I am not dependent on anyone that I do not choose to be in my life. These are free choices that I make, not choices that are made for me. No resource does one offer that I can't choice to not partake in be it in food,water, or be in shelter. I can go about these things in my own way and choice who will help me along the way. The only times that I am truly dependent is this world is when I am young, or by the government when they have decided to make me dependent on them. All other cases, it is I, that have made a choice. A socialist society calls for the dependence on each other to create a equal system. The system I'm talking about calls for people to choose the people they wish to help them along the way.
While you are free to make your own choices, the idea that you are not dependent on anyone is a ridiculous idea in the modern world. You couldn't maintain your lifestyle as it is for any length of time without the society you are in.
Things are created in all sorts of societies and groups. It is not dependent on anything the government does or says though it might be affected by it.
In a very broad general sense, yes. But my point is you cannot maintain your current lifestyle without some kind of help from others. Like it or not, you are dependent on your fellow man.
Do you think we ignore it now? We a put a value on the return a person puts in to society, and encourages them to raise their stock in the society. Socialism cuts that out of the equation, and gives no one any drive to do anything by saying all are equal. It might very well offer different wages, but those wages are most likely still very much controlled, so the encouragement is most likely very limited. Ofcourse, that might not be a factor at all, but than equality by their definition would be in question in that socialist society.
Yes! I think many people ignore it now. "Your health, your problem" springs to mind, calls to abolish things like the minimum wage, unions, etc etc.
Socialism is not strictly wage driven. It's about providing the necessary resources to everyone possible.
There really isn't any real benefit that couldn't come in a more free means. Socialism naturally calls for the stripping of freedom and rights of the people. Of course, it depends on the polices you put in place, but its very much can kill both and calls for the killing of both in the purest of cases.
Socialism calls for no such thing, one of the core precepts is the preservation of such rights.
Nah, it really isn't all that much. Racism will never go away, sexism will never go away, none of it ever really will. The only way you can change human nature is by controlling human nature. Once you stop controlling it, you will find the changes you made were very small.
Really? Fifty years ago, blacks could count on being treated like crap almost anywhere. Today we have a black president. And that's the span of fifty years, half a single human lifetime. Where will we be in another fifty or 100 years?
Nah, I have studied what the founders of socialism has said. I might of put it out like a Wikipedia copy though. :lol: I honestly haven't looked at it. :2razz:
That's part of the problem. The root material is important but you need to look at contemporary theories as well. Socialist thought has evolved beyond it's roots and taken on a more modern form.
Socialism might not be similar to National Socialism but it puts in place the power structure needed for National Socialism to take hold. The only struggle would be to get in office, which could easily be done by feeding on the cries of equality.
That's actually the OPPOSITE of what's true. National Socialism relies heavily on the power of business supported by the government and a private sector that does the bidding of the government. Socialism is the exact opposite, it seeks to LIMIT the power and control of the private sector.
What socialists want and what they are asking for is two very different things. In order to maintain any sort of equality, control has to stay in place, and a controlling body has to make sure everything stays right in line. You don't need to ask for total equality to have started a hunger of control, that can't be helped, which has always been the number one problem with socialism.
Equality can be achieved WITHOUT controlling people's lives. We've managed to take big steps in that direction with the GLBT crowd and with race issues without implementing mandatory "talk nice" laws.
An equal playing field can be reached in many ways. The best approach is an approach that doesn't try to control results or limit freedom/rights along the way. The reality is you aren't trying to create equal playing field, you are trying to create a flat playing field. Which are two totally different things.
I personally am not trying to create a flat playing field and I know of only a few radical Communists who want that. I and most other Socialists realize that a flat playing field is impossible by any means and dont strive for it.
1. the National Socialists absolutely pursued those economic agendas. i've heard it argued that They Really Didn't Mean It because Hitler then got rid of unions; and opposition to unions of course isn't socialist etc; the problem being that those famous right-wingers, Lenin and Mao, did the same.
Lenin and Mao were both Communist, not Socialist. And the Nazis didnt just get rid of unions, they KILLED actual Socialists and Communists.
2. National Socialism picked up the monicker of "national" for precisely the reason you highlight. it was a reaction within the socialist movement against the internationalists; which is why national socialists were generally fighting communists in the streets; the two competed for recruits of a like mind. the famous german national-socialist flag was colored red openly for the reason of appealing to those who had already been part of the larger socialist movement.
So you basically agree that it was Socialist in name only? Socialists are extremely rarely Nationalists of any kind, part of most Socialist ideologies is the rejection of ideas like Nationalism because they serve to divide people on an arbitrary basis.
national socialism was a branch of socialism. it wasn't until WWII that we even began to see claims that it wasn't; Progressives in the US and Britain alike both admired Fascism up until roughly that point.
It also wasnt until WWII that we saw an example of it in effect.
There may be individual socialISTS who seek these things, but that doesn't mean socialISM requires it. It doesn't.
One of the fundamental concepts of Socialism is unified effort. How can you possibly have that if you're trying to exclude an entire segment of society?
If you're going to compare/contrast philosophies, you have to compare them as they ARE, not as you wish they would be.
There is nothing in any Socialist ideology that I'm aware of that supports any sort of racist thought.
If your only justification is "Well, it doesn't EXPRESSLY say it!" then there's really nothing I can do for you because the precepts of Socialism dont expressly forbade a lot of things.
Not really, considering he's the one who pretty much devised the whole thing. If it is as you say, he wouldn't have been a racist prick.
Marx's personal views are now and have been totally irrelevant.