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2016 American Presidential Campaign

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Sanders is the only guy running who I even half think means what he says. Also, a deal-maker he could Lyndon Johnson Congress without whipping out jumbo, and actually for the bulk of American people.
I don't believe for a second Trump, Rubio, Cruz (well maybe Cruz), Carson, Grahm, Bush, Clinton actually believe in the product they sell.
Sucks he won't get the nomination.
Kinda wish I could vote for Bush Sr in a way...evil man, but legitimate war hero, competent director of the CIA, raised Taxes when it was necessary even though it cost him his second term. He was qualified to keep the empire going. Who is actually qualified that is running? Clinton and Sanders I guess, but I'm not impressed by her tenure as Secretary of State.
 
JessFR said:
Except every time in history socialism has failed to go any further, and gotten trapped in a hideous state far worse than capitalism ever was. You only need look at history. What am I missing here?
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The fact that a highly advanced, post-industrial society has never undergone the transition :P

Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba etc, these were not advanced enough societies to maintain a socialist economy. Thus they all degenerate into centralized state controlled societies and fall apart. Like I said, capitalism is essential for the development of socialism. It's when capitalism starts to find itself more and more obsolete that conditions are ripe enough for there to be a functional socialist economy. Capitalism builds the tools and infrastructure, then eventually eats itself. This is yet to happen, but we're getting there.

Every time its been tried socialism has been like putting one corrupt evil company in charge of everything with no competition or oversight to balance it out at all. The people wind up with no control at all.
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See above.

Capitalism isn't great, and I certainly don't agree with unchecked and uncontrolled capitalism. And I agree some things shouldn't be privatized and some things like health care shouldn't be exclusively private. But pure socialism is madness.
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So worker cooperatives are pure madness? At the micro-economic level, these are communist enterprises. The Mondragon Corporation in Spain is an example of a federation of cooperatives, and is one of the largest enterprises in the country. Madness.
 
^ The mater of selling a strong welfare-state to the US is difficult. It only worked before when we could deny the increase in state assistance to a despised servant class.
I'm thinking Hukabee's time should come soon, he's almost an old school Christian Socialist.
 
From Wikipedia " Mike Huckabee increased state spending 0.91% percent from 1996 to 2004. During his tenure, the number of state government workers in Arkansas increased over 20 percent, and the state’s general obligation debt increased by approximately $1 billion.[66] As Governor of Arkansas, Huckabee received grades of B in 1998,[67][68] C in 2000,[69][70] C in 2002,[71][72] D in 2004,[73][74] and F in 2006[75][76] from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, in their biennial Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors."
He's a populist, his support of corporations always seems to be grudging and he smack talks consumerism from time to time. He was for strong health-care reform before the ACA got going and being against it was a republican prerequisite. He wants to help the Christian poor and working class rise up and live with dignity, and acts like Government can be the avenue to do that.

He keeps his Evangelical grass-roots happy by catering to the social justice issues that the more mainstream conservative movement rejects. He could do something interesting with Sanders...Sadly he's also in favor of making life hell for more secular and Muslim folks, keeps good with the grass-roots by saying lots of silly bigoted bullshit, but does good work for Mexican laborers(Christian).
 
We are talking US politics, not just US Politics but Arkansas politics, there are more billowing Confederate Battle Flags above Tea Party flags on the back of trucks than in rural Mississippi. Generally kind, generous, hard working, and surprisingly intellegent folks, but they really need to hate some weird caricature of the Other to feel whole.
 
Bardeaux said:
^Social democratic societies like these are capitalist economies with a strong welfare state, not socialism.
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No, in fact they are "mixed economies". Yes, most of their economic model is capital oriented, but the places where they use what people would refer in any way to as socialism comprises a certain segment of their economy, making it a mixed economy.
 
Phil.McKeer said:
No, in fact they are "mixed economies". Yes, most of their economic model is capital oriented, but the places where they use what people would refer in any way to as socialism comprises a certain segment of their economy, making it a mixed economy.
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Indeed, IE- a capitalist economy with a strong welfare state. A "mixed economy", we're talking semantics. Every country has state owned enterprise and privately owned enterprise (with very few exceptions), this makes every country a mixed economy to some degree. Northern Europe in particular happens to have a stronger role of the state than others, this doesn't constitute a socialist economy any more than the United States has a socialist economy, it makes it's economic mixture a little different. :P
 
Indeed, I agree. They are not socialist. As for socialism working in the case of the US, I simply don't agree.

Putting too much power in central hands always corrupts the system and causes what we've seen in the past.

I simply don't agree that socialism can work. But I appreciate the respectful way you've discussed the subject with me. I appreciate it.
 
Marco Rubio in general makes me feel unsafe :P Could be worse, I suppose.

JessFR said:
Indeed, I agree. They are not socialist. As for socialism working in the case of the US, I simply don't agree.

Putting too much power in central hands always corrupts the system and causes what we've seen in the past.

I simply don't agree that socialism can work. But I appreciate the respectful way you've discussed the subject with me. I appreciate it.
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This isn't socialism either, though. Socialism is the socialization of power, politically and economically, the disbursement of power via widespread, decentralized democratic participation in the workplace and in the political process. This has never been seen at a national level before because no nation has ever been prepared to undertake such a transition. I still don't think we're there quite yet, but what socialists today are doing is laying the foundation for the future, building the new world out of the shell of the old, spreading ideas. Capitalism isn't the end of history, just as people thought kings and queens would reign without question forever, people now believe the same about capital. It's a ridiculous notion if we really truly think about that for a moment.

Within just a few decades, that divine right of kings was smashed to pieces, almost out of nowhere. Is it foolish to believe that capital will meet the same fate once wealth disparity and new technology is maximized? What we're seeing right now under capitalism is the concentration of power into very few hands on a scale never before seen in America. Five Walton heirs own as much wealth as 150 million people. Just wait until the "let them eat cake" moment.
 
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I know that I and the people I work with of all stripes would love a real say in how the business runs, and how the profits are divided. The government has sided with the owners over us workers as a matter of principal except for a small window enjoyed by our parents and grandparents. So I dare say it, if we are going to take power of our lives as a team, we're gonna have to be radicals and I just don't think we could even all agree that Pinkertons are a bad move by management....I try to agitate a bit, and go for solidarity with all the folks in my boat. The rich are better at that.
 
You're right that its not what socialism is, but its what attempts at socialism become.

Like communism, no one has truly gotten there in terms of the positive ideals of socialism. And I believe it's because the concepts are fundamentally flawed. I believe ideologies like socialism fail to recognize and take into account human nature. Attempting it inevitably results in those responsible for undertaking it becoming corrupted and seizing control and power indefinitely, until all you're left with is what happened in all the other supposed socialist states.

I believe capitalism is the best of all known and all imperfect systems. Many of the problems capitalism causes can be mitigated through the kind of mixed, controlled capitalism we see in the aforementioned European countries. If you just wanted to make America more like them, id understand that. But that's not socialism. It's at its core capitalism with limits in place and public control of certain industries and such that the public can benefit from being somewhat nationalized. I don't think pure free market capitalism is the answer either. I think these so called mixed systems provide the best results of any known system. The question is getting the balance right. If you want America to go down that road, I don't have much hope for your success, but id understand and in many respects agree with that. But trying to achieve socialism I believe inevitably leads to the kind of disaster we've seen again and again. Uncontrolled entirely privatized capitalism isn't enormously better, hence my belief in controlled capitalism with most things privatized, some nationalized, and restrictions placed through legislation to prevent and mitigate the problems capitalism cause.

Even then it still wont he perfect, but I believe perfection in terms of running human society is impossible for the foreseeable future.

I fully agree this enormous wealth disparity is not ok, but if the climate is right to try and implement socialism, then the climate is also right to implement solutions that won't lead to down the same road to ruin other countries have wound up on. In my view, modern day american socialists are examples of the opposite yet identical problem we have from people who are terrified of socializing anything at all. Because of socialism history, many americans have an extreme and irrational fear of anything, even positive change that looks remotely like socialism. Socialists are the same extreme, only they have an extreme and irrational aversion to anything capitalist. To me it seems obvious that both these extremes are destructive and not in societies best interest. Moderate solutions are what I believe in. Keeping the best parts of capitalism and harnessing and controlling it through restrictions and some socialization. Currently we are too far in the capitalist extreme. But going the other extreme is even worse. The answer is the mixed system.
 
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Bardeaux said:
Northern Europe in particular happens to have a stronger role of the state than others, this doesn't constitute a socialist economy any more than the United States has a socialist economy, it makes it's economic mixture a little different. :P
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Well, I guess the question is if we're arguing about whether or not a revolutionary change could be made to our economic system. We can't have full-blown workers' control over the means of production, or a dictatorship of the proletariat, or any kind of abrupt, total economic adjustment in the US. It'll all have to be done piecemeal, slowly, in the form of pieces of paper coming out of Congress.

Stuff like single payer healthcare/medicare for all, real tax reform, less military spending, more spending on education etc. These are all socialist concepts. But if the question is can we have a socialist revolution in the USA I'd say probably not. So the best we can settle for is making our "mixed economy" mixed closer to socialist principles.
 
I agree Phil, but how do I sell your concept to my comrades in retail? If it's presidential politics I need a better salesman, a non corruptible excellent salesman....
The best results seem to come from single issue advocacy leading to progressive ballot measures atm. Even during the conservative domination of the 2012 election, every minimum wage hike put up to a vote passed, even here in Arkansas. How do we get sound, progressive tax reform on a national level into a ballot initiative?
 
GolemGolem said:
Even during the conservative domination of the 2012 election, every minimum wage hike put up to a vote passed, even here in Arkansas. How do we get sound, progressive tax reform on a national level into a ballot initiative?
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Minimum wage is a concept that at a basic level is easy for people to understand. Sure, there are arguments that raising the minimum wage has negative impacts on the economy, but for the most part, people living on wages around that of the minimum wage are going to see it in their best interest to increase the minimum wage. Taxation, on the other hand, is quite a broad concept of which many people only see a small sliver. For most people, taxes are seen in terms of their individual interests. Poorer people are more willing to put up with higher taxes because the impact of taxes on their incomes is relatively small, especially when it is considered the social programs that the taxes in part go to pay for, which provide direct benefit to them. Many wealthy people see a larger impact on their earnings from taxes and see themselves as getting relatively little in return for these taxes and so are broadly opposed to "more taxes". The difficulty in all this is that taxes are so much more complex than either of these understandings account for. Representatives in representing their constituencies are representing interests that exclude the larger picture of taxation-- the one that includes corporate taxation. The constituencies for corporate taxation policy are largely governmental entities and the corporations themselves.

The tax reform you call for getting on a ballot for public vote requires the public to actually understand these issues and vocalize an opinion about them. This election cycle is really interesting as it appears on one side that we're getting closer to this level of understanding (the Bernie side), while on the other side, we're plunging deeper into ignorance (the Trump side).
 
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