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A Failed Socialist State

But your definition of Socialism VS Communism as they relate to economy is flawed. If communist state owns all the private sector then what about China? It is a communist state as you may know but there are private sectors there starting from Hong Kong and even in mainland China.

China is Communist economically only in name. Hong Kong is under the "one country two systems" principle.
 
Socialism is a bit like religion, because no matter how much you believe, it's not going to be reality.

The religion in both Socialism and Communism does have the tendency to influence even the layest of people to become expert bull sh**ers. There were tons of communism books within the main textile factory in my city. Everyone was an expert at the ideology and would use the most noble and highest forms of words, but nothing really gets done and most loafed.
 
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China is Communist economically only in name. Hong Kong is under the "one country two systems" principle.

Only by name! So how is it established what really a state is regardless what it chooses to name themselves? What is China then, democracy or socialist?
 
Only by name! So how is it established what really a state is regardless what it chooses to name themselves? What is China then, democracy or socialist?

Neither. Its Free-market Opressive One Party Dictatorship.
 
communism and far left socialism dictates that the means of production (aka the industry and the producers of goods and services) are in the hands of the people as a collective, rather than individuals (that means, government).

All the eastern block and the USSR have indeed fit this definition.

No. Just being owned by the state doesn't make it socialist. The key is how you calculate production requirements: Production for use is a phrase referring to the principle of organization taken as a defining criterion of a socialist economy, in contrast to production for profit (or the profit system). This criterion is used to distinguish socialism from capitalism, and was one of the fundamental defining characteristics of socialism.

Privately owned industry run on a for profit basis is capitalism
State owned industry run on a for profit basis is state capitalism
state/worker owned industry run on a for use basis is socialism
 
Neither. Its Free-market Opressive One Party Dictatorship.

Spriggs, countries that call themselves socialists and that have failed economically you do not call it as such and name them communists. Countries that are communists you name them with something completely new. I know you want to give it a shot with socialism but this now seems to be a game of naming.
 
Spriggs, countries that call themselves socialists and that have failed economically you do not call it as such and name them communists. Countries that are communists you name them with something completely new. I know you want to give it a shot with socialism but this now seems to be a game of naming.

Oh well. So there has NEVER been a failed Socialist state then as they are all communists?
 
But all power is ultimately derived from popular vote, directly or indirectly. Every major official in America was elected in a popular vote, or appointed by people who were elected.

this is true, but the founders did not want some officials directly affected by a vote of the people, because the people can act on whims, and suddenly want something now, and later not want it, plus they also put into the constitution term limits of different times. so that more distance was place between their elected official and the people. since a congressmen are direct officials of the people, there term is only 2 years,... but a senator is 6 ,to put him, what is know as farther away, so he is not directly impacted by the indirect vote of the people, because people minds will change over that 6 long years, they may fell like something today, but 6 years later they feel differently, as compared to the just -->2 year of a congressmen.
the more the people have MORE power in their hands directly ,the more corrupt they will get, they will want to create new rights, new laws, and MOST of them will benefit special interest and some laws, will take away rights of the minority, and we are seeing this play out today. america will fall, because we are doing exactly what the founders told us NOT to do.


Rome was a true Republic at the beginning, because it was run exclusively by the Patrician class with no input from the plebs. Venice was a republic that was run by wealthy merchants. A republic is ANY government that isn't a monarchy or a theocracy. Athens was a republic that had direct democracy. Venice was a republic run by merchants. Nazi Germany was a Republic run by the National Socialists. We are a republic. Our form of republic just so happens to be representative democracy.

a republic can be a lot of things....USSR, people's republic of china, France is a democratic socialist republic. america WAS created as a constitutional republic based on law.....not majority rule. and whether it is direct or representative its still majority rule. in 1913 america moved closer to being representative democracy, and now people are calling for a direct vote for the president, when that happens the last part of the checks and balances are truly gone.....

democracy is any form is ----->democratic government..........america was created with republican government.-->"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence"

James Madison in federalist #10 ......makes it CLEAR there is republican government and their is democratic government, and he chooses......... republican government.


Also, why did you pick a Nazi as your user name?

barkmann is a panzer ace, that is all...it just a pic, ..........the same can be said for others..... why they put socialist and communist on there signatures.
 
well if your not socialist then you are something else? That something else is what we see across much of Europe, that is mixed market economies. Hell even the USSR or the current "socialist states" are not even socialist..

Uhhh, no.

When I CAN"T BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER is on the table what do you say?.... you say pass the butter.... you don't say, " Please pass the I CAN"T BELIEVE IT"S NOT BUTTER".

They taste the same, look the same, and are equally bad for you large quantities.

In all seriousness, I personally call a state socialist when a constituionalized government adapts socialist ideas to their system... into a constituional government changed to accommodate socialism... which isn't pure socialism, but is socialist.
 
Oh well. So there has NEVER been a failed Socialist state then as they are all communists?

When I CAN"T BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER is on the table what do you say?.... you say pass the butter.... you don't say, " Please pass the I CAN"T BELIEVE IT"S NOT BUTTER".

They taste the same, look the same, and are equally bad for you large quantities.

In all seriousness, I personally call a state socialist when a constituionalized government adapts socialist ideas to their system... into a constituional government changed to accommodate socialism... which isn't pure socialism, but is socialist.
 
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Uhhh, no.

When I CAN"T BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER is on the table what do you say?.... you say pass the butter.... you don't say, " Please pass the I CAN"T BELIEVE IT"S NOT BUTTER".

They taste the same, look the same, and are equally bad for you large quantities.

In all seriousness, I personally call a state socialist when a constituionalized government adapts socialist ideas to their system... into a constituional government changed to accommodate socialism... which isn't pure socialism, but is socialist.

So you think a country is socialist simply because they call themselves socialist or have some part (no matter how small in society and government) that is socialistic?
 
And that's why we invented things like rights and stuff. You know, a constitutional republic. I think they teach about this advancement upon raw direct democracy in about 5th grade social studies. Let us know when you've grasped it.
Since when has the Constitution slowed the growth of government when the people reeeeaaally wanted it?
 
So you think a country is socialist simply because they call themselves socialist or have some part (no matter how small in society and government) that is socialistic?
Nope, not exactly... but try again.
 
Socialism is a bit like religion, because no matter how much you believe, it's not going to be reality.

No pure philosophy will ever work, because all of them rely on far too simplistic a model for human behavior.

One major problem though is people try to go with what they think is moral without regard to any practicality of the situation and we get stupid threads like this one full of people who really have no clue or care for how the world really works.
 
well you can take to mean the same,..... but its not.

one set of rights cannot be surrendered, and the other can.

See,m here's the difference: I'm not taking them to mean the same thing, I'm acknowledging that they mean precisely the same thing because every legitimate source available to determine their meanings (AKA dictionaries) have defined them to mean precisely the same thing (although there are often differences between dictionaries, the same dictionary will always define the two words the same).

You, however, are "taking" them to mean different things because you are engaging in fallacy in order to do so. Instead of using the same source to get your definitions, you change sources in order to achieve your desired fantasy situation.

Your fantasy has no bearing on reality though. the words mean teh same thing, regardless of what you decide to "take" them to mean.
 
See,m here's the difference: I'm not taking them to mean the same thing, I'm acknowledging that they mean precisely the same thing because every legitimate source available to determine their meanings (AKA dictionaries) have defined them to mean precisely the same thing (although there are often differences between dictionaries, the same dictionary will always define the two words the same).

You, however, are "taking" them to mean different things because you are engaging in fallacy in order to do so. Instead of using the same source to get your definitions, you change sources in order to achieve your desired fantasy situation.

Your fantasy has no bearing on reality though. the words mean teh same thing, regardless of what you decide to "take" them to mean.

really what i am trying to do is show that one set of rights is cannot be removed, or --->given over to others.

the other set can, they can be surrendered with consent giving them to another person, ....example...making people indentured servants, ---> as in early America.
 
really what i am trying to do is show that one set of rights is cannot be removed, or --->given over to others.

the other set can, they can be surrendered with consent giving them to another person, ....example...making people indentured servants, ---> as in early America.

But that has nothing at all to do with Inalienable vs. Unalienable, as the dictionaries both past and present have shown.
 
When I CAN"T BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER is on the table what do you say?.... you say pass the butter.... you don't say, " Please pass the I CAN"T BELIEVE IT"S NOT BUTTER".

They taste the same, look the same, and are equally bad for you large quantities.

In all seriousness, I personally call a state socialist when a constituionalized government adapts socialist ideas to their system... into a constituional government changed to accommodate socialism... which isn't pure socialism, but is socialist.

Agreed.
 
I dont even understand the OP. Of course there are failed states. Huh?
 
Its worth mentioning here the relative success of the Cuban communist experiment on an economic level. While, in terms of politics, it ought be criticized overtly, and its economics are far from perfect, Cubans today live longer then Americans, have better health care, and a higher literacy rate. That, in and of itself, shows the flaws in the "communists are automatically evil" argument.
 
The question, given the parameters is impossible to answer. A state which a socialist theoretician has declared to be a true socialist state, and one that has achieved 'real and existing socialism' to borrow a phrase, would be a state that would be incapable of backsliding. It would have abolished the power of capital, passed the 'transitory' stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat and devolved power to the workers collectives, and achieved prosperity. If somehow it failed en route, during, or after this stage is reached most would say it wasn't a socialist state to begin with---unless it is destroyed by outside aggression. But this raises its own problems, because of arguments that posit that a true socialist system is impossible without a true world socialist system (Trotsky) to safeguard the workers state and build upon networked resources and labor.
 
Its worth mentioning here the relative success of the Cuban communist experiment on an economic level. While, in terms of politics, it ought be criticized overtly, and its economics are far from perfect, Cubans today live longer then Americans, have better health care, and a higher literacy rate. That, in and of itself, shows the flaws in the "communists are automatically evil" argument.

Cuban success in healthcare, and it is a fantastically mixed bag, comes at the expense of virtually everything else. A degrading 1960's era infrastructure, grinding state corruption, collapsing agricultural revenues, decaying industrial parks, a ballooning black market for employment and goods, and so much more. No one said Marxist or Fascist governments for that matter, could not achieve quantifiable positive results depending on your metrics and objectives. What makes them so unsavory is the moral evils on the route to those objectives, and the overall failures of the system itself.
 
Cuban success in healthcare, and it is a fantastically mixed bag, comes at the expense of virtually everything else. A degrading 1960's era infrastructure, grinding state corruption, collapsing agricultural revenues, decaying industrial parks, a ballooning black market for employment and goods, and so much more. No one said Marxist or Fascist governments for that matter, could not achieve quantifiable positive results depending on your metrics and objectives. What makes them so unsavory is the moral evils on the route to those objectives, and the overall failures of the system itself.

Nonsense. Prove that all that is the expense of Cuban healthcare.
 
Nonsense. Prove that all that is the expense of Cuban healthcare.

It isn't literally at the expense of the Cuban health care system don't be pedantic. The expense comes from the creation of a centralized planned economy, the corruption born of parastatalism and mass party buerachracy, and the autarkik protection of key industries.
 
It isn't literally at the expense of the Cuban health care system don't be pedantic. The expense comes from the creation of a centralized planned economy, the corruption born of parastatalism and mass party buerachracy, and the autarkik protection of key industries.

name two developed, 1st world countries that dont have, by your ridiculously melodramatic description, a centralized planned economy, the corruption born of parastatalism and mass party buerachracy, and the autarkik protection of key industries. Or is is possible that they too have universal healthcare similar to Cuba without those expenses?
 
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