re: Washington Post Defends Marx – “Five Myths About Socialism”

"A Nation of Sheep will beget a government of wolves"

Edward R. Murrow

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Sheri Berman

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Yep

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What you know is not real. What you believe isn’t founded. Your mind and heart have lied to you, so let us tell you what’s truth.

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-love, Fox News

socialist suck, liberals suck and democrats suck. go Trump.

one is no private ownership aka businesses

one is no personal property

both suck

they love calling scandinavia a success in socialism because it is in a sector like healthcare for example.

that is not full blown socialism like venezuela in all sectors. but those scandinavian taxes are through the roof! to pay for that shite in small countries.

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Communism certainly failed, but social democracy has arguably been the single most successful modern ideology or political movement.

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This is one of those half-truths based on loose definitions whose use are so persuasive to the simple minded, and so typically used of the left.

It’s true that unfettered and unregulated capitalism has problems. It’s also true that our current economic system has many layers of regulations (broadly defined) and interventions which are often beneficial at least for a while (each is up for debate).

But regulated capitalism and democratic socialism are not the same thing, not by a long shot. The distinction between the two is the difference in their fundamental presuppositions - or ideology.

Democratic socialism presupposes that free markets are fundamentally corrupt and that regulation is not only good, but necessary. The answer to every problem is more government intervention - intervention that includes (and invariably becomes) total government take-over. This takeover is not feared, it’s welcomed.

In fact, the rapidity of this desire for takeover is so quick, that most democratic socialists just make that the starting point of their solution.

“Government run healthcare” and “single payer healthcare” are practically indistinguishable.

“If climate change looks like it’s going to make problems for humans, well, let’s just outlaw cars and planes, build trains, rebuild every single building in America to be energy efficiently, and our problems will solved. Think about all of that employment!”

Regulated capitalism understands that free markets are about freedom of exchange, and that the miracle of free markets creates wealth and prosperity. It acknowledges that this freedom can allow for some entities to get too powerful and/or corrupted to the detriment of the majority, or that the common good and long term benefits can get neglected. Some regulation and protections are required, but those regulations always have negative side effects which must be constantly monitored.

A true regulated capitalist recognizes that the regulations themselves lead to corruption and that every effort should be taken to remove regulations when they are no longer useful or have become detrimental. They also know how very hard it can be to remove regulations and government interventions once they’re in place, and they must take that into consideration before ever enacting them.

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I think communism could work on a very small scale for a short amount of time,

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Yeah, it's called marriage. It works about half the time.

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or just straight up ignorant.

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I'm leaning this way. He seems to have no real knowledge of economic systems.