What is "socialism"? - An attempt to clear up myths/misconceptions

[DonFerrari]

VGPolyglot said:

DonFerrari said:

And do you research all those cases and see that they aren't being arrested because they made a cooperative but because they were invading other people property and destroying public and private buildings?

Exactly, they can't just take over the workplace and establish a cooperative because the factory/business owners would get the police to enforce their property rights.

And what is in the way for they to create their own workplace and establish their cooperative? Because if cooperation is such a great tool, they together putting their money and starting their company should work right???? Or it can only work by taking by force what others made before?

Leadified said:

DonFerrari said:

Yes it is nonsense... but at least here in Brazil when socialists are defending the model and we present all the failures they will point the Nordic countries as examples of socialism that went right, ignoring everything that shows it aint socialist.

Social democrats will probably only consider criticism from the left since it's less inherently hostile than right wing ideologies. But social democrats have also wiped out the left in most countries and they themselves adopted the title of "socialist" so they've set themselves up in a trap.

The irony is that like any other capitalist nation, a social democracy still needs to rely on the same sources of cheap labour from the third world and material, which also often time comes from the third world. While the people of Sweden may live well, their nation is still built upon the backs of people who will never enjoy it and thus the whole world cannot hope to live as well as those do in Sweden. You don't have a choice whether or not you want to participate in the exploitation because you need to pay taxes, you need clothes, you need technology and so on. 

I consider the socdems to be lucky for now since they've been blessed with stable societies and resources such as oil to fuel their welfare states but times are changing and they have no answers.

Cubedramirez said:

That's assuming there isn't a salt famine going on where said true red socialist lives. Which come to think of it if they actually are true socialist at heart chances are they don't live in a socialist country and are enjoying the fruits and labors of the capitalist system they live in which has no salt famine to speak of. 

And  on the initial post, bingo. I do find it laughable that people cannot see the irony of their position when one of their key points is that it hasn't been implemented correctly, ever, after countless attempts. 

It's almost like you need a system that encourages innovation and achievement... hmm...

Nice, whatever helps you sleep at night.

Nope man, the true irony comes from society advancing and well being progressing due to capitalism, which you can see and measure on the last 200 years, while what we have seen from the socialist experiments aren't pretty.