The rise of socialism

Goooner

I'll lay my cards on the table right now. I think socialism as proposed by the current Labour leadership will be a disaster of Venezuela proportions.

https://capx.co/venezuelas-useful-idiots-have-gone-quiet-i-wonder-why/

But given the current popularity of Corbyn, helped by a well received manifesto I thought it might be worth discussing here.

Do people think that nationalisation works?

Do people think you can significantly raise taxes without impact to the wider economy?

Is it "social justice" to attack those that have been successful?

What does everyone else think?

The Dude

If you're going to be attacked for working hard and being successful, what is the point in working hard and being successful?

May as well sit on your arse all day and let someone else do all the work.

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CLASSROOM SOCIALISM

Is this man truly a genius?

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an “A” …. (substituting grades for dollars — something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a “B”. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a “D”! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the new average was an “F”.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Human nature will always cause socialism’s style of government to fail because the world has producers and non-producers (makers and takers).

It could not be any simpler than that.

EarthRod

Socialism is no better or no worse than any other kind of pyramid scam.

It's great as a concept if you can begin 2/3 of the way up the organisational chart, but it's a life sentence of state dependence and pigeon-holing for anybody starting at the bottom, ultimately resulting in lost potential.

nabby

Socialism is not on the rise - it's always been there, waiting.

The recent general election voting and the Corbyn effect just makes it seem socialism is on the rise.

rancidpunk

Yay, another echo chamber

You may as well ask why Trump was more popular than his GOP rivals and then won the election, why Leave won the referendum, heck, even why people protest (peacefully or otherwise).

In a nutshell, they all offered the fed-up populace a chance to vote for something different to the status quo.

You personally might well be happy with how things are (I don't know if you are or not) but many equally are unhappy.

For example, things people might be unhappy about could include:
years of wage stagnation and often deflation; rising costs in housing, rent, fuel, utilities, food, transport; lack of investment over decades in infrastructure; a feeling disconnection from the people we elect; the wealthiest 1% getting richer by fantastic amounts during and since the global financial crisis of 2008 with the vast majority struggling to keep above water; policies that marginalise those on the fringes of society. And so on.

Toko Black

Yep, agree with Alan and Nabby. Socialism has always been there. Front bench Labour veered away from it during the Blair years, but it was still there in the back benches, so it's a long time since we've been under a socialist rule.
Many not happy with the current situation, as Nabby says, so it's not difficult to see why people would want change in all honesty.

domtheone

Good points @nabby and @rancidpunk

But it did disappear for a reason. Whether fair or not, to many people it's associated with economic failure, strikes, the brain drain, anti-aspiration, etc.

The 70s were much more socialist. Since the economic consensus changed with Thatcher, living standards have improved enormously for the vast majority.

China is a good example of this. Only when they began to embrace capitalism (albeit a highly corporate/government controlled version) did their living standards improve.

Venezuela is an obvious example of how moving to a socialist government has destroyed their economy and trashed living standards.

The Dude

"Do people think that nationalisation works?" - Yes for some types of structure and organisation, no for others. Generally, services that:
- are aimed at providing essential and/or structural needs of a society such as mass transportation, health care, education, policing etc
- are prone to monopolies, cartels and syndicates
- are products or services that are preventative or otherwise don't fit into a economic model of performance/productivity that is measured in numbers of units sold. Example traffic wardens - where the job was all about keeping traffic flowing and preventing accidents, but it's too difficult to
track that performance ... has now evolved into private companies providing parking wardens who are measured on how many tickets they give out which is NOT a measure of safety or efficient traffic flow.

are all services that may well be better suited to public ownership.

"Do people think you can significantly raise taxes without impact to the wider economy?" Taxes are raised and lowered all the time, especially duties. Any change will effect the economy, but the question is not will it impact the economy, but will it impact the economy in a positive or negative way and are those impacts significant. Those questions can be asked about any change to taxation be it up, down or stationary year in year out.

Is it "social justice" to attack those that have been successful? It really does depend on what you mean by 'attack' and what you mean by successful.
I don't have issues with people doing well for themselves in general, but when people are increasing their own wealth beyond any conceivable need while paying the bare minimum to their employees, treating them with less respect and consideration than an office printer and in some cases, profiteering out of pension funds etc, then maybe it's fair to 'have a go' at them.
For me, it's the case that someone can buy a $billion Yacht while others are having to use food banks in a Western democracy.

Pacifico

Valid point.

Personally, I do think it is on the rise (slowly) though.

Might take a few years of a Corbyn government (to educate some - particularly the young) to stem that rise somewhat.

Cliff

A Euromillions win would do them a lot more good than a socialist government, unless of course there were 30 million people in their lottery syndicate.

Socialism is essentially a lie, probably the biggest ever told imho.