Socialism.. does anyone have a clue.

Atkingani wrote: Leningrad wrote: rushfan4 wrote: the Soviet Union was so far behind the rest of the world technologically uh what   Hmmm... first artifical satellite, first man in space, first impact on Moon, Mars and Venus, first effective space station, first supersonic commercial airplane; also many advances in medicine, construction, electronics, transportation, education, ect. They weren't anyway behind the "rest of the world" in many fields.    However, their concern about environmental issues, agricultural effectiveness, land productivity, mining, nuclear power was poor if none; things that IMO destroy many of their advances.

debrewguy wrote: rushfan4 wrote: Aye, but then who is regulating the regulators? Er, the politicians, who are regulated , or rather held to account by the voters , who , in the U.S. , apart from a small minority of 10%, will vote the same party line their entire lives.

And when the majority of voters either don't vote or aren't intelligent enough to make an informed decision, then what?

Leningrad wrote: rushfan4 wrote: the Soviet Union was so far behind the rest of the world technologically uh what

rushfan4 wrote: the Soviet Union was so far behind the rest of the world technologically

rushfan4 wrote: Then who will regulate you?

rushfan4 wrote: Then who will regulate you?

rushfan4 wrote: Aye, but then who is regulating the regulators?

lazland wrote: rushfan4 wrote: True, but it was still a big factor and one reason why the Soviet Union was so far behind the rest of the world technologically.  Although the biggest factor might be another famous saying.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely, which unfortunately seems to be another unfortunate human nature trait. You've nailed the truth absolutely on the head. Lenin, via the revolution, commenced the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was the stepping stone of educating the masses before true communism was supposed to kick in. However, the state became overwhelming, the secret police became all powerful, and this was taken to the nth degree by Stalin, who proved the dictum about absolute power corrupting absolutely. The Soviet experience proved beyond doubt that true communism, as idealised by Marx & Engels, will never get beyond the inherent human frailties that they both misunderstood so much. The alternative, for us aging lefties, is democratic socialism, and for those who think this is inherently bad, I would point to the experience we are now living as regards the lassie faire capitalism model introduced by Thatcher & Reagan, and perpetuated by Blair & Bush, amongst others, which is collapsing all around us. The lesson from this is that extremes of whatever ideology, either right or left, are absolutely unsuited to the mass human experience. I spend virtually all of my professional life fighting Trotskyists in my trade union - a bunch of narrow minded, inherently conservative (with a small c), idealogues who are sending my union and my members into a black hole of despair. True democracy means providing intelligent, free willed, people with the means and power to acheive change based upon their own circumstances - but I despair of this being acheived in the present political climate.

rushfan4 wrote: True, but it was still a big factor and one reason why the Soviet Union was so far behind the rest of the world technologically.  Although the biggest factor might be another famous saying.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely, which unfortunately seems to be another unfortunate human nature trait.

You've nailed the truth absolutely on the head. Lenin, via the revolution, commenced the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was the stepping stone of educating the masses before true communism was supposed to kick in. However, the state became overwhelming, the secret police became all powerful, and this was taken to the nth degree by Stalin, who proved the dictum about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

The Soviet experience proved beyond doubt that true communism, as idealised by Marx & Engels, will never get beyond the inherent human frailties that they both misunderstood so much.

The alternative, for us aging lefties, is democratic socialism, and for those who think this is inherently bad, I would point to the experience we are now living as regards the lassie faire capitalism model introduced by Thatcher & Reagan, and perpetuated by Blair & Bush, amongst others, which is collapsing all around us.

The lesson from this is that extremes of whatever ideology, either right or left, are absolutely unsuited to the mass human experience. I spend virtually all of my professional life fighting Trotskyists in my trade union - a bunch of narrow minded, inherently conservative (with a small c), idealogues who are sending my union and my members into a black hole of despair.

True democracy means providing intelligent, free willed, people with the means and power to acheive change based upon their own circumstances - but I despair of this being acheived in the present political climate.

Aye, but then who is regulating the regulators?