For me, democratic socialism is a nifty idea that may or may not work. As for Lenin and Marx and Mao and all the rest … well … we’re talking about a different animal. I would be a fool to argue that those systems worked–they didn’t. Think of a society that is run like a cooperative where everyone has an equal voice and is provided their basic needs and a decent standard of living. No one has a mansion to live in and sixteen cars, yet no one is living under a bridge, either. Take it a step further and envision that same society, which has automated production and all menial labor/chores, leaving its citizens free to pursue the arts, sciences, and philosophy, among other things.

I know that I sound like an idealist–and maybe I am–but I think that human beings are resourceful enough to create a much better society if we could just somehow work around the rampant greed and corruption that is a way of life for so many people.

When I used to go to chat-rooms, the serial capitalists would say that ‘greed is good.’
I am more Christian. Greed is a terrible thing. It prompts the lowest of people to the highest (poor to rich) to steal.

I used to know this family in Monterey, CA.. They all lived on the SAME wage, and then they paid the main piper a great deal (which is always the case with a tyrant), in the end, they ended up suing this tyrant.
That really is what socialism boils down to.
Now, because each of these brothers in this family have a massive amt of experience, they are all millionaires, or ‘hundred-thousandaires’.

We live in a world where things are just not fair. Thats the way it is in life, even when the USSR was hard core Soviet, they always put out the best Olympians. Was it ‘fair’ to those just trying?

Facts are; Some people are more talented, possess more creativity, others are good workers, and make the machine run.

Thats all. I agree that greed is EVIL.

On the other hand, what the U.S. has turned into is a plutocracy.

I’m not vehemently opposed to capitalism, nor am I a staunch, card-carrying socialist. I agree with some of the tenets of the Libertarian Party, Democratic Socialist Party, and the DFL–but that last one … well … they’re just not very good at what they do. But what the hell, right? Neither are the other two. I’m not a radical and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with wanting to be successful; the trouble is that those opportunities are just not available to most Americans for a variety of reasons. It takes money to make money, and 80% of our population holds only 15% of the wealth. I also have a problem with greedy shysters who hoard money that they don’t need at the expense of others. Why does a CEO need an $18 million salary when the people who work for him make $7.25 an hour–and the only reason that they make that much is because it’s the law.

The painful truth is that we’re all in trouble if we don’t wrap our heads around what’s coming–namely that our monetary system depends on exponential growth, and that is based on a declining energy supply and diminishing resources. Politics is a fun game, but in the end, I believe that we have more serious issues to consider.

America is a republic.
When did you go to school, what years? I graduated in 1983. The books we had in Elem & High School were over 75 years old. I was never told that America is/or was a democracy.

“Capitalism” is not the problem.
GREED is.
I have owned 2 successful business’s myself and did well just being a little ‘mom n pop.’

You cant be ‘that’ much against free enterprise, if you were, you would not be selling books.

“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
— Thomas Jefferson

John Adams advised his fellow countrymen: “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

James Madison gave us sage advice when he warned that, “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security and the rights of property; and have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Thomas Jefferson, writing in relation to the Virginia legislature, stated, “One hundred and seventy-three despots” are “as oppressive as one,” and that “an elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”

Even the intellectuals of Rome recognized that their empire’s greatness and freedom were directly related to their republican form of government. In the words of historian, Will Durant, Cicero believed, that “without checks and balances…democracy becomes mob rule, chaos and dictatorship.” Cicero went on to say that the man usually chosen as leader in a democracy is “someone bold and unscrupulous…who curries favor with the people by giving them other men’s property.”

Here then is the evil of a democracy with the “majority will” ruling absolutely. It allows dictatorial control and confiscation to be utilized against the individual simply because the masses desire such control and confiscation to be utilized. The concept of individual sovereignty is thus destroyed, a dangerous cloud of confusion develops in the area of social ethics, and the might of numbers becomes our only guide as to what is right and wrong.

ETC, ETC, ETC.

This is why we have Americans fighting Americans. One side is OFF and one side is desperately wanting to return to how we started.