Socialists?

[ButterBar]

The state has negative qualities and can produce tyrants but no corporation has even gained the level of power required to engage in such systematic abuse (yet) so the point is redundant. However with comparative levels of power they consistantly conduct themselves in morally repulsive ways in contrast with goverment institutions which can do often act altrustically. To put it in context it would be like arguing against the prosecution of an organized by citing police corruption.

I can say the same thing about every government that ever called themselves socialist.

Well i had a quick glance the only soarce on the subject was homicide rates and that shows an overall dramatic net reduction of homocide in the following years, and the added complication of the removal of proabition and the ascendance of the FBI makes it difficult to discern which social event is responsible so you might be right. By contrast Poverty and violent crime are increasingly dramatically within the UK since austerity.

Might have something to do with the "Asians" the UK is importing. Food for thought.

 

[Anti Fanta]

What is this sudden influx of edgy rightist tards about? Do they think this is some kind of safe space for them after they shat up the rest of the internet? Prepare to get mocked and milked from all areas of the political spectrum.

 

[Emperor Julian]

I can say the same thing about every government that ever called themselves socialist.

You can but people will probably make fun of you for it, not in the least because it's difficult to get what you mean by that considering it's a paragraph elaborating on my point. For example if you said "Corporations are bad but no State has ever gained the level of power required to engage in such systematic abuse (yet) so the point is redundant. " makes absolutly no sense.

Might have something to do with the "Asians" the UK is importing. Food for thought.

Well it's tricky to discern why you said "Asians." when they are in fact Asian. I suppose you might mean Muslims. It's a almost certainly incorrect regardless as the states to not correlate since the crime and poverty surge would have been circa 2000-2005 Where "asian" immigration into "Britain" was peak Not 2010-19. Their's something to be said for reducing immigration due to inadequate infrastructure/resoarce levels (which would require a large bureaucracy and increased police funding to control) due to increased pressure on infrastrucuture but your stance in terms of food for though its Mcdonalds-cheap and viscerally satifying but unfilling and unhealthy.

Also it's pretty odd how you keep dropping the key points for tangents as though I won't notice, also one minute comparising socialists to Hitler and then bitching about immigrants within a paragraph is pretty disjointed tonally.

 

[ButterBar]

you for it, not in the least because it's difficult to get what you mean by that considering it's a paragraph elaborating on my point. For example if you said "Corporations are bad but no State has ever gained the level of power required to engage in such systematic abuse (yet) so the point is redundant. " makes absolutly no sense.

I mean that socialism turns out consistently terrible.

Also it's pretty odd how you keep dropping the key points for tangents as though I won't notice, also one minute comparising socialists to Hitler and then bitching about immigrants within a paragraph is pretty disjointed tonally.

Im dropping the tangents for the key points because I just want to get at socialism.

 

[Webby's Boyfriend]

Ye know that socialism has nothing to do with the government controlling the economy or giving away "free stuff"? Socialism is an entirely different economic system, where workers control the means of production.

It is funny when American politicians call countries like Switzerland or Luxembourg "socialist".

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Ye know that socialism has nothing to do with the government controlling the economy or giving away "free stuff"? Socialism is an entirely different economic system, where workers control the means of production.

It is funny when American politicians call countries like Switzerland or Luxembourg "socialist".

Social democracies are quite popular among both conservatives and libs because i've seen both using Sweden, Luxembourg and Denmark as examples of how Socialism "works" or "it's bad". They aren't socialism, but they adotp several ideas like a social "safety net" to care for the people so those people when they find themselves broke, without a job a riddled with diseases they don't chimp out and follow some asshat that preaches that all it's the fault of the Joos or that they should own a company to later run it into the ground.

Btw, these ideas were hatched mostly after WW2, when the ashes of fascism were still burning and the risk of being overrun by commies was awfully high.

 

[Webby's Boyfriend]

They aren't socialism, but they adotp several ideas like a social "safety net" to care for the people so those people when they find themselves broke, without a job a riddled with diseases they don't chimp out and follow some asshat that preaches that all it's the fault of the Joos or that they should own a company to later run it into the ground.

That's the opposite of what real socialism did. In the Eastern Bloc, people who were jobless either got a job from the government and if they refused they found themselves jailed for something "stealing public wealth" and if they became homeless they would be send into re-education camps for being "dissocial".

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

That's the opposite of what real socialism did. In the Eastern Bloc, people who were jobless either got a job from the government and if they refused they found themselves jailed for something "stealing public wealth" and if they became homeless they would be send into re-education camps for being "dissocial".

For what i've learned in school (not from the Eastern Bloc) it would be as you said: you would be given a job by the state and if you didn't worked or were homeless you would be declared an "enemy of the state" for not working towards the betterment of everyone, therefore you and almost by proxy, your family, would become pariahs and probably sent to Syberia.

And as sweet as this would sound to many, the "everyone gets a job" thing was horribly bad because of decreasing efficiency, making production insanely expensive because they had 7 guys making screws instead of 2 that would be optimal. As well, as long as you fullfilled the "production quota" you would be awarded the same "payment" as if you surpassed it, therefore making workers doing the barebones necessary to get paid and not increasing production unless Moscow wanted it.

 

[nonvir_1984]

I don't mean in the way of "ben shapiro owns the libs, trigger the feminists" type of socialism, because we all know any of those types get laughed out of here, but I was actually curious if there were any Kiwis here who support redistributing the wealth? We talk so much about capitalism and it's wonders, I'd figure I'd see if there's any in here.

Depends what you mean bu socialism. If you mean: state ownership of the means of production, then sometimes that is good (if there is a natual monopoly) and other times it is very bad. If all you mean is wealth redistribution, then any form of progressive taxation (the higher income earners pay higher tax percentage of their income as tax) amounts to wealth transfer from the well off to the less well off. And most developed economies have that in some form and it seems linked to economic stability, reduction in poverty. And avoiding revolution.

 

[Mrs Paul]

I think a lot of people associate "socialism" with things like the New Deal, the Great Society, Medicare/Medicaid, WIC, foodstamps, etc. Public programs meant to help people, or things like public schools and libraries and such. They're thinking more along the lines of Canada or the UK, rather than China or the USSR.



(And FWIW, I read The Communist Manifesto in college, in a class I took on political philosophy. It was, just as our professor warned us, incredibly dull. As he put it, Marx identified the problem with the Industrial Revolution correctly, but his solution was all fucked up.)

 

[Ashy the Angel]

Socialist Democrat larping as a communist, but I'm all for wealth redistribution, otherwise known as actually taxing the rich at pre-trickle down levels. Its always funny to hear people screech about "m-muh wealth", especially on here. Nobody's coming for your measly retirement fund. The amount of wealth you'd have to have to be considered for higher marginal tax rates would have to be exorbitant, ensuring your boomer bucks are safe and sound. Having higher taxes on the rich doesn't immediately Venezuela a country, source: we did it in the 60s.

In general though I mostly support wider state-funded programs like single payer healthcare and the like. I guess you could say I'm a soft-commie, cognizant of the past failures of the ideology but interested in implementing some of facets of it without the mass killings. That'd be neat.

And as for why an unironic socialist would come here? I simply love hearing the same anti-commie arguments repeated verbatim. Every time it happens I get another feather on my wings.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Socialist Democrat larping as a communist, but I'm all for wealth redistribution, otherwise known as actually taxing the rich at pre-trickle down levels. Its always funny to hear people screech about "m-muh wealth", especially on here. Nobody's coming for your measly retirement fund. The amount of wealth you'd have to have to be considered for higher marginal tax rates would have to be exorbitant, ensuring your boomer bucks are safe and sound. Having higher taxes on the rich doesn't immediately Venezuela a country, source: we did it in the 60s.

In general though I mostly support wider state-funded programs like single payer healthcare and the like. I guess you could say I'm a soft-commie, cognizant of the past failures of the ideology but interested in implementing some of facets of it without the mass killings. That'd be neat.

And as for why an unironic socialist would come here? I simply love hearing the same anti-commie arguments repeated verbatim. Every time it happens I get another feather on my wings.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=K_LvRPX0rGY

I'm all for that too, even when the government parrots the constant threats of "If we tax the rich they will leave the country and take theor wealth with them, leaving us poorer than rats". Come on, we already know the rich pay minimal if not evade taxes completely. At leats here in Europe we know pretty much every millionare around the block sends his money to Switzerland to avoid taxes

 

[ICametoLurk]

If any form of music is examined too closely it will appear either reactionary or bourgeois.

Classical music is bourgeois on its face. It is certainly not proletarian in nature, as composers are more like craftsmen and wage-laborers, and its history is steeped in fulfilling the desires of the bourgeoisie.

Folk music is generally rather reactionary inherently. One may argue to the contrary, that it is a true music of the people, and, in a sense, this is true. However, it is still reactionary by its own nature.

Rock and pop music able to be both due to its origins in the folk tradition of the blues and propagation by the bourgeois. It retains the misogyny and religiosity, among other things to numerous to list, while lacking the communal ownership and non-commodification.

I will share an anecdote: Cornelius Cardew was a musician who began as a student of modernist classical music. He composed serialist 12-tone music and computer music, before moving into composing and performing improvisational and aleatory music. In a moment of epiphany, he disavowed his mentor Karl Stockhausen and nearly all of his previous work, on the grounds it was bourgeois, and dedicated himself to writing show-tune-like songs meant for working class consumption and the spreading of communist messages that he called "People's Liberation Music." At the same time, he rejected rock music, calling David Bowie, The Clash, and the punk movement as a whole, fascist.

The True Socialist lifestyle is to ban all music.

 

[PantsOfDesire]

Socialist Democrat larping as a communist, but I'm all for wealth redistribution, otherwise known as actually taxing the rich at pre-trickle down levels.

The reality is that the federal tax take as a percentage of GDP hasn’t changed much when these rates vary, making high tax rates a pretty poor way to supposedly take money from people to give to others.

The morality aside, going back to historical tax codes would be unlikely to do what you say it would.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Honestly? At the end of the day I don't really care what programs people want as long as I'm not paying a cent more for them. If people want to be charitable, I'm of the belief you should donate directly. Why people want a government bureaucracy to handle everything boggles the mind.

Single payer healthcare? Fine, but don't increase my taxes anymore than I'm paying in premiums, and don't give me lower quality service.

UBI? I'll always see it as NEETbux, but again if you can make it happen while not increasing my taxes, so be it.

Free College? No higher taxes, delete every bs course, and only people who actually put it to good use (and don't just fuck around), can have it for free.


Oh, and don't resort to tax the rich to the point they leave. Then the taxman just comes for the middle class.

Social Security needs a good axing though. Tired of paying into that ponzi scheme. Maybe they can delete some redundant welfare programs to help fund these ones? Who knows, I'm just some random guy with bills to pay, so don't reach into my wallet further.

 

[ICametoLurk]

No really in Eastern Europe the people who want Socialism back are old people who yell about muh degeneracy. Jazz was considered Fascist. People I've met who like Eastern Germany hate Western Socialists who are so soaked up with Liberalism and are no fun allowed Conservatives.

I think they joined West Germany because there was a Punk movement coming up in the 80's and Germany is a very Conservative nation.

 

[DogEatDogFood]

As an unironic socialist, I think that people that want the Soviet Union again are fucking retards. It was an ineffective authoritarian burocratic state run by an elite of intelectuals close to the party. Hell, the fucking workers didn't even run their own fucking factories: it was all a monopoly of the state. And that not mentioning all the genocides commited on the all the etnicities (Volga's Germans, Ukranians, Chechens). The funny part is that even other fucking leftists criticized the Soviet Union for being an authocratic clusterfuck. Even lefties from Eastern Europe fucking despise the Soviets for the things they have done to their countries. So yeah, not a big fan of "muh real socialism"