# Is socialism bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927 "2009-03-01T22:37:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/81 "2009-03-05T00:36:26Z")
All ‘communist’ societies are actually socialist ones because Marxism-Leninism says that Communism is the perfect state that they are heading for, and socialism is the stage which they have arrived at. So far, [says Marxism-Leninism] no society has yet achieved Communism. Of course the debate is complicated by many Americans defining ‘socialism/communism’ as “anything that does not accord with my world view” ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/82 "2009-03-05T01:03:05Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slip](#): > > **Nobody** , I’ve typically thought of the UK as being socialist. The “dole” of DHSS sounds much more comprehensive than unemployment insurance in the US. They do have the “two-tier” system for healthcare - basic needs yes, boutique needs through private health insurance or out of your own deep pocket. And British Airways is still under government control, I think? (hoping that someone like \*\*Illuminatiprius \*\*pops by with feedback). I grew up hearing constantly about the UK was socialist, but when I posted a question about it a few months ago, not only were dopers adamant that it wasn’t, some even got defensive about it. The way I see it, the UK, hell, most of Europe, is more socialist than we are, but recently I’ve come to think of us as slightly socialistic ourselves. We like to say that we’re not pure capitalist, that we have a mixed economy, but recently I’ve come to the conclusion that we just say that because we’re uncomfortable with admitting that we’re slightly socialist. Or, in other words, I think we’re playing a semantics game. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/83 "2009-03-05T08:52:55Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > If this is the case, than socializing medicine fails to protect the people and thus is a poor way to operate medicine. Quite the contrary. If socialized medicine had been extended to the research and development of medicines and _then_ let thalidomide slip through, you’d have a point. You can’t accuse a policy of failure by pointing to an area it had nothing to do with in the first place. Vichy France and 1950s Germany (depending on whose version of thalidomide’s origins you believe) had limited socialized medicine at best and it dealt exclusively with providing health care to a section of the population of each country, _not_ drug research and development. > [@](#): > > _This is totally contradictory to…history. Thalidomide is not ‘dangerous under most circumstances’_ A relevant quote from Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > _On July 16, 1998, the FDA approved the use of thalidomide for the treatment of lesions associated with Erythema Nodosum Leprosum (ENL). Because of thalidomide’s potential for causing birth defects, **the distribution of thalidomide was permitted only under tightly controlled conditions**._ Emphasis mine. If it isn’t dangerous under most circumstances, why the restrictions on its distribution? > [@](#): > > _nor it did not make it’s way onto the US market because of the profit to be made, rather it ended up costing Richardson Merrell a pretty penny._ It ended up costing Richardson Merrill a pretty penny precisely _because_ it was available in the States without prior FDA approval. Here is a 1962 [report](http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/udall/congrept/87th/620817.html) from Arizona Rep. Morris Udall showing how thalidomide got into the States: > [@](#): > > _The American manufacturer of thalidomide distributed his product to 1,248 American doctors who in turn gave it to more than 15,000 women. There was nothing illegal about this procedure. **Under present FDA regulations a manufacturer need not even notify FDA when the firm sends trial samples to physicians in the “clinical investigation” phase of new drug development.** Now the agency proposes to tighten its regulations to give the federal government a greater role in planning and watching the testing process._ ‘Present’ here of course means 1962, but the argument stands: The restrictions you cite as preventing thalidomide from getting on the market didn’t exist at the time. Thalidomide caused those regulations to come about. True, the FDA did keep thalidomide off the general prescription market (and that as a result of the actions of one doctor in the FDA, _not_ regulations in operation at the time), but a rational system geared towards meeting people’s needs rather than generating profit would have made a point of setting up the restrictions thalidomide brought about _before_ disasters like thalidomide happened. Finally, one last quote from the Udall report that illustrates quite nicely, I think, my argument that profit, not need, drives drug research and development. > [@](#): > > \*Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee has long been concerned with the high cost of some new miracle drugs and the laws regulating manufacture and prescription. In 1960 he held extensive hearings which disclosed a need for changes in the law. While American doctors have been scrupulously careful with new and untested products, Senator Kefauver has questioned what he believes are some manufacturers’ high-pressure advertising tactics directed at doctors as well as patients. > > Regarding prices, it was pointed out, for example, that prednisolone costs 1.6 cents per tablet to make, sells to wholesalers at 14.3 cents and by the time it reaches consumers the price hits 29.8 cents or **1,763 per cent above manufacturing cost**. The Committee figured an arthritic patient using prednisolone steadily would pay out $30 a month for a drug which cost $1.50 to manufacture\*. I don’t have the relevant figures for thalidomide, but the fact that the American manufacturer felt it was worth sending free samples to doctors for distribution tells me the figures that did apply were probably quite similar. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/84 "2009-03-05T09:34:34Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I grew up hearing constantly about the UK was socialist, but when I posted a question about it a few months ago, not only were dopers adamant that it wasn’t, some even got defensive about it. Many of the Left here would say that there isn’t anything remotely socialist about the New Labour government - that’s precisely what’s wrong with it, that it’s a pale copy of Thatcherism. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/85 "2009-03-05T10:02:27Z")
Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/86 "2009-03-05T16:29:36Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > Many of the Left here would say that there isn’t anything remotely socialist about the New Labour government - that’s precisely what’s wrong with it, that it’s a pale copy of Thatcherism. Over on this side of the pond, I only seem to remember hearing good things about Margaret Thatcher. She and Regan also seemed to hit it off…at least, according to my not so great memory. But so far, I don’t think I’ve seen a single British doper remember her administration (do you guy’s call it that?) very fondly. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/87 "2009-03-05T17:35:54Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > Over on this side of the pond, I only seem to remember hearing good things about Margaret Thatcher. She and Regan also seemed to hit it off…at least, according to my not so great memory. > > But so far, I don’t think I’ve seen a single British doper remember her administration (do you guy’s call it that?) very fondly. Nah, we’d probably just call it her “Government”. Anyway, Thatcher apologists are probably too scared to defend her here. They’d get ripped apart. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/88 "2009-03-05T19:07:45Z")
Margaret Thatcher, like an number of other British exports, is rather more popular in America than Britain. Many on the Left continue to hate Thatcher for the [seemingly] permanent shift in the c. of g. of British politics toward the Right which she achieved, and for what this has turned the Labour Party into - a thing which has adopted many Thatcherite policies wholesale. Many negative social trends are commonly ascribed to the selfishness and individualism which her government supposedly promoted - “Thatcher’s Children” they call it. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/89 "2009-03-05T23:16:04Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > It would be facile to assume that socialist programs wouldn’t require any administration whatsoever, but bureaucracies happen when people are passive - whether by choice or otherwise.As long as society operates on money, the money’s got to come from somewhere. Bureaucracies occur when you try to allocate resources through means other than free market competition. In it’s place, you create an elaborate system of rules. Those resources are then allocated by who can best jump through those hoops. The system then lends inself to corruption and waste. Socialist programs are nothing but administration and therefore inherently wasteful. Then again, so is our current system of corporation subsudized health care. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/90 "2009-03-06T00:43:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Is socialism bad? Stick around. we’re going to find out. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/91 "2009-03-06T08:11:25Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Bureaucracies occur when you try to allocate resources through means other than free market competition. If free market competition is the best way of allocating resources, are underdeveloped countries therefore a logical consequence or an aberration? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/92 "2009-03-06T08:19:09Z")
Just ran across this [article](http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/05-10) by George Monbiot on biofuels, which illustrates the point I’m trying to make. > [@](#): > > _Last year, the global food crunch was caused by a decline in the world’s stockpiles of cereals: they fell by around [53m tonnes](http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10250420). The production of biofuels consumed almost [100m tonnes](http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai465e/ai465e01.htm). The extra millions who died as a result of malnutrition-related diseases when the price of grain rose last year did so largely because we took their food to put in our tanks._ Clearly, the free market prioritized allocating resources towards biofuels over food. Is that justifiable in itself, or is it justifiable only because the free market did it? ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/93 "2009-03-06T08:56:54Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Just ran across this [article](http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/05-10) by George Monbiot on biofuels, which illustrates the point I’m trying to make. . . > > . . . Clearly, the free market prioritized allocating resources towards biofuels over food. Is that justifiable in itself, or is it justifiable only because the free market did it? This is a terrible example. From the article you linked: > [@George Monbiot](#): > > **Yet all motorists in this country are forced by law to participate in this crime against humanity.** Why? Because, by taking into account only some of the emissions produced by biofuels, the government can claim to be cutting greenhouse gas production, thereby helping it to meet the legally binding targets in its climate change act. Because it means that people can carry on driving without constraint, this policy causes the government no political pain. It is exchanging political convenience at home for the lives of people overseas. > > **In the US the biofuel business is stimulated by a series of massive subsidies, running into hundreds of millions of dollars a year.** And, in fact, “hundreds of millions” is [selling it short](http://www.globalsubsidies.org/en/research/biofuel-subsidies-united-states) (it’s comfortably into the billions). A singularly idiotic government action should not be used as an opportunity to denigrate free markets. Do you know of any large scale biofuel programs that do not rely on government support for their viability? From [here](http://www.policyalternatives.ca/~ASSETS/DOCUMENT/Saskatchewan_Pubs/2009/Biofuels_and_Global_Food_Shortages.pdf) (pdf): > [@Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives](#): > > An industry born of politics and fuelled by public money will die of politics if governments take its subsidies away. ([Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Centre_for_Policy_Alternatives) describes the CCPA as a “left-of-centre progressive policy research institute,” if you’re curious.) ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/94 "2009-03-06T09:33:44Z")
> [@VarlosZ](#): > > A singularly idiotic government action should not be used as an opportunity to denigrate free markets. Do you know of any large scale biofuel programs that do not rely on government support for their viability? The questions you should be asking are: Who is the government subsidizing and why? The biofuels industry is a relatively new one with potential for expansion and therefore major profits could be made. But obviously, as with any new business, it will take several years before a profit could be turned, meaning if corporations like Archer Daniels Midland sank only their own money into it they’d cut into their own profits from other sources. Why risk their own fortunes when you can lobby congressmen from your home state (ADM is in Illinois - the conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader) to allocate tax revenue towards it instead? So the risk is socialized (we’re paying for it as a country) but the profits are privatized (ADM rakes it all in). The government subsidized biofuel production not on its own initiative or as a genuine, well-thought-out response to the looming petrochemical energy crisis, but at the behest of corporate interests looking for an easy way to invest without risk. The free market pushed for, and got, these subsidies, with the result that more agricultural output is diverted towards a dubious fuel solution than to consumption for food (either direct or indirect in the form of cattle feed). Socialism, a system based on meeting human need, would take this factor into serious consideration (as well as the fact that biofuel production increases the release of nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas) before taking further steps to put the program into operation. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/95 "2009-03-06T13:33:13Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > If free market competition is the best way of allocating resources, are underdeveloped countries therefore a logical consequence or an aberration? It’s “best” as in most efficient at meeting the wants and needs of the market. It doesn not make sure everyones wants and needs are met. What does one have to do with the other? Underdeveloped countries are often kleptocracies that has nothing to do with the free market. They also often don’t have the resources in the first place. Socialists seem to think there is just this giant fixed pool of wealth out there that somehow just magically appears. To them it is simply a matter of just taking from a bigger pot and putting it in the smaller ones one. Wealth needs to be created. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/96 "2009-03-06T14:10:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Socialists seem to think there is just this giant fixed pool of wealth out there that somehow just magically appears. To them it is simply a matter of just taking from a bigger pot and putting it in the smaller ones one. Wealth needs to be created. You could argue that it a perfect purely socialist world there would be no need for money, so wealth wouldn’t be needed at all. But still, I don’t know which socialists you’ve been talking to that have that point of view. I certainly haven’t met any, despite living in a country that most Americans seem to think is a small step from being Communist. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/97 "2009-03-06T14:32:11Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > You could argue that it a perfect purely socialist world there would be no need for money, so wealth wouldn’t be needed at all. > > But still, I don’t know which socialists you’ve been talking to that have that point of view. I certainly haven’t met any, despite living in a country that most Americans seem to think is a small step from being Communist. Money \<\> Wealth. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/98 "2009-03-06T14:35:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s “best” as in most efficient at meeting the wants and needs of the market. It doesn not make sure everyones wants and needs are met. That pretty much damns it from a socialist point of view. > [@](#): > > _What does one have to do with the other? Underdeveloped countries are often kleptocracies that has nothing to do with the free market. They also often don’t have the resources in the first place._ How would you explain the bloody colonialism and imperialism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, then? > [@](#): > > _Socialists seem to think there is just this giant fixed pool of wealth out there that somehow just magically appears._ Mmm, nope - even a cursory reading of the _Communist Manifesto_ disproves that argument. > [@](#): > > _To them it is simply a matter of just taking from a bigger pot and putting it in the smaller ones one. Wealth needs to be created._ We understand perfectly well that wealth needs to be created, and the source of that wealth (both material and economic) is the working class. Without their ability to work, nothing gets made, and for capitalists that means nothing to buy or sell. Socialism advocates taking the power over that material wealth out of the hands of the people who don’t work to make any of it and putting it firmly in the hands of those who do. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/99 "2009-03-06T14:35:35Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Money \<\> Wealth. Never said it did. And my point still stands. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927/100 "2009-03-06T14:44:23Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > We understand perfectly well that wealth needs to be created, and the source of that wealth (both material and economic) is the working class. Without their ability to work, nothing gets made, and for capitalists that means nothing to buy or sell. Socialism advocates taking the power over that material wealth out of the hands of the people who don’t work to make any of it and putting it firmly in the hands of those who do. What does your boss do all day? Why do you think business owners provide no value to a business? Also, do you believe that labor provides some intrinsic value to the output? Rob [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-socialism-bad/487927.md?page=6)