"Socialism is what Democrats want to do. National Socialism is what Republicans want to do. Amiright?"

Not even close. National socialists were good for the economy. Republicans want to tank it.

TrPrado: "I do agree, though, that corporations definitely need to be regulated because otherwise they can become legally invincible, and that could very easily get very bad." Surely, preventing an East India Company from forming is not the end goal of a socialist economy. ;-)

Although social market economies can and often do provide a social safety net in liberal democratic societies, Socialism, as such, simply is not compatible with liberal democracy. One has to make a choice.

Meeting human needs or voting between coteries of billionaires?

Easy choice.

Jeff, the Democrats are moderate conservatives at this point.

Tendmore, that is simply not true.

How can Socialism and a planned economy be achieved without a dictatorship of the proletariat? Popular vote and non-government press would cooperate to scuttle the Socialist process before it got off the ground, to mix an aquatic and aeronautic metaphor.

@mendax The institutions of liberal democracy are incompatible with the institution of Socialism because opposition undermines the national cohesion necessary to push through the reforms.

tendmote: Bullshit. All of Sub-Saharan Africa and much of Latin America is now socialist to the core. The Indian sub-continent and Portugal are constitutionally socialist. Clearly societies can be convinced that caring about their fellow man is the ideal. The real problem is how to translate these convictions into success stories.

@JECE For a true socialist, accepting social democracy as socialism is the ultimate wooden nickel.

Socialism doesn't have to be implemented on a national basis. Hell, a huge number of socialists don't even recognise national borders as legitimate.

Is there a fluent speaker of American who can tell me what "wooden nickel" means?

I should know better, almost everyone I work with is not American. A "wooden nickel" is a coin made of wood. (A nickel is a $0.05 coin.) As such it is counterfeit, and a shitty counterfeit at that.

Anyway, regardless of where the borders are drawn, "Socialist" policies that are implemented *within* a liberal democratic structure amount to social democracy, not Socialism. Real Socialism is not compatible with bourgeois elections or private-sector press organizations.

"When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward - or go back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the press' goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism."
-Vladimir Lenin
Liberal democracies have very slight restrictions on free speech, so, yeah.

And Vladimir Lenin was always right about everything because he is beyond man and ascended to the level of god, his wisdom spread across the land like Herpes in Los Angeles

Social Democracy is the best attempt at practical socialism tried yet. Well, it seems to be working best, at least.

Far too many of you confuse communism and socialism. I see terms like "workers control of the means of production". The main reasons this happens are:
a) A lot of people like to point out the flaws in communism, which in theory is a utopian society, and in practice can't work in a large "commune".
b) The Soviet and Soviet-upheld regimes tended to tout themselves as communist and socialist, though in reality they believed in the ultimate power of the state apparatus.

The reason communism doesn't work well with a large commune is that a commune works when all members recognize the value of maintaining the well-being of others. For a small commune, the value of others is obvious, especially in the presence of an outside threat. For a large commune, such as a state, individual communities are isolated from each other and informed direct democracy is impossible. Thus, you don't have as much of a say in what you do, and have very little reason to care about how your actions affect the community as a whole.

Game theory is a pretty useful concept in discussions like this, actually - in a small non-anonymous community, fear of societal retribution and emotional attachment can easily make the best decision compliance with a communist system. In a large community, anonymity is easier, so fear of retribution goes down, and the damage to persons you are attached to is spread out onto others, too, creating a tragedy of the commons.

@Phil - I suspect, though I have done any serious thinking about it, that federalism is a reasonably good structure to alleviate the problems of scale that you highlight here.

tendmote: Do you call yourself a socialist? I do call myself a socialist and I don't agree with you. Do you also see democratic socialism as a cheap knock-off? As long as they're not violently suppressed, socialist parties can always work inside the system to effect change.

JECE: I concur on that point. Technically, if Congress and the Supreme Court are both filled with socialists (though, that's extremely unlikely because this is America I'm talking about) they can implement socialism within the framework of the constitution. In such nations, all that's really necessary is popular support of socialism.

@mendax:
It is a reasonable way to avoid some of the problems - in fact, many Social Democracies have either low populations, regional governments or both. It can emphasize regional differences, which can both enrich a culture and create competition between regions. You lose a tiny bit of efficiency and cohesion, but it definitely seems to be worth it. You'll get in trouble if you try to apply it on a very small scale, but something along the lines of the Regions in France and the Lander in Germany (many European countries actually have this kind of arrangement stemming from traditional royal fiefs, but those are the obvious ones) makes projects more in line with actual needs.

"b) The Soviet and Soviet-upheld regimes tended to tout themselves as communist and socialist, though in reality they believed in the ultimate power of the state apparatus."

No they did not. They always considered themselves states in transition. They never claimed to have achieved communism.

People forget that socialism was and is considered a transition stage and a transition stage where the dictatorship of the proletariat is required.

Social democracy is dead. All the social democracies are busy dismantling themselves. Even Sweden has been led by the "Moderate Party" and is following a NATO foreign policy. The left in Europe is extraordinarily weak, with few exceptions.

"Hell, a huge number of socialists don't even recognise national borders as legitimate."

Permanent revolution was discredited a long time ago.

Tendmote is 100% correct. Social democrats and anarchists want cuddly capitalism, not a planned, not-for-profit economy. Bourgeois democracy maintains the vice grip of the bourgeoisie on national politics.

Anarchists want capitalism? Tell that to our pal Sicarius.

"Anarchists want cuddly capitalism"? I have read all kind of opinions in this thread, but this?

Yeah they do. Tell me how anarchists get rid of the market. They don't. You need a state to get rid of the market. Anarchists first priority is to get rid of the state

That's why 90% of the grown up anarchists turn into non-profit middle managers.

Well, we clearly have a winner for the "person who's least in touch with the communities he claims to be part of" award.

I worked within the anarchist movement for 5 years of my life. Mendax. I know them too well for my liking.

Some anarchists do feel strongly toward capitalism. Those people are called anarcho-capitalists (unlike with the term socio-capitalism, I can guarentee that's the right word for that). They're as laissez-faire as anyone get.

Anarchist -- mentally unstable sociopaths with a true disconnect from reality.

It's truly hard to take anyone seriously who had ever given any time of their life to such absurdity.