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

[Leadified]

VGPolyglot said:

DonFerrari said:
Just to remember the dear folks that the natural side of human is accumulation.

And that people have different capacities to manage their properties.

My great grandfather moved to a remote place in Brazil where anyone could fence a place and call property. At 85 he divided equally his land to his 12 sons and daughters. It didn't took much time for my grandfather to buy out the land of 9 of his brothers and sisters.

They all could have had the same outcome since they came from the same place, but most were just interested in the minimum to live by. The ones that want more and go after it end up being rich.

I'm pretty certain that if we extinguished all forms of government and distributed equally all the money, property and etc among people it wouldn't take more than 3 generations to get a level of inequality similar to our.

Poor people are poor more because of their habits than anything else.

I'm going to need more than your anecdotal evidence, how am I even supposed to verify the validity of that story?

I have the exact opposite anecdote as my family lived in Socialist Romania.

My grandfather lost everything because of the war since he was a war refugee but despite the extreme poverty he lived in as a child, he was able to go to school and eventually to university, in fact most of my family was able to do that same. He managed to become a successful engineer and live a fulfilling life and the same could be said for my other family too, after the war opportunities increased tremendously and people were able to live comfortable lives. It was not the "American Dream" but not many cared because there were opportunities, the economy grew and standard of living was relatively high.

Poor economic conditions caused by mismanagement in the 1980s lead to the collapse of socialism in 1989 and the establishment of capitalism. There was hope at first but it quickly turned sour. Now almost 30 years later, all that has happened is: millions of Romanians have left the country because of the lack of opportunities (caused by corruption and privatization), corruption is rampant (massive protests last year), and high levels of poverty.

Polls show that if Ceausescu ran for election today, 66% of Romanians would vote for him and 69% of people believed they lived better under the socialism. The same Ceausescu who was a brutal dictator and whose incompetence caused the economic crisis in the 1980s, yeah.

Last edited by Leadified - on 30 January 2018