Funniest piece yet.

You are kidding, right?

I agree with your assertion that compromising your beliefs is wrong, but that is where I must end my agreement.

I find it interesting that socialists seem to always be quoting individuals who lived in completely different times. What about some new ideas? Or, perhaps, looking at all facts. The funding of AIDS and Malaria that you note as horribly insufficient are actually higher than any other nation in the world. The President that you criticize has actually increased funding for AIDS prevention in Africa to unprecedented levels. The problem lies not in the amount of funding but the difficulty of distribution caused by the many dictators and thugs that rule in the plagued regions of Africa.

There is one other thing that I cannot stand, it is criticism and sniping without alternatives. You speak in grandiose terms of the oppressive corporations and government and say that socialism is the answer. But how is it the answer? To what extent do we socialize the economy? How do we bring about this socialist ideal if not by strengthening the Government you so readily despise?

This is where all socialists and "revolutionaries" hit their stumbling block. Reality gets in the way of the ideal.

Michael:

Great commentary. I was on a board full of communists and "debated" with them routinely, that is until the capitalist server that hosted it melted down. Anyway I'd ask basic economic questions such as how production would be managed to match demand or how distribution would work, and mostly the only responses I got were that "it would all work out" and that I hate the poor.

There was also a great column in the Washington Post a few weeks back by a doctor who did charity work in Ghana or some other sub-saharan nation stricken by poverty. This woman did more for the poor than Mr. Dols will ever do, I guarantee you. Her article lamented that the local population simply saw aid workers as walking wallets. They'd ask for and take money and help but never work to change their lives for the better (including an incredibly backwards belief system that helped fuel the spread of AIDS - the religious right has nothing on these people). In the end she came to realize that charity without expectations does little or is even harmful.

That's precisely the problem with socialism. If everyone gets theirs without being required to live halfway intelligently, they will inevitably turn to slothful, wasteful, needy parasites.

"(including an incredibly backwards belief system that helped fuel the spread of AIDS - the religious right has nothing on these people)"

aids isn't an epedemic with the "religious right."

"They'd ask for and take money and help but never work to change their lives for the better (including an incredibly backwards belief system that helped fuel the spread of AIDS - the religious right has nothing on these people). In the end she came to realize that charity without expectations does little or is even harmful."

I am not a socialist, but please note that your argument here is rather weak. You use capitalist ethics to criticize a socialist system. That is, things are not "hand outs" in a socialist system, but rather what you deserve as part of the community. Therefore, the goal in society isn't "bettering yourself"- That's a capitalist goal. The goal is bettering society- and unless you are arguing that Ghana had a full blown socialist system your argument doesn't hold much water as it is moe a critque of the way capitalism makes people feel that it is futile to even try if the market isn't regulated so that everyone has a an equal opportunity.

As far as the actual article goes: Socialism is not for the US. It simply isn't and I am sorry Chris but your ideas seem sadly irrelevant to me. I am a progressive and I think that there are enough changes that need to be made in our country but socialism isn't one of them.

There is no reason to go to such extremes. WE live in a socialist-capitalist state. We just need to make sure that everyone is paying their dues. The real problem with taxes/social programs is that corporationsare not paying the money they owe to the governement. They use our infrastructure and then turn around and refuse to pay the taxes due to us after their use. We need to clean up corporate tax evasion and make sure the wealthy are paying what they owe as well so that the rest of us stop getting screwed.

Fight socialism. Shoot back.

Fight stupidity. Shoot conservatives.

I don't know if I agree with all of your assertions but I think it is very healthy to question what you are questioning. Don't you just love all the brain washed morons who refuse to even listen to an argument that they don't understand.

Think for yourself, question authority.

Did we ever get a final head count on how many people socialism killed in the 20th century?

"Fight stupidity. Shoot conservatives."

-very mature comment, i feel so enlightened...moron

-can people ever stop sterotyping every poster as an extreme liberal or conservative and grouping everyone who disagrees with you into one of those groups...probablly not because most people who post here are immature

It's pretty tough to argue that history is being stolen from us by a corporate media.

History requires two things: Argument and evidence. Provided you have both, you have history. Evidence without argument is an Almanac. Argument without evidence is mere opinion.

The fact that you can attend an institution like UW Madison and make an arguement saying that history is being destroyed is self defeating.

Other issues: Orwell may have been considered a socialist, but he was opposed to totalitarianism in all its forms, and valued democratic dialogue in decision making. Such dialogue would be superflous to an enemy of compromise such as yourself.

The history of socialism is sorry. It has been detrimental to nearly all societies it has touched. Totalitarian socialism is by far its worst species, but even democratic strains have been detrimental to mankind. Some values may be distilled from socialism that may be worthwhile but socialism in all its forms is destructive. Not only is it destructive--it's dead. If you look at the American political landscape, the only ideas out there are conservative ideas, and their reactions. There are no left-wing ideas, because the core of left-wing ideologies has been defeated (that core being Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyist ideas). The last vestiges of these ideas are ailing leaders in Cuba, capitalism budding in former socialist regimes, and the Watermelon effect (socialists adopting green environmentalist cloaks in the wake of socialism failed). Even the anti-war movement is splintered among Moslem jihadists and their sympathizers, paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan, Hollywood liberals like Sean Penn, and emotional leftists without a cause like Michael Moore, Ariana Huffington, and George Soros (who happens to be quite the capitalist). What do Moslem jihadists, paleoconservatives, Hollywood liberals, and emotional lefists have in common? Not much, because there are no left ideas anymore. They've been thought thru and executed to their terminus, which turned out to be intellectual downfall and political ruin.

-Ramblings of a UW Alum (History, PoliSci, Intl Relations grad of 2002), and a serving Marine Officer

Chris,
I won't argue with you based on practicality of socialism or other notions. However, I find it ironic that you are railing against the information that is made available for you in a society based upon capitalism. In every government that has employed socialism, the information that is made available to the public is severly hampered. History is often stricken, or rewritten to legitimize and further the socialist party in control. Access to the outside world is limited. Why is this? So that people will not see the various options (some far more appealing than their current situation) available to them? If this is the case then it begs two questions: 1. If socialism is the ideal, then why would the socialist party in control be afraid that their people would see other government/economic models? 2.Does free will matter to you?
Until you realize that the main focus of any government/economic model is the perpetuation of power for those in power, you will fail to see that socialism has warts, as every form of government does.

Socialism inevitably turns to totalitarianism.

Once people have nothing (i.e. property) on which to base their rights, there is no stopping the state from trampling them.

If socialism works so well, why do mothers risk their and their young childrens' lives to float through 90 miles of shark-infested water to flee it for a capitalist state?

Socialists' only answer to that is akin to the Wizard of Oz: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

Fighting authority for fighting's sake is just immaturity.

Fight stupidity. Shoot people who advocate violence.

I say we send more food to Africa so that they can reproduce and have millions more people with AIDS! That sounds awesome to me. Wait...why not realize that all we are doing when we donate to most of Africa is fueling the AIDS epedemic. It seems as if no one there has learned that if you have AIDS, STOP REPRODUCING. And that's only if they know, and they probably don't because they are hundreds of years behind in thinking and can't even figure it out. Why do we waste money ona cause that probably won't ever get better? If people were even supposed to survive in Africa, don't you think there would be food there for them to consume?

As a liberal, I despise this sort of commentary. We're supposed to want egalitarianism through freedom. Not only do you apparently want an end to freedom, but you seem to think that you should be the one in control. This is why socialist societies are, by their nature, totalitarian. Someone has to implement these ideas, and it is usually the person promoting socialism that feels that they are the most qualified. You want to help the poor Mr. Dols?

You already live in a country where the poor are the envy of the rest of the world. Where videos of the poor, intended for use as Soviet propaganda, instead instigated a backlash when those poor russians realized that our poor people are fat. We already make enough food to feed the world 4 times over, with subsidies still in place. The reason that we can't get food to the poor, in fact the reason that their are desperately poor people in the first place, is because most of the African continent, and poor South America, practices the ideas that you preach here.

Has it lead to egalitarianism anywhere, ever? No, except to make everyone equally miserable. You are like the right wing creation scientist, holding onto a false belief in the face of overwhelming and constantly growing evidence. You hold a belief, on faith, for no reason other than that it sounds nice.

You may be in the company of Einstein (a great man, but an idealist) and King (who changed his views later in life), but you are also in the company of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Guevara, Castro, Mussolini, and Il Sung.

I'm glad that you are a Socialist, and not a liberal. Let no one conflate the two. This is the voice of insanity. Conservatives will often label us as Socialists, but we are nothing of the sort. Not like this madman. We push for egalitarianism through opportunity, through hard work, through justice and fairness. Conservatives push for laissez faire policies. We disagree, and believe that the government can do more to help by setting up the rules. Not by playing in the game.

Mr. Dols, take an econ class and let me know when you're finished. Right now I'll just assume that you are too stupid to realize what it is that you promote. Afterwords, if you fail to change your tune, you will merely be a contemptible human being.

If all liberals were like the last guy, I'd go back to being a Democrat. Great post.

You may not get smarter as you get older, however you do realize that you can no longer live in the world of theory, also known as college. You eventually move onto the real world where you inevitably find out that as good as theory is, once you try to apply the theory you learned in college it does not always work as well as the theory would suggest, if it works at all. Case in point is the theory that we can solve poverty by throwing more money at the problem, when after 30 years of applying that theory, our poverty rate is basically unchanged in those 30 years of spendimg Billions of dollars trying to solve the problem of proverty.

Yes, Dols is too stupid to realize the implications (let alone the wisdom) of what he promotes.

"There is no reason to go to such extremes. WE live in a socialist-capitalist state. We just need to make sure that everyone is paying their dues. The real problem with taxes/social programs is that corporationsare not paying the money they owe to the governement. They use our infrastructure and then turn around and refuse to pay the taxes due to us after their use. We need to clean up corporate tax evasion and make sure the wealthy are paying what they owe as well so that the rest of us stop getting screwed."

There's two sides to that coin. You forgot to mention all the people living off the government. Take a look sometime at what percentage of the federal budget goes to "entitlements".

Why is it that there's always someone who takes a socialism polisci class and then thinks its the greatest thing in the world? It's been tried and defeated, multiple times. The societies/countries with capitalist systems have the "poor" populations that are the best off. I mean, to be a poor person in the US is a lot different than in North Korea.

Since you've become so enlightened on socialism, I suggest you take an economics class sometime. You'll realize that the free market's ability to use resources efficently is what creates wealth and reduces poverty. The modern economy of even the smallest countries is just too complex to be planned, that's why prices and suppy/demand must govern the use of scarce resources.

I recommend the book Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, by Thomas Sowell. Outstanding book, by an outstanding author. A smart, quick, and easy read -- no prior knowledge of economic/statistics/math required.

Poverty is required in a capitalist system. There can be no rich without the poor to exploit. That being said, we can even the playing field a bit by making sure everyone has healthcare and an education.

Socialism requires the centralization of economic matters into one government regulated office or control structure. This inherently leads to the consolidation of information into one place, which can prove very dangerous if there is not perfect tranparency.

However, pure capitalism leads inherently to the victors of competition cornering the markets and building unbreakable monopolies, which are inherently inefficient for distributing goods and services.

The peace process in the Middle East has been so difficult because giving outright victory to either side would force the losers to give up their homes, their lives, maybe even their existence. But compromise seems impossible, because each side is so indoctrinated in their rallying cries that the other side MUST be wrong.

Only the openness of democratic capitalism combined with the social safeties of socialism seems to be the right economic answer, but both sides are so ingrained in calling each other names and throwing around insults ("shoot a socialist, shoot a conservative"). In short, my take on this whole thing is the same as my take on the Mideast Peace Process...

Without a miracle of human compromise, we're fucked.

-William Northend

Only socialism requires poor people, otherwise it has no people at all. Capitalism requires only the carrot, the whip is optional. Something to strive for. Capitalism rests on the idea of wealth creation, that when you sell something both parties are better off. No one is exploited in the system, because participation is voluntary. Exploitation can only occurr in a compulsory situation. If you choose not to participate, you are only exploiting yourself.

"Animal Farm" is a must read for anybody who think they want Socialism.

"Poverty is required in a capitalist system. There can be no rich without the poor to exploit."

Right, all those poor people in America are being exploited? Or are they exploiting the generousity of those of us working and paying taxes?

more like sociaLOLism, am i rite?

ooooh, good one!

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

Nope, no ability here, but I have been working on my list of needs...

"Socialism needed for egalitarianism"

Yeah, because the Soviet Union was just so egalitarian, wasn't it?

I hope you're enjoying college. Mommy and Daddy paying? Write this up at the bar? Everyone agree you're a pretty smart guy? Nothing like Marxism and statistics, right? You really took on about everyone and everything, there, didn't you? Quite the go-getter. Well, you go get 'em. And while you're at it, let me wish you and Malcolm X my very best while you're out there on the fringe. Feel free -- if you've got time between house parties and classes -- to send any of your wonderful ideas our way. We'd be glad to hear from you. You sound just blisteringly intelligent, so I'm not sure if I'll understand everything. But I'll try. How lucky we are to have a mind like yours.

"Just in terms of logical construction, each of the above is bogus. There are no absolutes, humans aren't "naturally" anything and history is not over. Throughout history, regular people have -- in the face of the most crooked attempts to co-opt and sabotage their efforts -- refused to be bought off and instead opted for the solidarity that flies in the ugly face of capitalist individualism."

First, you drastically ignore the human condition. People are capable of incredible things, but "to err is human".

Second, human nature isn't the point when we're talking about socialism. Socialism has its own economic problems like capitalism does that arise from its own nature and protocols. Planning an economy is hard to do, and we're not very good at it yet. Distributing all of this in a fair and timely manner needs to be solved, too.

Third, I like the part about not being so individualistic. It's true that "man is responsible to all, for all", that we can work together and need to. But we are protected by individual rights and individual equality under the law. We can work together to make a great mural, but each piece is important by itself, too.

"At the hands of [the capitalist] system, humanity will repeat the crimes of the 20th century."

Crimes of the 20th century:

Capitalism-
Congo
Great Depression
Cubs Win World Series 1908, Lose Since

Socialism-
Stalin's gulags
Mao's Cultural Revolution
Rocky IV
***

See? Whatever the system, we can screw things up pretty bad. Socialism won't stop that.

"In truth, this is all rubbish, and it should all be abandoned in favor of Marxist politics."

We already have good things from Marxist politics. We have unions- great. We have minimum wage laws- great. We have worker safety laws, child labor laws, safety regulations- great. Don't push it over the edge. Just play it cool, boy. Real cool.

Killing all the poor people would make things egalitarian too.

As soon as I read the article, I knew exactly what most of the criticism would be: Brainwashed fools who equate Socialism and Stalinism.
Socialism is a five-day, forty-hour work week. It is a minimum wage. Paid vacation, sick leave, ... do I have to go on?
The Red scare that still hangs over this country is ignorance of the fact that the only people to suffer from Socialism in this country are the rich exploiters who have had to work a little harder to screw everyone else. And they're still doing more than fine because the public is indoctrinated with all this nonsense.
Capitalism, as we know, must change, and it will. The problem with the article is that it sees radical change as a good idea, rather than promoting an evolution. We could not leap from what we have now to a purely Socialist society. We can only hope to continue on the (currently interrupted) path of improvement.
Greed is the primary cause of Totalitarianism. A society that is prepared for Socialism has already addressed that problem, which we clearly have not.
Nonetheless, this sort of idealism is important -- given that the ideal of Greed is upheld throughout our society.
All those who would say "Oh, but we're so much better off than... (insert place or era here)" might try to consider not how much better we are, but how much better we could be. And consider that there are countries that are, in fact, better off than we are. We've done alright given the particulars this country has faced, but that progress has been largely thanks to Socialistic notions.
Capitalism has given us a lot. So did the Feudal/plantation societies that preceded it. They eventually collapsed due to their obvious evils. When the more more more, consumption-based, exploitive, wasteful practices of a society that thinks eternal economic growth is achievable finally put that last straw on the camel's back, we'll have to cast aside our worst traits and consider something better.
Meanwhile, simple-minded folk can make fun of those who know the meaning of the word "foresight."

"Socialism-
Stalin's gulags
Mao's Cultural Revolution
Rocky IV"

Rocky IV was the greatest of the entire Rocky series. Take that back, you monster.

"Rocky IV was the greatest of the entire Rocky series. Take that back, you monster."

Rocky fought "Ivan Drago" and basically saved the free world. I loved it myself, but I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for the evils of Socialism. It was free association with Rocky V, which you HAVE to admit was bad, to Rocky IV, where he fought the Reds.

Hey batdad, I didn't hear no bell.

"Killing all the poor people would make things egalitarian too."

The French killed all the rich people and just look how that turned out. Oh sure, Napoleon and the French Army pillaged, raped and conquered Europe was but that didn't last long.

"Greed is the primary cause of Totalitarianism. "

The Nazis and the Communists were both explicit philosophical altruists. They believed that the individual exists to serve society. That is the root of socialism, and it inexorably leads to the idea the individual lives may be disposed of, as society sees fit.

If some particular socialist has not yet descended into outright totalitarianism, it's only because he hopes that his hypocrisy will save him from the consequences of his ideas.

"Meanwhile, simple-minded folk can make fun of those who know the meaning of the word 'foresight.'"

You seem to be looking backwards, not forward.

You criticize the comments for conflating Stalinist communism with Socialism. Fine, they are, in fact, slightly different. In communism the state seizes the means of production, killing the desire to produce. In Socialism, the state simply steals from people and gives it to other people, killing the desire to produce.

Saying that some other countries have it better than us is debatable. There are certainly other nations that have close to our living standards, if not superior living standards, but they all share capatilstic economies (even the highly overrated Norway).

Greed does not cause totalitarianism. Power causes totalitarianism. Actually it's the concentration of power. Socialism needs concentrated power to enforce redistribution, and that is why socialism can only exist as a totalitarian state.

Feudal/plantation economics gave us nothing. It was not a stepping stone to anything. Real growth, and improvement of quality of life came only with the liberalization of economic policies (even in enlightenment era Europe this is the case. Mercantilism may have been incorrect, but it still, accidentally, led to increased trade).

The bottom line is this. In feudal (which were, basically, socialist, by the way) societies, and in socialist societies, little progress is actually made, except to drag the successful down.

In this society, the poor have been getting richer every year, at a much higher rate than the poor in other nations. "Poverty" levels are about the same, but largely because we calculate poverty in terms only of wages (rather than the more accurate Real Consumer Purchasing Power) and because we define it as a percentage.

In 1750, it took a family of four working 75 hour days to produce a bag of wheat. In modern day america, it takes the average person 20 minutes to earn the equivalent of a bag of wheat. That is the real triumph of capitalism, and the real reason why our poor are not exactly poor. We may be able to do even better, but it will be through the efforts of individuals, and not through some arbitrary collectivist mandate.

You sir, are looking forward to 1984.

Those of you who think that capitalism makes poor people richer are ignoring the global community. Yes, it does in our society, but ultimately capitalism requires people somewhere to be exploited. 2/3 of the world lives on less than 2 dollars per day and that's the reason that people in theUs-rich or poor- can have the standard of living that we do.

Poor people are required in a capitalist system. It is a zero sum game. Some people win and some people lose and the playing field isn't equal.

Moron, those people who are earning $2 a day were earning nothing before the capitalist factory came to town.

Actually read about some of the workers you claim are "exploited". A lot of them will tell you that before the Nike or Haynes factory came to town, they had nothing. They worked in the rice paddies and were happy if they ate.

Your problem is that you think $2 a day goes as far over there as it does here. You think because YOU'd be appalled if you were offered $2 a day, so would the worker in a craphole Asian or African Country.

Get over yourself.

First: Why must you resort to juvenile name calling? Why are you so angry and insecure? People can't disagree with you or they are automatically morons?

Second: Yes, many people are happy to have factory jobs because they have lost their land to corporations and the corporate (or World Bank)run government.

Third: Even if we were to believe your argument, is that your definition of justice/equality? So just because they were going to starve to death we are great people because we give them enough money to be able to live in hovels and eat white rice? Where is your soul? Your human compassion? Are you really that arrogant/selfish that you are unwilling to give up a small portion of what you have to help other people? You should be ashamed of yourself. You are greedy and selfish. It really is shameful. I wonder if you would say this to those people's face....

"A craphole ASIAN or AFRICAN country"

Conservatives are showing their true colors. You bigoted little fucks.

"So just because they were going to starve to death we are great people because we give them enough money to be able to live in hovels and eat white rice? Where is your soul? Your human compassion? "

So you want to inflict wages so high that there will no longer be worthwhile to employ them. Then, when your thugishness has driven them into starvation, you can strut around boasting of your "compassion".

"Those of you who think that capitalism makes poor people richer are ignoring the global community."

The global community, at least the poor global community, is not capitalistic, and that is why they are poor.

It is NOT a zero sum game, and no one need be "exploited." You fail to make a causal connection here, so let me help out. In your scenario, poor people would make stuff for us rich people to buy, and we could buy a lot because those poor people are willing to look for so little. So what's the problem with this reasoning?

First of all, most of our goods, in this country, come from rich people, not poor people. Anything made in America or Europe is was automatically made by a rich person. Who was exploited in that transaction? And because we have the trade deficit that we do, we buy almost all of our own products. So where are our desperately poor? If we need someone to exploit, and you've basically conceded that they don't exist in the US (and on a world wide scale this is certainly the case) who in the US did we exploit?

2. Remember that trade deficit I mentioned? We're buying products from oversees, alot. Wherever we buy from, those people are better off than their neighbors, and once they have some skills they can build up. Of course if you live under a corrupt socilist government, it's tough to build on anything.

3. The one area we probably agree on is that farm subsidies are bad because they artificially lower our crop prices and take away the ability of subsitence level farmers in other poor countries to export to us.
But under your exploitation scenario, isn't it the American farmer that has been exploited?

But no! As it turns out, it is those who are prevented from producing that are languishing in poverty, not those who are producing.

Of course this should be obvious, but I'm dealing with socialists here, so I'll try to be extra clear.

the "global community" can lick my balls. Bunch of fucking freeloaders.

"'A craphole ASIAN or AFRICAN country'

Conservatives are showing their true colors. You bigoted little fucks."

How is this a biggoted statement? Most of the shitty countries in the world are in Asia or Africa or South America. If by "craphole" the writer was referring to disease, poverty, sanitation, unreasoned thinking and that sort of thing, this statement was merely a discription. He/she didn't say they were crapholes because of the race of the people that live there or anything of the sort.

Typical Madison PC police.

As usual, people are here to insult, cling to their unquestioned notions of things, and feel superior without real "superiority."
Get over yourself, indeed.

Thank you for another response based on thorough, biased, misinterpretation.
Socialism is, ultimately, a call for equality. It is an ideal to which we can and should aspire. Call it something else if you want. It is the opposite of totalitarianism.
Hitler and Stalin were socialists/communists in name only. The absurdities of their philosophies can be compared to the many Christians who have supported segregation and other poor ideas, both past and present, that are contradictory to the ideology claimed by more well-meaning Christians. Again, my terminology was ignored in favor of the biased "facts" you've learned.
In our society, greed and power-hunger are synonymous. Money has gone from being a tool to being our sole goal. Obviously.
Bureaucracy is a pitfall to Socialism, but no worse than what we have. If basic needs are provided, greed becomes less relevant, and "centralized power" suddenly becomes something that can, when checked by an educated populace, be trusted.
Crime rate is one way of comparing nations. Another is the size of the incarcerated population. On these significant levels, the US makes a strong case for other nations. Other factors, such as standard of living, favor more Socialist nations as well.
If you had read my comments, you may have noticed that I specifically talked about evolution. Throwing away what came before out of hand leads to trouble, as does clinging foolishly to what we have because it seems to have worked before. Progressing to a more fair system would seem an indisputably benevolently goal.
Feudalism was a step in economic evolution. It produced more advanced agriculture and helped to develop the modern city hub. As is was also elitist and thrived on slavery, I would say it was not socialist in the least, in the way I have described Socialism. Again, use another word if you've been trained to find the term distasteful.
Socialism would provide more flexibility, and ultimately more leisure time for most everyone. This leads to progress, not away from it. When and by whom are most great cultural improvements made? By people with time to do more than just survive.
In what way is collectivism "arbitrary?" Sharing versus taking, cooperating versus competing -- these are practical, defensible ideas.
Notice I said that Capitalism has had its place. It has, and in evolved form will continue to. The evolution has been taking place, and will only halt through the elitist, reactionary goals of the neo-conservatives.
In the third world, they are several steps behind. For many of them, $2/day is an improvement, as it was here a century or two back. Eventually, standard of living rises, and they will demand more, and socialism will begin to take hold as the people of the third world begin to realize that they can have better wages and regulations.
If, as I've already said but will have to repeat since it fell on deaf ears, we weren't taught to fear Socialism, we might acknowledge that the progress of our society for the average worker has come thanks to our slow injection of Socialist ideas. Otherwise, we'd have plenty of 12 year olds working 80 hours per week for their pittance.
If you ignore reason and my intentions, or if you are a selfish member of the ruling elite (or aspire to be), you can certainly poke holes in these arguments.

"If you ignore reason and my intentions, or if you are a selfish member of the ruling elite (or aspire to be), you can certainly poke holes in these arguments."

Show me a man of 20 who is not a socialist and I will show you a man with no heart. Show me a man of 40 who is still a socialist and I will show you a man with no head. Do you pay for school by yourself? What do you study? Ever worked a day in your life? You'll grow up son. But for now, you are the one ignoring reason.

Yes, he's ignoring reason because he is simply questioning what is considered to be fact. Grow up and learn how to take some criticism.

Here, here. Consider: One might not conform to your assumptions, and one might be "smarter" than you, or at least smarter than you think. What if I am forty, and have worked, and still believe these things; can you wrap your mind around that?
You still ignore my basic arguments.
I'm not a socialist; I'm an anarchist. But that's going to take a long time to achieve. We can evolve through Socialism, Collectivism, Communism, etc, but, thanks to the narrow-minded, self-involved, and/or frightened masses, we may never get there.
How is it you assume everyone is a naive schoolboy when we say things that have been said, in various ways, by unquestionably educated adults? Are you so arrogant to think that anything with which you don't agree must be "below" you? If you're wrapped up in this system, then outside views may just be things that you have never been able to consider. Who's insulated? Who's unaware of the outside world?
I will now ignore you, unless you can respond intelligently and not with reactionary insults and unsupported views and opinions. You can think or not.

I issue a challenge.

All you so called conservatives who think that capitalism actually elevates the poor despite common sense telling you that capitalism is BASED on someone screwing someone else over:

Go move to Mexico and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. After all, hey its easy right? and things aren't so bad there right? So you should live your ideals.

Oh, you're not willing to go work hard in Mexico to prove how easy it is?

Oh that's right you support wars you won't fight in as well.

So let's see. Let's recap:

I think we should sned other people to die, but I won't go.

Other people should have to work in sweatshops but I don't want to.

It's all about yourselves and waht makes things easier for you. You are a bunch of parasites.

Hypocrites.

what a jew

Not to nitpick, but the quote in your last sentence, "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," was not said by Malcolm X but rather by Barry Goldwater in his 1964 Republican National Convention acceptance speech.

"Socialism is, ultimately, a call for equality."

This is always a lie. In the end it turns out that although all are equal, some are more equal than others.

Some leftist said:

"Oh, you're not willing to go work hard in Mexico to prove how easy it is?

Oh that's right you support wars you won't fight in as well.

So let's see. Let's recap:

I think we should sned other people to die, but I won't go.

Other people should have to work in sweatshops but I don't want to.

It's all about yourselves and waht makes things easier for you. You are a bunch of parasites.

Hypocrites. "

I'll go fight in the war and pull myself up by the bootstraps in Mexico just as soon as you have an abortion, give your job to a minority happily, and write a check to the government because you feel you're undertaxed.

We both need to live up to our principles, right?

Socialism is utopian and therefore destined to fail and/or lead to totalitarianism.

Socialism requires some central body to control the flow of goods, services, rewards, and resources.

Once a central body has control over all of those things, it will not give it up. The central group (party) will simply never decide that the "revolution" has completed, and therefore needs his/her/their continued guidance.

Look at Castro. He's had 50+ years to perfect his revolution, yet he seems to have a hard time stepping down. Apparently the Cuban people are still so far behind in implementing the revolution, it's still a crime to "disrespect the President".

So socialists, how long will the revolution take before I can "disrespect the PResident" without going to jail? 100 years? 200? 5,000?

You socialists/leftists like to tug at heartstrings to make your point. I prefer to use reality. You start writing checks to uneducated peoples who know how to farm rice and that's about it, and you're going to set them up to fail. Yes, we should help. We should use agencies like USAID to help speed their development. We should transfer technology so that they don't need to go thru the same development problems we experienced. And yes, we should strive to feed them.

But we cannot use society or government to make everyone socioeconomically equal. The result will be hoarding and the black market. Guaranteed. Man has since the dawn of time seeked that which is rare. That's a pretty long time and it probably isn't going to change, no matter how much you enlightened leftists think you can "convince" us neanderthals how smart you are, which of course will end up being at the barrel of a gun.

"As a liberal, I despise this sort of commentary. We're supposed to want egalitarianism through freedom. Not only do you apparently want an end to freedom, but you seem to think that you should be the one in control. This is why socialist societies are, by their nature, totalitarian. Someone has to implement these ideas, and it is usually the person promoting socialism that feels that they are the most qualified. You want to help the poor Mr. Dols?

You already live in a country where the poor are the envy of the rest of the world. Where videos of the poor, intended for use as Soviet propaganda, instead instigated a backlash when those poor russians realized that our poor people are fat. We already make enough food to feed the world 4 times over, with subsidies still in place. The reason that we can't get food to the poor, in fact the reason that their are desperately poor people in the first place, is because most of the African continent, and poor South America, practices the ideas that you preach here.

Has it lead to egalitarianism anywhere, ever? No, except to make everyone equally miserable. You are like the right wing creation scientist, holding onto a false belief in the face of overwhelming and constantly growing evidence. You hold a belief, on faith, for no reason other than that it sounds nice.

You may be in the company of Einstein (a great man, but an idealist) and King (who changed his views later in life), but you are also in the company of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Guevara, Castro, Mussolini, and Il Sung.

I'm glad that you are a Socialist, and not a liberal. Let no one conflate the two. This is the voice of insanity. Conservatives will often label us as Socialists, but we are nothing of the sort. Not like this madman. We push for egalitarianism through opportunity, through hard work, through justice and fairness. Conservatives push for laissez faire policies. We disagree, and believe that the government can do more to help by setting up the rules. Not by playing in the game.

Mr. Dols, take an econ class and let me know when you're finished. Right now I'll just assume that you are too stupid to realize what it is that you promote. Afterwords, if you fail to change your tune, you will merely be a contemptible human being. "

Amen

Prospering from nothing in Mexico and doing so in the US are two totally different things. It's a dumb argument. Maybe if you said Britain, Canada, or Germany you'd sound half intelligent.

"Socialism is, ultimately, a call for equality."

But people aren't equal. Some people are smarter, more ambitious, or more energetic. Unless the best people agree to be expoited, the only way to achieve economic equality is through brute force. It means sacrificing the best to the worst, and that is a monstrous ideal.

"Notice I said that Capitalism has had its place."

Apparently its place is to produce wealth for socialists to loot. Every parasite needs its host.

"what a jew"

Better a Jew than a panty-waste douchebag like you.

What does this part of your essay mean: "...refused to be bought off and instead opted for the solidarity that flies in the ugly face of capitalist individualism." Are you saying some great people opt to fight individualism with solidarity? How do they do that?

Sounds to me like you would be for "Universal" health care. Why not show some solidarity by getting together similar-minded people who refuse to compromise their beliefs. These people could all go to medical school by the thousands, and then all donate large portions of time to treating people for free. They could make drugs for free too. Nobody would have to compromise.

The time is right for a revolution though. When Marx was around, a successful revolution would have meant seizing the means of production in an industrial economy. This would have been difficult, as the police would have intervened. Luckily, in today's service economy, workers already own the means of production, themselves. So the first part is accomplished. Now, all we need is to ...?