ahead of feudalism. There has to be something better and less ideologically driven, and I hope we don't have to wait too much longer for it