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[Phmcw]

Just my two cent, kogan, while your definition are great, Europe's socialist parties (in virtually every country, there is a socialist party, quite often in power or the principal position party) doesn't subscribe to them. For instance, the future prime minister of Belgium is quite likely to be a socialist.

And quite naturally, when an European speak of socialism, he'll think of his country's socialist party.

You're right about the US foreign policies, and virtually every countries' as well. Our government never gave a fuck about freedom, and it's painfully obvious.

Let's see : US main exemple : Saudi Arabia's support, Al quaida, the Talibans, operation condor, the Vietnam's war,...
Belgium : murder of Partick Lubumba
England : I've read Churchill's memoirs and so should you : he care about the inhabitants of the colonies but wouldn't trust them with independence.
France... it's action in Africa speak for themselves, for instance the two French kidnapped recently in Mali were involved in shady operations in the past.

[mainiac]

I personally think that the socialist international knows what socialism is a lot better then a dictionary does.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Thank you palsch.
It's an interesting read.

I disagree with him on many fronts. The first and foremost thing is that the people whom are wealthy have done so on skill alone, and that individuals who regularly hold no income have no value to society. Luck and position plays as much of a part as skill. A skillful person might need 10 dollars for every dollar a lucky person has. With position the skillful or lucky person might have enough resources to get their aim. Also a person's worth cannot be measured by the standard yardstick of success. Some people have legitimate problems that will prevent their success, but otherwise provide net benefit for the public. A library or a homeless musician, both can provide value to society as a whole if used in the right way, but both can also be an enormous waste of resources.

I also disagree with Mr. Carnegie on the aspect that giving money to public works is more valuable than giving many tiny amounts to individuals. Mr. Carnegie made a separation between fortunes and wealth, which sat at the returns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. If you have even a single employee that lacks the ability for comfortable maintenance and education of his family due to insufficient funds and not some form of negative addiction or behavior pattern, then you have a severe problem with the wage you are paying, and no amount of distribution of your wealth to public works is good. If your employees are struggling to put food on their table, no amount of Libraries will be of benefit to them. Books are only as valuable as their nutrition content then. Of course once that threshold is crossed, he's right. The thing is, to meet it for the lowest employee is to cross it for the rest. That isn't a bad thing though, because they too can do public good.

So interesting read, but lots I disagree with. Thank you for the link.

...Guess you knew more about the cold war then JFK.

To be fair to poor Mister Kennedy, I have the benefit of seeing it through the eyes of history.


Also, I would like to see a definition of Socialism that supports those statements. It seems to me people label anything socialism that they disagree with, so let's see your definition. Not some vague mention of an organization that intends to spread Socialism, but what Socialism really is.
I know what it isn't. It isn't what you are all trying to pass it off as.

[Phmcw]

Un emploi de qualité pour tous, telle est l’ambition du PS pour l’ensemble des travailleurs. Dans le système libéral, ceux-ci sont trop souvent exploités et ils ont besoin d’être défendus. Tout d’abord, ils sont les premiers sacrifiés lorsque les propriétaires d’entreprises ou les actionnaires décident de faire des économies pour augmenter leurs profits. Ensuite, ils subissent le chantage au chômage : « si ça ne vous plaît pas, sachez que dix personnes convoitent votre place ». Par ailleurs, ils participent de moins en moins aux bénéfices engrangés par les entreprises, qui ne les rétribuent pas assez alors que ce sont eux qui ont créé l’essentiel de la richesse.
 
Le PS combat ces injustices et refuse catégoriquement la dérégulation du marché de l’emploi. Les socialistes souhaitent que l’Etat joue pleinement son rôle, pénalise les licenciements abusifs, garantisse les droits fondamentaux des travailleurs et assure l’indexation automatique des salaires. Enfin, le PS veut accroître la différence entre une allocation de chômage et un salaire, en tirant ce dernier vers le haut, afin de mieux récompenser le travail.

Here's the main manifest of the French speaking socialist party of Belgium on work and economy.

: "A good job for everyone is the socialist party's ambition for all worker. In a Liberal system those are often exploited and need to be defended. First of all, they are the first to be scarified when the owner of company or the share holders decide to make cuts to maximise their profits. Then they are victim of the unemployment blackmail :"if you don't accept our conditions, there are ten poeples that could do your job". And at last, they profit less and less from the benefits made by the company, that don't redistribute them to those who created most of the riches.

The socialist party fight those wrongs and refuse categorically the deregulation of the work market. The socialists wish that the state play his role completely, penalize unfair job cuts, enforce the fundamental right of workers and assure the automatic indexation of the salaries.
And at least, the PS want to augment the difference between the unemployment fee and the salaries by trying to make the former higher to better reward work."


Sorry for the broken English.

[mainiac]

To be fair to poor Mister Kennedy, I have the benefit of seeing it through the eyes of history.

Trolololololol

[Kogan Loloklam]

Not knowing the language, I cannot say if the context is wrong or whatnot, but "The socialists wish that the state play his role completely" means to me that they want the state to impose Socialism, as I defined it above.

You have provided me a manifesto, not a definition. Interesting, but irrelevant.

Spoiler: Manifesto (click to show/hide)

man·i·fes·to
  manifesto pronunciation [man-uh-fes-toh]
noun, plural -toes.
a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization.

[MonkeyHead]

So I am on strike tomorrow along with many thousands of other public sector workers in the UK. This is in response to some quite appaling decisions being made by our government (incidentally, most of whom are "privelaged" millionaires thanks to no hard work on thier own behalf). Public sector pay has continually shrunk in real terms, terms of service have constantly got worse across a number of professions, length of service until pension age has been extended, contributions into pensions have increased whilst the amount those pensions are actually worth has shrunk. Public sector workers in the UK did not cause the recession, yet we are expected to do more, better, for longer but with less cash at our disposal, both in terms of pay and funding. Those chiefly responsible (the corporate sector/bankers/COE's) have not been held accountable. They continue to get paid obscene amounts, and even continue to award each other massive bonus payments, despite being so inept at managing private sector finanaces that banks and companies have needed goverment cash (a large some of it from public sector pension funds) to bail them out.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Actually MonkeyHead, if you consider that the government also count as public sector workers, the public sector was responsible 
You just didn't get any of those delicious bribes that make sure you can take the fallout. See, there's your problem. You weren't corrupt enough!

Hopefully your strike does something. Just the same, make sure to put a stockpile of Ramen noodles away, I doubt you'll be getting back to work anytime soon.

[Il Palazzo]

despite being so inept at managing private sector finanaces that banks and companies have needed goverment cash (a large some of it from public sector pension funds) to bail them out.

I don't think the problem is that they're inept, rather they seem to be consciously and shrewdly milking the system for their personal gain.

[MonkeyHead]

Actually MonkeyHead, if you consider that the government also count as public sector workers, the public sector was responsible 
You just didn't get any of those delicious bribes that make sure you can take the fallout. See, there's your problem. You weren't corrupt enough!

Hopefully your strike does something. Just the same, make sure to put a stockpile of Ramen noodles away, I doubt you'll be getting back to work anytime soon.

Heh, yea, but you dont see any MP taking a pay freeze let alone a cut, and they only have to serve 3 months to get a FULL pension. Maybe corrupt politician isnt such a bad career choice, provided you have no moral scruples or ethical boundaries.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Did this get posted here? I don't recall seeing it:

A Mississippian woman goes to Jail... And other things

[timotheus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
EDIT: Notable excerpts from #1's page!

Cost of living is about 90% higher in Norway than in the United States and 50% higher than the United Kingdom. The standard of living in Norway is among the highest in the world. Foreign Policy Magazine ranks Norway last in its Failed States Index for 2009, judging Norway to be the world's most well-functioning and stable country.

The Norwegian economy is an example of a mixed economy, a prosperous capitalist welfare state featuring a combination of free market activity and large state ownership in certain key sectors. The Norwegian welfare state makes public health care free (above a certain level), and parents have 46 weeks paid parental leave.

Hell of a lot of socialist policies there.

My only feedback on this is Norway is an outlier. With the North Sea drilling allowing them to have the Petroleum Fund of Norway, their govt can afford to make it the #1 well-functioning and stable country.

[kaijyuu]

Doesn't Russia have a similar thing going on? They're much lower.


Regardless, I'm no economist, but a government controlling at least one highly lucrative business seems to me an excellent way to pay for stuff without raising taxes. It doesn't really need to be oil. Such a government controlled monopoly is far from capitalist, though!

[Phmcw]

Not knowing the language, I cannot say if the context is wrong or whatnot, but "The socialists wish that the state play his role completely" means to me that they want the state to impose Socialism, as I defined it above.

You have provided me a manifesto, not a definition. Interesting, but irrelevant.

Spoiler: Manifesto (click to show/hide)

man·i·fes·to
  manifesto pronunciation [man-uh-fes-toh]
noun, plural -toes.
a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization.

The thing is, I provided this manifesto, because your definitions of socialism, while corrects, are outdated.
Or if you prefer, because there is no more socialist left than there are monarchist left.
You can find group of monarchists, and group of socialists, but you'll have an hard time finding peoples that subscribe to the historical definition of those movement.

The manifesto I provided is a fairly standard "socialist" manifesto for Europe. It advocate regulation of the work by the state (minimum wages, insurance, anti discrimination policies), regulation of the market (monetary policies, anti delocalization policies...) and general protection of the jobs and workers by the government (which is what they mean by "playing it's full part"), but certainly not an abolition of private property, or a nationalization of the industry.
That party is in power in south Belgium for the last forty years and is a major player in Belgium's political scene. You'll find similar policies advocated by the French socialist party. You can't just brush off that aspect of socialism when it's so influent in Europe.

[GlyphGryph]

And in all honesty, asking for a "definition" for such a broad concept isn't terribly useful. It would be like attempting to offer up a 'definition' of "football" or "democracy" or " fiscal responsibility" or "the revolutionary war". Even the best definition is going to fail pretty miserably at accurately capturing the scope and meaning of the word. They are 'big' words, and any simple "definition" will be at best horribly imprecise, because vagueness is the only way to get a definition that even approaches being correct. It will seldom be good enough to conclusively identify what does and does not fall under the umbrella of the term.

I think the better question is if all this European stuff isn't socialism - what is it, exactly?