[misha1967]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

can you define what it is that you mean by socialism? What forms of government spending are not socialism in your view? For example is government maintenance of public highways a form of socialism in your view? And if so, is it an acceptable form?

Now that is a very good question, defining socialism

Particularly since you can't hardly pin an actual socialist down on one because they're constantly running around moving the goal posts every time their latest Utopia of Next Tuesday project fails miserably, as they all do.

But it's a fair question and deserves an answer.

Contrary to Tribesman's rather simplistic belief (but he can be excused since he obviously has trouble with concepts more advanced than remembering to alternate exhaling and inhaling), I don't define it as "everything I don't like." Granted, there is a strong inverse correlation, as in "everything that is socialist, I don't like", but that's not quite the same. One of these days, if I'm massively bored, I'll introduce Tribesman to Venn diagrams, but I'll probably be better off trying to teach my dog to sing. It's more likely to be met with success and there is at least a borderline chance that it might prove enjoyable.

But back to socialism:

It used to be fairly simple: It used to be simply "the belief that everything should be collectively owned and distributed equally to all." This led to socialists taking over all property in the name of the Community, and it failed. Also, they found out that people rather resent having their property taken away at gun point, which sometimes led to unpleasant consequences for the socialists. Finally, they weren't really all that interested in taking over private industry, they just wanted the money so they could redistribute it to themselves and their friends. Running a company is too much like work, and if there's one thing that socialists hate more than somebody, somewhere having more than they do, it's actually having to work for a living.

So they found out that you could "take over" private property in other ways, such as micro-managing them through excessive regulations as well as taxing the everloving hell out of them. This required no work other than sending out goons with guns to collect, and it got them all that they were really interested in in the first place, which was the money.

In addition, they could then claim that they weren't "socialists" at all since they weren't actually, you know, taking control of the factories. They were just grabbing the wallet of the owner and emptying it into their own pockets while he had all the trouble of actually running the business.

So a different definition of socialism is necessary, and the best I've been able to come up with over the years (I had help too, didn't think it up all by myself) is that it involves taking from those who earned and giving it to those who didn't, or "redistribution of wealth" as it's also called. But that's too general as well. To refine it further, socialism involves not just the redistribution of wealth, all functional societies need to do so to an extent in order to continue to exist, but the targeted redistribution of it.

Also, it is founded on the core belief that the Common Good comes before the good of the individual or, as one socialist born in 1889 in Austria put it: "Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz." Of course with the socialists in charge of what the Common Good is, which tends to coincide magically with whatever helps the socialists stay in power and control of the redistribution.

If you, as an individual, were to practice that it would land you in jail in short order. It's called "armed robbery." Harsh? Not really. If I were to put a gun to somebody's head in order to grab his money so I could keep a chunk for myself and hand some out to my fellow gang members, it would earn me a well-deserved stint in the slammer. If the government puts a gun to your head (as in threatening with dragging you off to jail if you don't pony up) so they can keep a chunk for themselves (administrative costs) and hand the rest out to voter groups that they need to keep voting for them (and yes, that makes Republicans in this country guilty of socialist acts as well), it will give them rave reviews about "social justice" in The New York Times.

Sorry about the long-windedness, but it's a serious question that deserves a serious answer and it can't be boiled down to a sentence or two.

As to your second question: Would I consider using tax funds for highways "socialism?"

Again, I can't really answer that with a yes or no.

As I mentioned before, any functional society, if it wants to keep on functioning, has to redistribute private wealth to some extent. The alternative is anarchy, and it really doesn't work out that well for most people and certainly not for nations.

Even the most resourceful among us must realize, if we're honest about it, that we can't do everything ourselves, which leads to the formation of communities, states, nations, call it what you like. They're all the same. People getting together to complement each other. You might even call them "clubs." And clubs must have membership fees to cover the basic functions that keep the club going.

As to funding national highways no, I wouldn't generally call that "socialism" as a solid infrastructure is important to the nation as a whole. It doesn't benefit any particular group. The ability to quickly move goods and, for that matter, armed forces in case of a threat to the nation, not to mention police and firefighters to protect the population from internal threats, is a cornerstone in providing a safe, prosperous society. Oh, you can surely find exceptions where a particular infrastructure project only benefits a tiny group of people (in which case they ought to damn well pay their own way), but generally speaking a good infrastructure is paramount when it comes to prosperity, safety and national security.

Speaking of national security, the same goes for paying for the armed forces over your taxes. It doesn't matter a whole lot how wonderful your society is if a neighboring one can take it all away from you without firing a shot once they find out that you have something they want. And they will. It's human nature. "He who beats his sword into a plowshare will soon find himself plowing the fields belonging to he who didn't."

Police and courts? Absolutely. The only thing keeping your stronger neighbor from kicking you in the nuts and taking all your stuff is his fear that the police will come grab him and/or you being able to wipe him out in court. If your neighbor is weaker than you... Well, then the problem will solve itself and not in his favor, but I think that we can all agree that equal protection before the law is key to maintaining a functional and honest society.

All of the above examples have one thing in common: They don't benefit any group in particular, they're all designed to keep society as a whole from falling apart into anarchy or falling prey to foreign subjugation, something that benefits all, poor and rich.

"Socialism" is the errant belief that it is somehow "unfair" that some people are better at amassing wealth than others and that they, as a result, should be punished by taking away their wealth. Needless to say, that doesn't quite encourage the amassing of wealth and, well, then you have the classical problem of socialism where they eventually run out of other people's money and everybody ends up with their weenies in the wringer. Which is then, of course, immediately blamed on capitalism, but I digress.

It's hard to get your butt out of the bed in the middle of the night in a blizzard to go catch the escaped communal cow since it's not "yours", it's "everybody's", so let "everybody" go catch the damn thing. If it's your cow, on the other hand.

I hope this clarifies things a bit