User blog comment:Centrist16/SOMETHING EVERYONE MUST KNOW/@comment-3398633-20150809140026/@comment-3398633-20150810050005

"Sorry, I meant to say that Cuba, revolutionary Catalonia, the Paris Commune, and a couple other examples were socialist or close to it. I would say that Cuba is only close to it, because significant portions of their economy are not democratically controlled by the workers." -- Well, the Paris Commune was

"If that's a meritocracy, then kleptocracies are meritocracies. Either way, I'm not very critical of markets in general. Market socialism gives many of the advantages of capitalism while the people get the full product of their labour (rather than a significant fraction of it stolen by the owner of the corporation/means of production). Central planning is NOT a tenet of socialism, but rather just for the central planning branch of it. Using tools that the other wouldn't have means the tool is probably unethical (e.g. not paying people a living wage)." -- Definition of merit: "the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward." You can be good at lying your way to the top, or playing businessmen against one another, and scheming to build a major corporation from the shattered husks of your competition. That is merit. Also, . Sidebar, under "Models", third bold print selection says "Planned economy". Let's take a look at that article shall we? . What's that on the side? Another socialism sidebar infobox? Wait a second. What's that at the bottom of the article? "Socialism" is in the categories section of this article. Well that can't be correct. Oh wait. "Planned economies are usually categorized as a particular variant of socialism, and have historically been supported by and implemented by Marxist-Leninist socialist states." Also, if I found the company to make millions of dollars, why am I being told by the state to give the money my company is making to the workers who's labor isn't worth the amount they want me to pay them? If you only perform $9 dollars worth of labor (McDonald's), you're only going to be paid $9 in compensation. The profits from the goods my company makes is rightfully mine.

"Many people in this world make millions of dollars during their life (such as doctors, lawyers, etc.). How can someone's labour be worth a billion dollars? They did NOT do a billion dollars worth of work. Rather, they stole it from their employees. Though owners can work as well (in which case they should receive a fair compensation for what labour they actually do - one person does NOT make a corporation "great"/"successful"), many owners don't even work at all, and rather just own the corporation and take the surplus value (profit) to add to their pockets. And then they get to "invest", which is them dictating what gets to be funded. None of that is fair. Even when owners do work, they don't deserve tens of millions. Some people do go from poor to rich, but that's a rare exception, not the rule." -- Managing a company is a form of labor. Not everyone is cut out to manage in a multi-billion dollar industry employing more than two million people worldwide. Any screw-up in corporate could spell doom for the entire company. Therefore, their labor is worth every penny their given. Tell me, how is a Walmart shelf stocker being "robbed" by corporate? How much is a shelf stocker's labor worth? $40,000 a year? $60,000 a year? Gee, I really feel for that guy, having to get that bulk super fluffy Charmin Ultra Soft™ toilet tissue to the top shelf. He's totally getting screwed over by corporate.

Typically, the people I speak to who complain about capitalism being a horrible tool of the elite, never made anything out of themselves, and demand those who got ahead in life share their wealth with them, but mask it as "spreading the wealth to the masses". I'm not trying to say that's the kind of person you are, but the majority of self-proclaimed socialists I speak too have no idea how economics works, and don't do anything with their lives except complain about how the other guy is making money and they aren't. I can't take them seriously.

"Many socialists say that, but it's NOT a tenet of socialism. It's a social issue. I think that the economic problems of immigration are solved by increasing the number of jobs, and that the social problems could be solved by anti-extremist oaths. In fact, most groups of immigrants commit less crime than natives. This is my personal opinion." -- I never said immigrants cause more crime or anything, only that the countries absorbing them often can't handle the influx of so many people. But any attempt to say anything about it is branded as racism by the left. And seriously, how do you create more jobs? Jobs are produced where there is demand. A central planning, regardless of what you want to call it, is a tenant of socialism, and has been enacted in every socialist state that has existed. I can't build a company in a region if my government is telling me private enterprise is wrong. And even if we go with decentralized planning, what is my incentive for building a business? Your forcing me to give most of my profits to the workers, even though their labor isn't worth what I'm being forced to pay them, and I'm walking away with scraps because my socialist government is forcing me too. This is the reason why unemployment in post-Soviet states was so high. There were no businessmen in the nations since socialism drove them out with their policies. Sorry is this has nothing to do with immigration, but its my reason to your "create more jobs" comment.

"They (Laos, Vietnam, China) didn't ever have many of those elements, though, much less today. There wasn't significant workplace democracy in any of them with the probable exception of Cuba. They might have gotten a bit closer to socialism than capitalist countries, but they weren't socialist. Facts are facts. :o" -- You have to make up your mind. Do we have to go through every socialist state in history before we find one that's your version socialism? They were all socialist states that implemented some form of socialism. You're basically saying "Oh not all socialists are like that" or "Well they weren't really socialists".

"Not true at all. Many socialist theorists talked about models like that, syndicalism, and market socialism long before the Russian Revolution (Proudhon, to start)." -- Looks good on paper, doesn't work in reality. Lightsaberism for short.

"I think Russia just wasn't developed enough for it to work yet. He wanted the country to develop further so it would be successful. Lastly, if you hold socialism to these standards, you've got to hold capitalism to the same ones - it's caused poverty and death in many regions of the world (examples: Asia (British India), Africa (Belgian Congo))." -- And yet you benefit from the same "pig-dog" capitalism system today. Mind you, capitalism as SWM put it, has no goals, and is simply a model of economic development and maintainance. Socialism on the otherhand, has a goal - communism. More than 100 million people died in the purges and genocides launched by socialist governments seeking to achieve a communist system in their nations. Capitalism can be blamed for groups like Halliburton pushing the US into invading Iraq to profit from the war, but it'll never hold a candle to Mao's Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Foward, or Stalin's hyperindustrialization projects in the Soviet Union and the Holodomor. Plus, attempts by the USSR's socialist government to develop a self-sufficent economy is the reason the Aral Sea is gone.