Conquer Club

So there's a lot of talk about socialism going on at present, but what are its respective merits and demerits?

For those who need a quick defintion: "Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society" says the Oxford English Dictionary.

I personally have always thought that an effectively managed socialist regime would be highly equitable and efficient for citizens, though many Americans seem to hold an opposite view.

So anyway, on with the discussion. What are the upsides and downsides of socialism? Is it a style of government that you would be happy to live under?

Socialism = happiness

Assuming that enough of the populace is competant to the task. Which is a massive assumption.

Many Americans hate socialism because they are willfully ignorant and don't care to receive education on the matter from any source other than Bill O'Reilly, who take willful ignorance to the extreme, as well as the bank.

So many people keep saying, "well, I'm a big fan of small government, they're inefficient and screw things up."

Okay... But at least our government (in the USA) has a system of checks and balances (well, in theory anyway). If government is so awful and the free market so wonderful, how in the hell did we end up in the current mess?

With oversight and regulation, it can't make things any worse than they are now.

And that's enough out of me. Please, hyper-conservatives intent of destroying our nation, berate me.

pimpdave wrote:Many Americans hate socialism because they are willfully ignorant and don't care to receive education on the matter from any source other than Bill O'Reilly, who take willful ignorance to the extreme, as well as the bank.

So many people keep saying, "well, I'm a big fan of small government, they're inefficient and screw things up."

Okay... But at least our government (in the USA) has a system of checks and balances (well, in theory anyway). If government is so awful and the free market so wonderful, how in the hell did we end up in the current mess?

With oversight and regulation, it can't make things any worse than they are now.

And that's enough out of me. Please, hyper-conservatives intent of destroying our nation, berate me.

Here is how we got into this mess:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... =permalink

Fannie Mae, a GOVERNMENT chartered company, gave out bad loans.

Now I am only against bad government. If we reformed how this one works, I have little problem with it getting bigger. But not as things stand.