Two Cents

[madamesilverspurs]

This was in our newspaper's 'your two cents' column this morning:

"Those that think socialism is the way and is so great, I would suggest they go visit an Indian reservation or even Russia. This country was built by those that moved here to escape socialism for freedom."




(((Sigh)))

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[Motown_Johnny]

1. at 2 cents that statement is way overpriced

[mediaman007]

2. What does an Indian reservation have to do with socialism?

Further more Russia is not the socialism capital of the World. I would suggest looking at Norway, Sweden and Finland, where cooperatives exist with capitalism.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. On the other hand, much of my family left Russia/Poland to escape the Tsars!

PS...they all became Democrats. :)

[LiberalLoner]

4. My great-grandfather escaped from Poland for that reason too. :) n/t

[chillspike]

5. Instead of bashing socialism

how about we say that there are good points about both capitalism and socialism and bad points. why does it have to be either or?

It's good that capitalism gives us all this modern technology and conveniences but, let's be fair, there are hugely dehumanizing aspects to capitalism.

And there are living standard problems with socialism.

And they both share a crucial flaw: they both require dependence of the individual on others. capitalism requires dependence of the worker on an employer they don't trust and vice versa.

And socialism requires dependence on the masses. and everybody in both systems gets nervous whenever they think their dependence is being taken advantage of.

this seems to strongly suggest, the problem is Dependence. not good dependence like people helping others. but the bad dependence where people are at the mercy of others who don't have their best interests in mind. if individuals were less dependent on each other, we would have less conflict. but a mixture of capitalism and socialism are the best we have right now and it would be better to balance the two rather than go spinning off too far in one direction. each ideology checks the other. capitalism ensures that we still maintain a certain technological level. and socialism makes sure we don't get too greedy and forget we are in this as a species, not as competitors.

look at history. based on technological advances, past economic systems have been evolved out of existence. the guilds phased out outright slavery for serfdom to a king, the industrial revolution phased out serfdom to a king for the free market system. each time the economic standards improved a little. we can expect no less for capitalism and socialism. as we advance technologically, people will be less dependent on each other and so the old economic systems like, capitalism and socialism, will slowly be phased out. so all this back and forth and hand wringing talking about who is destroying what economic system really doesn't matter. capitalism's own technological advances and products will phase it out of existence to a point where we really won't need money anymore.

just like the industrial revolution phased out the European serfdom, for a better system, technological advances,in their turn, (and rightfully so), will phase out capitalism for a better system. we shouldn't fight that...we should help move it a along... democrats want to do that but republicans are fighting them.

[liberalmuse]

6. I want my money back.

That's just...naw, I'm not going to even try. Need more coffee (and a lobotomy) first.