Debate:Socialism, Communism or Capitalism

Socialism teaches democracy, people at first didn't think democracy would work in politics. Same with ecomonics. 22:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Generally, it does. There of course have been a lot of countries calling themselves "socialist" that really aren't, unless you're a hardline Marxist-Leninist (read: Stalinist). But overall, I agree, as I'm a dirty commie. Actually, I'm an anarchist, but there's really no difference to conservatives effectively, except they like to sensationalize it whenever a group of us dressed in ninja gear does something stupid at a G8 protest. Most anarchists are socialists. It can be argued that one must be a socialist to be an anarchist, but ancaps are virtually nonexistent outside of the internet, so there's really no point in arguing it, as... Dammit, I'm rambling. But yes, I agree. HolyKatana (talk) 05:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

A confession of a socialist
I want to start off with what made me a socialist. What attracted me to the idea? It was when I was growing up I read a lot of history. It was when I learned there was a time, in the history of this country that people worked for pennies every day. When I learned there was a time, in the history of this country that people worked 12 hour shifts in mines, and mills. When I learned there was a time, in the history of this country, where children worked in factories, too small to stand on the assembly line, which had to stand on boxes to work in the factory, to work. I learned that there was a time, in the history of this country, where to organise a union, to promote workers’ rights and safeties, was a crime. A crime to fight against the corrupt way it was. And what did they say about these people? What did they say in the media, about these people who want decent pay and benefits? They say they don’t really want that, they want socialism. They’re a bunch of communists. I learned there was a time, in the history of this country, where black men were lynched by the KKK, by a bunch of racists, being taken and hung from trees, and mutilated by angry mobs, and people stood by them and took pictures next to the dead body. And what did the media say about those who went against all of this, like Jim Crowe, they said that they may be petitioning for justice, for equality, but what they really want is socialism, they’re a bunch of commies. I went on to learn about the Vietnamese war, where American soldiers fought and killed almost four million civilians, much of the food in Vietnam is still infected with deadly poison that American planes sprayed on the land, and while this was going on, 58000 soldiers died in that war, there were youths in the streets protesting against it. The media? They say they want peace, but they really want socialists, they weren’t a bunch of commies this time, though. No, just American anarchists. I learnt that the first man who set up the Gay Rights movement, Harry Haye, was a socialist. The women’s liberation, the suffrages, was mostly socialists and revolutionaries. This led me to think, y’know, maybe they aren’t so bad after all.

And I say this at a time where we are in the middle of a global recession, an economic crisis, people are losing their homes at record rates, people are being thrown out on the streets, doing everything that they can, and the renter’s home are being foreclosed, and people are losing homes at record rates. We continue and see in places like rich east Africa, which completely embraced the Free Market, and even the charitable IMF, you name it, and they have 30,000 children a day dying for lack of food, from starvation. The department of agriculture of America, not some Marxist Leninist revolution anarchy group, this is the government’s ultra-insider pressure group, says that 11.9% of the families of America are food insecure, they live in fear as they do not know where their food is coming from next, in the richest country in the world. That’s unconscionable in my opinion. People have been told that they’ve come to work for 20, 30 years, and being told “you worked hard, but economy went up, economy went down, you’re out”. I am saying this at a time where there is a bloody war in Iraq, and I’ll say it straight out, it is about oil for the ruling class, for the rich to extend their arm and control the international oil markets. And I say this at a time where the US is promoting governments in places like Saudi Arabia, where the leaders that were put into place have monarchic laws, you know, the punishment for homosexuality is death, Jews were discriminated against, cats and dogs were illegal there (specifically the Capital Riyadh).

So what is it that socialists advocate, what do we want done about this? We think that the farms, the banks, y’know, I was taught in school that we live in a government of the people, by the people for the people, but I’ve came to understand we have a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The decisions, the decision making, it’s not with the masses of people, it’s not with the statesmen, the people who have special interest and knowledge in the topic, but with the rich and the politicians, those who have bullshitted their way into power. Socialists advocate that not the rich should own the banks, these things should be owned by society, and doesn’t that sound like democracy? People having control over society.

Imagine what we could do if we could organise society around human need, and not the current drive for profit. Imagine, just for a moment, the amazing things we could do. Think of how we can make every citizen can have a job. We can make sure that everyone has a decent education. We can make sure everyone can access to health care. We can make sure racism and sexism can disappear, we can do so much, but we can’t, not while profit is in command. Profit doesn’t care about you, you care about you.

Some people say socialism negates the individual. That is a lie. Socialism is about empowering you, the people. We are the people, the people should run society, and it is an unsung story that has been echoing throughout history, and about many historical struggles, all revolving around freedom for the people. That is what I am advocating for you today, and please, join us in trying to rekindle freedom and democracy of the people, thank you. --Devex3 (talk) 19:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Why do you need to confess your ideology. It's a perfectly legitimate one. I think communism is the most equal, and is therefore the best (and the soviet union were not commies.) Bazer63 (talk) 10:26, 12 July 2014 (GMT)

Communism as the goal of Socialism
If I understand it right, Marxism proposes that socialism can be used to transition a capitalist country into a communist country, the idea being that socialism is the economic model which redistributes the wealth, and then the wealth can be used to institute communism on a national scale. In other words, once we adopt a socialist economic model then we can move on to creating a communist state. (Does anyone else view Communism as the "Utopia" and Socialism as the practical model to achieve that "Utopia"?)

In many countries which "tried" communism, it seems that they just redistributed the wealth to the state, when really they should have distributed the wealth to the people and allowed the people to form their own communes. You don't exactly need a very big federal government just to allow the people access to the means of production. Frankly, right now wealth is the means of production, and the super-wealthy can just produce whatever they want within reason. Sinclair Sanguine talk to Sinclair 18:08, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't know what to title this
I'm a capitalist. I used to be a communist, until I realized it was a fundamentally flawed system. Communism has never and will never work. People say things like "The Soviets weren't true communists" and stuff like that. That doesn't mean their failure wasn't communism's fault. They may not have actually been communist, but they tried, and it immediately became fascism. Communism is too easy to abuse. In a command economy, everyone gets paid the same, regardless of how much effort they put into their work. There is no incentive to go above and beyond or innovate, which causes economic stagnation. Communism requires the absence of greed and laziness in order to work. But if greed and laziness weren't a thing, we wouldn't need communism.
 * " Communism is too easy to abuse. In a command economy, everyone gets paid the same, regardless of how much effort they put into their work."
 * False, people under the soviet union got paid differently. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol03/no03/wollenberg.htm &mdash; Unsigned, by: 63.199.33.66 / talk