Socialism and Communism?

[Spongy]

I was hoping someone could help me understand something.

What are the differences between communism, russian communism, and socialism? From what I understand, they all seem to be based on the same concept. That being that no one is superior to anyone (government officials possibly excluded), and that no one has any more than the other person. In other words, everyone is equal. Also, why is socialism so frowned upon? It's working fine in some countries, e.g. Sweden. I can sort of understand why communism is frowned upon, it didn't seem to work too well (I think..I'm not too well informed about communism either).

[Note: Please, this is not a place to bash the different forms of government. If you are posting to simply flame, please don't post it at all. I'd prefer this topic not end up locked.]

[MoonKit]

Not being a history/government buff and not really knowing much about any of them, all I can do is direct you to wikipedia:

Communism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Socialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

[Short Tail]

The main problem with socialism is that it is a utopian society. Given human emotion and human desire, there is no way for everyone to be equal, somebody will always want to be on top.

[Lukas]

in a realistic term
socialism believes in govt. controlling and running the basic products people need to survive (food, health care, etc.)
while leaving the non-required items (TVs, games, etc.) to private ownership

communism believes the govt. controls everything, needed and unneeded products

[MattSullivan]

Communism doesn't work. Socialism doesn't work either.

There.

[Spongy]

Communism doesn't work. Socialism doesn't work either.

There.

Elaborate, maybe? This doesn't really help me in any way.

[JoshuaMadoc]

I think he means to say that it's a paradox.

[RedEye]

I think he means to say that it's a paradox.

Two Surgeons: a really cutting paradox...

Socialism and Communism are related in that Communism is a manifestation of Socialist philosophy. Essentally, Socialism places the State in the position of being responsible for the necessities of life, sort of like a huge buying club that you must belong to. Think National Costco. The State does what is needed to make sure you are fed, housed, medicated, educated,...you get the picture.
You pay for this TLC with taxes of up to 60% on your income. The rest is essentially playtime money. You "Play" by getting personal items and other "just for you" stuff with the rest of your income...
It's really a good idea, except that it doesn't work.
It also takes the State out of the role of "Servant", and makes it "Master".
This is not a good thing. Ever. Once Government has a right to exist, it becomes very rude and authoritative; and doesn't obey the people that make it up. Then you are in really deep kim-chee.
Socialism is a "one size must fit all" sort of garment. Not fitting is criminal, and is punished vigorously. So, most people will say it fits, even if it gives them a wedgie every time they bend over even slightly.
Get the picture?

[Searif]

Socialism is very close to communism, except the fact that with socialism different jobs earn different pay, with communism, every job pays the same

[Spongy]

Hmm... So while socialism itself doesn't seem to work... Socialist ideas when put together with democracy work well?

[Shadow Wulf]

Just to let you know, no successful country has a pure kind of government in todays world, they are all mixed just like the economy. Even now China is becoming more democrat.

[Terastas]

In a system of socialism, the government owns everything.

In a system of communism, everyone owns everything.

Communism in its literal sense has never actually been tried. In Russia, China, Cuba etc., "communism" is just a sugarcoated way of saying "facist socialism." True Communism is just an idea, one that sounds good on paper, but would depend on every single individual within the system contributing to it, and therefore could never possibly be effective in real life.

Both Communism and Socialism suffer the same flaw: Since everyone gets an equal share in everything, it defeats the point of aspiration: a greater input into the system does not equal a greater output, so the system indirectly favors the slackers in the system; since someone that produces a lot is given the same as someone that produces just enough to not get sent to Siberia, it makes sense not to push yourself beyond that which is required. That's essentially why the Soviet Union fell apart.

[Spiritbw]

Shadow wolf pretty much got it right. Every country is a mix of Capitalist and Socialist. The question is how much and wheither you agree with the mix your country has. I personally think that the government should controll some of the essentials like security(military and police) health care and education. Some infastructure as well as it is often needed in times of crisis and need to be kept up even if not profitable. There also needs to be some regulation of the private sector as it's been proven in history that monopolies suck for the average person.

[MoonKit]

Both Communism and Socialism suffer the same flaw: Since everyone gets an equal share in everything, it defeats the point of aspiration: a greater input into the system does not equal a greater output, so the system indirectly favors the slackers in the system; since someone that produces a lot is given the same as someone that produces just enough to not get sent to Siberia, it makes sense not to push yourself beyond that which is required. That's essentially why the Soviet Union fell apart.

I remember my teachers explaining this to me. It causes everyone to do a crappy job and then nothing runs smoothly.

[Ansuru]

The main problem with them is they all try to achieve a moral society, one where everyone has equal means, by taking from those whose extra effort has gotten them ahead in life, and giving it to those who'd rather just sit around on their bums waiting for someone to give them things.


While certain baseline human needs should be met, giving someone "poor" a complete free ride at the expense of someonee else's hard work is just slavery reversed. Eventually, they wise up to it and stop wasting their efforts, and it all comes crashing down.

[Scott Gardener]

Communism is a good idea on paper. It's a good example of how the complexities of the real world introduces problems. In short, the two main Communist movements in the world were both overtaken and used by dictators--Stalin in Russia and the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China--who transformed it from an idealistic reform into two of the greatest terrors the world has ever known. Those two dictators are the only two people who have done more damage to collective human populations than Adolf Hitler. They're also almost singlehandedly responsible for transforming Atheism's track record from the least destructive to the most destructive religious theory in human history.

Socialism is soft communism. And, there's places where it seems to have something to say. For example, the American health care system. We've resisted for decades the idea of a universal health care system, favoring a free market approach. We in the U.S. are perhaps the last fully developed major nation in the world not to have such in place, and when we compare our overall quality of health care access and availability to the rest of you, we look pretty bad. Millions go untreated or under-treated, dying of treatable illnesses in the same country that invented the artificial heart.

But, there are serious drawbacks even with socialism. Imagine a 40% income tax on the upper class, and guaranteed food, health care, housing, and the like if you make nothing at all. The incentive to devote half your waking life to work disappears if people who don't work get substantial benefits, while you foot their bills. At the very least, you'll feel inclined to put forth mediocre effort. At worst, in a socialist system, finding competent people willing to do the hard jobs will be very difficult.

[Spongy]

Thanks for the help everyone! This really does help.

[Gowor]

But, there are serious drawbacks even with socialism. Imagine a 40% income tax on the upper class, and guaranteed food, health care, housing, and the like if you make nothing at all. The incentive to devote half your waking life to work disappears if people who don't work get substantial benefits, while you foot their bills. At the very least, you'll feel inclined to put forth mediocre effort. At worst, in a socialist system, finding competent people willing to do the hard jobs will be very difficult.

That problem is still visible in countries that used to have socialist government. There are people who lived back then, got used to that sytem and they still think that the government should provide them with everything, and they should be paid just for being at work. Even worse, rich people are perceived by them as thieves and swindlers. Fortunately the next generations are influenced by capitalism.
The problem is that socialism creates people with infant mindsets, who think someone will take care of them, which in the long run stalls any creativity, progress and economy.

[Terastas]

I agree with everything Scott said except for this:

Socialism is soft communism.

Russia under Stalin was about as communist as Iraq under Hussein was democratic. In Russia and China alike, all the communist terminology was just propaganda, a sugarcoated way of saying "military rule." Just because the ruling party refers to itself as being democratic, communist, etc., does not actually mean they are as such.

Regarding socialism, I only support it with a healthy blend of capitalism as well. With all the non-perscription drugs, cosmetic surgical procedures, anti-depressants and "male enhancements" on the market, you'd think the pharmeceuticals wouldn't need to blackmail us with life-saving medicine that only they can legally provide. That's my take on socialism: Let the government provide the essentials for survival and leave the upgrades to the private sector.

Need a cup of soup, a roof over your head, some subway tokens and life-saving medical treatment? Here you go.

Want lobster with truffles, a home in the hills, a Rolls Royce and some pectoral implants? Cash or credit?

[RedEye]

While socialized medicine (which we have, by the way: Medicare and State Medical Care are socialized medicine) is good for People, it isn't so good for Medicine itself. The Socialized stuff we have is supported by taxes on every working stiff, who gets little benefit from it.

Medical Research is very small in countries that have a Socialized Medical system, whilst our Capitalistic pill factories treat most of the world's medical problems. The reason for this is the astronomical cost of bringing even one drug to the marketplace. Do you think that Socialized Medicine would continue to uphold the current development of medicines in the U.S.?
Look abroad, to the countries that did Socialize their medical systems.
There's your answer.

[Lukas]

so research or practice, tough decision

[Spiritbw]

Hmm, just thought I'd take a look through a list of what one site considered great medical discoveries and where they were found/developed.

Ambulance, Knights of Saint John, Middle East
antibody labeling agent, Joseph Burckhalter and Robert Seiwald, USA
Antiseptics, Joseph Lister, UK
Apgar Score, Virginia Apgar, USA
Artifical heart, Robert Jarvik, USA
Aspirin, Charles Frederic Gerhardt, France
Band-aid, Earle Dickson, USA
The Blood Bank, Charles Drew, USA
Cardiac Pacemaker, John Hopps, Canada
Catheter, Thomas Fogarty, USA
CAT scan, Alessandro Vallebona, Italy
Cortisone, Percy Julian, USA
CPR, Peter Safar, Vienna
Dialysis Machine, Willem Johan Kolff, Netherlands
Electrocardiography, Augustus Waller, UK
Eyeglasses, Salvino D'Armate, Italy
Genetics, Gregor Johann Mendel, Austria
Heart-lung machine, William T. Mustard, Canada
Hepatitis Vaccine, Baruch Blumberg, USA
Insulin, Sir Frederick Grant Banting and Charles Herbert Best, Canada
Optical microscope, Hans Janssen, Holland
Nystatin, Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen, USA.
Oral Conterceptives, Gregory Goodwin Pincus, John Rock, and Min Chueh Chang, USA.
Pap test, Georgios Papanikolaou, Greece
Pasteurization, Louis Pasteur, France
Penicillin, Alexander Fleming, UK
Pentothal(general anastetic), Ernest H. Volwiler and Donalee L. Tabern, USA
Polio vaccine, Jonas Edward Salk, USA
Prozac, Bryan Molloy and Robert Rathburn, USA
Respirator, Alexander von Humboldt, Germany
Safety Pin, 14th century BC Greece(was news to me!), reinvented in modern times by Walter Hunt, USA
Tagamet, GlaxoSmithKline, USA
Tampon, unknown, France
Tetracycline, Benjamin Minge Duggar, USA
Ultrasound, Inge Edler and Carl Hellmuth Hertz, Sweden
Vaccination or Hypodermic needle, Francis Rynd, UK

Interesting thing I found in most of the drugs. Most where developed by independant doctors. The Pill, oral conterceptives, even made specific mention that pharmacutical companies where not interested till after it was first produced.

[Scott Gardener]

Good points are made that many places claim to have one system but in fact have another. Both present day China and the 20th century Soviet Union indeed are dictatorships, and "Communism" is a label applied to make it sound like something else.

The point is also brought up that under a supposedly capitalist system, we have laws in place limiting medicine production and distribution to an oligarchy. No matter the intention of quality control, the end result is medicines substantially overpriced compared to the same drugs in other countries with otherwise similar living standards.

While it can be said that Medicare and Medicaid are socialistic in philosophy, their implementation is sporadic, in that only some people are eligible for those programs. More hard core socialist systems implement a universal health care system. Here in the U.S., applying the term "socialist" to such sounds like a political argument against such a system, but only because the lay public is taught to associate negatively with the term "socialism." This is probably first and foremost a byproduct of the McCarthyism days, when Americans were taught to fear Communism, and to see Socialism as a step towards Communism. (Note that the fear was of the political philosophy itself as well as the dictatorships that branded themselves by that name. I won't debate here the rationality or irrationality of such. I do have to think of my own essay about the Machismo-Homosexuality complex, another fear/manipulation issue that possibly draws from the same aspect of psychology.)

[Terastas]

Spiritbw brought up something I never would have thought of. The pharmaceutical companies aren't interested in producing life-saving medication: There's not much money to be made in medicine that people only buy when they need it. Instead all their R&D typically goes into developing weight loss pills, anti-depressants, hair restoratives, nicotine supplements, male enhancements, stuff that I would never expect a national healthcare system to cover.

So anyway, yeah, that's when socialism works. Neither socialism nor capitalism is the end-all answer to all government fallacies, but they are both strong in areas where the other is weak, so a healthy blend of socialism and capitalism in the right areas should work together nicely.

But yeah, as Scott said, the term "socialism" itself still has that McCarthy-enforced stigma attached to it. Recently though, it's a word that's been overused by Republicans (especially personalities like Coulter and Limbaugh) as a slang word for Democrats, almost akin to the way they use the word "liberal" as a dirty word, so the negative association is starting to fade away (among progressives anyway).

[outwarddoodles]

Some 37 million citizens in the United States are living in poverty, not to mention millions of ederly, disabled, and children, who cannot work, are without affordable healthcare. If you view a society as being only as sucessful as its least sucessful member, then Capitalism is really showing Socialism what's what.

My point is. No pure "free" or "controlled" market really does the desired job. Communism works off the idea that everyone is willing to work for the betterment of mankind. Which, as idealized as it is, not everyone is so selfless. Capitalism, on the other hand, also seems to assume that business owners and entrepeneurs would only keep as much money as necessary for them and spread their wealth among their employees modified to how much work they do. Capitalism, giving companies the freedom to manufactor what they see fit, along with their freedom to handle their money in their own way. Only protects the person in power, who's going to pay their workers the lowest they can, and sell their products at pricesthe highest they can, so they can protect their own econimoic interests. Not to mention, some people go without real necessities just because they aren't lucurative enough. The biggest money makers in the world don't really give up something we need. (Do Actors really need that much money?)

Simply, both systems are at fault thanks to basic human greed. (The only reason I'm not going over commuinism here is because you guys hashed over it already. *wink* )

I'm personally very happy with Terasta's comments today. I approve a "healthy blend of capitalism" with socialism. Enough to allow the hard-workers and clever-investors room to live as comfortable a life as they can make, while giving the less fortunate roofs over their head, clothing, food, and anything else necessary for their well-being.

My opinion is ... I personally feel as though the only way we could ever be a great society is to be a society that sympathizes with the less fortunate, and does its best to end all unecessary human suffering. Which, huamn suffering is always human suffering, whether it's a criminal, a bum, or you. And we're no better people because we feel as though people "lower" than us (once again, criminals and lazy-asses.) don't deserve basic necessities.

The pharmaceutical companies aren't interested in producing life-saving medication: There's not much money to be made in medicine that people only buy when they need it. Instead all their R&D typically goes into developing weight loss pills, anti-depressants, hair restoratives, nicotine supplements, male enhancements, stuff that I would never expect a national healthcare system to cover.

As a note: Depression is a real disorder, that shows real, physical affects on the brain, and is not "general unhappiness." (Not that depression isn't an easy disorder to emulate and use for worker's compensation.)