Heaven on Earth: The rise and fall of Socialism

[angrydragon]

I caught this flipping through the channels, on PBS, and it talks about socialism and how it didn't work, even voluntarily. Even those that wanted socialism, wanted to change because they didn't like the way socialism was making them poor.

The answer to it was capitalism and liberty.

http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/

[RPFTW!]

awesome!

Its pretty telling when even 95% of Swedes in Sweden abuse the social programs.

[angrydragon]

Here's the transcript, there's no videos of the documentary online.

NARRATOR: The farthest socialism ever advanced democratically was in Israel's kibbutzim. For years the kibbutzim had been tiptoeing away from a completely communal way of life. But basic socialist principles still held. Members contributed what they could, and the kibbutz provided for their needs.

NOA SHAMIR-RONEN
GINOSAR RESIDENT
I think the kibbutz is generally not natural. It goes completely against nature, complete opposite of human nature. Because you work and you give all you got, and you work very hard, at several jobs, and in return you get the same as somebody who doesn't work.

The kibbutzim were the one place, or group of places, on earth where real, pure socialism, just as it was imagined by the, all the great socialist visionaries, was actually put into practice and put into practice democratically. And the ironic ending was that the same people after a certain number of years democratically voted to turn away from socialism, and to put the kibbutz in some other basis. 05:01:57 And I think that that constitutes the, the final proof that socialism- except coerced as in China or Russia-but socialism as a voluntarily way for societies to live is simply an impossibility; that people ultimately won't be satisfied living that way.

http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/transcript.html#3_7

[philipuso]

You ought to ask yourself why the leading advocates of pure capitalism become hypocritical and use government to suit their self interests.


The mythology of the free market also submits that governments are inefficient institutions that should be limited, so as not to hurt the magic of the natural laissez faire market. In fact, as Chomsky emphasizes, governments are central to the modern capitalist system. They lavishly subsidize corporations and work to advance corporate interests on numerous fronts. The same corporations that exult in neoliberal ideology are in fact often hypocritical: they want and expect governments to funnel tax dollars to them, and to protect their markets from competition for them, but they want to be assured that governments will not tax them or work supportively on behalf of non-business interests, especially the poor and working class. Governments are bigger than ever, but under neoliberalism they have far less pretense to addressing non-corporate interests.

Nowhere is the centrality of governments and policymaking more apparent than in the emergence of the global market economy. What is presented by pro-business ideologues as the natural expansion of free markets across borders is, in fact, quite the opposite. Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world's people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations. Nowhere is the process more apparent than in the creation of the World Trade Organization in the early 1990s and, now, in the secret deliberations on behalf of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).

http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19990401.htm

[asgardshill]

Unless one enjoys food riots and watching people starve in the streets, no matter how deserving some may be of that fate, pure capitalism can be every bit as odious a thing as pure socialism. The real trick is to provide a balance that addresses and channels both extremes of human nature into something more benign and productive.

The Founding Fathers hit on the ideal solution for us, but like any well-tended garden, weeds will encroach unless they're rooted out. And IMO, the garden is long overdue for a good weeding.

[angrydragon]

There hasn't been a chance for pure capitalism to take place. The closet we got was the years before the depression. Capitalism wasn't the cause of the depression, but the Federal Reserve.

[NMCB3]

You ought to ask yourself why the leading advocates of pure capitalism become hypocritical and use government to suit their self interests.



http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19990401.htmChomsky is a commie.

[philipuso]

Chomsky is a commie.

No, he's a Libertarian socialist.


Most libertarian socialists advocate doing away with the state altogether, seeing it as a bulwark of capitalist class rule.

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

[NMCB3]

No, he's a Libertarian socialist.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialismThats just as bad. Instead of the state telling you what to do "collectivist" institutions would practice tyranny over the individual. All socialism involves force-what happens to those individuals who want no part of his utopia? Individual liberty which includes private property rights as a cornerstone (something Chomsky does not believe in] free markets, and individual rights [not collective] is what I advocate. Oh guess what? so does Ron Paul.

[Gigaplex]

You ought to ask yourself why the leading advocates of pure capitalism become hypocritical and use government to suit their self interests.


You say "the mythology of the free market" and then go on to talk about corporatism which has nothing to do with free markets. That is propaganda pure and simple.

The only point you really make is that republicans often talk about free markets and then practice corporatism in Washington. All you have to do is take a look at the records of such people and it is glaringly obvious - they were never pro-free market in the first place. This is exactly the problem that we are addressing. WHY DO YOU THINK WE ARE DOING THIS CAMPAIGN!?

[Gigaplex]

Unless one enjoys food riots and watching people starve in the streets, no matter how deserving some may be of that fate, pure capitalism can be every bit as odious a thing as pure socialism. The real trick is to provide a balance that addresses and channels both extremes of human nature into something more benign and productive.

The Founding Fathers hit on the ideal solution for us, but like any well-tended garden, weeds will encroach unless they're rooted out. And IMO, the garden is long overdue for a good weeding.

SOCIALISM HURTS THE POOR! We give a good 50% of our income to the government now and we still have TONS of poor people. It has not fixed the problem at all.

If you have a free market and a sound currency, you will drastically cut the number of poor people. Then it will then be a manageable problem. At that point the poor can be helped VOLUNTARILY through charities.

I am one of those evil capitalists you despise and guess what? I give to charities all the time. I can't give as much as I'd like though because THE STATE KEEPS STEALING ALL MY MONEY!

You may not realize it but YOU are screwing the poor over by promoting a seriously flawed ideology. Unless you get some kind of sick pleasure out of watching the poor suffer, I suggest you do some serious reading on free markets and quit promoting socialism.

Oh and by the way, the founding fathers believed in private property. They do not side with you. You are one of the weeds that needs rooted out.

[Mises]

Chomsky speaks a lot of wisdom about imperialism and foreign policy, but he is all over the map when it comes to capitalism. As someone already pointed out, he likes to mix his terminology - pointing to mercantilism and corporatism and calling it capitalism and free markets.

There has never been a purely free market in our history. Witness the immediate debate over the first Bank of the United States between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians in the 1790s, the decades-long debates over protectionism and internal improvements, and the subsidizing of private industry in the 1800s.

Free market advocates fought against such boondoggles and lost. Then came government- supported monopoly, the concentration of financial and political power in the hands of elites, higher taxes, bigger government, and the Federal Reserve. Chomsky calls this capitalism. Uh, not quite, Noam.

[Rebel Resource]

SOCIALISM HURTS THE POOR! We give a good 50% of our income to the government now and we still have TONS of poor people. It has not fixed the problem at all.


That isn't socialism. That's a welfare state.

Socialism can be a million different things. It can be people power or state control of everything.