General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If you don't like socialism, then your complaint should be with Republicans who overplay "socialism" [View all]Farmer-Rick
(10,153 posts)How many times was capitalism tried before it finally suppressed slavery? The US had a war to stop the pillage of the uber rich slave owners but other countries did it slowly and gradually without country wide wars.
And any socialist country still must deal with foreign capitalist economies that don't want to see it succeed. And must fight off capitalist kings that economically and politically attack them.
I agree the government owning the means of production doesn't work. But like I said, there are other ways for We The People to own the means of production and distribute the profits from the fruit of our labor. Just because Russia corrupted their system doesn't mean every socialist system has to be corrupted. Just like our corrupted democracy doesn't mean every democracy has to be corrupted.
Our government right now is doing economic planning even if it denies being socialist. Right now oil corporations, farmers and Nike are getting federal subsidies. Right now, if I ship jobs to India or become a church, I will get a tax deduction. Tariffs and taxes are economic planning. Almost every country in the world does some amount of economic planning. We all know there is no such thing as "free" markets because you must have a government to prevent theft and provide for safe transportation, if nothing else, for a market to survive.
Socialism would merely bring this out in the open and allow for debate over our economic priorities. Do we really want to continue subsidizing oil monopolies or do we want to move to renewable energy? I bet 80% of citizens don't even know Nike and Exxon Mobile are getting such huge subsidies.