What is socialism and what is bad about it?

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I’ve seen it referred to several times here in a negative light but I don’t know what it is. I Googled it before but it’s confusing and long. Can anyone explain it simply?
 
Pure or classical socialism is when the government owns the means of production, and some (including me) would argue also when the government controls the means of production (since an aspect of ownership is control).

Wikipedia talks about communal ownership as socialism, but I don’t think that is normally considered part of socialism, and certainly not in general conversation or by the Popes who wrote against socialism.

The reason that socialism is considered bad is that man has a right to the fruits of his labor, and socialism does not allow for that. If you search for Rerum Novarum, that is the papal encyclical which started the series of what are known as the social encyclicals. Note that truly Catholic mention of “social justice” means something different than what is meant in other circles.
 
It’s when the government forcibly takes the bulk of your salary to give it to others in the form of services. Socialism kills personal liberty, spreads the same low standard of living to every person while pretending that it’s creating equality. There is no incentive to financially better yourself since most of your money is taken.

But here’s the thing… If the government prevents people from developing wealth and is killing the incentive to work harder for bigger earnings…and then the government takes more and more money for endless services… How can it pay for them? It’s like draining a pool quicker than the pool can be filled. Eventually the pool is empty. Socialism can’t be sustained because wealth is obliterated while things cost more and more.
 
Isn’t ‘The New World Order’ a worse alternative to socialism? Check it out - its happening now - one monetary currency and ‘equal distribution’ of the world’s wealth is the whole scope behind this movement. There are plenty of sites discussing this issue and several interesting theories on Youtube should you prefer an easier option to reading through the tomes posted on the web. :rolleyes:
 
garbatious said:
Isn’t ‘The New World Order’ a worse alternative to socialism? Check it out - its happening now - one monetary currency and ‘equal distribution’ of the world’s wealth is the whole scope behind this movement. There are plenty of sites discussing this issue and several interesting theories on Youtube should you prefer an easier option to reading through the tomes posted on the web. :rolleyes:
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While I think that there are signs that internationalism has been on the rise for some decades, I do not think there is a secret plot to take over the world. I think there are plots from all over the political spectrum to increase one’s own influence–Catholics think that Catholic principles should have more prominence, environmentalists, Moslems, etc, the same.

OTOH, socialism (and the related communism) has always had its Internationale, the overt idea of taking over the world, more in the way that representative government has taken over the world, but with an unfortunate twist: because socialism goes against human nature, it will require tyranny to impose and maintain.

In Rerum Novarum, His Holiness Pope Leo XIII wrote about socialism and about unfettered capitalism, what might now fall under libertarianism and free-market anarchy. We must watch out for both, because both will lead to the same sort of tyranny eventually.
 
I think St Francis was correct and concise in his description. I’d only add that there are no pure forms of political economy (the old term for economics that I think better captures the meaning since government is always a factor). Most systems are mixed to some degree. Many Americans define capitalism as ‘the current form of economics in the United States’. But even America has elements of socialism.

As for what is bad about it I think it denies human nature and dignity. People value more that which they own. Even Jesus said He was not like the hired hand. The hired hand does not have the same care and concern as the owner.

Socialism carries with it the idea that society owes the individual something. To some extent this is true. But the individual also owes society something as well. At least one thing the individual owes is work. Practically speaking in the ‘socialist’ Western economies there is little to no requirement to work and I believe this has degraded civilization and led to the things like the riots in Britain.
 
Socialism is a little bit more than simply a claim regarding the ownership of the means of production. So long as a limited right to private property is respected it really doesn’t matter who owns the means of production (and recall that the most Christian period of history was one in which property and even wealth was more or less owned directly only by the king and exercised in trust by his subordinates).

What makes socialism pernicious is its claim about the nature of man. Being a purely materialistic philosophy, it makes no room for God and more or less denies man’s spirituality entirely by attributing to him purely mechanistic and deterministic (economic) motives for his actions.
 
Here is a simple explanation:
Code: 
				**FEUDALISM**
						You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
				**PURE SOCIALISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a  barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows.  The government gives you as much milk as you need.
				**BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a  barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken  farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from  the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as  the regulations say you should need.
				**FASCISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
				**PURE COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
				**RUSSIAN COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
				**CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
				**DICTATORSHIP**
						You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
				**PURE DEMOCRACY**
						You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
				**REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY**
						You have two cows. Yours neighbors pick somone to tell you who gets the milk.
				**BUREAUCRACY**
						You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can  feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk  them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other one and pours the  milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting  for the missing cows. In triplicate.
				**ANARCHY**
						You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors take the cows and kill you.
				**CAPITALISM**
						You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
				**SURREALISM**
						You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
 
Thanks for the answers, everyone.
Catholic90 said:
Here is a simple explanation:
Code: 
				**FEUDALISM**
						You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
				**PURE SOCIALISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a  barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows.  The government gives you as much milk as you need.
				**BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a  barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken  farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from  the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as  the regulations say you should need.
				**FASCISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
				**PURE COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
				**RUSSIAN COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
				**CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
				**DICTATORSHIP**
						You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
				**PURE DEMOCRACY**
						You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
				**REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY**
						You have two cows. Yours neighbors pick somone to tell you who gets the milk.
				**BUREAUCRACY**
						You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can  feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk  them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other one and pours the  milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting  for the missing cows. In triplicate.
				**ANARCHY**
						You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors take the cows and kill you.
				**CAPITALISM**
						You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
				**SURREALISM]
						You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.**
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😃
This helped a lot, thanks!
 
laircy said:
I’ve seen it referred to several times here in a negative light but I don’t know what it is. I Googled it before but it’s confusing and long. Can anyone explain it simply?
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State ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
 
Kaninchen, That’s oligarch-capitalism. Got left out somehow, which is odd since it is the best description of the US economy.

On a serious note, the reason catholicism condemns it is that it fails to account for fallen human nature. Socialism was born as an attempt to redress the excesses of late fuedalism (which is not terribly different from oligarch-capitalism). The idea was to remove the greed factor of those few who owned the majority of the means of production and replace them with a state system that would be regulated by the will of the people. In practice, however, this merely results in a change in tyrants from owner tyrant to bureacrat tyrant. Power corrupts humans and socialism relies on the idea of state power. If we had some sinless humans handy to run the socialist system, it might actually work to some degree. But we don’t.

It’s a messy world and the older I get, the fewer neat clean answers I posess.
 
manualman said:
Socialism was born as an attempt to redress the excesses of late fuedalism (which is not terribly different from oligarch-capitalism).
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Socialism was a response to the Industrial Revolution and the context of Enlightenment thought - the only place where ‘late feudalism’ existed at the time was Russia and some areas of Eastern and Southern Europe - Socialism in those countries was a Western import and very much a minority sport.
 
Kaninchen said:
Socialism was a response to the Industrial Revolution and the context of Enlightenment thought - the only place where ‘late feudalism’ existed at the time was Russia and some areas of Eastern and Southern Europe - Socialism in those countries was a Western import and very much a minority sport.
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I’m always open to an upgrade in my history knowledge. It seems to me that late feudalism was effectively still in place for most of the wealth in England. The nobles still pulled all the levers and owned most of the land, no? Was England an exception and the rest of Europe more distributed in wealth, am I misinformed or am I misunderstanding you? Are you really contending that socialism wasn’t primarily fueled by a resentment of the excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few lords (or whatever you’d like to call them)?
 
manualman said:
I’m always open to an upgrade in my history knowledge. It seems to me that late feudalism was effectively still in place for most of the wealth in England. The nobles still pulled all the levers and owned most of the land, no? Was England an exception and the rest of Europe more distributed in wealth, am I misinformed or am I misunderstanding you? Are you really contending that socialism wasn’t primarily fueled by a resentment of the excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few lords (or whatever you’d like to call them)?
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Some have argued that the late medieval period was approaching or moving towards a truly Catholic/human economic system, and that Protestantism and capitalism were part of a package that really came into it’s own in the Industrial Revolution. And the excesses of that resulted in socialism being developed to try to come up with something less awful.
 
Catholic90 said:
Here is a simple explanation:
Code: 
				**FEUDALISM**
						You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
				**PURE SOCIALISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a  barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows.  The government gives you as much milk as you need.
				**BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a  barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken  farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from  the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as  the regulations say you should need.
				**FASCISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes them both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
				**PURE COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
				**RUSSIAN COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
				**CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM**
						You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
				**DICTATORSHIP**
						You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
				**PURE DEMOCRACY**
						You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
				**REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY**
						You have two cows. Yours neighbors pick somone to tell you who gets the milk.
				**BUREAUCRACY**
						You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can  feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk  them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other one and pours the  milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting  for the missing cows. In triplicate.
				**ANARCHY**
						You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors take the cows and kill you.
				**CAPITALISM**
						You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
				**SURREALISM**
						You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
Click to expand...
This is priceless! 😃
 
zz912 said:
That’s corporatism, not capitalism.
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Ah, you took my jokey response to a series of jokey definitions seriously.

I grew up in a world with real socialists and real communists in it. Whenever you said anything critical, they said that you’d failed to understand in some way or another, that, for example, the Soviet Union wasn’t Communist but ‘State Capitalism’, or a ‘Deformed Workers’ State’. It was a wonderful game of avoiding criticism by defining anything that went wrong as a feature of something else and hence not a failure in the correctness of the theory and that what was needed was greater commitment to correctness. If correct interpretation and policy was followed, then freedom, prosperity and so on would be achieved.

By the time I’d arrived at my 20’s both socialism and communism in my world had imploded, of course.

In some ways, though, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
 
manualman said:
The idea was to remove the greed factor of those few who owned the majority of the means of production and replace them with a state system that would be regulated by the will of the people.
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Our conception of greed has been warped. I think people tend to view greed as something peculiar to rich people, particularly under more capitalist economies. Of course greed is something that haunts all men of every class. The poor can be just as greedy as the rich. In fact they could be more greedy and their greed could be what keeps them poor. Moreover there is no reason to think a bureaucrat or politician wont have greed for power (which is what wealth represents anyway). We cant cure greed but we can inflame it by reducing man to merely a material object which is what socialism does.
sw85 said:
So long as a limited right to private property is respected it really doesn’t matter who owns the means of production (and recall that the most Christian period of history was one in which property and even wealth was more or less owned directly only by the king and exercised in trust by his subordinates).
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I would disagree. The person with the most ownership will have the most incentive to be productive and protect their productive assets. The most accurate information is always possessed at the lowest level. As information makes it way up a chain it gets lost and becomes distorted. A system where decisions are made at the top will result in less productive use of material due to bad information and less care about the best use of materials.

In modern America we rent our property from the state since we pay property tax. So the state is the true owner of property, just as the king was. If you dont have accumulated wealth other than property or income you can not hold property. One reason we have so much development of farm land in America is when the farmer dies his land goes to his kids. If they cant rent the farm to someone they have to sell it or have enough money from other sources to pay the taxes demanded.
Bluegoat said:
Some have argued that the late medieval period was approaching or moving towards a truly Catholic/human economic system, and that Protestantism and capitalism were part of a package that really came into it’s own in the Industrial Revolution.
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The Church at one time was a powerful institution in the lives of people. It in many ways rivaled the modern state. I do think that one reason for socialism was the weakening of the power of the Church. Soviet Communism had to destroy the Church as it was a rival of the state. The state does not have to be everything but it tries to be in both communist and Western socialist states, which includes the US.
 
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