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The Daily Utah Chronicle

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The Case for Socialism in the U.S.

The+Case+for+Socialism+in+the+U.S.

It’s unlikely — especially with the big-business administration currently running the country — that the United States will ever make a complete switch to socialism. However, socialism is the closest thing, realistically, to a Utopian society.

A working definition of socialism is “a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Many people hate socialism because they think it’s the same thing as Communism, but it’s not.

A simple and funny explanation helps clear up the differences between communism, capitalism and socialism. Communism is where you have one cow and the government takes it and sells you some milk. Capitalism is where you have two cows and you sell one to buy a bull. Socialism is where there’s a cow farm that everyone goes to and you get as much milk as you need.

China, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand and Belgium are all socialist countries. In these countries, unemployment and homeless rates are very low and college graduate rates are very high. America runs on capitalism and is in permanent debt to China. In America, small businesses struggle because you apparently must spend money to make money and competition with big business usually edges them out. But in places like Sweden, small businesses are the foundation of their economy and are extremely successful. Since everyone has what they need in socialist societies, class systems begin to fade. In this sense, It’s the opposite of Capitalism. Capitalism thins out the middle class, making everyone either rich or poor. Socialism increases the middle class, because no one company can monopolize all the money and resources. The biggest problem with socialism, that I’m aware of, is that it gives government more control, but is it necessarily a bad thing for a people to need it’s government?

People who hate taxes usually say it’s because they view taxation as stealing. Really, taxation is how the government pays for things we need, like hospitals, schools, police officers, firemen and the military. In Canada, teachers can make up to a hundred thousand dollars a year, once they hit tenure. Most teachers in America make thirty thousand dollars a year, and rarely make more than fifty thousand. The average police officer in America makes fifty-five thousand dollars a year, while they make seventy thousand in Canada.

In a socialist society, everyone can afford education and health care. In America, people who don’t know better tend to hate universal health coverage like Obamacare. That is, until they need it. Having to pay a little more every paycheck so that poor people can have health coverage might sound unfair, until you’re the one in need of an expensive surgery you’d have no way to pay for if it weren’t for taxes.

“It’s not fair that my hard-earned money allows lazy homeless people to remain jobless,” critics decry. “Why should I have to pay for other people’s medical problems and poor work ethics?” Newsflash, this system benefits you as well. You would get just as many advantages as everyone else.

Per the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, everyone on the planet has a right to the things they need to survive, like food, a home or the ability to be seen by a doctor if they break their arm. If a little bit more of my paycheck has to go toward paying for a roof to go over a struggling families’ head, then I’m happy with that. Allowing for other people to have a home won’t take mine away from me. I would rather share my cow and get all the milk I need than watch my neighbors starve because they don’t have a cow at all.

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  • T

    taya MarutiMar 25, 2017 at 11:17 am

    without competition a lot of things you have would never exist secondly “but is it necessarily a bad thing for a people to need it’s government?” yes it is a very bad thing did you really ignore history classes? seriously every time in history a government is in majority power bad things happen to the people, i agree with you on the benefits of cooperation but until you can offer a solution that does this but keeps government employed to the people and not them self or corporations/lobbyists, there is absolutely no way socialism can work for long, what keeps new Zealand and Canada from taking over their citizens and enslaving them is the current democratically agreed human rights systems, some of which the “Republic” of the United States of America has helped to put in place and enforce until recently.

    none of what is going on now was intended or should have been allowed the government belongs to the people not the other way around its a collaboration of groups of people to make decisions with representatives chosen by these very people, if any thing we need to be stricter on the elect that ignore the public’s choices when majority decides.

    if there was away to combine American Republic government style with some socialism at the very base level to prevent people from slipping into an unsustainable life, while encouraging them to push for the top then you might have something, save your total socialist comments because it wont work but as i stated a combination of working system parts.

    Obama care is a joke and those that can not see that really need to do some more research it lets people with as simple as diabetes die by denying them access to hospitals through not covering what real matters, as a social health care its a piss poor build, on the other hand it has driven up cost of other insurance beyond what people can afford when if it was done right should have driven cost down.

    Reply
  • W

    WingnutMar 24, 2017 at 6:45 am

    Nice piece! Well said. Thank you!

    Some of us want to take it a step further… abolishing money and ownership (while highly-promoting custodianship and “owned-by-all-living-things”).

    These All-For-Team-Earth policies have one rather major logjam… decision by committee. We want to allow everyone to have a say in every Team Earth decision, no matter how big or small. This requires a massive voting system, but even larger than that… is the “research the issue before voting” system. Both of these… will require VERY large and wise computer networking, and both are vital to a workable by-committee voting/decision management system.

    We will also need something like World Needs TV… a place that points-out the highest priority problems in Team Earth, and begs for volunteers and free experts (there is no money anymore).

    All objects on the planet.. will be categorized… as necessity, or luxury. All luxuries are maintained by “recreational services” repositories (like in US Air Force, I’m a former proud member). These luxuries can be “checked-out” for temporary custodianship… by anyone, without monetary discrimination or any other kind (except if you have a reputation for abusing things put into your temporary custodianship).

    Lastly, strict fairness laws… but… less prisons and more “schools of conduct”. We WILL lose some freedoms in the Team Earth communes, but the amount we gain… as a team, and this trickle-down to all team members… far outweighs any restrictions. For example, all future cars will be VERY repairable and have easily interchangeable and re-usable parts. You lose the freedom to have a “unique” car, but remember that you ARE allowed to personalize the team-owned car… while you are custodian of it. These “personal touches” must not damage the re-usability, and must be removed when the car is relinquished back to motorpool.

    In other circles, I think this kind of survival system… is called “Resources-Based Systems”. Not sure. All I know… it that such a system will keep us friendlier and less competitive, make our products be FAR more quality-made/maintained, and keep the land-fills emptier.

    It’s just general horse-logical, too. We all see that stacking kids into playground pyramids… makes upper-layer kids elbow each other and get “heads in the clouds” starry-eyed-stupid. Such pyramiding/rat-racing also puts too many knees and too much weight on the backs of bottom layer kids. The pyramid of children… ALWAYS collapses (and sends bottom-level kids to hospital or graveyard). So, also, will the pyramid of adults… called capitalism. It wobbles daily and bottom layer is almost crushed. Flatness WILL win in the end, one way or another.

    Cooperation ALWAYS wins over competition, but cooperation doesn’t compete, so it cares NOTHING about winning.

    We must be ready to catch the starry-eyed rat-racers… in a net of wisdom, logic, and heart. Then we must make sure they know that cooperation is the opposite of competition, and teach of the dangers of rat-racing, of frantically chasing green-paper false idols (some do it out of fear, some do it out of greed) (often related to forced-joiners vs. volunteer joiners… of the Free Marketeers Pyramids-R-Us).

    Be well, gang. Again, cool piece.

    Larry “Wingnut” Wendlandt
    MaStars – Mothers Against Stuff That Ain’t Right
    Anti-Capitalism-ists (system fighters, not people fighters)
    Bessemer, MI, USA

    Reply