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> If I'm dismissive it's because we've had a lot of field tests of socialism throughout history, as well as in economic studies, and the results are always poor

> If I'm dismissive it's because we've had a lot of field tests of socialism throughout history, as well as in economic studies, and the results are always poor. It's a dangerous mindset to not examine critically because it is a slippery slope towards communism, the most inhumane type of society responsible for the most deaths in human history (much more than religion). This one sentence already demonstrates that you don't know what the words socialism or communism means.

zxcvvcxz 10y ago
Please do share.
- kmicklas 10y ago
  Socialism = state with social ownership of the means of production Communism = hypothetical end goal of society where the state "whithers away" and class divisions no longer exist Note that people describe themselves as communist since that is their end goal and states describe themselves as socialist since they have not ceased to exist yet.
- baursak 10y ago
  I can try as well. > If I'm dismissive it's because we've had a lot of field tests of socialism throughout history, as well as in economic studies, and the results are always poor. While this may sound like a no-true-Scotsman argument, the most prominent example of a failure, USSR, has quickly (within a few years) moved off course from socialism to totalitarianism and state capitalism [1]. There were never democratically governed workplaces in the Soviet Union. This happened for a variety of reasons, including constant military threats from capitalist countries that naturally pushed the population to rally around autocratic leaders. Same is true for many others. There were successful-looking democratic attempts as well, but those were crushed by capitalists pretty quickly. North Korea's full official name, for example, is Democratic People's Republic of Korea. However, nobody is seriously arguing that democracy doesn't work because North Korea is democratic. However, the same logic somehow fails to apply to communism. > It's a dangerous mindset to not examine critically because it is a slippery slope towards communism, the most inhumane type of society responsible for the most deaths in human history (much more than religion). Citations needed here. Putting aside the fact that no countries in history have actually been communist yet, most claims of "millions deaths under communism" are pretty dubious, counting many deaths without establishing causal effect. For example, Chinese famine deaths are counted as directly caused by communism. If the same methodology were applied to capitalism, you can count many more deaths throughout the world until today -- famines, starvation, easily preventable diseases in capitalist Third World, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

zxcvvcxz 10y ago

Please do share.

kmicklas 10y ago
Socialism = state with social ownership of the means of production Communism = hypothetical end goal of society where the state "whithers away" and class divisions no longer exist Note that people describe themselves as communist since that is their end goal and states describe themselves as socialist since they have not ceased to exist yet.
baursak 10y ago
I can try as well. > If I'm dismissive it's because we've had a lot of field tests of socialism throughout history, as well as in economic studies, and the results are always poor. While this may sound like a no-true-Scotsman argument, the most prominent example of a failure, USSR, has quickly (within a few years) moved off course from socialism to totalitarianism and state capitalism [1]. There were never democratically governed workplaces in the Soviet Union. This happened for a variety of reasons, including constant military threats from capitalist countries that naturally pushed the population to rally around autocratic leaders. Same is true for many others. There were successful-looking democratic attempts as well, but those were crushed by capitalists pretty quickly. North Korea's full official name, for example, is Democratic People's Republic of Korea. However, nobody is seriously arguing that democracy doesn't work because North Korea is democratic. However, the same logic somehow fails to apply to communism. > It's a dangerous mindset to not examine critically because it is a slippery slope towards communism, the most inhumane type of society responsible for the most deaths in human history (much more than religion). Citations needed here. Putting aside the fact that no countries in history have actually been communist yet, most claims of "millions deaths under communism" are pretty dubious, counting many deaths without establishing causal effect. For example, Chinese famine deaths are counted as directly caused by communism. If the same methodology were applied to capitalism, you can count many more deaths throughout the world until today -- famines, starvation, easily preventable diseases in capitalist Third World, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism