# Ask the Socialist candidate for the European Parliament election **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2009, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252 "2009-05-31T10:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/421 "2009-06-19T23:04:00Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > You mean you didn’t see the umpteen times I already answered this question? Socialism has never worked because socialism has never been tried. Socialism has been tried long before capitalism. It was what a small group of hunter-gatherers practiced. And see how far they got with that system. It was societies which were able to form more complex structures and organizations who managed to become richer. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/422 "2009-06-20T01:15:28Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > The scenario you describe is actually not so unfathomable. Many political groups (especially Trotskyists) practice a technique known as [entryism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism): that is, infiltrating another political group with the goal of taking it over. Various Trotskyist groups in Britain have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to take over various unions and political parties in Britain, [including the Labour Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_tendency). The fact that they haven’t been able to do so to the SPGB is good evidence that our membership examination is, so far at least, a sufficient barrier to this type of threat. Either that or you’ve been infiltrated successfully and just don’t know it yet. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/423 "2009-06-20T09:21:02Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > Socialism has been tried long before capitalism. It was what a small group of hunter-gatherers practiced. And see how far they got with that system. Cite? None of the existing H-G groups I know of practice socialism. Where is your evidence that pre-historic ones did? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/424 "2009-06-20T14:19:22Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There are equivalent conferences on UFOs, homeopathic medicine, and other crackpot theories. Often there are people there with Ph.D’s - usually in other fields - who are willing to ‘peer review’ papers. I wouldn’t call a conference on Marxian economics “equivalent” to one on homeopathy or UFOs. Those conferences are not typically held at accredited universities, with the papers submitted and reviewed by likewise accredited and practicing professors and other academics. The people involved in conferences on homeopathy, creationism, and the like are overwhelmingly from outside academia, with no relevant higher education or with degrees obtained from unaccredited diploma mills. Most of them don’t even make a pretense of going through peer review, are not held at or sponsored by any recognized institution of higher learning, and support a community of “practitioners” with an obvious profit motive. Now, I’m not saying that _because_ Marxian economics is studied by academics, that it must be true. (It’s certainly possible to point to some examples of entire fields of sham science endorsed by academia.) I’m just pointing out that the infrastructure and methodology supporting it isn’t as shady as you make it out to be. If Marxian economics really is a crackpot theory, then it’s done a hell of a better job of disguising itself with the trappings of academic legitimacy than homeopathy, ufology, or creationism ever has. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252.md?page=21)