You're confused. There has never been a socialist society outside hunter gatherers.

Even the USSR had the Soviet party which was a commercial entity enriching individual people who controlled those assets.

Anything with a "vanguard " is leninist, stalinism, and maoism, not socialism. These are all different ideologies.

If you want to anal with definitions then lets.

I'm American and support a mixed economy like we have.

This post was edited by Skinned on Sep 23 2019 05:06am

I mean... this is like an easy copout tbh.
There are various different forms of socialism and the USSR was one of them.
If you mean it never achieved it's goal of a communist (stateless, moneyless, classless) society then you'd be right. That was the goal of Marxist socialism at least... and is often the ostensible goal of other attempts at socialism... though other forms of socialism might simply be an end unto themselves. Market socialism is an example.

What you can do is point out that socialism has worked in several countries until another country, usually the US, intervened and either overthrew their government or imposed massive sanctions on them for doing a socialism. See Cuba for example. A country which is still relatively successful in spite of the bullshit the US heaps on them.

Or you can point to revolutionary Catalonia. A functioning anarcho communist society eventually defeated and occupied by the fascists in Franco's spain.

You can also ask whether people think capitalism is working. Often people lay some 45 million deaths at the hands of Mao and point to this as proof that socialism inevitably ends in mass murder. Setting aside the fact that there is not enough evidence to support more than about 8 million deaths as a result of actions taken by the regime, we can compare this number to the amount of deaths under capitalism and see that it is miniscule by comparison.

When socialist nations suffer crisis all are affected and so it is noticed. When capitalist societies suffer crisis the burden is placed on the least noticeable. The poor, the disabled, the mentally ill all bear the brunt of any financial crisis. The great recession claimed millions of lives and policies enacted by capitalist governments in response, such as austerity in the UK, continue to claim lives to this day. Lives that wouldn't be lost under socialism. America continues to let people die instead of giving them the medicine they need to live...

When is a death acceptable? When is it attributable to the governing economic and social philosophy? Seems like the argument between capitalism and socialism is framed in such a way that capitalism gets away with murder where socialism is criticised for any misstep. A prime example is the continuous accusations based around the 'human nature' meme that communism will always breed corruption. Why does capitalism not face this criticism? The corruption in US politics is obvious but has been so obvious it has become acceptable. You no longer call it corruption to buy a politician. It's not a bribe... it's 'lobbying'. Ok.

Look like it's easy to split & polarize things with words.

I think that 1% of people should control and 99% of wealth and that there should also be a monopoly on violence so that nobody can change the status quo.

I think 1% of people should control the 99% and there is a monopoly of violence against anyone that goes against the party. All animals are equal, some are just more equal than the other.

You've given me much to think on friend, starting a new thread and hope to get your input on it

This post was edited by duffman316 on Sep 23 2019 06:33am

Some taste better than others too.


This post was edited by Skinned on Sep 23 2019 06:56am

As a quick reminder we get close to a perfect society when anyone has the knowledge and intellectual capacity to handle the highest positions.

So in our striving for a perfect society, what? We should eliminate all those with low intellectual capacity...or should we lower the standards of the highest positions to accommodate those w/o the intellectual capacity?



/e I mean it's not like "we the people" have any control over people's intellectual capacity.

This post was edited by Ghot on Sep 23 2019 07:23am

Well said