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Good capitalism, bad capitalism
16 years ago
General
As I read an article about ten big companies veering towards bankruptcy, I stumbled across this comment:
If they are going to declare bankruptcy let them. No more bailouts. Let capitalism work and solve these business problems versus the current and last administration and congress approach of just supporting failures and prolonging the problem. Capitalism will bring us prosperity; our current path of socialism will only bring us devastation.
When I read it, I thought that this kind of comment is probably the best comment to illustrate the feelings of your average American who has not been extremely engaged in politics, but loves this country and is concerned about the huge amount of changes (for better or for worse) that have been occurring ever since the govt. bailed out Goldman Sachs during the waning years of the GW Bush era. Then, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk to you guys instead of pissing in the wind and getting off-topic like what happens in the comments on almost every big site.
People believe in Capitalism in this country. As a country, many of us were indoctrinated with that idea growing up during the cold war era that capitalism is what we stand for, and Communism is what the enemy stood for, and of course the simple explanation most kids got was that they're mutually exclusive (and diametrically opposed) ideas. That being said, most of us here don't remember the cold war, or why we were supposed to be scared of the Communists. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and anyone old enough to even remember the cold war now (assuming you're around my age) only remembers the Glastnost/Perestroika era, when Gorbachev ran the country. The point is that there weren't any major underpinnings of the foundation which made capitalist indoctrination so important to those raising us apparent for kids that age to really sear negative memories onto anymore, and so many of us never really got the lesson of what of Communism we should fear, and why.
This is important, because it goes back to what to what the person commented regarding the article. In American politics, we have "loaded" words whose meanings are warped to the point they are practically useless in normal conversation. Racist, Communist, Fascist -- their value at identifying groups of people are now only academic in nature, because the labels were all eventually used by everyone as a politically convenient way to attack people relentlessly without merit. With that in mind, realize that "Socialism" is quickly becoming the new "Communism" in some parts of the American lexicon.
Here's where it gets a little messy. As some of you on the other side of the English-speaking (and Germanic and Romance language-speaking) world know, Socialism isn't the big taboo that it is here in the US. Without the threat of the cold war around to scare the life out of us here, and with some very huge disasters in the economy leading to bubble after bubble (and our ability to actually see the boom-bust cycle for what it really is), Americans have begun to fiddle around with the definition of what we really are. Are we really capitalists at heart? When the majority of us see our financial institutions making off with our money from both the public and private ends of the market without our consent, it calls that fundamental belief into question. The process of changing these beliefs, however, is fraught with peril by benefit of some very powerful institutions which benefited from labeling big government as the enemy, while leveraging the same government to represent their interests instead of ours.
Later on, they would label all government the enemy, instead of just large and oppressive governments that no longer represented the people. It was a dogma of fear that any government would eventually lead to an oppressive government (like the communist politburos) unless we voted in ways which benefited free market interests (like the powerful institutions). These institutions, over the course of the past 100 years, were in the process of establishing a de facto oligarchy in the United States. The bust of the Great Depression halted its progress for a good couple of decades as (like today) we fiddled with the notion of what it quintessentially means to be American. To a lesser extent, we are doing that today.
Because the government (as a representative of the public) is the vehicle by which these changes have occurred, it has rightfully been referred to as a form of socialism. The label, as I said earlier, is becoming a little muddied, because of the spectre of Communism. Special interest dogma from powerful institutions in the financial and other private sectors in the market wants it that way, because we were indoctrinated to see Communism as diametrically opposed to capitalism, "all that is good and right in this world". The word "socialism" may end up losing its usefulness outside of an academic or historical discussion in the US because of this.
That's why I wrote this article. Some of the things the government did in our name are things most of us can agree upon that we didn't like. That was still a form of socialism, even though in idealized socialism that would never happen. That's the bad kind of socialism that most Americans understand, and don't want. But some of the things that can rightfully be called socialism are, were, and will be things that we do want, and what we asked for when we voted for change in this country. In the spirit of that ideal, socialism need not be perverted to the point that an average American would assume it's a bad thing. We abandoned that notion when our economy bottomed out last year.
Our economy hit the shitter because of what those special interests told us was "all that was right and good with the world" -- ie: What they told us was capitalism. But, I think most of us can agree now that what happened to most of us was bad bad stuff. This was still a form of capitalism, although in idealized capitalism the fire would never have run out of wood to burn as it continued to grow and consume everything. Capitalism, as an ideal, wasn't really such a bad idea, but in practice we weren't able to keep it from toppling over and destroying our economy. This brings me to my final point.
The concerns of our commenter seem to focus on his ideals that capitalism is a shining beacon, while socialism is destitute. I don't think that is the case. There is a difference between good socialism and bad socialism, or at least the good and bad things that we as Americans end up calling socialism. The bank bailouts, most of us would believe, are among the worst kind of collusion between special interests and the government -- a perversion of our fundamental democratic-republican beliefs. And yet, we also elected new people into office to leverage the government to preserve our quality of life and save our livelihood, even if that might require changes to our WAY of life and lifestyle. When the government takes charge in improving our quality of life, that's also called socialism. But as we've also seen, there is also difference between the things that we call capitalism. The things we call good capitalism bring us prosperity. Bad capitalism brings us poverty.
There is no such thing as a truly free market, and we should avoid the kind of ideological dogma which could lead us to destitute, whether it be unfettered Capitalism (capital-C as in the ideology) or the type of Communism which took down the USSR slowly over the course of the last century. When we use the word socialism, I would hope that we can make the distinction between ideology and its use in practice, just like we do with capitalism. What we call these terms today are not the same thing in common practice as their academic meaning.
All developed nations today practice the aspects of socialism as part of a social democracy, which is different from Marxist or Leninist-style ideologies in that it represents a mixed economy, and that is realistic considering what is required to maintain a long-term healthy economic system. That is why I promote the idea that capitalism and socialism need not be diametrically opposed. There exist social democrats, democratic socialists, centrists and many others who understand that the world is not merely painted in black and white, but shades of gray. Let's promote greater understanding for all of our well-being.
Edit: I actually found a very interesting question and answer directly relating to all this on Yahoo!Answers, which is something you don't see every day: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/i.....9104938AANsZ4t
If they are going to declare bankruptcy let them. No more bailouts. Let capitalism work and solve these business problems versus the current and last administration and congress approach of just supporting failures and prolonging the problem. Capitalism will bring us prosperity; our current path of socialism will only bring us devastation.
When I read it, I thought that this kind of comment is probably the best comment to illustrate the feelings of your average American who has not been extremely engaged in politics, but loves this country and is concerned about the huge amount of changes (for better or for worse) that have been occurring ever since the govt. bailed out Goldman Sachs during the waning years of the GW Bush era. Then, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk to you guys instead of pissing in the wind and getting off-topic like what happens in the comments on almost every big site.
People believe in Capitalism in this country. As a country, many of us were indoctrinated with that idea growing up during the cold war era that capitalism is what we stand for, and Communism is what the enemy stood for, and of course the simple explanation most kids got was that they're mutually exclusive (and diametrically opposed) ideas. That being said, most of us here don't remember the cold war, or why we were supposed to be scared of the Communists. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and anyone old enough to even remember the cold war now (assuming you're around my age) only remembers the Glastnost/Perestroika era, when Gorbachev ran the country. The point is that there weren't any major underpinnings of the foundation which made capitalist indoctrination so important to those raising us apparent for kids that age to really sear negative memories onto anymore, and so many of us never really got the lesson of what of Communism we should fear, and why.
This is important, because it goes back to what to what the person commented regarding the article. In American politics, we have "loaded" words whose meanings are warped to the point they are practically useless in normal conversation. Racist, Communist, Fascist -- their value at identifying groups of people are now only academic in nature, because the labels were all eventually used by everyone as a politically convenient way to attack people relentlessly without merit. With that in mind, realize that "Socialism" is quickly becoming the new "Communism" in some parts of the American lexicon.
Here's where it gets a little messy. As some of you on the other side of the English-speaking (and Germanic and Romance language-speaking) world know, Socialism isn't the big taboo that it is here in the US. Without the threat of the cold war around to scare the life out of us here, and with some very huge disasters in the economy leading to bubble after bubble (and our ability to actually see the boom-bust cycle for what it really is), Americans have begun to fiddle around with the definition of what we really are. Are we really capitalists at heart? When the majority of us see our financial institutions making off with our money from both the public and private ends of the market without our consent, it calls that fundamental belief into question. The process of changing these beliefs, however, is fraught with peril by benefit of some very powerful institutions which benefited from labeling big government as the enemy, while leveraging the same government to represent their interests instead of ours.
Later on, they would label all government the enemy, instead of just large and oppressive governments that no longer represented the people. It was a dogma of fear that any government would eventually lead to an oppressive government (like the communist politburos) unless we voted in ways which benefited free market interests (like the powerful institutions). These institutions, over the course of the past 100 years, were in the process of establishing a de facto oligarchy in the United States. The bust of the Great Depression halted its progress for a good couple of decades as (like today) we fiddled with the notion of what it quintessentially means to be American. To a lesser extent, we are doing that today.
Because the government (as a representative of the public) is the vehicle by which these changes have occurred, it has rightfully been referred to as a form of socialism. The label, as I said earlier, is becoming a little muddied, because of the spectre of Communism. Special interest dogma from powerful institutions in the financial and other private sectors in the market wants it that way, because we were indoctrinated to see Communism as diametrically opposed to capitalism, "all that is good and right in this world". The word "socialism" may end up losing its usefulness outside of an academic or historical discussion in the US because of this.
That's why I wrote this article. Some of the things the government did in our name are things most of us can agree upon that we didn't like. That was still a form of socialism, even though in idealized socialism that would never happen. That's the bad kind of socialism that most Americans understand, and don't want. But some of the things that can rightfully be called socialism are, were, and will be things that we do want, and what we asked for when we voted for change in this country. In the spirit of that ideal, socialism need not be perverted to the point that an average American would assume it's a bad thing. We abandoned that notion when our economy bottomed out last year.
Our economy hit the shitter because of what those special interests told us was "all that was right and good with the world" -- ie: What they told us was capitalism. But, I think most of us can agree now that what happened to most of us was bad bad stuff. This was still a form of capitalism, although in idealized capitalism the fire would never have run out of wood to burn as it continued to grow and consume everything. Capitalism, as an ideal, wasn't really such a bad idea, but in practice we weren't able to keep it from toppling over and destroying our economy. This brings me to my final point.
The concerns of our commenter seem to focus on his ideals that capitalism is a shining beacon, while socialism is destitute. I don't think that is the case. There is a difference between good socialism and bad socialism, or at least the good and bad things that we as Americans end up calling socialism. The bank bailouts, most of us would believe, are among the worst kind of collusion between special interests and the government -- a perversion of our fundamental democratic-republican beliefs. And yet, we also elected new people into office to leverage the government to preserve our quality of life and save our livelihood, even if that might require changes to our WAY of life and lifestyle. When the government takes charge in improving our quality of life, that's also called socialism. But as we've also seen, there is also difference between the things that we call capitalism. The things we call good capitalism bring us prosperity. Bad capitalism brings us poverty.
There is no such thing as a truly free market, and we should avoid the kind of ideological dogma which could lead us to destitute, whether it be unfettered Capitalism (capital-C as in the ideology) or the type of Communism which took down the USSR slowly over the course of the last century. When we use the word socialism, I would hope that we can make the distinction between ideology and its use in practice, just like we do with capitalism. What we call these terms today are not the same thing in common practice as their academic meaning.
All developed nations today practice the aspects of socialism as part of a social democracy, which is different from Marxist or Leninist-style ideologies in that it represents a mixed economy, and that is realistic considering what is required to maintain a long-term healthy economic system. That is why I promote the idea that capitalism and socialism need not be diametrically opposed. There exist social democrats, democratic socialists, centrists and many others who understand that the world is not merely painted in black and white, but shades of gray. Let's promote greater understanding for all of our well-being.
Edit: I actually found a very interesting question and answer directly relating to all this on Yahoo!Answers, which is something you don't see every day: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/i.....9104938AANsZ4t
Civil because unlike other people on this site, you don't enforce your opinion by insulting the other side or people who think otherwise and in genarl stay clam.
And best, because you do mention all sides of the aspect, how it came to be and what could be done, and ya don't just throw stats at us to prove your're right.
In my opinion, you're totally right, socialism and capitalism aren't two opposed systems (communism and capitalism are), and that there is a third way to go, like for example what france, spain or germany (where I live do). Sure, it has its backdrafts too, we have to pay more taxes in a social democracy, since these taxes are needed to fund the social system, and if you don't manage to balance it out good, your country will make debts.
But then, we see that the US as the major almost completely capitalistic country make debts too.
However, that notion has been eroded by a good number of different things. The people in power like to stay in power and if they are going to die, then nepotism often keeps the money in the family. Gone are the days where the U.S. was a place that produces things; things that other places want. This is why the Iraqi War did nothing to help the economy, the money involved was just passed from government to those who already have the power, and even then, the jobs that might have been generated from that money were outsourced to locations abroad that cost the companies less overall even if the end result was shoddy.
It's pretty easy to become jaded after being hoodwinked over this time. There's no real trust given by the actual people of America, even when the actual truth is laid bare in front of them, since being able to comprehend that reality from the false ones that they have been chasing all this time is difficult. But it's still easier to believe that you just need that one big break to make it (why so many play the lottery), then to think that maybe there needs to be some concepts of Socialism injected into the mix.
I think we're resilient enough to pick up the pieces, as long as those still clutching onto the last grips of power with their cold dead hands would rather take down the entire country with them than allow anyone else to succeed, or heaven forbid new, more fair-minded individuals take their place. Small businesses FTW -- they're gonna be providing the cornerstone of our new economy; I think they need to be if we're gonna get out of this mess in the long run
But yea, there's good capitalism and there's bad capitalism, we have the bad right now, companies goals are to make profits without regard to the devastation and deaths it does to their countries, like cancers.
Good capitalism is the right to make profits by providing desirable (fair) services or products, period.
No war profiteering- because you kill and alienate future customers, risking ending the world too.
No bilking people with endless fees and rate hikes, because they will revolt, and drains the economy.
No feeding people toxic food, customers get sick & die faster- eventually the producers will have no real food either.
etc. etc. just one stupid line of idiocy launched one after the other.
And just like each other, they're completely buttfucked by human nature; communism by the simple reason of greed, and capitalism by a whole bunch of smaller issues such as inheritence, legal loopholes, and various natural issues with the whole free market thing.
I mean seriously, I love my music, but in what universe should somebody writing songs for casual entertainment get paid more than somebody producing life-saving medicine?
Either way, the perfect system doesn't exist. We've just got to find what's best, and I'm far too jaded to give my opinion on what's best. Leave that to someone more passionate, and less idealistic.
I must say there's another aspect concerning what you said that puzzles me though (perhaps because I'm not from the US). From what I've seen (and besides the propaganda permeating the media, be it large business interests, fear-mongering or remnants from the 50's), it seems to me that while americans overall are proud of their democracy they seem to have this adversarial atitude towards goverment, almost as if it was a necessary evil as it where.
I mean the goverment which is the extension of the people's will and is answerable to them every X years is seen with suspicion and distrust (if not outright hostility and paranoia), and big companies and whatnot are trusted with pensions, healthcares, etc when they aren't answerable to anything other than their major shareholders and whose responsabilities are not to costumers or employees, but rather the bottom line.
And this is not even going into the socialism=comunism=fascism that seems so prevalent in north american political rethorics.
"ZOMG! OF COURSE IT IS! THE NAZIS HAD SOCIALIST IN THEIR NAME! PROOOF!"
Guess what? The full name of North Korea is Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Shall I use it and Kim Jong-il as the shining example of democracy? :P
one could say that up until recently, the majority of the country was granted the luxury of being able to live almost completely independently of others, and thus have a lesser-developed sense of social good / public good than places with less open spaces and shared resources. Now, though, over 50% of Americans live in urban settings for the first time ever. So, the individualist mentality is only just beginning to be tempered by the realities of living in a society.
Also to clarify that last statement before anyone flames me. :P
I'm not criticizing US foreign policy with that last remark. What I mean is atitudes like "We don't want legislation that forces us to have smaller, more fuel eficient cars, 'cause that's unamerican. We like big gaz guzzlers and not wimpy euro or asian cars" (Ok I exagerated as an example, but it still stands).
I understand that some groups (republicans I think, well in theory at least) shy away from that because it's a direct intervention from the goverment on the private lives of the citizen, and here we go back to our previous statement, and that is demonized because "ZOMG IT LEADS TO DICTATORSHIP!!" (nevermnd that has never been one in the US, and I dare say most there don't know what it is to live in one. For my part my country was one until 75). However in order for a society to prosper as a whole the less goverment intervention there is, the more social responsability there needs to be, otherwise t'would be just an oligarchy of the wealthy.
Ironicaly the epitome of no goverment intervention and full social responsability is.... everyone say with me now.. anarchy! :P
On the subject of the relationship between sociology and urban density it becomes particulary interesting when you study developed countries with a high urban density (japan, china, india). Looking at them you see a society that in order to curb indivualistic temperament flares, it inculcates a very formal and ritualized way of life that permeates all aspects of society. I daresay though that this isn't as much the goverment forcing itself on the people (well in India and Japan anyway) as more of a cultural evolution derived by societal and geographical pressures.
I daresay as population increases worldwide places with a more comunal and cooperative mindset will be more fit to work as a society than a culture of a individualistic and competitive mindset.
Or the individualistic and competitive will simple start a war and wipe some people in order to make space :P
On a more serious note I'd like to see how the US would adapt to those situations. The cases of Japan and India and China had the advantage of a ritualized culture far before the great urban developments, but the US was formed almost as an oposition to the ideas of ritual and tradition. I believe what the US is going through now is the growing pains of a being trying to define itself as a result of a changing world.
I hope there's a newspaper you can publish this in.
It seems to me that humanity are experts of taking an ideal and making a complete balls-up of it.
In a sense the communists are still a danger, not militarily but by our dependence on their cheap products infiltrating every single aspect of our lives.
The Chinese routinely send us goods poisoned with lead, melamine, and other assorted nasty things, I see this as an act of aggression.
I am not certain the question should be good capitalism vs bad capitalism, rather Good socialism vs bad socialism. America has already adopted the bad form of socialism in the form of bail outs that benefit only the rich.
Any bailouts for small family owned business? No, only the damned Oligarchy benefits.
If America actually did value capitalism these failed criminal organizations would be allowed to die as they deserve, leaving room for someone with vision to pick up the slack.
It's that the word capitalism has become yet another corruptible political dogma which encapsulates the academic notion of the pure economic system. The same basic idea of the corruption of the word applies to the word socialism, but in order to draw the parallels without fighting reader bias, I wanted to start the argument by establishing this fact only after I made the convincing argument that this is actually what capitalism has become, too.
Capitalism,in it's purest form and left unopposed,would create a group of "super rich" elites who could basically buy their way out of anything. Need a new liver? Pay someone to kill somebody who has a matching liver. Sex with a child? Screw the kid and then offer the parents whatever sum they want to keep their mouths shut.
Likewise,socialism in it's purest form and left unopposed,would allow noone to excel or truly gain from the fruits of their labor. Think about it. Someone knows how to run a factory and make a lot of money should be rewarded for their excellence,right? Not under socialism. The workers need their "fair share",regardless of how much effort they put forth,and if you get too much money,you have to share it with people who sit on their asses all day. How is that fair?
Communism. Ugh. First off,it wasn't even finished. Secondly,a good chunk of it was hijacked by 2 bit dictators to pay lip service to the poor dumb suckers they conned into going along with this crap. I really don't want to go into what's wrong with that.
No "pure form ideal" will ever work in real life because it's an ideal. What people would like it to be,not what it'll become once it's introduced to the hard realities of the world. Like "sometimes there's just not enough to go around" and "some people will always try to screw the system to get ahead".
In summation,it's not just capitalism that doesn't work on it's own. Communism and socialism also don't work on their own. It's more realistic to work towards a society that's fairer to everyone. Those who put forth the effort and prove to be good leaders should be in charge. Those who are fine with just being the cogs in the machine should be allowed to live a full,if not as rich,life without being treated like slaves.
In other words,capitalism needs to understand that certain concepts are fundamental to the American way of life. Things like "all men are created equal" and "of the people,by the people,for the people". These were concepts that existed before socialism and communism were ever introduced and I'd sick of seeing people claiming one or the other is the "sole property" of these hackneyed rip offs.
I'd mainly disagree with this only because I can understand that is what many people believe socialism does in practice -- however, it is a perversion of the actual doctrine, one I'm inclined to believe was a criticism manufactured purely by its detractors. It's not about so much a "fair share" as it is a "fair opportunity", at least from what I can understand regarding that subject.
As for the founding principles like "all men are created equal", I do think that sorta thing is completely compatible with what I said above. I think we're all born with practically all the same ability to carve our niche as everyone else, but whether or not we're all given the same opportunity to do so is another matter, and a hotly debated topic in American politics is whether or not this is true, and if it is, what to do about it.
In other words,why spend 8 years in college to be a doctor if you're going to make the same money as a janitor? Sure,there's altruism,but altruism doesn't hold up when you're working your butt off to get a job with more stress and responsibility and no real rewards.
It's compatible because socialism is a cheap rip off of the American founding fathers' ideals. It's the dime store knock off. The poorly thought out copy cat of the game of the year. The thinly veiled "tribute" to a better song stuck in a poser's new release. Socialism just sucks. Yes,the current system could be "fairer" in how money is distributed. But without the rewards for excellence,which things like socialism ignore,it simply won't do anything good for us.
While I agree that networking's important for everyone to do, I don't believe in nepotism or cronyism, and all forms of "the hookup" will eventually lead to this, which is why it leads to social problems where people (despite the best of their ability and hard work) can't get where some of the bigshots get. That's not social darwinism, that's discrimination, straight up.
I hope you're not arguing that there are such a thing as "better people". I never argued that a doctor should make as much as a janitor -- doctors have to invest a LOT of money and effort into their education, and the pay back is a result of the hard work they put into their investment. Of course, not everyone has the money to make that investment, or is even allowed to get a loan to make one!
Finally, about the last thing you said.... I'm not sure you understand what I said about socialism at all in my article, and I hope that one of these days you'll eventually re-evaluate some of your stereotypes and misconceptions about it. Otherwise, we're gonna keep getting into these kinds of disagreements, and after a while I get tired of trying to teach people one-on-one if they don't show any interest in learning because their opinion's set based on some misconceived deep-seated notion/value/whatever.
Not that I'm saying that's what you've got going here, but whenever you mention some simple-minded point bashing a notion without really backing it up (or backing it up based on demonstrably false pre-conceptions), it leads me to believe that I'll never get you to respect a level of intelligent discourse beyond a certain point...
We have tons of scholarships to give to those how have the ability but not the means a decent education. We do what we can with what we have. And no system is perfect. When you find an error in the system and someone who'd be great at something slips through the cracks,you make some noise. You alert those in charge of what happened or you try to change the system. But even then,you end up changing the system and someone else gets screwed. There's no perfect system. That's why it's important for you,the average citizen,to do your duty and help out when these hiccups come along.
And lets talk about the social angle. You have a company. There's a job opening in the higher ups. You've narrowed it down to 2 people. They both have about the same ability. However,one is loud,rude,coarse,smug,and grates on your nerves worse than anyone you've ever met. The other is polite,soft spoken,funny,and even when he disagrees with you,he's insightful and polite. He's the kind of person who makes friends easily. And most businesses are socially inclined as most people like to work with people they like. Who are you going to hire?
We can't remove the social side of economics. You hire a business partners kid,you get a discount on the stuff you buy from him. You hire the kid. You want to make it in business,you better be ready to make some friends. And sometimes,friends do things for friends. And as much as idealize socialism,you're still not going to get away from that.
As for socialism,there's 2 things you need to bare in mind. A) What you consider socialism and what other socialists think socialism is can be 2 different things. There's at least 4 different "main" branches of socialism and I've barely started looking! So it's unwise to assume what you consider socialism to be to be the same as what someone else considers socialism to be. B) As the documents of 1776 were written over 200 years ago and socialism appeared in the late 1800s, you tell me who's ripping off whom there. Same ideas,one seems to be written by intelligent men who valued freedom and liberty and the other was written by retards who felt sorry for every jackass who sold them a sob story.
The opportunity is already there. You just have to make something of it.
I don't want you to be naive and think everyone's got an equal opportunity and that maybe one or two slip through the cracks and that's "okay". We've got systemic social problems that can only be resolved by taking proactive community stances.
Now if we can agree that as a society we should at least take a little responsibility in terms of mitigating the negative aspects of human behavior (like say, having the rule of law, having a national defense, having some form of social safety nets like bankruptcy, etc), I think we can have an honest discussion on how to achieve goals on how to improve our society. There are indeed a bunch of different kinds of socialism, and the word's been muddied up a lot lately, which is the whole point of my article. I'm referring to the modern implementations of Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism (two different things, one is more liberal with the open market than the other) that we see in places like Germany and France really moreso than stuff like Marxism or Trotskyism or anything like that. I hope I made most of that clear in the article.
BTW, the whole concept of socialism seems to be appropriate for the time period it was conceived, just like the founding documents of our country -- but they are living documents, not things set in stone which were intended for idol worship. You have to understand that during the industrial revolution there was quite a bit of things happening with regards to the shifting of money and power bases in the world. It was the beginning of the death of kings and the birth of the corporation, and as lassiez-faire capitalism was nearing its peak was also the height of interest in socialism worldwide (including in this country, where the socialist party made significant inroads in the election of 1912 before their candidate was later imprisoned for opposing the war). The concept of socialism wasn't found to be particularly workable once the word was used to associate union workers with anarchy and violence, so the language was dropped and the better aspects of the ideas leftover were tempered into stuff like the New Deal later on after the stock market crashed. It's all interesting stuff, but I'm worried that by the time I'd be old enough to have my hypothetical kids in school the revisionists will have made sure all this crap isn't covered in the civics books and the New Deal will be spun to sound like it prolonged the Depression instead of alleviated the pressure of its long-term effects.
sheeeesh, but I digress....
I'm all for a safety net,but even the best safety nets fail sometimes. I'm not saying you should be ok with people slipping through the cracks,I'm saying you should know that it *will* happen regardless of how well make you think a system is. This is why people need to stay aware and on the look out for it. When society fails,we,as decent human beings,must step up and get proactive on this thing's hinder. The system can't cover everything without ruling every aspect of our lives. And frankly,I don't want that as it takes away my freedom to be me.
Plus,even with a safety net,noone likes to fall. What it boils down to is that sometimes massive community changes aren't necessary. Sometimes,what it needs is someone to say "Hey,this guy needs help" and alerting people to their problem. So given the choice between having to interact with my fellow human beings and having a security camera in my ass,I think I'll take the social interaction deal.
So I'm going you one better. We don't need to take responsibility "as a society",we need to take responsibility for ourselves individually first. We need to make sure our own wants and needs are covered before we go trying to help anyone else. Once that's done,then we can help whoever with whatever. We're not helping anyone if we're a fucked up wreck.
All too often I see jackasses claiming that "we need to do more as a society" while their home life goes down the crapper. Remember Cindy Sheehan,who's son died in Iraq and she got really into the anti-war movement? While she was out protesting,her marriage fell apart,she hasn't been spending time with her other kids,and she's basically alienated herself from anyone who doesn't support her groups' ideals. She threw her private life away for a public one. So now her family's out a wife/mom and a son/brother. And that's going to have repercussions down the line for them.
Sometimes,it's not society's fault. Sometimes,it's just ours. And people need to man up and accept that. If you run people off,it's not society's fault you're lonely,it's yours. If you refuse to learn how to stick to a budget,it's not society's fault you're broke,it's yours. If you can't understand what that fancy language on that legally binding contract means,you probably shouldn't sign it.
In the end,I think our society's greatest failure was in trying to do too much for people rather than making them learn how to do it themselves.
Yeah, I don't like niggers either.
The government has recently stated they want people to buy more fuel efficient cars an manufacturers to start producing them.
Then GM almost declares bankruptcy, gets bailed out by the government, and continues to produce low gas-mileage trucks and suvs, while saturn makes cars and vehicles Americans want and can afford as well as fuel efficient, and GM now plans to buy them out and convert their plants to produce more SUVs and trucks.
You can see how, in retrospect, this might be viewed a bit as a failure.
Honestly, I'm a bit hazy on the whole bank bailout thing and who got bailed out exactly. The jist of it that I got was extortion.