# What would a Socialist (Socialist Party, USA) America be like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2007, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234 "2007-01-09T01:02:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/81 "2007-01-12T04:05:49Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] Can’t give you a cite for an assertion I never made. However, in the case of HOMELESSNESS and UNEMPLOYMENT I can cite you silly. [Here’s a cite from Time Magazine](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,160070,00.html) about the rise of homelessness and unemployment in Soviet Russia after capitalism was attempted there. [url=[http://www.zmag.org/parecon/writings/albert\_socagend.htm](http://www.zmag.org/parecon/writings/albert_socagend.htm)]Here’s a capitalist economist citing the old Soviet system as better for those at the bottom of the pile. [/quote] I’m sorry… You mean the ‘Capitalist economist’ who writes for “New Politics - A Journal of Socialist Thought”? Wow. You found a socialist who thinks that socialism is good. Imagine that. Your second cite is another apologia for the Soviet Union. Please don’t be disingenuous and label these people “Capitalist” just so you can claim some sort of balance. Or maybe I should start citing the Heritage Foundation as a socialist organization so I can ‘prove’ that not even socialists are buying the theory any more. > [@](#): > > That was easy. My point wasn’t so much that the average joes in the Soviet Union were on the whole better off than the Soviets – clearly the US middle class was better off than the Soviet middle class – but that the people at the bottom were in respect to homelessness and joblessness. You got a job, a place to live and food to eat by virtue of being a citizen of the Soviet Union. Whereas US capitalists in the 1930s were content to let poor people starve, and modern capitalists are content to let them go homeless and jobless. It’s not hard to have full employment at the point of a gun. If the people have no choice about where to work, and are forced to work at gunpoint, then they’ll go to work. And you can always find the means to pack such people like cordwood into shabby little 500 sq ft concrete apartments and give them 1200 calories of crappy food a day, so long as they wait in line several hours for it. > [@](#): > > The Soviet economy was not nearly as efficient as the capitalist economy, but the people in charge had the WILL to make them go away, and make them go away they did In fact, they had so much will to make them go away that they made them go as far as Siberia. It’s pretty easy to have zero unemployment when you’re willing to round up the unemployed and the troublemakers and ship them by the millions into forced labor camps. > [@](#): > > , which is a hell of a lot more than you can say of the current US “leadership.” We could probably solve all these problems without any great dislocation to our economy or our society, if we had the will. The problem is, we don’t. Or, some of us don’t. Well, the will and a whole lot of leg irons, anyway. But hey, think of the jobs that would be created in the burgeoning leg-iron industry. > [@](#): > > My family would be HAPPY to move in with yours, it’ll be a great adventure for all of us! We’ll share and learn something, perhaps have a group hug afterward, maybe even sing Kumbayah! You seriously underestimate how miserable life was for the average Soviet citizen. I had a friend who’s family got out of the Soviet Union. They were ‘middle class’ - dad was a chemist. This is what their life was like in the 1970’s: First, 8 people lived in an apartment with one bedroom, and maybe 600-700 square feet. The kids all slept together in the living room with the grandparents. They were on a waiting list for a car, but never got one. Every morning, her Mom would get up at about 5, and make the family breakfast - usually something crappy like hard rolls and butter with maybe some leftover fat or something for flavor. Then she would get the kids off to school, and Dad would go to work. Of course, they didn’t have a car, so everyone walked a lot. They didn’t have any sort of automated appliances, so mom had to hand-wash clothes and stuff. Early in the afternoon, she would head out for the daily ritual of standing in line for the staples the family needed. For hours. Standling in line was so ingrained in the Soviet Union that it had its own customs and unwritten rules of behaviour. People would see a line forming and join it, without even knowing what might be at the other end. Hey, if there’s a line, it must be something valuable, right? If not, maybe you can trade whatever it is with someone else. Anyway, she’d get home at 6-7 PM, make supper, everyone would do chores, and then it would be off to bed again. What a life. I’d rather be poor in the west. Oh, wait - I WAS poor in the west. At the same time, I lived in a single parent family with my mother making minimum wage. My life was WAY better than my friend’s. This nostalgia you’re displaying for the Soviet Union truly amazing. > [@](#): > > If you were politically neutral, as many regular folks are, basically, what was the problem? Only those loud-mouthed folks of the sort who post in political forums on message boards were in jeopardy. Granted, they were in pretty severe jeopardy… But regular criminals wet themselves at the thought of littering in the old Soviet Union. Wow, you make it sound so good! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/82 "2007-01-12T16:55:22Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] > [@John Mace](#): > > So, you’re saying the bottom tier of the USSR society had it better than the bottom tier in the US wrt “the necessities of life”? Cite? Can’t give you a cite for an assertion I never made. [/QUOTE] You most certainly did make that assertion (emphasis added): > [@Evil Captor](#): > > Now, you conservatives may hate the old Soviet Union all you like. But one thing they did, inefficient as their system was, was take care of the necessities of life for those who survive Stalin. Everybody had a job (maybe one they hated) a place to live (a crummy cement block apartment) and food to eat (let’s not get into Russian food). And there wasn’t a lot of crime. That’s because, for all their other failings, and Og knows there were plenty of them, they had the will to take care of their people. > > I’m not seeing that in the good 'ol US of A. And the rest of your post was pure bullshit, as others have already pointed out. ---
**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:** [January 12, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/83 "2007-01-12T20:19:24Z")
In Soviet Union, what doesn’t kill you makes you live a bleak depressing life with only thoughts of escape and gallons of vodka to make it bearable. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/84 "2007-01-13T00:32:08Z")
Yeah, the Soviet Union was so wonderful they had to put up razor wire and machine gun nests to prevent the people from fleeing the glorious worker’s paradise. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/85 "2007-01-13T00:50:27Z")
But at least you had the comfort of knowing that if you ever starved to death it wouldn’t be like in American where the poor starve to death on street corners and no one cares. You’d be warmed by the thought that you were starving to death because Comrade Stalin cared enough to WANT you to starve to death. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/86 "2007-01-13T01:04:16Z")
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena] Who did that? [/QUOTE] You did. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/87 "2007-01-13T01:08:15Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] No, just the result of them run amok. [/quote] Um, yeah. Socialism naturally leads to the deliberate starvation of millions by mad dictators. Just like democracy leads naturally tno nuclear weapons. It’s all very logical out there in some universe or other. > [@](#): > > The [dust bowl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustbowl) had something to do with it, and how many starvation deaths are we talking about? 30 million? 20? 10? You claiming we couldn’t have fed and housed our poor during the Depression if we had had the will to? The problem with the Depression was … no social safety net. That’s what happens when you try to run capitalism without a net – people die. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/88 "2007-01-13T01:10:38Z")
So how many people starved to death in America during the Great Depression? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/89 "2007-01-13T01:26:43Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] Um, yeah. Socialism naturally leads to the deliberate starvation of millions by mad dictators. [/QUOTE] Not at all. Sometimes it isn’t deliberate. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/90 "2007-01-13T01:34:48Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] I’m sorry… You mean the ‘Capitalist economist’ who writes for “New Politics - A Journal of Socialist Thought”? Wow. You found a socialist who thinks that socialism is good. Imagine that. Your second cite is another apologia for the Soviet Union. Please don’t be disingenuous and label these people “Capitalist” just so you can claim some sort of balance. Or maybe I should start citing the Heritage Foundation as a socialist organization so I can ‘prove’ that not even socialists are buying the theory any more. [/quote] You don’t like my cites, but I note you’re attacking the sources rather than trying to dispute my essential point, which is that the old Soviet Union housed, fed and employed its citizens. I got the cites. You got the handwaving. We’re on the Dope. Good luck with all that handwaving. > [@](#): > > It’s not hard to have full employment at the point of a gun. If the people have no choice about where to work, and are forced to work at gunpoint, then they’ll go to work. And you can always find the means to pack such people like cordwood into shabby little 500 sq ft concrete apartments and give them 1200 calories of crappy food a day, so long as they wait in line several hours for it. Yes, I agree, poor conditions were the norm in the Soviet Union for the middle class. But people in America who are homeless might trade those conditions for theirs. Is that so hard to understand? I’m guessing it is. > [@](#): > > In fact, they had so much will to make them go away that they made them go as far as Siberia. It’s pretty easy to have zero unemployment when you’re willing to round up the unemployed and the troublemakers and ship them by the millions into forced labor camps. Yes, Gulag very bad. You know what else? In America, we spend a LOT of money on heating oil! Billions! That must prove something, right? It proves at least as much about capitalism as Gulags prove about socialism. Look, people I’m not just talking to Sam here, you’re ALL doing it). If you’re going to be calling my arguments bullshit you’re going to have to do a LOT better than this: Me: “The Soviet Union has more land mass than most other nations.” You: “But what about the mass killings! The Gulags! How can the Soviet Union have land mass when there are all those things!” Or Me: “The Soviet Union has more woolly mammoths frozen in tundra than the United States.” You: But it can’t! It’s a police state! The secret police! How can there be so many woolly mammoths when people were being shot by the truckload in Lubyanka Prison!" > [@](#): > > Well, the will and a whole lot of leg irons, anyway. But hey, think of the jobs that would be created in the burgeoning leg-iron industry. Remind me again – where does America rank in terms of people imprisoned per capita? Aren’t we the leading consumer of leg irons in the world? Or at least in the top five? > [@](#): > > You seriously underestimate how miserable life was for the average Soviet citizen. I had a friend who’s family got out of the Soviet Union. They were ‘middle class’ - dad was a chemist. This is what their life was like in the 1970’s: First, 8 people lived in an apartment with one bedroom, and maybe 600-700 square feet. The kids all slept together in the living room with the grandparents. They were on a waiting list for a car, but never got one. But they were not literally living in the street, were they? [quote] What a life. I’d rather be poor in the west. Oh, wait - I WAS poor in the west. At the same time, I lived in a single parent family with my mother making minimum wage. My life was WAY better than my friend’s. > [@](#): > > This nostalgia you’re displaying for the Soviet Union truly amazing. > > Wow, you make it sound so good! I’m watching the lobsters crawling out of your ears again. It’s not a pretty sight. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/91 "2007-01-13T01:39:36Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] Um, yeah. Socialism naturally leads to the deliberate starvation of millions by mad dictators. Just like democracy leads naturally tno nuclear weapons. It’s all very logical out there in some universe or other. You claiming we couldn’t have fed and housed our poor during the Depression if we had had the will to? The problem with the Depression was … no social safety net. That’s what happens when you try to run capitalism without a net – people die. [/QUOTE] Let’s remember that you piped in about communism (the USSR), not socialism. The thing is, both communism and capitalism are economic systems, not governmental systems. But experience tells us that communism can only be sustained in a totalitarian governmental system while capitalism can be be sustained in pretty much any kind of governmental system. Any ecomonic system without a social saftey net is going to have people “starving” (for lack of a better word). The social safety net is determined by the government, but here’s the kicker: just how much of social safety net is needed is a function of your economic system. Capitalism has shown itselt to be the best way to create wealth and to eliminate the need for a safety net for the largest % of people in a country. (I’ve never really understood the key difference between socialism and communism anyway, though. ) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/92 "2007-01-13T02:36:03Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] So how many people starved to death in America during the Great Depression? [/QUOTE] [Here’s a cite.](http://www.safarix.com/0618391770/ch25) [Here’s another.](https://weblamp.princeton.edu/chw/papers/haines_citypanel29.pdf) This one tracks birth rates and death rates during the great depression and is very scholarly. No one seems to be tracking starvation in particular. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/93 "2007-01-13T02:46:58Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] You did. [/QUOTE] No, I didn’t make up your argument…you were the one who excused Chavez: [QUOTE=Evil Captor] Chavez is really too authoritarian for my taste but I guess you have to make allowances for the circumstances there – if he weren’t like that the entrenched elite might have blocked him from accomplishing anything at all; or ousted him successfully. [/QUOTE] Would his level of “authoritarianism” be acceptable in the US, if the “entrenched elite” here tried to keep a leader from accomplishing things? I imagine Bush feels that a little authoritarianism helps him accomplish his goals, as well…so is that OK with you? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/94 "2007-01-13T03:01:06Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] [Here’s a cite.](http://www.safarix.com/0618391770/ch25) [/QUOTE] That lists one death. So, you’re outraged by one death in the capitalist system, but millions of starvation deaths in a communist system is just hand waved away. Got it. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/95 "2007-01-13T03:34:15Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] Yes, I agree, poor conditions were the norm in the Soviet Union for the middle class. But people in America who are homeless might trade those conditions for theirs. Is that so hard to understand? [/QUOTE] Is it your assertion that homeless people in the US have no access to welfare and public housing? > [@](#): > > But they were not literally living in the street, were they? Do you have a cite that shows there were no homeless whatsoever in the USSR? ---
**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:** [January 13, 2007, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/96 "2007-01-13T03:35:25Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] That lists one death. So, you’re outraged by one death in the capitalist system, but millions of starvation deaths in a communist system is just hand waved away. Got it. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Well, to be fair, the extract also says: > [@](#): > > In November 1932, _The Nation_ told its reads that one-sixth of the American population risked starvation over the coming winter. Of course, other sites show the population actually _rising_ during this period (albeit at the slowest rate in the 20th century, not counting the anomalous 1918 when a combination of war and influenza cause the population to slightly decrease), but hey, supposition and speculation are _kinds_ of evidence, aren’t they? So, how many Soviets died over the winter of '32-33? As has been pointed out in various ways, the safest way to ensure your society _has_ a safety net is to not hamper productive citizens beyond taxing them a little so they can create the nation’s wealth, some of which gets distributed to the poor. Alliteratively, if your system actively _discourages_ productive citizens by not letting them benefit from their own labour, they’ll do all they can to escape. Capitalism with a safety net is far easier to establish and maintain than communism (or extreme socialism) with limited personal freedoms. Neither system at its extreme is pretty, but capitalism needs less make-up. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/97 "2007-01-13T19:05:52Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Well, to be fair, the extract also says: [/QUOTE] So what? Since 1/6th of the population clearly didn’t starve that prediction was wrong. Anti-capitalist posters on this board like to imply that people were literally starving to death in the streets by the thousands during the Depression in the US. The fact is, you have to go to \*\*socialists \*\*countries (or Europe during/between the two World Wars) to see anything like that happening in the 20th century. ---
**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:** [January 13, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/98 "2007-01-13T21:08:48Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] So what? [/QUOTE] So I’m on _your_ side, yeesh. It’s very easy for EC to use that as a site because he can use (or try to use) the mere _speculation_ of mass starvation as evidence that there really _was_ mass starvation. My “to be fair” was ironic, a method of saying “sure one aspect of EC’s cite doesn’t prove anything, but here’s another aspect of his site that… still doesn’t prove anything.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/99 "2007-01-13T21:25:41Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] My “to be fair” was ironic… [/QUOTE] OK, but it’s unlcear to me why you’d think that was obvious. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234/100 "2007-01-13T22:18:25Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] And then he wonders why the American people despise socialists. [/QUOTE] A better question would be why the peoples of practically every other country **don’t** despise socialists the way Americans do. Is everybody out of step but Sammy? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-socialist-socialist-party-usa-america-be-like/387234.md?page=6)