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Well,where do you guys stand? Do you think that a move towards democratic socialism is a sound one for the US?( In light of our recent economic woes) Europeans and Canadians,please chime in. Aaaaaaaand,GOOOOOOO!!!!

I don't want any of it. None of it is working,...we need a complete rethink of how we govern ourselves,...as well as how financial and economic systems work.

Do I have any answers? Fuck no,...I'm too stupid to know how any of the current shit works,....so good luck figuring out alternatives.

warwick.hoy wrote:
Do I have any answers? Fuck no,...BUT I KNOW WHO DOES

fix'd!

I'm into some socialism. Capitalism seems to have failed pretty completely.

aen wrote:I'm into some socialism. Capitalism seems to have failed pretty completely.

The problem with capitalism is that without vigorous intervention from a government entity, it ends up destroying itself. Either that, or you end up with a very small number of players in a cartel, with only the illusion of consumer options.

But then governments always fuck shit up, so they can't be trusted either.

It's a shite state of affairs.

The problem with Capatalism (Well the U.S. version of it anyway) is that the whole system relies on people buying a bunch of crap they don't need. You have to constantly feed the monster or the system breaks down, like our current state of affairs. So now that we are deep into a recession and can't afford our ginsu knives and snuggies and spacebags to store more useless shit, we are screwed.

Socialism on the other hand, to work properly assumes that people can achieve goals such as sharing and equality, which as it has been shown time and time again, that as a sosiety, we can't. The problem is the people at the top always get too greedy and fuck everything up no matter what system is in power.

Yup,....Laissez Faire (sp?) attitude towards corporate regulations eventually turns Demo-Capatilism into Plutocratic Fascism.

But then,...Communism didn't really escape that either now did it (and it failed [or at least the Soviet Union failed] as a result of it's own internal instability and corruption; But James I thought we beat the Russians,....BULLSHIT,...that's just an illusion concocted to unite Americans against a common psuedo-enemy, and vote for whoever was the toughest on that enemy...much like the War on Terrorism is today).

I just wanna be happy with little government or corporate intrusion and the way I do that is by not participating as much as possible and essentially minding my own business and not buying into the Consumerist American Dream.

I buy as much local as possible and try to support decent corporate citizens as well as pay a little more for things that will last a lot longer. If I have the choice between a product that is produced by a local artisan or craftsman, or an antique compared to a modern mass produced piece of shit,...I'll go with the local buy.

Complete avoidance is difficult since I like the internets (comshafst),....I like my iPod,...I like some of the mass produced instruments on the market and sometimes I can only afford the mass produced stuff. Thems the breaks.

As far as our current political process goes,....I don't buy the don't vote can't complain argument. I may vote on initiatives and referendums that I'm willing to research or have vested interest in; but I have no interest in voting for whatever talking head I'm given to choose from. With very few (like a miniscule amount) exceptions they are all the same,...liars and thieves.

In the end it comes down to one variable and that's the human's lust for money,...material goods, bling and wealth,...and nothing will change unless we evolve beyond that.

I will say that capitalism is far and away the most efficient economic model being discussed.

i stand in the middle ( '-')

but yeah, reliance on "cool stuff" has basically given us so much of a taste for commodities that people don't realize just how ingrained buying-things-for-stuff is in our minds and how we operate.

I don't think a discussion of capitalism vs socialism is in order, but a discussion about what government should and shouldn't do is. Because technically speaking there are very few socialist countries outside of north Korea and Cuba.

The less government is good government argument relies on some very unrealistic assumptions about how people behave. In order for less government to be a good alternative people would have to be more active in how community affairs are handled, they'd have to be well informed, they'd have to take responsibility for their actions and they'd have to, basically, not be assholes.

Likewise socialism requires some unrealistic assumptions about the behavior of people, even Marx acknowledged this. In order for socialism to be a good option people would essentially have to care more about "we" than "me." Under socialism a forum based around the effect fuzz would be incredibly boring because one would likely only have one option for fuzz.

While capitalism is the most efficient it certainly can't be called a system of government or fair or just. What the economy in the U.S. needs is more government involvement and a more progressive tax system. Whether that means the government taking over certain industries or just increasing regulation of some industries we can't continue to pretend that corporations are going to behave in a way that benefits everybody, because they don't.

In capitalism we vote with our dollars and in government we vote with our voices. And unlike dollars we each only have one voice, and I'd sooner trust an organization where I have an equal say instead of an organization where it depends on what's in my wallet.

Capitalism isn't a system of government, and I never said it was fair.

But we have to be able to understand both economics and politics before we can describe their interactions and the effects on the populace.

I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out how multi-faceted this discussion is.

Yeah it is very multi-faceted and after double-majoring in economics and poltics I've learned that it's usually best to stay out of these discussions because they're typically far too broad or have some kind of assumed meaning as to what should be discussed.

And I wasn't trying to insinuate that you called capitalism fair or just, I was mostly just pointing out its faults.

All things can be solved by doing the following :

Buy Fuzz

Buy more fuzz.

Eat some pizza

Drink some beer.

America is successful when it blends the best of socialist and capitalist ideas. When we skew too far one way or the other, we fail. Pure capitalism is not the American way.

On a serious note:

As a graduate in US History I can tell you that our "system," has always been broken. This is not a leftist or rightwing statement but my observation from the facts as they presented themselves. Take a look at the state of affairs in England during that time frame and compare that to the present day. In any government system, socialism or capitalism you will have the usual list of suspects of why things are never quite right. Corruption, poor execution of government services, split political parties are just a few of the problems that no only plague us but other governments around the world.

We have socialism in our country now but we choose not too call it out right. Fire, police, highways, schools, are all "social" services operated by the government and paid by the public.

When times are tough the target is always people who have the wealth or power. They protest and riot and when the smoke settles you come to the same question you had before when all of this started. "what now?"

I love our country because it is the only place where I can say what I want and not have an AK 47 pointed too my head afterwards. But what do I know, I sing disney songs and make obnoxious sounds in my studio. However for the people who run with the flag of Howard Zinn and say how we the man is screwing us, my response is, "look at places like Africa and the middle east and then tell me how badly we are screwed."

If this so called movement that is happening now wants change so badly then they need to pack up the tents and make it a three party system. We have not had an third party contender since Eugene V Debs and if you want the so called 1% to be scared shitless then play ball at their own game. They say one vote is worthless but when you have a million votes you get peoples attention.