Is true socialism possible?

[scottycelt]

Happy New Year, Simon! If I may address your opening question directly:



Do we really exist? Socialism, like all -isms, are ideological abstractions. As a natural scientist, I prefer models, not to mention the occasional supermodel. Due to unprecedented demand from around the world, here are some economic supermodels for everyone reading The Radio 3 Forum this weekend:

1. SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour.

2. COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

3. FASCISM

You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

4. NAZISM

You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

5. BUREAUCRATISM

You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away ...

6. TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

7. SURREALISM

You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

8. THE c PLAN

You have two cows. You offer one of them a drink, and then ask the other one to dance. If it is kleines c, he invites you to skate at Somerset House this weekend with the rest of the gang.

http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/

He tells you that it is an intense pleasure. Both cows agree. They have both metamorphosed themselves into supermodels. The one on the left looks very attractive, Simon. Not to your taste, however? I am sure that scottycelt would be up for it this morning, even if he cannot make it to Somerset House tonight! I propose some toast: to scottycelt! Three cheers from kleines c (breakfast coffee)!

Welcome to the forum, kleines ... still on breakfast coffee, I see!

Ah, sweet memories of the old days ...

[Lateralthinking1]

Now that we are facing climate change, 7 is the only one that is sustainable.

[Beef Oven]

In your fishy dreams matey
the problem with 6 is that you have to steal someone elses' land to keep them on

Nothing's perfect

[ardcarp]

#132

9. POST STALINIST SOVIET COMMUNISM
The cows are required to spend 19 hours each day in the classroom being educated about their duty to convert grass into milk. The classroom floor is concrete.

[Mandryka]

There is a short answer to the OP's question and it is an emphatic NO.

Socialism is impractical and inhuman: it fails to acknowledge - indeed ignores - the fundmanetal fact of human nature, namely that man is a competitive animal.

Any attempt to deny that fact can only lead to disaster, in the long term. That is why all (and I mean ALL) socialist governments ultimately fail.

Capitalism is by no means perfect, but it is the 'least worst' economic system that man has evolved.

Only yetereday, I returned from a visit to Russia (Moscow) - a country that has suffered, perhaps more than any other, from the 'heartless tyranny of ideas' imposed by Lenin, Dhzerzinsky, Stalin and their left-wing pals. I am not in any mood to listen to know-nothing western apologists for THE WORST TYRANNY EVER INFLICTED UPON A PEOPLE IN HUMAN HISTORY.

[kleines c]

c

[MrGongGong]

There is a short answer to the OP's question and it is an emphatic NO.

Socialism is impractical and inhuman: it fails to acknowledge - indeed ignores - the fundmanetal fact of human nature, namely that man is a competitive animal.

Any attempt to deny that fact can only lead to disaster, in the long term. That is why all (and I mean ALL) socialist governments ultimately fail.

Capitalism is by no means perfect, but it is the 'least worst' economic system that man has evolved.

Only yetereday, I returned from a visit to Russia (Moscow) - a country that has suffered, perhaps more than any other, from the 'heartless tyranny of ideas' imposed by Lenin, Dhzerzinsky, Stalin and their left-wing pals. I am not in any mood to listen to know-nothing western apologists for THE WORST TYRANNY EVER INFLICTED UPON A PEOPLE IN HUMAN HISTORY.

This is so simplistic and blinkered in so many ways that it's probably not worth starting .............
apart from to say that those who think that there are somehow only 2 ways of doing things are suffering from a "poverty of ideas"
and of course EVERYTHING fails apart from ..................

but I expect the same response that I got from my ridiculous head teacher when I questioned things as a teenager
"So you must be a communist then"

[amateur51]

This is so simplistic and blinkered in so many ways that it's probably not worth starting .............
apart from to say that those who think that there are somehow only 2 ways of doing things are suffering from a "poverty of ideas"
and of course EVERYTHING fails apart from ..................

but I expect the same response that I got from my ridiculous head teacher when I questioned things as a teenager
"So you must be a communist then"

But Mandy's been to Moscow, MrGG

[Beef Oven]

Now that we are facing climate change, 7 is the only one that is sustainable.

Lat!
Surely a man of your intellect, curiosity, fastidious research, resilliance and analytical powers hasn't bought the global warming myth

[kleines c]

c

[Beef Oven]

Some like it hot, Beef Oven.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OhdD5n405I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kE5k-V3lfg

[Bryn]

Lat!
Surely a man of your intellect, curiosity, fastidious research, resilliance and analytical powers hasn't bought the global warming myth

Which particular global warming myth would that be? The one that it's all a fiction, or the one that it is happening but that there is no significant anthropogenic component?

[Beef Oven]

Which particular global warming myth would that be? The one that it's all a fiction, or the one that it is happening but that there is no significant anthropogenic component?

I'm not sure what you are asking - I don't know what anthropogenic means

[kleines c]

c

[Mandryka]

This is so simplistic and blinkered in so many ways that it's probably not worth starting .............
apart from to say that those who think that there are somehow only 2 ways of doing things are suffering from a "poverty of ideas"
and of course EVERYTHING fails apart from ..................

but I expect the same response that I got from my ridiculous head teacher when I questioned things as a teenager
"So you must be a communist then"

OK, so can you point me to any SUCCESSFUL socialist governments? - ie, ones that have left office with employment HIGHER than it was when they took office, who have been capable of running nationalised industries effectively AND improving civil liberties? No, thought not....

As Ernest Benn (more sensible uncle of the egregious red fascist 'Tony') wrote in the 'twenties: 'The communist kills with a crow-bar; the 'democratic' (my italics) socialist wtih ground glass Their methods differ but their effect is the same: destruction' (from his book, Confessions Of A Capitalist).

Besides which, capitalism has never been more popular than it is today, despite its failings being all to obvious. Socialism, by contrast, remains festering in the dustbin of history.