A real buzzkill (seriously; the environment dudes)

[Monty3038]

Sorry dude but you don't know what socialism is.

Ok, thanks for clarifying. For some reason though, your clarification sounds more like an attack, but that is probably me internalizing your comment.

We have some very strong socialistic principles in our society that nobody other than a handful of the incredibly rich would wish to delete, and only a small number of people actually understand are socialism.

Apparently, since I don't understand socialism, I don't understand your comments. Please explain in a better way that someone with a public school education can understand.

Virtually everybody you know is a closet socialist. The disconnect is that most people have silly ideas of some kind of nanny state gulag mill servitude poor fantasy about socialism. Socialism is merely a socioeconomic construct for the purpose of the society, the populace. Civil rights, individual freedoms, virtually every form of egalitarianism is socialism on some level.

Again, my understanding of socialism is in opposition to what you are stating. I will have to do more research on socialism to understand how you come to the conclusion that civil rights and indvidual freedoms are part of a socialistic society.

I always find it interesting when I discuss policy with uber right-wingers without designating politics. They always have incredibly liberal and socialistic ideals, yet the moment they realize the political designation, they oppose.

I guess I don't see your point. Are you trying to call me an uber right winger who has conflicting ideals or are you stating an opinion on people you normally discuss with?

I completely agree. The difference is that in order to actually live in that kind of society, you need heaps of socialism. My beef with conservatism and libertarianism ultimately boils down to them saying one thing yet promoting policy that does a different thing. Conservative and libertarian ideals are very good things, but they are clueless as to how to actually achieve those ideals.

All political systems are compromise. So I don't know whether you are calling the system the problem or you are saying that politicians who represent conservative ideals are failing. So far, I've seen very few conservatives who actually are conservatives.

That sounds good on paper, but isn't how it works in reality. If you were right, worker compensation would be incredibly high right now since individual production has dramatically increased over the decades

Sure, individual production has dramatically increased, so has inflation, cost of living, etc... everything expands, so now I can produce more than someone 50 years ago... but if my skill set is still average among others in the workforce... I still earn approximately the same standard of living. The thing a lot of people don't seem to get is if you increase one thing, you increase another... raising the minimum wage, raises prices as companies compensate for it to maintain profits, which in turn lowers the standard of living again, which means minimum wage has to be raised... etc.. etc. etc.

Now, what I was referring to, is a person who can push a button and watch an assembly line has one value to a business owner, while a product design engineer has another. If you have a society where ability and value are not properly rewarded, there is no encouragement to achieve more.

It isn't how it works in reality because no one can truly achieve a market driven society without damaging a large number of people in the process... and because that violates popular opinion, it gets voted down, also it leaves a number of people out in the cold... but if a true market driven society could be founded, I think this would work.

This argument is popular due to propaganda, not data. When it started it was called the Welfare Cadillac Queen, now it's a more subtle "entitlement lazy drag blah blah blah". It exists because it gets votes

I'm not sure if you mean the argument gets votes or the welfare state gets votes?


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I am not an economist, I have little formal economic training, I have a public school education and two college degrees. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable and able to understand concepts. I am hoping to gain something from this conversation and discussion, as well as am trying to keep my opinions and mind open. If you want to keep it going, I'm glad to, I'm actually enjoying it. I don't get to have these discussions often as they normally devolve into name calling by either myself or the other side and anger on both parts. So I'm trying to do my best to keep it civil and open-minded. Bear with me.