A classic battle between Liberal and Conservative! Who won? YOU BE THE JUDGE!
Lauren: im going to major in political science so that stuff in so interesting to me. i wish more people our age got involved with current events its important. im not a republican, i wont say that lol im a conservative libertarian, so a little government is pretty much key to me
Ryan: I'm going to minor in political science, because I also find it interesting. I don't cal myself a democrat for obvious reasons...I'm a Marxist, or, if you prefer, a communist. The problem with this is that when someone hears communism they automaticlly think of Stalin and genocide, when that's not even accurate. I have a longer rant about that, but I'll save it for the blog.
Lauren: but if people know their history then they know that the Soviet Union was not communist, no country has ever been a true form of communism because it can not exist. you need endless resources and it is just against human nature. there will always be one person who wants more than his neighbor. socialism can't even function, its a short term fix and a long term problem. look at europe, its economy is crumbling because of socialism infiltrating the governments
Ryan: *clap clap clap clap clap* about the soviet union not being communist part. Most people don't get past that. The problem with the socialism that has existed up to today was that it is most often forced on the population by a revolution, instead of being progressive. a movement can't work without majority support, and that cant be achieved by a revolution. actually, quite the opposite: a violent revolution is, in most cases, frowned upon by the people. And I don't think socialism is the reason for the economic collapse, because the vast majority of europe is still capitalist, with a few exceptions (Sweden) being a mixed economy.
Lauren: yeah but its the slow mix of socialism with a capitalist society that causes uncertainty. with government putting in place new regulations it makes small businesses reluctant to grow. i just disagree 100% with socialism. and it doesn't matter whether or not it was put in place by a revolution or slowly by manipulating politicians. either way it won't work because resources and money are not unlimited. to quote margaret thatcher "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money" that is the truth.
Ryan: It's a common misconception among people that socialism is obtained by the forced redistribution of wealth...this is untrue. Socialism is simply the redistribution of the means of production (factories, businesses) from the upper class to the middle and lower class. Whether the government should heavily regulate these businesses is very disputed amongst political theorists...In my opinion, small businesses should be about as regulated as they are now, only collectively owned by the workers (like a library), but large distributors of services such as transportation (especially air transportation), energy, healthcare, and other things like that, should be managed by the government. Democracy would still be intact, as apposed to the immovable bureaucracy of Stalinism. To quote Vladimir lenin, "Democracy is indispensable to socialism". And when you say that socialism takes up large amounts of resources, what resources are you referring to?
Lauren: um actually socialism is the redistribution of the means of production from the wealthy to the government, not the middle and lower class. and i think we can all agree that the government can barely represent themselves let alone the american people. and by resources i mean like labor, for instance with healthcare. if everyone is "entitled" to healthcare as the great Obama says we are then we will need more doctors and people in the medical profession to accommodate the increase in people now able to get medical attention.
Ryan: Then we give them more doctors and people in the medical profession. I do believe that healthcare is a right that everyone deserves, and that you should not be able to turn away patients for financial reasons. It absolutely sickens me that many people actually profit off of peoples' health (or lack therof). And labor as a resource has the ability to be expanded to create more jobs for people. With government control of the means of production, this can be done more easily than the government suggesting that corporations consider hiring more people. The result is more direct.
Lauren: do you realize how much faith you and other socialists are putting in the federal government. do you really believe that they wont act in self interest.
Ryan: A part of the transition into socialism is the installation (progressively) of what is known as the Dictatorship of the proletariat, where in this case "dictatorship" is defined as rule by one social class, not one person. So the federal government would act to further the interests of the working and middle class. We now live in a dictatorship of the bourgeois, more commonly known as a plutocracy.
Post your votes in the comments section!
I think you both make really good points about socialism and Europe. I don't think Europe is having economic problems because some countries (Scandinavian) are partly socialist. This wwas kind of over my head...I like politics and government theories but I'm not this into it!
ReplyDeleteI do have a funny thing to share, and do not take this "communism" literally, I think it means "what was called communism in the Soviet Union"...Capitalism is man's exploitation of man, and Communism is the exact opposite. Hehe.
I guess I agree more with Ryan, I think we can trust the gov't because we have to to have any kind of order in a country. But you both (meaning Ryan and Lauren) know more about this than I do so I don't really know.
-Beverly
But why is the government so ineffective and untrustworthy? The reason is corruption resulting from interest conflicts: look at any major politician's campaign contributions, and you'll find they are "backed"--or, more appropriately, bought--by huge corporations. The corporations' politicians--er, polititians' corporations--are *of course* opposed to economic reform, public health care, environmental regulation, education, and equal wealth distribution. As Ryan said, profiting off others--that includes suppressing them economically, leaving them uneducated, putting a price on their physical well-being, even leaving them to die--is a business here in corporate America. If there is a Death Panel, it is not located on Main Street, but on Wall Street.
ReplyDelete-- Sol Boucher
i agree with sol on this, campaigns are too majorly controlled by corporations and special interest. but that is why putting so much faith and trust in the federal government is just unrealistic. people, politicians especially, do what is in their best interest. this is why corporate america and special interests are more accurately represented in our congress than the American people and why giving control to the federal government is not reliable. giving more power to the states will target more specifically the interests of the American people than the federal government can ever do. put government on a smaller scale and it will function in a less corrupted manner
ReplyDeleteLauren Abbate
Some politicians act in self interest in the sense that, If your money's green, you can influence them as Sol said. But Lauren, state politicians are just as easily corruptible, if not more so, than federal politicians. Government doesn't necessarily need to be smaller, just filled with people who run with something other than empty rhetoric and corporate money (and ideas).
ReplyDelete