What you fail to understand is that we just don't want to have anything to do with Socialism. Socialism is better for those needy clingy feely people who cannot survive on their own. What is mine is mine.
I'd be curious to know how true that really is. I used to be a member of the NDP years ago, and in the group I'd met, most were middle or even upper-middle class. Most also had university degrees. That said, most also appeared to have little experience of poverty.
But then the question is, if socialism is so beneficial to the poor, why was the NDP failing to attract the poor among their ranks?
I remember one meeting where the grat concerns being discussed were all very much middle class concerns, even though they tended to think of them as issues concerning the poor. For example, one discussion was about how much bus passes for students aught to be subsidized. Well, if you're dirt poor, you're not a student.
Yet all their discussions more or less went the same way. When I'd first joined the NDP, it was mainly out of a concern to help the really poor (i.e. those in third world countries, and of course a few of the really poor here in Canada). Ironically enough, most of the people there were in favour of protectionism to protect high paying Canadian jobs at the expense of workers in the third world. Of course it was all couched in social justice rhetoric like protecting the poor in those countries from capitalist exploitation in our countries. Yeah right. I'm sure most of them would prefer being exploited at dirt poor wages than have no work at all. And of course the most vocal of the group were union workers. But honest, it really was about social justice. Hmmm... right?!
Then you have the issue of amateur economics. For instance, wanting to raise the minimum wage even if it does price some people out of the market. While I may not be against a minimum wage in principle, it has to go hand in hand with skills training to raise the employability of the unemployed at the new minimum wage. After all, seeing that minimum wage legislation actually legislates the most vulnerable out of work, certainly no government ought ot have a moral right to pass such legislation without taking responsibility for those it legislates out of work. If people could sue the tovernment for such stupid legislation, the minimum wage would be repealed quickly. And besides, if quality education is offered to the poor, they'll be able to earn a higher income, minimum wage or not. Looking at it that way, minimum wage leglislation is purely redundant, not to mention it encourages inflation to counter its negative effects, thus bringing its positive effects to nought, and forcing the poor who can't hedge against inflation to take the brunt of the impact.
Another example of quasi-scientific economics at work is rent ceilings. Again, well intentioned, but totally ignorant of market economics. Rent prices drop, rental companies make less profit and so are no longer interested in building ore apartments, so construction companies move on to other things. And if we consider that one reason for the cost of rentals was the excessively high ratio of demand to supply, then clearly forcing the price down will raise the demand (as more people want to rent) and reduce the supply (as incentive to buildmore such unites is gone) Sooner or later, corruption builds in as landlords have no incentive to maintain proterties and tenants start offering 'key fees' or other 'bribes' to landlords, as they are desperate to find an apartment. Eventually the system collapses and the government has no choice but to raise the ceiling to fix the problem, and then prices skyrocket until the market eventually adjusts again. Paris France, Ney York NY, and Toronto ON have all suffered the same fate with rent ceilings.
While I'm not against socialistic ideas per se, and can certainly acknowledge their good intentions in many cases, good intentions alone are not what makes the world go round. Now of course pure realism devoid of any caring for one's fellow man will destroy this world too no doubt. The trick though is to create a system that is based on sound science on the one hand, while being infused with a sence of justice and compassion on the other. A blance has to be reached. I think John Stuart Mill (
John Stuart Mill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) was onto something when he talked of economic democracy (
Economic democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), essentially a form of corporatism, albeit a more progressive version.
While some on the radical left might view any kind of social corporatism as a sellout of the socialist ideal, I see it as a pragmatic balance between two extremes.
Besides, if we look at so-called social-democratic countries that have had some success, they were not extreme socialist, but were more than willing to find common ground between labour and management, and were not particularly interested in pitting labour against management. They recognized that management itself was needed to ensure an efficient economic system.
Anyway, I kind of diverged here a ltittle, but so be it.
Which explains why some people believe that socialism will work.
However,human nature is what it is.
Now it may be possible, in theory at leat, to develop an education system that could turn out a nation of moral people. However, even if that is possible, then we are faced with the question of whether socialism would be needed in such a system. After all, people would so willingly share their recourses that we'd have social justice without socialism anyway. So it's a double-edged sword. If the people are not ready for socialism, it won't work; and if they are ready for it, they won't need it.
Socialism does not involve ''spending other peoples money in order to survive".
You again refer to State Capitalism as Socialism, which apparently you cannot understand, because you blatantly ignore our *rational* arguments.
"Human nature is what it is"? Human nature does not apply. Human nature means survival instincts, etc. which, as it so happens, can be ignored. As we ignore fear, we can ignore other ''natural occurrences''.
Maybe if you weren't so extremely individualist, you'd wake up and see that not everyone is lazy and selfish... That's just you.
The problem with your ''arguments'' is that they use broken logic, and ill-conceived notions of what Socialism is.
I said it before, and I'll say it again... LEARN WHAT SOMETHING IS *BEFORE* YOU CRITICIZE IT.
OK. Now let's suppose everyone was altruistic and was willing to work, not for pay or profit but as a sense of duty. What would happen if everyone wanted to become a teacher, or a medical doctor, and no one wanted to become a plumber? They'd all be willing to work of course, but only at what they want to do. That might not be laziness, but it sure it pickiness. Yet we need plumbers. So in a purely socialist system, who'd decide who will be the plumber and who will be the doctor?
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm well aware of flaws in the capitalist system. The question though is, do we through the baby out with the bathwater by abandoning capitalism altogether as socialists propose, or do we rather simply try to redirect some of the more harmful aspects of the capitalist system, as some corporatists suggest, while keeping it strong points?
