"socialism means public programs funded by all society (socially funded), that can be enjoyed by everyone regardless of wealth."
No, that is welfare, social programs, redistributionism, etc. Not true socialism.

subsidized education is a failure. subsidized medical care is a failure. price controls had the complete opposite effect. farm subsidies only inflate the cost of any product that comes from agricultural pursuits. Any and all forms of socialism have failed. Communism is a lie. Communism is death.

I believe you're mixing subsidies with government controlled sectors...

Gvt controlled health is a success, in France, Canada and the UK.
Gvt controlled education is a success, in Germany, Finland and Norway.

Just cause it don't works in your country, you shouldn't say it doesn't work at all.

It doesn't work. I recommend you read Thomas Sowells' Basic Economics

I recommend you to read stats comparison between the US and any other industrialized country.

Already have its a failure.

Economy is magic, and I don't understand the magic too well. But just a few notes: just about every country today has some kind of kind of socialist policies: police, public schools, roads, so on. And also, there is a positive corelation with living standard and suicide rate.

Also, long live the right.

Edited 2/10/2016 01:32:34

Police, public schools, etc are not truly socialist. That is a leftist-propagated lie to make socialism sound better.

Police, public schools, etc are not truly socialist. That is a leftist-propagated lie to make socialism sound better.

No...anything funded by taxes is a socialist institution.

Not true.

The idea of a government is too protect people directly. Education will not directly protect people. Cops will.

Government=/=socialism

A government is socialist if it takes taxes. Cops, military forces, teachers, all paid by everyone, not (really) paid by anyone. Absolute capitalism will not force you to pay anything, while absolute communism will force you to pay for everything, but you don't have to buy anything.

Edited 2/13/2016 03:55:56

A government is socialist if it takes taxes.

So when did the US government become socialist? After the passage of the 16th Amendment? Or was it always socialist by your argument?

Whenever taxes became mandatory law. America, like all modern governments, is kind of socialist.

Edited 2/13/2016 05:36:16

So... can anyone tell me, from an economic point of view, whats the difference between a socialist and a so-called democratic socialist?

Edited 2/13/2016 13:20:53

Well, just saying, Жұқтыру, you have said a lot of crap now, but I won't correct you, there's answers for what you said in this topic.


@Pulsey:

A (real) socialist defends the idea of an omnipotent government where every mean of production (agriculture, mining, industries,...) is controlled by the gvt. Therefore the government will have a huge control over the economy.
-Good points on this: less economic disparity, the prices of products is lower as there's no benefits to be made, everyone has equal chances to get a top job as schools are public and well funded by the state, healthcare is free,...
-The problem with socialism is mostly the lack of free market and competition it implies, therefore, as the state has the monopoly and the companies don't target benefits, they will lose in innovation and productivity and gain in bureaucracy. Also, to implement socialism, the government must impose the change to the society, it may lead to violent repression of any resistence to nationalizations, the final consequence of this might be the rise in power of dictators and a very repressive government, aka USSR of Stalin.


Democratic socialism is way better then socialism, it keeps some of the socialist aspects, but avoid liberties been lost and rise of a dictatorship
-Good points: free healthcare of quality, a lot of spend in public education, small inequalities, a strong regulation on the free market and government ownership of actions in companies (we'll see public-private companies),... there's also still private schools and hospitals, and there's sectors of the economy with no government ownership, which is not likely to happen in socialism. There's also a strict respect of human rights and liberties, as well as the respect of competition: if a public company isn't as good as a private one, the private will get the project...
-Bad points: there's still a small ammount of productivity being lost and state owned companies will often have hard times to compete against private ones for equal jobs (even if it's not a big problem). The hardest thing for democratic socialist countries is the concurrence with other countries with less "socialist" societies. As an exemple, France gives a lot of benefits for its workers and citizens, which is great, but loses in competitivity to Germany, who gives almost nothing to it's citizens. The globalized world is a problem to democratic socialist countries as their citizens have a high acquisitive power, but companies prefer to go to china rather then pay these workers the "right price".


So as a resumee, I'll give you a quote of Churchill, "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

I'll say democratic socialism is the system who favorizes the equal share of blessings.

Socialist countries: USSR, Cuba (a few years ago), North Korea,...
Democratic socialist countries: Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Canada, France,...

Well, just saying, Жұқтыру, you have said a lot of crap now, but I won't correct you, there's answers for what you said in this topic.

Way to be nice.

I was using the broadest meaning of socialism - any country that somehow respreads the money, most often in the form of services (school, military forces, so on). The narrow and more used meaning is where you pay 50% income taxes, but have loads and loads of thing given to you as public respreading (food, taxicabs, so on).

I actually with Жұқтыру to a certain extent, although I'm going to try to refine his definition of socialism. I don't think we can call services that are non-class or racial specific, socialist policies. For example, infrastructure such as highways cut across economic lines and can be considered a public good. I think socialism is truly socialism when money is taken from some to help some (i.e. welfare for the poor or affirmative action for minority students).

No.

That would mean feudalism is a sort of socialism.

How so?

my Lord Genghis has sent me with one question for all of you "What is this cancer?"