You are not describing how socialism works, you are describing how education works, which is something else entirily. What if you as an example the making of new roads and highways? Or the production of drinking water? Do you honestly think there you get a “mediocre service for a mediocre price?”
You could just as easily argue that the problem with schools is not socialsm, it is the fact that education is based on morals, on an idea of how children should be raised. This decade it’s self learning, last decade it was rote learning. This decade it’s sef governing, last decade it was strict discipline.
Even as simple as “how to deal with drugs or peer pressure” on school is guided mostly by ideas. Only very , very recently have educational ideas been a little more science based, evidence based. By the way, this is a problem education shares with psychotherapy.
Your dad should have the image of some Russia type of civilization in mind when he talks about “socialism”. Thats just scare-mongering. Instead, he should have the image of The Netherlands, or Sweden in mind.
If socialized education is so terrible, why do dozens of other countries with even more socialized education have student populations that are excelling academically?
Socialism isn’t gauged by the existence or absence of one or another economic or social policy, or even the mere adoption of the word ‘socialist’ to describe one’s politics and/or party. State-funded primary and secondary education has been used by modern societies of all political stripes, and so has nationalization of industries. Such measures are not inherently socialist, though they can be used to meet the goals of socialism.
Wrong. The ultimate goal of socialism is a classless society, and the function of a state is to maintain and support the rule of one class over another. The heads of feudal states depended ultimately on the productive labor of peasants and craftsmen; the heads of capitalist states (not just the political ones) depend ultimately on the productive labor of the worker (not just those on the factory floor). Both ruling classes needed a tool to enforce the laws and regulations they made in their own interests and to maintain their position over society: the state. Though a worldwide socialist society will require a state at the very beginning while the working class is consolidating its rule, it will be a society that - unlike its predecessors - does not depend on the productive labor of another, lower class for its survival. If there is no ultimate need for the rule of one class over another, there is no ultimate need for a state as a tool to enforce class rule. Finally, such a society requires universal democracy - not just at the ballot box but in the workplace. This means the workers have actual social power in their own hands - the policies they’re advancing are their own, shaped and decided by their arguments and decisions. They’re not instruments under socialism.
To answer your second question, Freudian Slip, the essential comparison between capitalism and socialism is that the former is driven by the profit motive (i.e. making a lot of money buying and selling) while the latter, simply put, isn’t.
Arguing that socialism means the State takes everything away from you after you make it ignores the fact that this happens under capitalism - your work, once done, isn’t your own; it’s taken away by the company to sell at a much higher value than what you’re paid for it. Once you’re done with it, you have no say in how it’s used, who it’s sold to, or for how much. Nor do you have much say in what you’re paid to make, how it’s made, or for the most part how much you’re paid to make it, for that matter. Socialism, on the other hand, is based on workers taking that right to have a say in every aspect of production, distribution, and use for themselves - as a class, not as individuals - and trying to improve the standard of living for everyone worldwide.
As to the first question: Socialism’s bad for the current rulers of society because it seeks to remove them from their privileged positions. It’s good for those who will build it, i.e. the rest of us.
Socialism for us means that people that have it well pay a percentage of their income to support thoose that dont have it so well.
SO maybe its harder to get stinking rich in sweden, but we look after our poor.
And, frankly, when you are talking about public services, mediocre isn’t always bad. Available private services can augment public services for those that value it, while providing a base level of service to everyone.
My police service may be adequate, but I might have ADT put an alarm system in my house or my subdivision might hire a private security firm to patrol.
My public school might be adequate, but I might supplement my kids’ education by kitchen chemistry, trips to museums, and additional reading. Or I might take advantage of charter schools. Or I might skip out of the public school system and send them private or homeschool them.
My library might be adequate, but I may occasionally need to get a book off Amazon because the waiting list at the library is six months long and I’d rather have it now. Or maybe I buy all my books.
I may have safe drinking water coming out of my tap, but prefer bottle water for drinking.
The idea behind socializing something is not necessarily to deliver bottles of Fiji water to every household.
Vouchers have come about as nothing more than an attempt to have the government fund the private school educations of upper middle class (and upper middle class wannabe) children. In the process, those who advocate them pay no attention to three things:
Not every private school is better at educating children than the local public school;
The money they want to use is not “theirs” by virtue of having a child who needs to be educated; society provides a socialized system of educating our children and you have the option, should you desire, of opting out of it; and
“Privatizing” our education system would create massive difficulties for educating the children who are either the hardest to educate, or who are the most expensive to educate (e.g.: disabled, or poor, or behavior issues).
And what are these “ever increasing poor results” that you claim exist? This meme is not supported by evidence. Students learn more now as a whole than they ever did. More students go to college now than at any time in our nation’s history. And none of that has to do with “vouchers” or any other method of attempting to de-socialize education.
Which is not to say that there are not valid concerns with socialized education. One such concern was alluded to above: the issue of “whose morals?” In an increasingly heterogenous society, it is hard to accommodate all viewpoints with a one-size-fits-all approach to morals in the schools. The system I teach in is a good example: we have some students from a “majority” socio-economic class which has certain expectations about behavior vis-a-vis teachers, and we have students from a socio-economic class that has a much different viewpoint on “proper” behavior with respect to adults. Which set of standards should be imposed? If one set is chosen over the other, the students from the environment with different rules will be inherently affected in their learning, as they struggle to adjust daily to the differing expectations. They will be regularly in “trouble,” will miss instructional time for disciplinary reasons, will have a much different relationship with their educators (viewed not as helpers but as adversaries), etc. And yet, if NO single system is chosen, and some mish-mash of societal rules is adopted, then ALL the students will suffer some level of discommodation, with an affect on the learning of all. And that’s but a trivial example.
The number one reason that parents opt-out of public education is not an assumption that the quality will be better in a private school, but rather the desire to have some control over the issue of morals and environment. Religion is the biggest issue, but also things like language, or ongoing culture clashes, etc. And this is where the main indictment of any socialized system can be seen: there is a tradeoff for the ability to obtain a universal service, and that comes in the form of having to accept whatever level of service can be imposed by the socialized system. Socialized medicine? Positive value: everyone gets medical attention. Downside: level of medical care can suffer, with long wait times, and no incentive on the part of the medical staff to excel at what they do.
Solution? When you find one, let everyone know, please!
Oh. Right. What world are you living in? Capitalism in your world sounds like a Dickensian one where 8-year olds are indentured by their parents and chained to machines in dirty, grubby factories. And socialism sounds like one where there is a workers ‘town meeting’ on the commons each morning to decide the growth and investment plan for the next 5-year Leap Forward. Whilst cookies and milk are served to all.
So a Managing Director at a consulting firm like BCG, Bain or McKinsey, for example, has no say in his final work product? It is ‘taken from him’, and he has no say in how much he is paid? Or a top-tier neurologist at John Hopkins? Ray Ozzie? Bill Joy? The home-based software programmers who provide supply for Oracle, SAP, Synopsys and countless other firms? They are impressed into service against their will, and clamor for a socialist society by banging against the floorboards from below, hoping the pot-bellied, balding white males smoking cigars in top hats can take a break from their champagne and caviar to listen to them?
Oh, and I’m sure the Venezuelans who supposedly ‘own’ their oil industries are thrilled with the input they have on business decisions - such as hiring and firing, capital investment plans and such. I’m going to do a little checking, but I’m willing to bet Hugo Chavez doesn’t run an on-line Internet poll to get the advice and counsel of his shareholders before he makes decisions.
Give me a break. Voluntary employment terms in a free society are ‘oppressive’, and state ownership of production provides ‘a say for everyone’. Yeah, right.
You hit the nail on the head in your last sentence…‘trying to improve the standard of living’, with emphasis on trying. They’ve been trying it for awhile, now haven’t they?
It’s not “your work”. The only reason you are doing it is because the company paid you to do it. Let’s take one of the consulting firms **IdahoMauleMan **mentioned. The junior associates only have jobs there because the partners are bringing in clients. If they could provide high value strategy consulting without the name and support of the firm behind them, they could do so on their own.
Why should the workers in a Ford plant have much say in how their parts are used, outside of what is relevant to their job (ie if they notice a defect)? They are just one part of the process. They should have input, such as their expertise allows, but the guy stamping bumpers doesn’t really know anything about marketing their cars.
The Paris Commune in 1871 was the first attempt by the working class to overthrow bourgeois society. Karl Marx, in his essay The Civil War in France, he briefly examines the governmental structure of the Commune:
Emphasis mine.
Chucky Gus over here is neither elected by universal suffrage nor revocable. Monarchies are a holdover from feudalism and have no place in a genuine democracy.
Why should Caterpillar employees not have a say in whether their company sells bulldozers to Israel, which they use to raze Palestinian homes and orchards?
You’ll notice I explicitly stated that genuine socialism works towards building a stateless society. Therefore I don’t equate state ownership of anything with socialism. And working under capitalism isn’t exactly voluntary - ‘work or starve’ doesn’t exactly leave a whole lot of wiggle room.
Because they don’t own the output. It isn’t theirs. They can quit or keep working. And I rather doubt most Caterpillar employees give a shit about “Palestinians”. (Who in any case are some of the biggest assholes on the planet, morally speaking.)
You don’t have such a binary choice. You can also mooch. WHich is, in fact, the usual modus operandi for socialists.
Think that a couple of people have hit it on the head … I intend to ask my father what he means by socialism, and (if he has an idea of what that means), why he thinks the country is becoming more socialist?
And Maastracht, you’re most likely correct that IHHO, socialism equals Communism (with a capital C, of course).
From discussions with the partner Slip and all the feedback on here, it sounds like I’d be OK with a “humanistic socialism”, with basic needs (education, healthcare, shelter) funded by the state (not necessarily provided, just funded) and a large private sector for other industries (and “boutique” services for people who want it/can afford it).
Not to mention “appropriate” regulation of the markets - but have no idea what constitutes appropriate.
Socialism is not inherently incompatible with the concept of monarchy. Monarchy is an issue of where the basis for the law lies; in a monarchy, the monarch is the state, at the most fundamental level. Socialism is not about deciding where the power originates, but rather about what rationale to use to divide up and allocate resources through the mechanism of government. Thus, it is perfectly possible to have a socialist republic, but impossible to have a republican monarchy.
Sweden has a socialist monarchy, though I suspect that their “monarchy” really is more accurately described as a republic with a figurehead “monarch.” However, I’m not versed in Swedish comparative law and I leave the technical aspects to those who are.
